trip report part 3

[fathertime]

Conclusion
Going to the Ukraine was something I needed to do.  I had to see firsthand what this was all about or I would have always wondered what I missed.  I am very happy with the trip overall, I was given a chance to meet an outstanding woman and I made the choice not to follow through.  
Recommendations and Opinions
Whenever I had down time I listened at length to the other guys stories as they unfolded.  I learned a tremendous amount by just being a fly on the wall during these discussions and I have drawn many conclusions.  Here are some of my conclusions.  
1.   If you are older i.e. late forties and up, than forget about the 23 and under girls.  I heard and witnessed a lot of these older men going on dates with the ultra-young girls and not one turned out successful by any measure.  The guys got taken for the food for the date and interpreter, $10 an hour for interpreter services + whatever they bought the date, which in many cases was substantial.  In many cases these guys did not even realize they were being taken.  I quite gently suggested that they rethink the circumstances of their date but most guys were in fantasyland.  
2.   Letter writing through Anastasia is a scam.  The ladies are not writing the letters.  Ladies that had been corresponding to the guys for a period of months and up to a year mysteriously were out of town, sick, or unable to even meet the man they had been corresponding with.  They was the case with at least 12 of the guys I spoke with.  The guys were writing to either a fat Ukrainian man in his underware giggling by the computer or more likely one of the lovely young female tour guides that helped us throughout the trip.  If you are currently writing to an Anastasia girl than don’t assume it is really her.  It maybe is real but it could be a scam.  Today, as I am writing this trip report, I received a letter from a lady that I did meet on the trip and there was absolutely no interest on her end, yet I just got a letter from her.  If I open it, it will cost me $8 dollars.  I know for damn near a fact she could not have written it because she expressed zero interest in me in our conversation.   My opinion is your our better off going on this trip blind than corresponding since the correspondence is phony.  
3.   Of the 40 or so men on the trip I would say about 8 were talking in terms of fiancé visas and several had proposed and even given a ring to their girl.  By the airplane ride back to Austria and than to the states a couple of them were wondering a bit about their relationship.  In the end I do believe there were a few couples that will be married and maybe even make a success of it and those were the ones where the age difference was not too tremendous, i.e.  50 and 33, or 35 and 21.  

Final thoughts

Overall the trip was very good for me although some of the marketing techniques of Anastasia are very suspect.  On a positive note for Anastasia their socials were full of girls and the staff was very good.  They did put us in an excellent hotel and were generally helpful while I was in their hands.  The men on the trip varied from age 27-68.  Some of the guys could have been cast in Revenge of the Nerds and others were very competent and handsome men of varying ages.  Without exception the guys that took the trip were decent and fairly good intentioned as far as I could tell.  

I am all done, I have told the truth the way I saw it now if you have anything more you want to know than let me know.  There is much more to say but I have probably blabbed on too much already.  

[babysnooks]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

[This message has been edited by babysnooks]

