Agency Scam?

[Zoidberg]

Hi everyone... I was going to wait till this is all over to give the full story but I decided to post it now and I will update as I find out. It'll really give us all an idea of what agencies really give a darn. I will name sites and you can be the judge of them. This first post will be long as it will give you the background information.

I started writing Sveta back in September 2002. We started off just basic letters but we discussed a lot about what we wanted. Around December we both realized we liked each other and our relationship picked up. She was on 4 agencies at the time THE RUSSIAN WOMEN NETWORK (RWN), A FOREIGN AFFAIR (AFA), MARRIAGE AGENCIES ASSOCIATION (MAA - dating-ukraine.com) & BEST BRIDES NETWORK (BBN). MAA & BBN are affiliated with AFA. She then asked the agencies to remove her profile because she did not want any more mail. She said she asked them all to take it down. MAA is out of Dnepropetrovsk where she is from and she went into the agency but they would not remove her profile. They said she had to be engaged first. So over time when she would get letters she would not open them and she would hand deliver it back to the agency and still asked to be removed. They finally told her it would take a couple months. Needless to say they never took it off and kept making excuses why. Fast forward to April 10, 2003.

I get an email from a friend saying Sveta is now on the Scam site RUSSIAN-DETECTIVE (RD) saying she is a scam. Of course I got a knot in my stomach and I got sick because I was going to see her in May. That sickness lasted for a second and after I read this I knew she could not have done this. Basically it said this guy wrote her email through the agencies address. He got a form letter and then she asked him to come and visit and then the next letter asked for money or she'd have to stop writing. All the signs of a scam. I called her and wanted to talk to her. We talked for quite awhile. I told her what I found and we discussed it. She was devastated something like this would be written about her. If I had any doubt about her it was soon gone. She has always been very kind and thoughtful. She has never asked me for a dime or anything and I did send her money for internet and SMS but I was the one that told her I'd pay for it.

She said she would go to the agency (MAA) right away. She said she has not looked at her email at the agency for 3 months. It costs her money to read and send anything from there and she was using an internet cafe to write me. She said at the agency when you use that email that agency workers type in the letters. I though that was the case because our first couple letters through that email were typed much better then what she could do. She has since improved but she was bad in the early days. She also told me there is NO WAY a woman can ask for money because that is one of the rules they have. They make the women read a book about what they can and can't do. If a woman asks for money from there they can be taken off the computer immediately. She asked them how could this happen. Their answer was it could be her fault. She turned down too many men and maybe one was trying to pay her back. Now that is a rediculous excuse if you ask me. If they had taken her off when she asked for it nobody else would have written her. Instead they kept it on there to make money and maybe even answered those emails. Someone must have because I doubt anyone would just randdomly slander someone. She demanded her profile be taken off. They said they will do it but it may take awhile. She insisted they do it now and I guess they were threatened by this little woman! They removed it immediately and showed her. She went back home and sent me SMS. I checked it and it was now gone from MAA. They also said they sent mail to AFA to get it taken off there. As of tonight it hasn't been done and I assume it will not be. It is also still on BBN.

I assume AFA will not do anything but I did send a very firm mesage to them that they better look into this and see who was writing with her email. I also wrote RD a firm letter to remove the slanderous comments on their website and I am still waiting for replies from both. I told both that Sveta or myself will be happy to tell them anything they want to know. Sveta just wants her name cleared in this.

Through all this I did write Jack and asked him for advice or help. To his credit he wrote me right away with a firm warning that if they do not remove the slanderous comments immediately he will personally do what he can. I want to thank Jack in this open forum. I will wait till Monday when I will call all parties if nothing is done. After that Jack can have them! First Dream has delivered many gifts to Sveta and Galina has translated our early letters. Galina also had some phone conversations early on with Sveta.

Now for some of my comments. I have read many of these scam websites and I always wondered if they do only take any mans word about what happened. I wondered if they even contacted the women or atleast tried to before slandering them. Now I wonder how many other women are on these sites that really have no idea what happened. I certainly thought all agencies would atlest do some kind of investigation before posting this info. It really ruined both of our days but in the end I am going to ruin many of these people's days if things don't get settled to our satisfaction. I will post updates as I get them.

I see below there are posts about peoples wives still being listed in agencies and it is good to check every now and then. It is also good to check the scam sites often to make sure she didn't end up on one of those.

Thanks for reading and best to all of you. I hope this post will help someone in the future. Keep looking out for things like this as it is the internet. Who knows what is out there? I also know there might be skeptics out there that might think Sveta could have done it still. Well I say let them be a skeptic. Yes we haven't met but I feel we know each other pretty good at this point and I am 100% positive she had nothing to do with this.

Z.

[don1]

... in response to Agency Scam? , posted by Zoidberg on Apr 11, 2003


Zoidberg , I think this type of scenario is unfortunately fairly common with some of the larger agencies . Some will buy/sell/swap/trade women's profiles , often without the woman's knowledge or consent . And getting those profiles removed from an agency's listings can be difficult or sometimes even impossible .

