People think law enforcement doesn’t take action on scams, but they do. Look up Hushpuppi’s case for example. The FBI expedited him from Nigeria and issued a subpoena to companies such as Google and multiple banks for information to prove he committed money laundering.
Report scams to reportfraud.ftc.gov if you and/or a suspect live in the US. Give as much information as possible. Put valid information in the ZIP code, phone number, and email address field (plus any other field marked as required). Also, use the print feature then save it as a PDF so that you can get the case number. It lets you update the case if you suspect the same person is trying to scam you or if you have other information to add.
The FTC uses the reports to add to an entire database shared with local, county, state, federal, and international law enforcement agencies.
They bring cases when they can help the most people in one case, so we all need to report a scam email to make a change. I’ve been reporting a similar scam that I’ve been receiving over and over again but with different emails and phone numbers - now the FTC might see that it’s a consistent attempt willing to target many people.
Atomic Shrimp reported something to the police in Dubai once, and they told him that his evidence was good and they’d look into the scammer. Police there do good things as well, never doubt law enforcement in other countries, it just makes us reluctant to get scams shut down in time. In fact, Hushpuppi’s case also involved the Dubai police arresting him and complying with extraditing him.
Make sure to probe scammers for anything you can get that’s reportable. Names, emails, phone numbers, physical addresses, IP addresses, user agent strings, etc. It’s all important and we can legitimately stop scammers.