Why do we do this?

I was recently asked as part of a TV interview why I do this.  It’s not as if we get paid for it, yet we give up hours of our time each and every day to help others who’ve been scammed.  I’m sure I speak for all the volunteers on the site when I say that my answer was “because it’s the right thing to do”.  Why should we let the scammers get away with ruining lives simply because they want quick and easy money and don’t care what the consequences are.  We help people, but we also give them the tools and the knowledge to help themselves.  By getting the scammer details posted, people can save themselves before they get sucked into the scam.  We’re never going to eliminate scams, but we can make people aware of them and prevent them from getting scammed.  Firefly and I went to Germany to speak to the dating site industry at the iDate conference in September.  We didn’t have a company credit card to pay for those hotel rooms or to cover the travelling expenses.  All that came out of our own pockets.  Yet we still did it.  And we do it for the same reason our small group of volunteers give up their free time each and every day.  Because we’ve seen the damage scammers can do to people.  Because we know that the scammers are never going to stop.  Because it’s the right thing to do.