F*cking stupid scammers, why do they bother?

I have some sympathy for African internet fraudsters. When people who have very little, living in a fucked-over country like Nigeria, manage to use their wits to reach out across the ocean and pull in a bit of Western wealth, I can't help but feel a twinge of admiration. Yes, it's wrong and all and the victims tend to be vulnerable people, but compared to the real crimes that go on every day - for example, the murderous destruction that Shell have been getting away with in Nigeria - blagging some cash by email seems fairly far down the scale to me.
I only wish they'd sort out their prose a bit. I had a really good one back in Gulf War II, purporting to be sent by a US Marine from his laptop while sat in a recently captured palace with huge bales of dollars in the cellar and no way to get them out. It had real urgency and excitement in it - I actually wrote back to say that although I would not be contributing any actual money, I did want to express my appreciation of their writing abilities. But since then, nothing's come through that's offered any real literary merit or advancement of the medium.

I see your tongue is in your cheek, which is a good thing. But let us not forget that the people most likely to be taken in by scammers (as you rightly allude to) are those that are at their most vulnerable. I remember reading about two lonely widows (separate events and surely there are more these were just two cases made public by the media) who were conned out of their life savings. Because they were lonely, naive, and vulnerable.

These UK women were both in their late 50s / 60s and fell hook line and sinker for the scammers. One even had to sell her home to cover the debts she'd mounted up due to helping out her loving 'boyfriend'. It's this level of cynicism and bloody cruelty that sickens and saddens me. Please don't try to dress it up in any way as romantic, as in 'cheeky Nigerian lads getting a couple of quid from some silly westerner' it's much more than that in terms of literally ruining people's lives. Although I don't think you are suggesting this but the line about feeling a twinge of admiration is highly dubious in light of what the real repercussions of scamming can be.