I too was on the Anastasia Spring Ukraine trip and shared the taxi ride with fathertime to Nikolaev. In general I agree with his assessment of the trip but were we disagree I would just point out factual examples of my experiences.
I am a 52 yr old lawyer from Fla.
I sent out e-mail letters to 12 girls prior to the trip ages 19 to 25. 6 said thanks but no thanks you are too old.
3 said maybe and 3 were positive.(This tends to disagree with the con aspect as I would be a perfect candidate to try to lead on to further e-mails). The 3 who were positive I met in Odessa and no sparks. One said after college she wanted to become a Customs Officer so she could make $5,000 U.S. a month in bribes!
I do detest the Anastasia e-mail contacts as they are expensive and not very useful to get to know someone. Also regular mail is close to useless, I just got returned to me a letter I sent to someone in February.
Previously I traveled with Anastasia to Russia in 2003. As I understand the system Anastasia contracts with local dating agencies to get profiles of the girls (the local agencies provide the photographers to take the pictures you see in Anastasia). I do not know but suspect that there is some sort of fee sharing agreement between Anastasia and the local agencies and probably between the local agencies and the girls themselves based on volume of e-mails regarding the girls.
Fathertime is right about the girls and their interpreters. It appearred that the interpreters controled the girls in the 2 instances where I was involved. If a girl needs an interpreter insist on an Anastasia interpreter or dump her. Better yet only deal with women who are e3 or better.
At the first social I met an attractive blonde in her mid 20's who was waitting for her man who she had been corresponding with for several months and was supposed to meet her. She was very anxious when he did not show up. It turned out he canceled at the last minute and never contacted her since (I have been in touch with her since getting back from the trip).
Also one other guy on the trip and I both were interested in the same 2 girls which made for some interesting but civil interaction.
One friend from the Russia trip did get married and now has a son. He mentioned that when his fiancee came over she wondered for many months who he really was. He clarified this statement by telling me thatthere are many news stories in Russia about women who go to the U.S. to get married and are forced into prostituion, beaten regularly or killed. This is why his fiancee was suspicious of him.
Final thoughts in the next installment.

[mudd]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

You got that right, most of the girls on that site, are not the girls writing the letters to the men. when I used them, out of say 12 girls, only one I met when I got to the city, like you said, most were mysteriously... out of town or moved away, and the one I did met, had never seen my photo, but whoever wrote her letters, sent her address and phone #, and I had my translator call her and set up a meeting. She had no idea who I was, but agreed to meet us anyways. So don’t waste your money using their services.

[tim360z]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

Thanks for posting your trip.  Better ways to go.  And yes,  most guys don't have the benefit of this board and the experience and insight many offer here,  Good luck

[Streetwise]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

That was a good trip report, Fathertime. I have been on the scene for a while now, and I agree with your observations. For me, the golden rule is to get the personal contact details (phone and postal address) of the girl, at the earliest opportunity. Any agency which refuses to give this info is almost certainly "on the rob." And try to stick to the free personal ads wherever the opportunity arises. After a while you can simply get to smell when things are not right.

I used this principle a few months back to smell out a scammer, but this one was wily enough to give me a home address which might have been enough to convince me once, especially as the street actually did exist; however, I did some homework and discovered that the address was nonexistent, the house numbers stopped at least 30 short of the one she gave me, and it wasn't even a residential area. By this time I was being asked to send money for "her" passage to come meet me, and even gave me the name of the local Travel Agency where the application for visa etc was made (again genuine) but they knew nothing about "her." So the scammers are becoming more subtle, by introducing an element of truth (genuine street names, etc) to try to throw us off the scent.

About the age gap, even though I had a VERY successful meeting in Ukraine with a 26 year old (I am 46) and she has kept in regular contact, phoned me from Dnepropetrovsk on my birthday and urgently wants to me get back there soon, and did not try to rob me, I would generally agree about the 15 year limit.

I was also quite surprised that you went on an Anastassia Tour, I presume you have read the feedback from this board about "Socials." Apart from the unscrupulous way that the tours often seem to be conducted, they are also "on the rob." I made my recent trip alone, organised it all myself, and got 7 days including Nikolaev and Dnepropetrovsk for a total of 700 UK pounds (about 1.3k USD) including flights, apartments (not hotels) and spending money. This indicates that they must be making at least 2.5k profit per person per trip. PEOPLE, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY! It's really not that difficult to organise on your own, and most of the help they are offering is not in your best interest anyway, so you simply don't need it.