I think that generally your chances are at avoiding this kind of thing are a little better by using a smaller agency vs a big one . Think about it , if an agency lists thousands of women's profiles , how many of those women do the owners/operators of the agency actually know ? Very few , if any . A lot of opportunities in that situation for 'Fat Yuri' to make a few bucks at some guy's expense .

Some smaller agencies can offer far more personalized services , often simply because they don't have to deal with the sheer volume of correspondence that a larger agency does . And some of the smaller agencies do actually know many of the women they represent personally . That in itself is a big plus , in my opinion ; and a good way to avoid the kind of situation that you've described here . There are some good agencies out there ; you just have to look for them .

As far as scam reporting goes , I think that a fair percentage of some of the scams reported are in fact due to situations similar to yours - where a woman's profile was sold to another site without her knowledge , an unscrupulous agency tried to make a few bucks that way , the guy figured out he was getting scammed , and subsequently the woman's profile shows up on an anti-scam website . While it may be true that a guy was scammed in this manner , it was all done without the woman in question's knowledge . I would hope that there would be some sort of follow-up or investigation that would give some sort of verification or confirmation before labeling a woman as a scammer ; but I think that in many cases we're only hearing one side of the story .

It sounds like your lady is legit , and you've been able to verify that through Jack and Galina , telephone conversations ,  3rd party correspondence , and gift deliveries . I hope you can get some of this straightened out for her sake ; and I hope things go well for you when you do get to meet .

Good Luck

Don

[Zoidberg]

... in response to Re: Agency Scam? , posted by don1 on Apr 12, 2003

Thanks for your comments Don. I know eactly what you are saying about large and smaller agencies. It is something for all new people to seriously think about. I originally saw her ad on a smaller site. She was on it for awhile and actually got engaged to a man she met from this site. In the end she said she could not marry a man she didn't know & she was concerned with his drinking. They wrote for a short time, met and got engaged. So she was told that AFA was very respectable and that's why she joined them. I wrote her when her ad was new there because I also liked her photo's & profile in the other agency. I wrote at a good time because she also was looking for someone that wanted to write for longer then a month or two.

We have talked on the phone the last couple days for hours. She is deffinately hurt by this but at the same time she is trying to do something about it. She even wrote Russian-Detective and wanted the man to write her if possible to find out what happened and to tell him she had nothing to do with this.

Z.

[farmerjack]

... in response to Agency Scam? , posted by Zoidberg on Apr 11, 2003

Hi Zoidberg,

I am also searching for an Eastern European woman.  Just over a month ago I started corresponding with an attractive 25 year old woman named Sveta (obviously a popular name) that I met on friendfinder.  We wrote each other letters every day (except for weekends) for almost 3 weeks.  She answered most of my questions, didn't ask for money, and didn't do anything to raise red flags except for sending me pictures which seemed just a bit too good to be true.  One day I went to russianblacklist dot com and sure enough.. there she was on the top right hand corner of page 3.  The scammer I was writing to was using pictures from a site called modelcast.  I was shocked.. I really wanted to believe that she wasn't a scammer.  I confronted her and asked her to email me a picture of her holding a piece of paper saying 'Hi Jack' (I had done the same for her in Ukrainian.. cheezy I know.. but that's the fun of a digital camera) and I never heard from her again.  I know you've talked to your lady on the phone, but if you have any doubt at all in your mind you should have a backup plan when you go to visit... just my 2 cents worth, Jack.

[Zoidberg]

... in response to Re: Agency Scam? , posted by farmerjack on Apr 12, 2003

I'm sorry to hear about your experience but glad you found out. Of course when I saw the post I was concerned but writing her for 6 months now I can say that the post is 100% not true. Today she told me she is happy it happened now after we were writing so long because I trust her. If it was early on I would have stopped writing when I saw that. I had First Dream send flowers to her the month after we started writing and took her photo's so I knew it was her. Since that time she says I can call her anytime and we send SMS & email at anytime. Some days we have 30 or more SMS. We talk 2 or 3 time a week and she is always available to talk and many times I just call when I feel like it. I also have about 30 photo's of her now so there is no worry she is a scam. We have talked a lot about what happend the past couple days including talking today for about 2 hours.

Of course I hope it works out but if it does not I will contact an agency that Jack from First Dream will tell me about. She also said before she would take me to her agency but after this I deffinately will not go there and she said she would not take me there now anyway.

Best to you,
Z.

[wsbill]

... in response to Agency Scam? , posted by Zoidberg on Apr 11, 2003

A honest agency, get real.  I can imagine the agency business is in the toilet.  Guys are just being cheap and there isn't anything the matter with that.

I like the idea of you, hoping on a airplane and instead writing a bunch of women... Go there and meet them in person.  And meet as many as possible and get their address and develop a relationship that way.

