Volunteering overseas has now become an essential part of many people’s personal objectives.

It used to be that only rich kids, or middle-class University educated people would even consider volunteering overseas – it was seen as a class and cultural endeavor. This however is not true today. There are many reasons for this, such as; the advent and increase in volunteer organisations providing volunteer opportunities overseas, the reduced cost of air travel, better communication, primarily through the internet.

But! As always, when better opportunities arise for people , so does the opportunity to scam them. Another reason for this, is the sometimes very high cost of volunteering through some organisations - the big players have huge marketing budgets and corporate identities, lots of staff and big, plush offices - someone has to pay for all of this - and guess who pays? Correct - you pay, the volunteer.