Re: Not their job
Historically, the police have always been a force that acts after a crime: both to catch the baddies (if possible) but mostly to act as a deterrent to prevent further crimes being committed
Yup, the "catch em in the act" capabilities of the police appear to be close to absent.
I dealt over the weekend with an attempted blackmail on FB. Standard scam: fake profile of pretty young woman used to lure a student with probable money (nicely visible on profile) to commit act of indecency in front of camera to impress said lass, with an invite 5 minutes later to pay £250 via Western Union or see said indiscretion plastered all over FB and YouTube. To make sure said individual didn't regain the use of braincells absent during the original act, it all had to happen in 30 minutes or else "his life would be ruined".
The problem I have is not that people are stupid - sure, I live more at the top end of the bell curve, but I know it takes those other people to shape that bell curve, What annoyed me was that I had to help this guy entirely by myself.
Police: not interested, nor capable or even competent.
FB: what you want to TALK to someone? And make us culpable? You're having a laugh, surely? The effort we put into making our help system as impossible to use as possible should have been a hint. Honestly, some people..
Google: Hi, thank you for contacting security. Here is a list of situations we can deal with, we hope we left your situation out because that would mean we'd actually have to DO something. Yes, we know that is basically the same answer that Facebook gave you. You still haven't grasped that we don't care about end users, do you?
Fair enough, but I had to try to make sure I wasn't treading on anyone's toes. Anyway, I dealt with it. Mainly by intimidation - there are just too many people to fleece for a petty crook to spend much effort in chasing one "investment" which may have turned sour, so once I scared him a little he walked away from it.
As an aside, personally, I think Western Union's sole source of revenue must be scam artists these days, that's at least the impression I get.