the idea of meeting through internet has a powerful future but I regret to say that at the moment it's in a big mess. Still I agree that we, internet dating believers, can make a lot to help sort it out - at least for ourselves.
I first attended this forum yesterday and found it revealing in many respects. For a Ukrainian woman observing this business from this side it was striking to find out that "real" and decent men actually exist out there; and, moreover, that they are struggling with the same problems with the agencies. But while this chat has good tips for the guys, it lacks ideas for the "real" girls - and trust me, we are in big trouble.
For the last half year or so I have been observing the desperate attempts of my sister -a very "real", single girl in her late 30s to start a relationship through this agency with the very best intentions and very "real" expectations. Leaving alone the obviously poor translation (almost as if it was intentional), the quality of service looks surrealistic. Whenever she likes someone and writes a thoughtful answer back, the guy either sends a completely unrelated response or disappears altogether. I can't get it - isn't it strange that whenever a man tells you some really nice things and you write him a very polite and keen reply - this means you shouldn't expect to hear from him anymore!
The letters we receive look like a confused puzzle. None of her simple questions get answered. Some letters are cut in the middle and don't have a reasonable ending.
She is not allowed to communicate with the men directly - this is such a shame, as it would have been so much easier. Yes, she doesn't speak English and doesn't have a PC, but oh, give me a break! I can't believe my ears when I hear it is difficult (or expensive) in Ukraine to check email (or that it requires IT courses or something!). And most of the girls have someone (a friend or a relative) to translate the letters - a lot of people here speak good English!
We would be really grateful for any thoughts on what should the real girls do in order to stop feeling like idiots and get access to you, real guys.
Anyway, I wonder for how long this message survives on this site - I have a feeling it would be deleted as offensive. Just in case, anybody willing to share advice, welcome to write
Katerina, fiance.com does not edit, delet letters. for you to use it you must register at naidimuzha.ru. if she has internet access she doesn't need any agency.
This is very interesting and a viewpoint I havent realised. But I can say I have been experiencing this problem lately with a lady I have been writing to. There are letters she hasnt been receiving and I know she has not received one or two letters from me. It would be interesting if it could be the agencies fault and even more if they are doing it intentionally
and nothing is worse than an agency playing games like that. Believe me there are real guys out here that would love to bypass the agency to get to you ladies
Excellent Post Katerina!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all are you referring to fiance.com as being an agency? If you are you are a little wrong, they aren't an agency.
As for the translation problems that is the agencys problem alone. Also I would suspect the agency is doing it intentionally. This is a business the ultimate motivator is the buck! Love is caught in the crossfire of two honest and decent people trying to connect. What disgusts me the most is the agencies look at the women as their property, and their property must produce income for them or they are useless to them. My lady was encouraged by the agency to write other men,and was told, since I was from the US my chances of coming to meet her was almost zero! Oops they were wrong. After her and I became engaged I learned many things about agencies in Ukraine that infuriated the hell out of me.
Larissa and I bypassed the agency and their expensive translators and paying for her room and food etc. Yes communication was difficult in the beginning, but we are both very smart and communicated via a dictionary and her limited english and my limited Russian. Sometimes the most important words are the one's not spoken anyway. They wanted 100 dollars a day for their translator, yeah right, when I can find a girl at a language institute in Kiev that would do it for $40 a day and be more honest about the translation.
The more men the ladies are communicating with the happier the agencies are. When I was the only one Larisa was communicating with, they told her that I was writing too often and asked me to only write a couple of times a week.
After we became engaged they discarded her to the side like some worn out piece of clothing. Wouldn't help her with certain things regarding her k1 visa. Well she wasn't an income producer for the agency anymore, she now had become a liability. She broke off her relationship with the agency and we talked daily on the telephone. She went everyday to English Lessons and as time progressed our communications became better, along with her tutoring me in correct Russian pronunciation.
Bottom line, agencies are a business and the business exists to make money for the owners. The sad thing as you describe in your post is they really don't care about the girls and the only thing they care about the men is that they send their money for communications. As for others here that will pipe up and try to say there are legitmate agencies, maybe, but they're few and far between, but again the bottom line is for the agency to make money. No one here in the Dating/Marriage agency from the FSU really can convince me that their whole interest is in finding that special love for a woman or a man. Sorry go sell that one to someone else who is buying that. We had our difficulties in the beginning, but when we circumvented the agency our relationship grew and we are now engaged. I am leaving at the end of the month to get her and bring her to the states. We are discussing a late March or late April wedding. Tell your sister to keep her chin up and take her time she will find the right guy or the right guy will find her, that is smart enough to see through the bullshit of the agencies and see your sister for what she is!
