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Don't Fall For 'Mail Order Bride' Scams From Russia

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Beware of Russian Dating Scams The problem of dating/marriage scams has become so bad the U.S. embassy has issued alerts to warn people about what is happening.  Here are the basics from the embassy.United States citizens should be alert to attempts at fraud by persons claiming to live in Russia professing friendship, romantic interest, and /or marriage intentions over the Internet.Typically, once a connection is made, the correspondent asks the U.S. citizen to send money or credit card information for living expenses, travel expenses, or "visa costs". Sometimes, the correspondent notifies the American citizen that a close family member, usually the mother, is in desperate need of surgery and begins to request monetary assistance. Scams have even advanced to the point where the U.S. citizen is informed of a serious or fatal accident to the correspondent and the “family” asks for money to cover hospital or funeral costs. Several citizens have reported losing thousands of dollars through such scams.The anonymity of the Internet means that the U.S. citizen cannot be sure of the real name, age, marital status, nationality, or even gender of the correspondent. In every case reported to the embassy, the correspondent turned out to be a fictitious persona created only to lure the U.S. citizen into sending money.These scammers have created male as well as female characters and entice same sex correspondents as well as those of the opposite sex. A disturbing recent twist are scammers who have connected to U.S. citizens through chat rooms for HIV positive individuals, posed as HIV positive individuals themselves, and asked for money for treatment or travel to the United States.Correspondents who quickly move to professions of romantic interest or discussion of intimate matters are likely inventions of scammers. A request for funds almost always marks a fraudulent correspondent. U.S. citizens are cautioned against sending any money to persons they have not actually met. If th... Read more

Six Tips For International Online Dating Success

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International dating agencies operate in a very cutthroat business environment. These agencies truly want your business, and they very much want you to be a contented customer. The bigger international marriage agencies will move mountains to satisfy you and make you contented - as long as you can tell them what you want and you can ask for it! So, here are some tips to persuade international dating services to pamper you like a king: 1. Study reviews about Mail Order Bride Agencies! Capitalize on the research of other people! Learn what customer's think of the services available. Make an effort to look for impartial reviews of mail order bride sites written by men who are not writing because a lady did not want to be with him. Look for information about pricing, how the business works, how problems are dealt with and the attitudes of the workers and managers in the agency. 2 Use 'FREE' mail order bride agency memberships! Each agency has a some means to let clients sign up for free. It is very advisable to join up with two or three agencies simply to get the feel of how they function. All the agencies will want to send you newsletters and updates, usually profiles of their hottest girls, but at times they give exclusive deals solely to their newsletter members to persuade them to become paying members of the agency. 3. Read the small print! Yes, the girls are beautiful and you are interested in several of them, but before you open your pocketbook be sure about what you are going to get. Are you buying postal addresses, electronic mail addresses, letters, 'credits' of some type, or even telephone numbers? Sometimes you could be subscribing to a new membership level, if so, what does this mean? The biggest things to watch out for are repeated charges and the lack of an e-mail address, since across much of the world postal service is somewhere between awful and non-existent so 'snail mail' addresses are pretty much a waste of time early on in an internationa... Read more

Why Are Men Unhappy With Mail Order Bride Agencies?

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I have been thinking about the form that the Russian Bride (mail order bride) business could assume. Opinion on several forums over the past few weeks since the introduction of the first part of the Death of a Russian Bride information has been intriguing.It is obvious that the customers of Mail Order Bride businesses are not very contented with what they currently have.I read some forum posts along the lines that pretty much anything that put the large aggregator mail order bride/international marriage bureau sites out of business would only be a good thing, even at the price of more control on the end user clients themselves. This suggested a very strong backlash against current business models. Some readers felt that some companies have been cynically using IMBRA regulations to their advantage to prevent people from giving out their private contact data in order to continue to obtain the greatest revenue out of every client. The fact that their customers will now be required to give background information concerning marriages and criminal records will likely bar the vast majority of Keyboard Romeos (men who want to be in touch but never actually meet the Russian women they make contact with) from getting embroiled with the international marriage business at all. This can be seen as a threat to the high revenue and profit communication schemes run by some companies. The suggestion was made that some businesses are in basic terms exploiting Russian and other nationality women in a cynical fashion by putting these keyboard Romeos in contact with women looking for a spouse without consideration of the intention of marriage at all.I must reveal that I do not agree that all agencies are as cynical as has been suggested. I have met with folks in the business who recognise that Keyboard Romeos exist but who seriously want to see happy marriages between their American gentleman and Russian female clients.Removing the 'broker' element from these international relationships... Read more

Are Mail Order Bride Husbands More Abusive Than Normal Husbands?

