Today you have more Russian ladies who are seeking foreign men because of the introduction of the Internet. And it is because of the Internet that you have seen all but a few agencies who still publish catalogs. At one time there must have been a dozen to 15 different agencies publishing catalogs, today I think there are only two or three. The Internet allows us to look at many more potential ladies, unfortunately it has opened the flood gates to the more seedy underside of seeking a Russian bride, the high percentage of scammers on the Internet.

So guys when you ask about the percentage of ladies who respond from agencies, to give a more exacting answer one has to examine the type of agencies and try to exclude the scam agencies from these figures. With the scam agencies, as well as individual scammers, you are going to have a much higher response rate, probably in excess of a 90% response rate. New guys just starting out might think one agency is a lot better because of the high percent of ladies who respond, and on the other hand these guys might think lesser of a legit agency which had a much lower percentage of it's ladies to reply.

And then I have what I call the 80-20 rule. 80% of all the guys writing to the ladies from any one agency are writing the same 20% of the ladies. With these 20% of the ladies getting so much attention, when they first are listed they respond back to almost 100% of the men they have interest in. But after only a month or two these same ladies are now responding back to maybe 1 out of every 15 or 20. Timing is everything.  

BubbaGump, in one of your questions you have also given the answers. Your question "Are more women advertising because they are hearing good things from women abroad or are they deciding we are easy picking?" The answer is both. Ladies who had never dreamed of coming to America have learned there is such a good chance just by putting there photo on the internet. The more beautiful of ladies realize they have even a better chance. Then you have your Russian scammers and s1uts who know many of us are easy picking. If she can just get a man to come see her, the Russian s1ut knows if she screws his brains out with-in the first 30 minutes of meeting she probably has a free ticket to America. One version of your Russian scammer on the other hand just wants to correspond with hopes of creating some cash cows and will abruptly end the relationship when the man is with-in a few weeks of making his trip to see her. Other Russian scammers will see the men in hopes of getting new clothes and appliances for her flat as well as exotic vacations. I think you guys would be amazed at the number of poor Russian ladies who have big screen TV's, VCR's, washer and dryers, etc, due to there cash cows.

Bob, yes, many ladies would be surprised if they knew how many sites they were really on! Many ladies sign up for one site and over a period of 2 years will end up on 15 or 20! We have had ladies on our site who were only on our site. In six month or one year I see these ladies on other sites. We would ask the ladies about this and many indicated they had only agreed to, or knew about being only on our site. After investigating many times I have found that I have un-knowingly sold several addresses to a competitor who bought them from me. When bringing this up to the ladies and telling them I will send a letter and ask for her to be removed from the site, most ladies say please do not, they do not mind being on several sites and in reality I can't blame them. Now to me it is one thing to add ladies to your site who are actively seeking a relationship with a foreign man and something totally different to add ladies to a site when the agency owner KNOWS the ladies do not have interest in marriage to a foreign man, such as the case with Face of Siberia.

Bob, as to the fate to the long term survival of the MOB business, it's only getting bigger and more entrenched. Sure things and aspects will change, but the industry as we know it today still has a minimum solid 10 years, and that's a long time. Until there are laws, regulations and guidelines which can regulate the industry you are not going to see any major changes or slowdown. Even if there are such regulations that come about from here in the states, as long as it is not regulated or changes imposed in Russia, Ukraine, the rest of the FSU, there will be no substantial changes and I don't see anything like this coming about from the FSU for at least 10 years.

Watcher, I have answered two of your three questions above. To answer your remaining question I need to put some thought to that. What would the response rate from ladies from my site be? With all things considered and equal, I think for every guy who bought 10 addresses he would get a reply from about 3.8 to 4.1 ladies.

MtMav, your right in that with many of the questions asked I could, and should, write a book to justify the answers. As I am swamped for time right now (can't believe the number of guys going in the winter!) I am giving rather short, to the point answers. As such I am probably am not being fair to many of the new guys who are beginning this most wonderful of pursuits. As I read your questions I see many answered above but not all....."How have the perceptions (disillusionment? or heightened excitement?) and expectations of FSU ladies changed??? Have FSU ladies themselves changed over the past 10 or 12 years? How about the AM pursuing FSU ladies today vice 10 or 12 years ago? Any discernable, recent trends? Any predictions concerning the future of the industry?".....