Guys, this is just provoking bullshit, nothing more. I don't know who and what for needs it but it won't resist any critisizm at all.
a) What the hell "this agency" means? fiance.com is not an agency, it is a web-site and serves only as a postal system roughly. How can it provide good or bad services?
2) I have myself worked on translating not less than 10,000 letters in more than 2 years and I won't believe that a poor Ukrainian chick gets "non related" letters. Men can be perverts, idiots, morrons but I have met only a couple or so "non related" letters in my practice. Guys usually write more or less decent and real to life letters while girls very often send real stupid stuff.
And finally, I am fed up with listening how everybody is "fighting" for happiness with the corrupt dating MOB. Take a computer and get on the web, there are I think lonely women and men here, sooner ort later you will get a dozen or two candidates...
Strike a nerve did it Alex? Well when the good ones in the industry start to police their own professions and rid the MOB of bad agencys, then maybe you won't hear men and women complain about agencys' It's your profession so if you are legit maybe you should force other bad agencys to the side. All I can compare it with is my experience with agencies and the funny thing my story has been told by many others over and over.
Hi Mike.
Trully, I care little for the dating industry for around half a year already. Making money on advertising and tourism is much easier and interesting.
I care for people's stupidity. Just take a look, this girlie tells "this agency". fiance.com? How a web-site can be so cruel to a single taken girl?:-) I haven't heard of any agencies registered at fiance.com as men agents. So all I see is a try to say that a direct communication through this site is so foul! BS. Don't you agree?
Yeah, I'm in agreement with you somewhat, I think maybe we interpret what was said in the post above a little different. The sad thing is, the couple of people here on this site that has used your services have said good things about you and your business, what is sad you pay for the bad rap the less than honest agencies provide.
I am sure in your time translating letters you have had to deal with idiots of both genders, I don't envy you there. There will always be difficulties with email forwarding services. Once you establish a relationship beyond the letter writing stages the better off you are. I wrote Larissa for about two months through fiance.com, then we started phone conversations, which was the best thing we did. I continued to write through her, but our real meaningful exchanges came via phone and our meetings. I had more than one dispute with Larissa's agency, but in the end it all worked out fine for us.
The agency can only do so much for you, but they also can be a detriment.
Have a great day.
Although Katerina is correct in her post…something about her post doesn’t ring true. Mike, I know you have been at this as long or maybe longer that I have and I believe her written language skills are superior to mine. I cannot recall a lady with even a fluent rating in English using words like “surrealistic” or has the exceptional grammar that Katerina has. Also for any lady that can find her way to an Internet café or has a friend with a computer there are sites like East/West Match or Elena’s Models that do not offer any services other than listing profiles. With EM the guy pays a certain amount for so many original contacts (after paying for the first contact subsequent contacts with the same lady are at no charge). So there are avenues to bypass the unscrupulous agencies that look at the ladies as just a profit center and nothing more.
Felice…the first lady I went to see was from the same agency that Mikes Larissa was from and I can tell you from personal experience that he is exactly right in his assessment of that agency…they don’t care a whit about the happiness of the ladies…only the dollars they can bring in.
Just for the record,
There are unsrupulous 'agencies' that advertise ladies on EM, I can personally verify of one such agency in Belarus. 19 year old girls, via EM, writing to 40+ year old guys but as soon as one responds you're not just asked to pay for corresponce, no, the whole damn package. The antics of these people were reported to Elena at the time.
So what is an introduction agency, what is an introduction service, what's the difference? No two agencies, no two services, offer exactly the same services but whether it's an introduction service or an introduction agency, fiance.com is around for the same reason as all the others, what's in a title?
Agree regarding Katerina's English, such as 'but oh, give me a break!'
I wondered about that myself, but I will tell you one thing, when they learn english, they learn it the correct way. Larissa's english has improved exponentially, now at time she corrects my grammar at which I reply, whose language is this anyway? Though her post is on target. I agree on that there are legitmate agencys, but the problem lies in where the girl lives and the exposure she has to a computer. Larissa will admit she knows nothing about computers and when we stopped at the internet cafe for me to transact some business and check my emails at work she was amazed with it. She says she can't wait to come here and play with my computer. She still can't believe that people make a living in the US with EBAY. To her that is incredible.