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The issue of domestic violence was about the hardest thing in composing the first part of the Death of a Russian Bride document because it is the issue which, in my opinion, is the most altered to fit the story told by opponents of mail-order bride industry.What I did was as to go as far as I could to crawl back up the data trail. There was surprisingly little evidence that I could find that appeared to be at all authoritative. The document that I referenced in the Death of a Russian Bride document is as far back up the trail as I could get and was the most authoritative, it is a report to Congress about International Marriage Organizations (IMOs). This is the part of my report that links to the document: Http://andrewwilsonnews.com/death-of-a-russian-bride-4 There is large variation in the figures quoted from one source to another about domestic violence in mail order bride marriages. In the report to congress that I have referenced, a report to Congress, the authors note that because of the small number of women involved in the Mail Order Bride route to the U.S.A who claimed domestic violence or abuse as a reason to apply for self-adjustment of their status was so small that a statistically valid sample was very difficult to find. The report's authors use estimates for much of the work, but have been careful to confirm the estimates, if necessary, with individuals who are likely to have some handle on the issues based on their work. Check from the foot of page 15 of the report to see estimates of abuse, the sources and the methodology. You can see that the best estimate for the self-adjusting cases of MOB women who had documented abuses against them was a tiny 1%. Using other methods to track and estimate the level of abuse among claimants for self-adjustment the corresponding figures were found to be in no case higher than 1%. From other sources there seems to be a difference in the incidence of abuse where the husband and wife are from the same ethnic group ... Read more

Why Are There So Many Russian Online Marriage Sites

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Why has there been an explosion in the amount of Russian dating sites over the past few years? I recall some years back when I my first Russian girlfriend that there were no more than a couple of agencies that specialised in mail order brides, now in every nook of the Internet, you can observe that there are Russian and FSU online dating sites that offer their matchmaking services for those with money to pay for their services. Firstly, let's review why this has turned into such a vibrant business. To begin with, unlike in the United States or numerous other first-world countries, Russia did not have the infrastructure to give cheap and affordable Internet connections to most households. The rather low earnings prevented most families from having their very own internet which gave rise to dating agencies that offered mail-order brides. That is why despite the multitude of Russian online dating sites on the Internet, they're bustling with attractive Russian women who want marry a foreign chap. There hasn't always been much of a choice as to whether to make use of a dating bureau, it was something of a catch-22. If women wanted to place their profiles online, they had no recourse but to do it with a marriage bureau because they did not have an internet connection, but if a lady can pay for her own home internet connection in Russia they almost certainly dont have to be a mail order bride in the first place. So basically, these online marriage agencies became compulsory for potential mail order brides as their gateway to the outside world. The agencies charge a token fee, or nothing at all for these women to post their profile and after that the agencies charge their gentleman customers a fee for matching the women to would-be suitors. Only online information posted like the pictures and basic vital information a propos the lady is offered for free, if you want to benefit from a service such as an email forwarding account or have a phone discussion then customers ha... Read more

What Is A Mail Order Bride?

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Russian mail order brides are women from Russia who come to America or Canada by marrying American or Canadian men. This term 'Mail Order Brides' probably originated during the US frontier days, when men used to trek through distant lands in search of wealth in the Wild West, on the wild frontier were not many women and men said that women who advertised in the catalogs.Mainly a mail order bride service enables you to meet women online who are all committed to being married to a foreign man from a developed country, often American. The phenomenon of mail-order brides is in vogue at the moment, however, many people interested in this service are not fully aware of what the concept means.So what is the system of mail-order brides all about? The modern concept of mail order brides is thought by some to have originated in Asia, particularly the Philippines, which housed many U.S. Military bases. In spite of the truth that mail order brides services are generally pretty safe there are companies who are running scams and women within honest companies who are scammers. More and more mail-order brides services are coming to be regarded with suspicion and skepticism.Mail order brides are largely women who express their intentions, by publishing their profiles on websites, to marry someone from another country, which is generally more economically developed than the country in which the woman belongs. But when it comes to mail order brides are a number of scams that have taken place. After all, you never would have known about the profiles from mail order brides are actually real people or not.But if you have to choose the mail order brides you'll have to go to a specific body that is reliable. Mail Order Brides these days do not indicate significant is that you shop for brides from one region and marry them - this is the old concept of mail order brides. In the current era, mail order brides are women who are serious about hunting for the man of their dreams, one other perso... Read more