Otherwise, I think your wasting your time writing letters.

[Zoidberg]

... in response to Re: What do you expect ?, posted by wsbill on Apr 12, 2003

It has nothing to do with being cheap using an agency. A lot of it has to do with how much time one can go over there. I can't go over and over or maybe I would make a trip to see many. Who knows but actually I doubt it. I enjoy the writing time. You do tend to get to know each other. We also both understand meeting will be very important and writing is not the same but it gives us a start to where we are friends by the time we meet. We just may not get a long after meeting but it's a risk we are both willing to take and we understand this. Through this ordeal I have seen a different side of her and I am growing to like her even more. My original plan was to go over there for about 10 days and then if it didn't work out I could go again in about 6 months. But I extended it out to over 3 weeks because I think we have a chance and I might as well see with this one girl. Yep, I'm throwing my eggs into one basket but that is my choice. If it does not work out I will do the same thing.

As far as going over there and meeting many over meeting one, whatever... As they say we all have one of those...  

Z.

[wsbill]

... in response to Re: Re: What do you expect ?, posted by Zoidberg on Apr 12, 2003

Interpreter, putting her words to paper.

[Zoidberg]

... in response to Re: I hope she is the one writing you an..., posted by wsbill on Apr 12, 2003

At the start we used translation services from both AFA (way too expensive) & through First Dream. Galina translated many of our letters. Once Sveta was comfortable she started to do it herself. I can tell as her typing was REALLY bad at the start. I see it improving daily. Even though I say it is really bad typing, for having to learn how to write, talk, type and understand a new language all I can say is she's fantastic. Also the way she types the emails are the same style as her talking to me on the phone. So yes, it is her. She also replies to my SMS right away at anytime during the day except for when she is in English class. So I doubt she has a translator with her at all hours. As I said I have no doubt about her honesty. That is not what's in question. Obviously I do not have time to go over with you everything we have done and written about in the last 6 months to prove to you that she is legit so we'll just leave it at that. What I am trying to point out is it's so sad that these scam sites will only take one side and tarnish a woman's reputation before they even have any chance to reply.

Z.

[Alfred]

... in response to Re: What do you expect ?, posted by wsbill on Apr 12, 2003

If you are serious about this, yes you do have to get on a plane and go.  However, there is some value to writing in that it allows you to introduce yourself from a distance and have some people to meet when you first arrive in country.

[Frank O]

... in response to Agency Scam? , posted by Zoidberg on Apr 11, 2003

I know what you are talking about. I had my Marina show up on a web page she had NOT submitted herself to. They refused to take her down (mail.ru). I also know another girl who also showed up but on a scam list. A very vague "standard visa & travel scenarios" what the heck is that supposed to mean? It could be either someone who got turned down OR it could be someone else was writing under the guise of the lady & burned the guy or really scammed him & the chick took the brunt of it. In either case it sucks. When I was writing my Marina I confronted her about her showing up on another web page. I asked her over the phone so I could hear her reaction. It appeared VERY real so I believed her. When I met her in person I took print out of "her" profile. She was surprised because some things were correct or generally in the ballpark but others were WAY off. In either case watching her read it I realized she was genuine. In the end things did not work out for us but I realize she was honest. However she is no longer in LUgansk but in Moscow yet the agency she was in is still responding to men pretending Marina is writing them. I know because I had a friend e mail them. He even got the same first letters WORD FOR WORD. At least in my case I got to meet her & talk to her on the phone numerous times. I think she is a genuinely nice girl who really was NOT ready to committ or simply realized I was NOT the guy for her. But I can relate very much to what you say.
What angers me is that THE AGENCY says they can't remove her till she is engaged?! What if SHE wants to be removed? What business is it of theirs? Of course strictly money there but it does suck. Of course if she is on one she will probably be on many even though she will never know she is corresponding with many men. I should know. I'm on several web pages now. oh well.

[Zoidberg]

... in response to Agency scam..., posted by Frank O on Apr 11, 2003

Yes, I've read some of your posts and sorry to hear you are all over the sites now. Maybe that is good as you'll get tons of mail for awhile anyway. Not sure how good it will be after you find the right woman! These women can get very jealous so watch out! I couldn't believe the agency also saying she had to be engaged to get off of there. Yet in the end it was all a lie so they can make more money by cheating people. No wonder there is such a small reply rate to first letters. Sveta said in the last few months she got lots of mail and returned them all unopened. She said she would normally answer everything even if she wasn't interested but she did request to be removed from the site. Sorry to hear about your Marina. I hope her reputation is not too badly hurt by these sites. I am glad you got to see her as her true self. I am sure there are many more women on these sites that are good women. I know some sites do checks but on Russian Detective they have a so called disclaimer saying they are not responsible for what is put there. I think that's a bunch of BS as I do feel it is their responsibility to atleast verify what is said. I hope I get an answer from them soon.

Good luck in your quest!

Z.