That problem comes up with collective action all the time. Workers rights in developing countries for example... if all of the workers banded together to resist their employer's unfair treatment then... blah blah blah.. but in reality average people are awful at joining together to create a change that results in a greater good. When people are isolated and feel the impact of some injustice, they tend to give up fairly quickly without any thought given to what would be best for the greater good. That's my experience of life anyway. Rationality doesn't work very well in abstracted problems that involve reasoning about how you should suffer in this moment for the greater good of everyone suffering such moments. So the scammers are smart to make the cost of cooperating fairly low in a lot of cases. It's definitely easier to pay up than to try to make a federal case out of it. And honestly your inconvenience is not going to cause the wheels of law enforcement to spin fast to figure out which international gang is targeting you. If you don't pay you probably won't ever get anything back and law enforcement won't do anything about it. So really what's the point of personal heroics here other than rational arguments about what the right move would be from a game theoretic point of view? Just pay and move on.