WMVO, WOVO: Meeting Foreign Women For Marriage

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On a forum dedicated to marriage and relationships between men from (in the main) the USA and women from Russia and Ukraine one of the ongoing topics is whether men should meet more than one woman when he makes a trip to the FSU to find a bride. The international marriage business is complex enough without arguing too much about this issue but there are good reasons why it is an ongoing and evergreen discussion topic. Here is what I wrote on the subject a short while ago: A question for guys who have actually ever dated women in the United States.When you dated women did you not see more than woman at a time? I ask because that is pretty much what dating is. Dating is a part of a winnowing and filtering process moving from many to few and finally, perhaps, to one person. I can understand why some people, for social and personality reasons might feel uncomfortable with this concept and so did not practice it but even those people surely understand that there is a filtering process from many to few to one? OK, so we should understand that we are likely to only meet 'the one' by meeting and rejecting 'the many'. Given that most guys looking for Russian brides are severely limited as to time and money, in practice, meeting only one woman on a visit is going to work out at meeting one woman in the FSU per year. How many guys here who dated or even married previously ever married the first or second woman they dated? How many of you are still married to her? OK, so we know that marrying the first woman along makes little to no sense. At the same time it makes little or no sense to initiate only one new relationship per year. The only valid alternative is to meet with several women on one's initial trips over to Russia, Ukraine or other FSU countries. BUT we have women who, in their home environment would almost certainly be willing to meet with and initiate relationships with more than one man at a time (or at the worst consecutively with ... Read more

Mail Order Bride, Russian Bride Scams - Writing Emails

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When I have looked at the numbers in respect of Russian bride agencies and international marriage agencies it is my assumption that a large proportion of women, particularly those who receive significant volumes of mail, do not write the replies. Many of these women just do not have the time to do so. Most guys will never know this is happening becasue they will never get on a plane to meet their penfriends and, of course, most guys never intend to meet the girls, it is just a fantasy. I reckon that this the proprietors of many mail order bride and international marriage sites are well aware of this and design the site for this much larger client base of people who will never get on a plane to meet the women they are communicating with.I wrote a long piece about this based upon numbers from Elena's models and incorporating what I have seen for myself and had recounted to me. Frankly, it is not possible for it to be otherwise, simply not practical - the most attractive women at almsot any agency are getting too much email for them to deal with it all by themselves.If you are seeking one of the top few percent of girls, then simply turning up to meet them is not good enough. If one is going to do it right then start off by sending the girl a digital camera, or good phone, something to announce yourself as a serious player with serious intentions. Then having gotten her attention, telephone her through the agency, and make serious and concrete plans to visit within a matter of a couple of weeks or so. Ensure the agency gets their money, do not try to cut them out, they can mess with your, your plans and your mind.Visit the woman (women), make sure that you are able to do what you say, when you say you will do it and make sure that you can offer her the things that she needs in order to accept you as serious suitor. Also make sure that you can do so when you get her home to your country. If you are going to keep the most popular and attractive women as ... Read more

American Men Train Mail Order Bride Scammers!

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Over the years on forums that deal with the mail order bride business in Russia and Ukraine I have sometimes received criticism for daring to suggest that a girl who might accept a guy's gift of money, or other goodies, and then some time afterward end the relationship was not a scammer.   The story is often something like this: A guy had visited a girl, often a student, proposed marriage, been accepted had offered money gifts, unsolicited, that had also been accepted. She then might ask him for money for a holiday on the Black Sea or other expenses of life, often there is negotiation about the amount, which to a western reader usually seems to be a very small amount of money.  The woman takes the vacation He gets upset because she did not answer his calls for a few days, whilst she was away.   Shortly after her return, following an exchange of emails, the relationship ends. The guy subsequently publishes her name and address on mail order bride forums and scam sites claiming she was a scammer to loud hurrahs from the peanut gallery. Now, it seems to me that whilst she is not perfect, that her actions were predicated upon the man's own behaviour and the expectations he himself had built up. The point being that, yes it is we who make the monsters. They did not exist before we came along. My guess is that she dumped the guy because she felt, with some justification that he should not have queried the amount of money and his negotiation showed that he was 'selfish'. She almost certainly would not have done either if he had not been giving her money for 'English lessons', and other purchases already - she already expected him to support her; the man had trained her expectations. But, the thing is that she tells her friends what has happened, they realise that taking money from Americans is easy, they do not even have to ask. All they have to do is write a few emails and bingo, Mr Lonely 'falls in love'. Now, of the girls I know who are becoming e... Read more

