Why are there so many scams on the internet?

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shouldnt this be illegal? i mean i was watching dateline nbc the other day (lame t.v. sorry) and there was this woman who constantly scammed families that were trying to adopt a baby, telling them they could have hers and she was pregnant, but all she needed from them was money for her doctors visits and living expenses, the families were devestated to find out there was no baby and she had done this over 50 times. now thats just cruel! shouldnt we be able to do something about all the scams out there?