As a general rule, I don't think we should blame the victims. If someone got scammed, we shouldn't go "well if they were smart enough they wouldn't have fallen

As a general rule, I don't think we should blame the victims. If someone got scammed, we shouldn't go "well if they were smart enough they wouldn't have fallen for it". However in the case of pump and dumps, I would like to point out that the victims were trying to be successful pumpanddumpers themselves, but failed. These people didn't have a problem with putting their money on the line to try and sell to a great fool. For this reason I can't empathize much with these people (though of course it's still fraud and the fraudsters should still go to jail). I find it interesting to note that at least one of the victims there was aware of this to some degree. He's the guy who put I think 7k into it and says "I just wanted to hatch the eggs and play in the ecosystem". Someone who just wants to play in the ecosystem will spend $50 and buy call of duty, not $7k for pictures of eggs. No, this guy is perfectly aware that he was trying to be a fraudster himself, and now they it turns out he's the victim he feels the need to point out that he just wanted to play, I guess out of embarrassment. Yeah, right.