I caught Chris Matthews in MSNBC’s “To Catch a Scam Artist” or something of the sort over the weekend.  In this edition they were working on Nigerian Scam Artists.  My favorite!

It was OK.  I really liked seeing them actually take the scammers up on meeting in England or Amsterdam.  I love to bait these guys but I’d never even give them my real telephone number, much less agree to meet in person.  You just hear too many stories about Americans being robbed and left for dead in cases like this.

Anyway, what got me jumping around in my seat was Matthews’ standard easy-going way.  He’s a good guy, but here, of course, I want to see him push these guys.  For example:  at one point in a correspondence the scammer suddenly used a different name to sign their e-mail.  MSNBC didn’t call them out on it because they didn’t want to make the scammers nervous and risk chasing them off.

Are you kidding me!?  Chase them off? (more…)