Should we punish the victims, too?

Everyone knows about the 419 scam, a particularly nasty form of spam in which a government official or banker in "Nigeria"* pretends to have access to a large amount of money and wants your help in a money-laundering process which will leave you with a chunk of the loot. Of course, the money doesn't exist, and the goal is to acquire your identity or banking information, and as much in customs fees and bribes and shipping costs as can be extracted. In the worst case, the victim is lured to some foreign lawless parts and kidnapped.

Spammers love this scheme, but it's well-known that people tend not to do things that don't reward them in some way. Obviously, someone must be falling for this, often enough to keep the spammer scammers busy. Normally we'd treat them as victims, but in this case, should we consider punishing them, too? After all, if they didn't enable this behavior with their stupidity, we'd all have much tidier inboxes.




*This all came about when Seth Templeton invented Nigeria in 1992 in alt.folklore.urban while playing a joke on a newbie. Seth returned the money, of course, and has announced his contrition on many an occasion.

Should we punish the victims, too?

Everyone knows about the 419 scam, a particularly nasty form of spam in which a government official or banker in "Nigeria"* pretends to have access to a large amount of money and wants your help in a money-laundering process which will leave you with a chunk of the loot. Of course, the money doesn't exist, and the goal is to acquire your identity or banking information, and as much in customs fees and bribes and shipping costs as can be extracted. In the worst case, the victim is lured to some foreign lawless parts and kidnapped.

Spammers love this scheme, but it's well-known that people tend not to do things that don't reward them in some way. Obviously, someone must be falling for this, often enough to keep the spammer scammers busy. Normally we'd treat them as victims, but in this case, should we consider punishing them, too? After all, if they didn't enable this behavior with their stupidity, we'd all have much tidier inboxes.




*This all came about when Seth Templeton invented Nigeria in 1992 in alt.folklore.urban while playing a joke on a newbie. Seth returned the money, of course, and has announced his contrition on many an occasion.