Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com

[nocomment]

Dan,
I read of your experience with amigos.com in your post of 6/7/05 and hope you can elaborate on that as I am intending to use their services. You wrote that you had a profile on that site for almost 2 years, received about 200 responses and that many of those responses were "unsuitable for one reason or another." Can you generalize about the responses you did get... attractive or not, too old or too young, etc. Did your profile specify a woman willing to relocate? How did you deal with all the responses that didn't interest you... ignore them or a polite e-mail that blew them off? Thank you for any info, and to anyone else who has used amigos.com and would like to comment.

[Seeker]

... in response to Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by nocomment on Sep 18, 2005

[This message has been edited by Seeker]

I'm a strong advocate of amigos.com and match.com. I've been using match.com for almost 9 months. Like Dan mentioned, you will receive an assortment of responses. The majority of them are best dealt with the "Delete" on your keyboard. I delete incoming profiles that don't have a photo, or don't meet minimum standards in terms of attractiveness, age, location (i.e., Cuba, Russia), etc. It really is a numbers game. You're response rate will be proportional to the amount of contacts you initiate.  

I met my current girlfriend from Medellin on match.com. After three months of communicating almost on a daily basis with her, I flew down to Medellin to meet her. I spent 10 days travelling with her and her one-year old daughter around Medellin, Armenia and Santa Marta.

A valuable lesson I've learned in seeking a Colombian wife is to never focus all of your resources and attention on one woman, no matter how promising she might appear. Especially, if you haven't met her in person. Therefore, I'm still actively searching on match.com to keep plan B, and plan C as viable alternatives. I still stay in touch with an attractive attorney from Medellin who wrote to me first on match.com. Her profile on match.com doesn't have a photo, but she sent me her photo separately. She is 27, single, no kids and just opened up her own law practice in el Poblado. The problem is she has no interest or need whatsoever to move from Medellin. There are some real gems on these sites.

One disadvantage of match.com is that an attractive woman could potentially receive hundreds of e-mails per week. My guess is that it becomes overwhelming for many of them. Recognizing this limitation, I recently purchased 10 e-mails from Cali V.I.P. and ended up with two really great prospects. It would have taken me a month of a lot of busy work to get the same results from match.com over a month period. Still, like V-Dude mentioned, it is a great way to improve your Spanish and begin to immerse yourself in the adventure while you're in the U.S..

[fathertime]

... in response to Re: Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by Seeker on Sep 18, 2005

Hello Seeker, What caught my attention is your information regarding Cali-Vip. I will be staying with Cali-Vip very shortly and wanted to know what your experience has been like thus far with them. In my phone conversations with the owner thus far I have some confidence I will be taken care of pretty well.  
Thank you for any imput.
Fathertime

[Seeker]

... in response to Re: Re: Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by fathertime on Sep 18, 2005

I spent a lot of time hanging out with Mike at Latin Encounters when Margaret was running the show. At that time, Mike was an LE customer, looking at becoming a partner with Margaret. I recall many LE customers being frustrated at the shortcomings of the agency. I'm sure Mike was taking mental notes. Of course, he also had first-hand knowledge of the limitations of agencies he had previously used in the former Soviet Union,etc. The reason I mention all of this is that what separates Mike from the rest is that his actions speak louder than words. He can afford to invest all the necessary resources in Cali V.I.P. for now, without making a profit. However, I think his agency will become profitable and a model business for the rest. The recent opening of a satelite office in Chipichape is a telling sign that he can assess business needs and respond swiftly.

Ordering the e-mails from Cali V.I.P. was a breeze. I received them within 24 hours. When a few of them didn't work, I contacted Isabel and she contacted the girls, updated the e-mails and immediately sent them to me. One of them was no longer available and she replaced it with an alternative. She was curteous and professional. This is my limited experience with Cali V.I.P.. However, in october I want to stay at the mansion...just for the thrill of it.  Good luck and don't forget to provide us with your feedback.

[fathertime]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.co..., posted by Seeker on Sep 19, 2005

Thank you Seeker,  I hope what you say is correct for me as well. So far so good.  I will give a detailed and honest report of Cali-Vip when I return.  
Good luck to you.
Fathertime

[OkieMan]

... in response to Re: Re: Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by fathertime on Sep 18, 2005

I too would like to hear about your experiences with the Cali-VIP staff and the ladies.  I have looked at their website for a good while, but so far, I have not used them.  However, I just might do that 12 introductions for $200 special.  At any rate, best of luck.