Well, look at what is happening today!! Look at Anastasia-web and E-700. Only the most naive of guys don't know what is going on here. These two leaders in the industry used to make there profits from the men going to there large socials. At one time you had 55, 60 men attending. Today you have 20,  25 and many times  less. With the number of addresses these two sold, it paid for there expensive yearly publication and distribution of catalogs (about $300,000). With the turn down in the economy, with 9-11 and with more guys becoming educated as to what is really going on at these large socials, these two are struggling to offset there great loss of revenue from there socials, thus was born Anastasia-web and E-700. Now, even after saying that, if the number of men who are currently in the FSU and those who are planning to go in the dead of winter this year (usually the slow time of the year for me) is any indication, there are going to be a LOT of guys going to Russia, Ukraine and other countries of the FSU this coming year.

In 1993 thru 1998 there was the greatest excitement amongst Russian women in knowing that it was possible for them to escape Russia. In these early days is when you saw a lot of middle aged, out of shape men bringing these supermodel's home as there wife to America. You have to realize that at this time you had a few major publications that had put together some very nice catalogs and boy did they paint a pretty picture. Talk about
"effective" marketing! Go to three socials over a weekend and meet 800 beautiful, young, sensual Russian women who prefer men 20 years there senior who will make wonderful wife's. I was one of 50,000 men who believed what I read. As I have said several times over the last few years, I am so lucky that I had made plans to meet more than one Russian woman on my first trip or I would have also married the first and only Russian woman I ever met. So many men in those days, and I am afraid even today, confuse good sex for good love. They ain't the same! It was a great learning experience for which I am forever grateful. There are many, many, many wonderful, sincere Russian women in the FSU. In fact I know without any doubt that there are 75% more of these types of ladies that there are the Russian scammers and s1uts as I met many ladies from 1995 thru 1999. Some of these ladies I had corresponded with for 6 and 7 months. Some of these were real, wonderful and sincere ladies, some women (can't use the term ladies) were striping my clothes off with-in minutes of meeting and we were being closed doors. As I was looking for a Russian woman for life, any woman who would have sex with me with-in the first hours of us meeting, even after 6 months of corresponding, was nothing more than a s1ut. I could find this type of woman all over America. Basically there are the very good Russian ladies, of which I feel 75% of these ladies are, and then you have your 25% who are scammers and s1uts. No good Russian woman is going to have sex with a man until she has had the chance to get to know him. My advice to any of you guys looking for a Russian bride is if you can have sex with your Russian lady the first day you have met her, she is not a good Russian lady. The reason we hear so much about scammers today and there appears to be so many scammers is because a great majority of the ladies on the Internet are scammers. Sure there are many fine ladies but this is why it is usually better to write, get to know many ladies, in hopes of weeding out the scammers. One good thing about guys running personal ads in newspapers and magazines throughout the FSU is it usually attracts a much higher percentage of sincere ladies. Scammers have it made on the Internet today, they don't need to respond to personal ads as it is too much work for them. After I discovered how effective personal ads were in 1998, I continued to run them. What I discovered was that most the ladies who replied to a personal ad had never really thought of marriage to a foreign man and most had never thought about leaving there country. With most ladies who replied to my personal ads I was the first and only foreigner they had ever written. I quickly realized I wanted a lady who was not dreaming about marriage to a foreign man or leaving her country.

Is there luck involved in this great pursuit? You bet there is but you can each help to make your own luck. My Russian bride was never on the Internet, never with a marriage agency. She had never thought of marriage to a foreign man or that she would ever leave Ukraine. She happened to read my ad in a catalog in a restaurant two months after the ad had expired. Now I must say running of personal ads today is not nearly as effective as they were 5 years ago but I would recommend the running of personal ads (and this does not mean the so-called Gentleman's catalogs or sending your profile to some 200 agencies of which 150 are suspect) and with selective and choosey address purchases.

