This guide is intended primarily for men who have decided to address free dating clubs or agencies selling the addresses of Russian girls: these dating systems are the favorite hunting grounds of crooks of all kinds because the profiles are only rarely verified. Let's see the differences between a classic marriage agency and a dating club:
a) Traditional marriage agencies, constitute a file of Russian ladies through partner agencies in Russia to verify the identity of the ladies and ensure their motivation: these agencies offer a system of membership for a longer or shorter period (maximum 1 year) for a fee ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand USD: marriage agencies are subject to the law, a contract guaranteeing your rights is signed by both parties, the payment is made most often by check.
The advantage of this system is that it ensures that the ladies registered in the file actually exists! It is not excluded that some of these ladies have dishonest intentions!
b) Dating clubs compiling a file from pictures and profiles sent by e-mail from ladies wishing to marry a foreign man: these agencies sell the addresses of ladies to the unit for sums between 5 and 30 USD for each address: these agencies are not subject to any regulation in US since not being considered marriage agencies but dating clubs, no written contract is signed, the payment is made by credit card directly on the site.
The disadvantage of this system is that it is very difficult to verify the identity of people registered online (but this is also the case for US only dating clubs!): The fraudsters are mostly on this type of site because of the relative anonymity they enjoy: the charming Russian of 20 years with whom you correspond could quite be uncle Boris who e-mailed the photo of a pretty girl from a magazine and having a anonymous e-mail address: note that these fraudsters only represent a very small percentage of the total number of ads, do not fall into paranoia.
c) The "free" english-speaking dating sites allow everyone to register for a modest fee to be paid by credit card. These dating sites have been the favorite target in recent months Russian or Ukrainian scammers: we receive more and more testimonies of American gentlemen who met Russian women through these sites and who have been "relieved" of several thousand USD just before their "princess" disappears. These gentlemen initially register to meet an American woman living near their home and are contacted one day by a beautiful young Russian girl supposedly in search of Prince Charming. And here I warn you gentlemen: if it is the girl who contacted you first then there is a 99% chance that it is a scam. In Russia, only people with a high income can claim to have a bank card ... the scammers can of course without having a credit card given the amount of money they succeed every year to extort from the man Western.
Rule number 1, obvious and effective, to avoid fraudsters: NEVER SEND MONEY TO THE LADIES WITH WHOM YOU ARE IN CONTACT
The reputation of seriousness of a wedding agency is based on this simple principle: clearly announce the color to the ladies wishing to join the agency: no member will send them money, whatever the reason that they invoked. I discourage fraudsters who prefer to try their luck with other agencies.
1) Principle : Definition of the word scam:
The various schemes used by the scammer will have only one goal: to bring you to a situation where you have to transfer money to him: generally the scammer will not ask you the money directly but will ask for your share a financial help to help you overcome a problem that can affect the smooth running of your relationship: purchase a visa or an airline ticket, rent an apartment in case you decide to go see your correspondent in Russia etc ... this sum of money will usually be requested via a transfer by the Western Union company which is specialized in international money transfers: the sum is transferred in 1 or 2 days and can never to be recovered, even if you paid by credit card.
The scam can be the fault of a single person or an organized criminal group who use all the necessary means: renting apartments, mobile phones or mail boxes, handling honest people to receive funds transfers by claiming the loss of a passport or the fact of not paying a surcharge due to too many bank transfers (the person, who knows nothing about the current scam, receives a sum of 5 to 10 USD from the rogue's share). The crooks can just as well make a false casting.
The contact between the scammer and the victim is by e-mail, usually through a free dating club.
2) Mechanism of the fraud
First of all, you have to admit that during the first few letters you will not know if the person with whom you correspond is honest or a crook. Welcome to the world of virtual relationships!
It is indeed very difficult to detect the trap before the question of money arrives because the scammers have a good knowledge of the psychology of Western men single or divorced: the letters sent by the scammer only different on one no letters sent by a sincere young woman: you will not notice that it is a scam! And do not trust anymore the photos that your "sweetheart" sends you: these may have been bought at a photo studio, taken from an honest young woman or downloaded from the internet.
You must be very careful in the following circumstances, even if these signs do not indicate with certainty that you are in contact with a scammer:
A) Your correspondent is a student or has no income.
B) She has a Top-Model look and is much younger than you (you could be her father).
C) Something very sad in her life inspires pity: her mother is very sick, her father left her when she was very young, and her mother fought to raise her, she moved to a city where she has no friends etc.
It is almost impossible to detect a scam in the first letters exchanged: at first everything seems perfect, your feelings towards the girl grow quickly. It is only after 3 to 4 letters that some signals must alert you (unfortunately some men are then completely "under the spell" of their correspondent and remain blind in front of these signals):
A) Your correspondent often evokes the notions of honesty and sincerity (in order to put your conscience to sleep).
B) She does not answer your questions, or the answers are added at the end of the letter (you may think that it is a problem related to the language barrier but in fact the letter is simply a "model" "pre-written and someone made an" addition "). Thus, sometimes we can find in the writing of some letters additions between braces {} or dotted lines, which are simply writing options that the rogue has forgotten to remove or validate. For example: "I want to meet a man {bigger, more than}."
C) She falls very quickly madly in love with you.
D) The pictures she sends you are more and more sexy and provocative. Sometimes these photos have names such as "photo 1", "photo 2" etc. and you see that the photos she sends you are all sorted by increasing numbers. Bizarre? Absolutely not! The scammers are simply sometimes well organized, very rigorous, but not enough "fine" and "romantic": they name the photos with numbers to know what photo to send and when, depending on the progress of correspondence and the scam (it must be found among the thousands of gentlemen contacted). Photos soft at the beginning and then slightly naked pictures after a few weeks to finish with photos really hot "at the end of the course" at the time of the request for money.