                          OkieMan

[utopiacowboy]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.co..., posted by OkieMan on Sep 18, 2005

Geez, Okieman, you could join amigos.com for a month at $10 and write any Colombiana on the site who took your fancy. Give you a chance to practice your Spanish and keep you occupied at the same time. Write 10 or 20 that interest you and see what happens. At worst, your ability to read and write Spanish will be vastly improved.

[OkieMan]

... in response to Re: Re: Re: Re: Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigo..., posted by utopiacowboy on Sep 18, 2005

Yeah,

I been thinking about doing that.  Who knows?  I might just luck out. At any rate, I will check into it further.

[utopiacowboy]

... in response to Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by nocomment on Sep 18, 2005

[This message has been edited by utopiacowboy]

I registered with amigos.com because I lived in a rural area of Texas close to Mexico and I thought that I might meet some Mexicanas that way. One day while looking at the new profiles a woman's photo caught my eye - she seemed so familiar. When I read her profile however she had two strikes against her, she was from Colombia and she didn't speak English. About a week later after not being able to get her out of my mind, I wrote her and here we are now, about to celebrate our second anniversary. I highly recommend it.

[sacajundude]

... in response to How I met my wife, posted by utopiacowboy on Sep 18, 2005

Where do you live,UT? San Antonio here,& I have a paisa in mind as well.....

[utopiacowboy]

... in response to Re: How I met my wife, posted by sacajundude on Sep 19, 2005

Bandera, Texas. You're a lucky man if you've got a paisa.

[Dan Las Vegas]

... in response to Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by nocomment on Sep 18, 2005

Many of the responses that I received were a simple one or two line letter, basically, Hi, I liked your profile, write me.. Others it was obvious that they did not read my profile at all and were just writing people in hopes of getting a response. Some of the letter writers did not have a photo on their profile. So I also had a auto respose telling people essentially, no photo, no answer. At first I tried to send a polite no thanks..but after a bit, I gave up on that and deleted them.

I did receive many letters from women who were attractive, intelligent and wrote thoughtful letters. But at the same time, I received letters from women who were far older than me, far younger than me, obvious gold diggers and some that were just plain ugly and fat!

My profile did not specify that a woman be willing to relocated, however, most of the women appeared to be willing to do just that.

One thing that  was a big help was that I had a friend who was fluent in Spanish translate my profile into spanish.  Overall, it was a fun experience, but until you meet the person you are writing, it is impossible to determine if you will have the necessary chemistry.

I thought I'd found the one, a woman from Venezuela who had been living in North Carolina, we wrote for awhile and then we met in person a few times...Reality set in  and after several months realized that this woman was not for me.  

Now that I am back searching again, my thoughts are to not bother writing, just go to Colombia or other country and meet the women first to determine which ones I have the interest in as well as the chemistry.  

There are people on this board that have had success in writing people on Amigos.com, but as in everything, your milage may vary. I don't think that there is only one way to have success in this endeavor, so I'm going to try something different.  

Good luck

Dan

[valleydude]

... in response to Dan Las Vegas: re/ amigos.com, posted by nocomment on Sep 18, 2005

I've been on and off these types of sites for about 2 years and at one point I decided out of curiosity to see how many responses I got in a month and it was 600 in my test month. Results in these things will totally vary and you just have to do it.

I mostly chimed in because I saw that you asked about dealing with responses that weren't of any interest... I would just pretty much ignore all those that did not interest me. I always took the time to write a nice letter thanking them for their response, and I found that I spent a lot of time writting "Thank You" letters, and ended up with a list of email buddies, so I put an end to that. (I never used a canned response, I found writting the same thing over and over helped me with Spanish)

Anyway, I felt bad at first for not replying, but there were just too many drawbacks. My rule of thumb these days is to reply only if the girl took time to write. For example: "Hola, mi gusta tu prefil. Escribi me a blahblahblah@hotmail.com" If I'm not interested and get this type of email now I just delete it.

V-Dude