Now one major thing I have noticed over the past five years is the quality of the men seeking Russian women. There were a lot of geeks and dorks in those early days. It was sickening to see these 52 year old, 5ft 6 inch men with these 25 year old, 5ft 9 inch Russian beauties. These guys really thought these women had sincere interest in them and a major reasoning was the "black marketing". It was marketed that Russian ladies did not care about how a man looked, or his age, or if he was rich or poor, but only his heart. Well that's bull crap and this is leading me to today's situation MtMav. Russian women today, that is good Russian women, are being more choosey and selective. And on the other side of the spectrum, you have more quality men who are seeking these Russian beauties. You still have your percentage of dorfs but the percentage is much less than in years past.

The key to the future of this pursuit for a Russian bride is education. If men would do there homework before jumping into this, if men would read these discussion boards, learn of the scam agencies and of the tendencies of Russian scammers and s1uts, then fewer men would be getting scammed. I predict that in three to five years there will be a network of honest and ethical agencies. Once this network is built and in place, than the great majority of men will hopefully be doing business with agencies in this network. The scam agencies will have to change or just fold up. I have worked hard since 1998 in trying to find honest and ethical marriage agencies and I think today I have about 24 or 25 agencies I work with and feel very good about.

Agencies that at one time may have been guilty of doing questionable things are changing there ways, they are learning that they will have to. As some of you may know I looked for a couple of years to find a good agency in Kharkov and Kharkov has not had the best of reputations. I have a wonderful working relationship with two honest and ethical marriage agencies in Kharkov, Sergey of IDI-Bridge as well as Bridge to Bride.  But I am happy to say that my arch enemy in Kharkov, Dmitry with KharkovGirls, has over the past two years done a very good job and needs to be complimented. Without Dmitry's knowledge I have had several clients to use his services while they were in Kharkov and Dmitry has given each of these guys good honest and ethical services. I say give credit where credit is due. If an agency does good and honest work the world should know about them.  I am hoping over the next three to four years we have such a well defined and known group of honest and ethical agencies that the scam agencies will shrink to no more than 20 or 25 % as opposed to the over 70% of FSU marriage agencies today I think are scam.

Now in closing I would like to say before the cry babies start saying 'where's your proof, where's your proof ' to all these things I have said, let me say that everything I have stated is MY opinion. I think that is what you guys had asked for and this is what I am offering, my opinion, based on almost 9 years of this most wonderful part of my life in dealing with Russian women both for myself and for men who are seeking a good Russian woman.

Everybody will have there own opinions. For the guy who only wrote one woman, met one woman and married her, it is his opinion that writing one, visiting one, is the best way to go. You will have those guys who wrote many ladies and met many ladies before choosing his dreambride and of course his opinion is going to be to write and see many. I have done both. I have written one (for 7 months), visited one and it was a complete disaster and I swore never again. I think it is a numbers game and the more sincere, good ladies you can meet on a single trip the better your odds are. I wonder how a guy really knows he married the best Russian woman for him if he never met a second, or third, Russian lady. Who does he have this one Russian woman he married to compare her to? You talk about an eye opener, just try to meet 3 or 4 different Russian ladies, you owe it to yourself.

I learn something new everyday in the Russian bride business and I have learned that all men are different. Even though I feel a guy has a better chance of finding the best bride for him by meeting several ladies in a short period of time and then concentrating on the one or two he felt the most chemistry with on any given trip, some men just cannot meet more than one woman, correspond with more than one woman, at a time. So each man must do what is best for him but he needs to study and know what all the possibilities are.

Of all the guys I know who took there time, met several ladies, less than 10% got scammed. For those men who are serious about this pursuit and who will work hard and think with his big head, I think he has a good chance of finding a good Russian bride. Once you have found a good Russian bride your life will never be the same.

 It is very difficult to dwell on someone's kind heart as being a reason for failure. Your kind heart has gotten you scammed with most women you have had interest in.

 I have said many times that the single most difficult part of the entire pursuit for a Russian bride is in telling so many good women they are not the one for you. Nothing was as hard on me as this task. It was just as hard the first time as it was the last time.

 I think you have felt sorry for some of the lades you have got involved with and you could not hurt there feelings. Quasio, we can't marry all the Russian women we feel sorry for.

