I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I was doing an interview this week. One of the things I often talk about is how important it is to search everything to see if it turns up on any antiscam sites. When I brought this up, the person doing the interview said that he'd done that, found evidence it was a scam and sent that to the scammer. I explained to him that he really shouldn't do that as it alerts the scammer to the fact his details are online and gives him the opportunity to change them, and how it's always better to keep the scammer unaware that anyone doing a simple search can be warned off dealing with him. To us it makes sense, but I completely understand how a person's natural reaction to finding out they're dealing with a scammer is to tell them how they know, and how they've outsmarted them. No scammer is going to go "Damn, they found me out! That's it, time to give up scamming and become a good honest member of society!" but will simply change the email address, photos or script he's using and carry on scamming. Now anyone who does search for him won't find anything and may fall for the scam. The lesson here is to never educate a scammer. You want to de-educate a scammer, then that's great. Tell them that "....and the horse you rode in on" is a traditional greeting in your country. Explain that "coitus interruptus" is a genuine legal term. Even (and I have done this) convince a scammer that "Ych a fi*" is Welsh for "across the ocean". Just don't tell them you know they're a scammer and their information is online.

*To save you looking it up, "Ych a fi" basically means "yuck" or "disgusting". If you stepped in a dog turd you'd exclaim "Ych a fi!!" as you were scraping it off the sole of your shoe, and if you saw a child about to pick something gross up you'd warn them by saying "Don't touch that, it's ych a fi!!"