[BubbaGump]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

[This message has been edited by BubbaGump]

I also know that writing letters through European Connections is a scam.  There are a few genuine letters and you can't really figure out who's writing and who's not.  You'll get a letter from some hot chick and write some letters and then it will just abruptly end and for a while you wonder why.  Or, you say I like you and I want to come visit you right away and there will be no reply.  Or, you write somebody for a long time and plan a visit and then there is this unusually long time before they get back to you like they are trying to find out if the girl will meet you.  They letters are never very long because that would take too much time.  Since I would pay for 50 letters to get the better rate I wondered if the agency would get less money for the letter if the money was split in half.  I got a letter from a girl in Latvia that I met and I reminded her that we did meet and there was never a reply.  She had actually been interested in me and was on of the best looking women I have ever seen on any agency site.  I just kindda gave up on the whole email thing.  I guess I'm out of luck because I have a hard time getting off from my new job and when I could go I couldn't scare up any interest.  One girl flat out tried to scam me and she was removed.  Scamming is reserved for the agencies.  They try to be subtle but the pattern becomes apparent but for a while you just say I'll keep trying anyway until the dollar amount just gets to be outrageous for a complete lack of progress.  You get to where you just quit answering because you're tired of writing all the letters.

[Bobby Orr]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

Why don't you try posting your miserable experience on paid advertising "guide" boards and see how quickly it gets you banned.  Then you will learn a truth about "the industry" and discussion boards.

[fathertime]

... in response to Suprised you went on a tour with Anastas..., posted by Bobby Orr on Apr 14, 2005

First I would like to say my experience was NOT miserable.  It was actually very good. That does not excuse Anastasia for their deceptive and outright fraudualant marketing techniques.  I had a great time partially because this board gave me the expectations and wisdom I needed.  As far as I can tell none of the other 40 or so guys knew of this board but that should change and we should be seeing some of there stories shortly since I promoted this board to many of them.
Bobby Orr if you have a link or two for some of these paid advertising "Guide boards" I would like to post my experience there as well and personally see how quickly I get banned.
Thank you
Fathertime

[Bobby Orr]

... in response to was NOT a miserable experience, posted by fathertime on Apr 14, 2005

They should be in your in box by now.  I look forward to laughing at the reaction on at least one of the boards.

[fathertime]

... in response to emailed to you, posted by Bobby Orr on Apr 14, 2005

Thank you.
I will get the story up within a few days and see if what kind of reaction it receives. I will know quickly if it is a bunch of homers.  There really is no denying the phony emails Anastasia is putting out there but I will be curious to see how it is defended.  
Thanks

[Bobby Orr]

... in response to Re: emailed to you, posted by fathertime on Apr 14, 2005

I too would love to see the response from that one particular company sponsored, moderator laden, "guide" board.

[RickM]

... in response to trip report part 3, posted by fathertime on Apr 13, 2005

bizness is probably just that with those companies $$$ and why not...I'd probably do the same...

I totally agree with you that 15 or so years is about right on the mark for a good age difference.

That is rather interesting your concept about letter writing and long correspondences,it's probably the biggest profit-making part of the bizness...

I've never paid for an address,always used sites like free russian personals

I've never been to Ukraine but have spent many months now inside different parts of Russia and in Kyrgyzstan.

I think it begins with knowing yourself and what you want.If a person is unclear on those 2 things then everything is for naught.Probably by now I bet you'd agree that communication is a big problem with language barriers.

Interestingly,a few weeks ago I went with the wife to Boston to meet about 40 or so Russian people living here in the states that the gals met amongst each other online but never in person.

It was great and very interesting afternoon.So many drop-dead gorgeous girls in one dwelling,only a few of us men and almost all there spoke perfect english.
I felt like I was "at" a social and also felt like a piece of meat in a market.Cause I speak fairly good Russian,my feelings were I could have taken just about any one of the gals home if the wife wasn't there.Mostly every one was single being either divorced,widowed or arrived on Jewish Refugee Visas.Not many came via marraige.It was a very different twist spending the day with them and the conversations were anything but boring.NONE of them had a desire to leave USA but appreciated very much being in the presence of a man who knew the ropes of USA and the language and traditions of Russian life.

It's difficult living life with just one woman no matter how nice she is...As for selecting her....Destiny?