Mail Order Bride Scams: some thoughts

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Much is talked about scams in the mail order bride business, international dating, RUssian bride business, whatever we choose to call it.   I have been looking at this subject for some time and want to share some thoughts about the topic of mail order bride agencies and how they and their female clients scam men, particularly American men.   Pareto is the man behind the well known 80/20 rule that suggest that, for example, 80% of profit is derived from 20% of a business' clients. It applies in most areas where there is a distribution, including from what can be inferred from what we read and see, the MOB industry. So, in this case a Pareto girl is one of the top 20% who get almost all the contacts from American men seeking a Russian bride. A shelf girl, on the other hand, is one of many who gets almost no contact at all. We know, again from what we read, see and are told, that there is a long tail of women who are left on the shelf with nary a contact among them. It is this insight which is very instructive about the nature of the business, as with some very simple calculations, one can start to arrive at an idea of just how busy the top earning girls (or profiles) are and why it is that the busiest can be thought of as being almost certainly NOT what most Americans are seeking. I did some calculations to illustrate this some time ago on RWG. It also illustrates why it is that the top earning profiles are almost certainly not being dealt with by the girls themsleves, there simply is not time to do so. A Pareto girl is not necessarily a scammer, she may well be seeking a husband, possibly even an American one, but she can be sure as hell picky and of the agency is actually getting many visitors as opposed to guys paying towrite, she is probably too busy with visiting guys to have much in the way of a normal job. A shelf girl though is different, she gets very few contacts and each one must be jealously guarded and carefully nurtured. The u... Read more

Are Marriage Agencies Becoming Antiquated?

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Many man and women have met and fallen in love through the process called by many 'mail order bride'. As times change the question has been asked 'Are marriage agencies becoming antiquated'? I was thinking about this issue recently and made some conclusions of my own. 1) We need to decide what we mean by 'agency' because as we already know there are several different models and a whole gamut of services ranging from communication portals such as Hot Russian Brides or Elena's Models that aggregate thousands of profiles from hundreds of smaller, local agencies right through to those small, local agencies that, when they can, want to provide fairly individual service and handholding. 2) Many people prefer to use intermediaries in one way or another. People trying to use Mamba.ru, Facebook or Odnoklassniki are all using an intermediary and so the difference between them and those who use Russian Love Match / HRB, Elena's Models or one of their feeder agencies directly is actually pretty small. 3) A site such as Hot Russian Brides and some of their similar competitors are, in essence, social sites that focus upon a particular niche of people. A client is paying for two things in addition to that which Vkontakte or Facebook can offer: a) focused social sites provide filtering, there is a decent chance that the clients are actually looking for a romantic/marriage/dating relationship of some kind. Facebook et al simply provide access to 'the world' and so time and effort is expended in finding people who are even interested in dating/relationships/marriage. b) focused social sites offer a modicum of security for both parties to a nascent relationship. If there are problems they can be resolved within the context of the business offering. Try moaning about a woman who is not into you to Facebook or Odnoklassniki! In addition clients of relationship focused social sites can expect, and usually get, a good deal of privacy and some assurances ... Read more

Immigration scams: ARE YOU AT RISK?

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Immigration scams: ARE YOU AT RISK? Any - and I mean it! - ANY MAN who even remotely considers the idea of marrying a Russian woman will face the question of immigration scams. By "facing the question of immigration scams" I mean worrying about the possibility that a woman will marry him with the only purpose of gaining residence to his country, and will divorce him soon after the marriage. How grounded is this worry? General opinion is that the danger of an immigration scam is high in marriages with foreign women. Try to share the idea of finding a marriage partner abroad with your family and friends, and everyone will think you are nuts and are setting yourself up to become an immigration vehicle for a cunning Russian girl. Is it true that there are many Russian women that will marry a man only for the purpose of immigration? Why does such an opinion persist among the general public? How common are immigration scams in marriages with Russian women? First of all, let's find out where one gets all those ideas about scams in marriages with foreign women. Did you have any friends, family members or colleagues that married Russian women and fell victims of immigration scams? Most likely, NO! So your ideas about high probability of immigration scams in marriages with foreign women are, most often, based on what you have read, heard or seen in the Media - and of course you know what makes the news and what's not: When was the last time you have seen a "happily ever after" fairy tale on the front page of a newspaper? Scandals, murders, and scams make the news; happy marriages don't. In the USA alone it's about four to six thousand men that marry foreign women every year; how many scandal stories you hear for the same period of time? Apparently, if immigration scams in mar... Read more