 Although it goes against your character and might be hard to do, I think for you to succeed you are going to have to meet several ladies on a single trip. Because you will have committments to meet ladies number 4 and 7 and ?, you will not be able to stop with lady 1 and see no others. Sure it is going to take work and time for you to find some 6 to 8 ladies in any one city or area that you are going to visit, but it can be done in usually 3, 4 or 5 months time.

 If you can see it in yourself to make such a committment and do the things required, I would work with you on putting together such a trip.

Hey scum loser JR/juio99/Leo, only because you brought up some valid questions and I think it will help others, I will respond to some of your question. (I think the respect I have for JR/juio99/Leo will be apparent in the tone of my sarcastic response's but hopefully the contents of the replies will be beneficial to others)

From JR/juio99/Leo (JjL),.."'....Jack states that they will attract ladies who never thought of this before and who are not on other sites. Jack has much more experience at this than I, but I don't quite see how this computes.."'.....   What don't you see JR/juio99?Leo? There are millions and millions and millions of Russian ladies who are not on the Internet, never touched a computer. Some of these same millions and millions and millions of Russian ladies read there local newspaper two and three times a week, especially more so in the winter. Now, let me elaborate on that last part, "especially more so in the winter". With my own personal experience, as well as those from all the clients I have ran ads for since 1998, men seem to get good results from the third week of December thru too the second week of February with the best weeks being the last week of December and two weeks of January. It didn't dawn on me why at first I was seeing such a good response rate at this time (my own Natalia wrote me from an ad I started in January) but I think I figured out why the such good respondse rate at this time. It get's dark very early this time of year. 5pm and it's getting dark quick! It's coldddd, it's wet, there is probably lot's of snow and ice. Most ladies go straight home during these winter days, most ladies want to be outside as little as possible. So the ladies are home, and now it's the holidays seasons. Now you want to be with people and if you don't have someone in your life, maybe your a bit lonely. I think many ladies read the newspaper during these times and if they see someone in the personal ads section of there home newspaper, if they like the way this guy looks and they read that he has interest in marriage to a Russian woman and he will visit Ukraine/Russia in the Spring AND you include a local Ukraine or Russian mailing address, more ladies have a tendecy to write men a letter!

Now JjL, there are millions and millions of Russian ladies who are not part of marriage agencies or on Internet sites. With great confidence I can tell you that over 80% of the ladies who reply back to a man from personal ads from local city newspapers are NOT on the internet!  Does any of this compute with you now JjL?

JR/juio99/Leo..."'Given that many women in FSU seem to know someone who has married a westerner or who is at least corresponding with a westerner."'.......Maybe this is YOUR given JjL, certainly is not mine. I guess it is comes down to how one defines the word 'many'. Your 'many' could constitute 30, 75, 500, 1000. My many, in this case, would reflect millions. I feel there are millions of Russian ladies who do not know someone who has married a westerner and there are millions of Russian ladies who do not have a personal friend who is corresponding with a western man.

JjL..."'...I find it difficult to believe most haven't at least given it some thought..'" ....Well JjL I think a great many, millions of Russian ladies, have dreamed of such and have wondered about marriage to a foreign man, but for the great majority of these Russian women they feel it is truly a dream and don't put much more into than a brief passing thought and wishful thinking. Now, put your best photo and a well written ad in front of the lady, with a local number to write you back at, and see how many of those ladies will take a chance on that dream,...just as my future wife did. She had never replied to a personal ad before in her life. She saw the ad, liked what she read, and took a chance. She really didn't think she would ever hear back from me. Now she considers it fate. She says and thinks it was meant to happen. It was something she had only thought about briefly before in her life, being married to an American man, living outside Ukraine. I think there are millions and millions and millions of ladies who have given it some thought, but who have not posted there photo on the internet.

JjL......"'And if they have given it some thought, I would think they would be on some web site or agency list somewhere."'.....Well, duhhhhhh. All one has to do is to look on the Internet, look at the various marriage agencies, and one can see 100,000's of thousand of women who did give it some thought!

