Of course its not a scam for women. with a 75:1 ration men to women, theres no need to scam women! *lol* The more women the site has, the better chance of guys paying and paying again. So because there are so little women around, they need to capture the interest of the paying customers, mainly the guys!
One thing that GREATLY catches my attention is, There is a lot of good looking ladys on there with there face in plane view! (easy recognizable) You would think if you where married you would want to keep some discretion, wouldn't you? In my searches there (form my area) there was only one picture of a lady that fell below the average, how can that be? Only good looking ladys want affairs?
With that being said, Im sure the site is legit to a point. But remember, taking a horny guys money is easy when sex is involved.
I'm a 'real' woman and have a profile on AM. I've responded to many messages and have met up with several men, a couple of who I even 'clicked' with. So, no, it's not a scam. Having said that, I'm sure there's a fair smattering of fake profiles on there for various reasons. For instance, I've been stalked by someone who created a profile very different to his original profile, obviously concocted purely for stalking purposes. Ashley Madison is like a microcosm of life; there will be some genuine people, some fakes, and some psychos. You have to use your good judgement and intuition to sort out which is which. I will never, for instance, meet up with someone until I've exchanged quite a few messages with them and have established some rapport. I can usually figure out by their profile and message writing style whether they're fake/dangerous or not......the psychos/dumbnuts tend to have a lot of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors And the sex fiends usually have very sexualised profiles and alarming content in their messages. The ones just 'dipping their toe in the water' have nothing of substance in their profile and very brief messages. My intuition has proven me correct every time, and overall it's been a fun and positive experience for me......but I realise the odds are stacked in my favour being a woman on this site. Good luck out there!!