I tried a specialty site for free for a couple of months and had no problems with scammers or perverts. But no one in my area contacted me. I said I was interested in people 50 miles from my home and heard from one guy in North Carolina and another in Belgium!
Then I told a friend of a friend and she age 38 got on. All sorts of guys my age, in their 50's, messaged her. She had no interest even though they were saying things that in someone younger would have appealed to her, like I'll cook for you.