JjL...."' I only tried the ads once just because a friend of mine in Russia almost was going to place the ad without telling me anyway. Of the 15 or so responses that I got, 3 were from ladies who I had already seen on websites....'' .. 15 !!! 15 responses from a personal ad ran through out several cities of the FSU?  And 15 replies is all you got?  Well! I can see why now you have such a great dis-taste for personal ads!  And 33.3% of your replies had been on the Internet!!  Well, I am flabbergasted. I don't know what to say to that. I have never seen such a high percentage of ladies who were listed on the Internet to reply to a man's personal newspaper ad. You seem to have all the bad luck JjL. Thank goodness you are getting laid enough on your trips over.

Jjl....''' Again, because of Jack's much greater experience than myself, I am not actually disputing his claims re ads, but it just doesn't seem logical to me and was not borne out in my own personal experience..."'.. JjL, I am not sure we are talking apples to apples. I don't know that we are talking about you running your personal ad in some real newspapers that were published in many cities of the FSU, cities and villages of 600 people, 1000 people, cities of 8000, 20,000, 90,000, 250,000 and 1 million people! Did you include a nice photo (good photo makes a ton of difference), a well written ad indicating you would be visiting soon and a local address for these ladies to reply too??

Jjl....'".Another point I forgot to mention in my first post was that with ads, the guy is going to be faced with wading through many responses that do not even come close to meeting his criteria '"......Sure JjL, write a very non-descript ad and this is exactly what you will get. A waste of your time, and the ladies time who replied back to you if you ask me. Describe exactly the type lady you want, the exact age requirements, height, looks that you seek. The more exacting you are the fewer replies you will get but they will be, for the most part, what you have asked for. When I wrote my first personal ad JjL I also experienced the same problem as you describe. Didn't you learn anything from your mistakes JR/juio99/Leo?

JjL..."' At least when we review ladies on websites, we can choose to make initial contact with those who meet some of our basic criteria..."' ...The only half-way logical statement you have made in your response back to me. Absolutely correct, one must use all practical and reasonable options he has to meet the type ladies he is seeking. Of course men should also consider this resource.

JjL...'" One of the big problems with ads, in my estimation, is that there is a severe restriction on the number of words allowed '''....JjL, one can write a good ad with 110 to 120 words, I help to write such ads every week. As newspaper ads are priced by the number of words, ads can be well written with 120 words and less.

JjL..."'  Because of that, the guy can't come close to listing his criteria for the type of woman he would like to meet."'... HOGWASH JR/juio99/Leo! Do you know what you are talking about or are you just blabbering into the wind! Absolutely you have enough words to describe the type lady you are looking for.

JjL..."' If some outfit would agree to publish ads with no word restrictions (and what's up with this restriction anyway, they can always just charge by the word) then that would be a big improvement.."'.....JjL, a man can use as few, or as many words as he wants. There are no word restrictions to my knowledge. Now once you get over X number of words then the ad is no longer considered a personal ad but a business ad, or at least subject to business ads rates. I have never had any client to ever use so many words that the ad crossed over from personal to business ad rates.

JjL..."' However, regardless of what the guy states, he is still going to get responses from ladies who miss the criteria by a mile.."'.....If a man writes a sorry ad JjL, he will probably get ladies who miss the criteria by a mile. If a man writes a well worded, well defined ad, he will get a great many more of the type of ladies he is seeking and other ladies who miss the criteria by only half a mile.

JjL..."' Sure, some guys get a kick out of opening mailbox to find a flood of letters, and it probably makes them feel good about themselves. But when you consider the time involved to wade through this, it is very inefficient use of time.."'....It is an inefficient use of time if you go about the process half-ass or don't know what you are doing. JjL, I would be most curious to hear about your experience with running a personal ad. Where did you run this ad, how long did the ad run, what did the ad say. How did you describe the type lady you were seeking? How many words did you use in your ad. Describe the type photo you included. Did you include a local address for these ladies to write to, or your address in America? Did you include a local phone number for these ladies to call or your e-mail address? What did you pay for the ad you ran?

I think with the information you might be able to share, between the two of us we can hopefully give interested guys an idea as to the proper and improper ways of running an ad.

However, despite the other hysterical responses to my post which put many words in my mouth that I never uttered, I stand by the general logic of my statements.

JR