Felice,
I had this problem with your agency. When i was writing to your certain one lady we had a lot of translating problems . I ask simple questions and they do not get answered .I write much of my family and life history and she makes no comments.Am i that boring? Was your translation machine broke or was your translater women tired and overworked with eyes half closed.Or was the lady really not interested? I have this problem with all agencies. What is the point of writing e-mails if the replies are vague and abstract with no return focus on what i have written ? A true waste of time.
Jeff, lets not touch your attitude to writing letters!:-) Actually I still can't get rid of a thought that you were at least a criminal police detctive in the past.:-)
I testify here that Your letters very often looked like interrogation questionaries not like easy communication between two people. You asked around dozen questions in each letter and if at least one was omitted for some reason(who knows what happens in the girl's head) you were offended, suspicious and whatever. Try to take it easy, that's all I can advise. it is all not more than having some fun!
Quote: " I have this problem with all agencies."
When you have problem with everyone, it is faster that something is wrong with you than something is wrong with all the people... Just a thought.
Dear jurors, in my defence I can say that with Jeff to ensure ourselves I was even making photos sometimes when the lady he was corresponding with was coming to our office to get his letters.:-) It looks insane but at the same time we could not be accused of having unreal girls, not reading actual letters and whatever.
God, how easy it is now to live without all this stuff!!!
Katerina,
I sincerely hope that your sister finds what she is looking for. Let me tell you about my experience on fiance.com.....
I will start by saying this is the first online dating service I have ever tried. A friend at work told me about it several times and I just laughed. He finally convinced me to at least get on and look. So I did. I have always thought that Russian women were very attractive but I was amazed. These women were truly beautiful. I decided quickly to make a profile before I changed my mind. I had a couple of pictures from a recent trip to Las Vegas so I added them. I did this on, I believe, November 2nd. Two days later I checked and had about 15 letters!! I was stunned! I am 45 years old(I'll be 46 on January 17th). I put in my profile that I was looking for 35-45. I was receiving letters from women 19 years old!
As tempting as this was I stuck to my guns and declined them. Then a few days later I received a short letter. It was in broken English. It went something like this:
"Dear Jay,
I like everything what you wrote in your profile. I can just the same tell about myself. If you get interested in me, I'd be happy to get letter from you to start something worth.
Best Wishes, Sveta"
This was no cookie cutter letter. This was genuine. Her innocent charm touched me.
I immediatly wrote a letter back to her and gave her my eamil address. She wrote to me a few days later through an interpreter.I thought this was strange since her profile said her English was a 6. It was actually about a 1. It must have been a typo. I will ask her about it someday. Since this cost her every time to write through an interpreter I had to figure out how to communicate with her. So I went down and found translation software at a computer store. This was a great tool! It doesn't work really well but we can understand each other. I want to add that I read a lot about scammers and what to look for. She is real. After a few letters she said she was feeling sad because I am so far away. I asked her for her phone number and said I would call. She gave it to me but thought it was silly because I didn't know russian and she knew very little English. I wrote back and said no problem. We can just laugh at each other. When I called her she flipped out!! She was giggling like a school girl! (She's 38) We talked for 45 miuntes and said nothing! LOL It was hilarious.
She was still a bit shy in her letters and I understood why. I put myself in her shoes. Here is a man halfway across the world writing to her and calling her. How does she know if I'm real or not. Then I remembered a man that sells chemicals where I work. He recently married a woman from Russia. I contacted him and found out she is from the same city Sveta is from! Coincidence? More like fate! I arranged for the three of us to talk on the phone so my friends wife could translate. We talked for an hour and 45 minutes. This was a huge success. She now knows that I am real and our letters are getting much friendlier. I call her once or twice a week now and our conversations are getting better. I am studying Russian and she is remembering her English from when she was in school. We have also been writing daily for over two months now. I am flying to Russia in August to meet her. I can't wait!!! She is the most charmng woman I have ever met. She is so oblivious to her charm that it makes her even more charming!
I guess maybe I am lucky. But for some reason I knew from that first letter that she was the right one. If you knew me you would be shocked that I am writing this. I am very level headed. I'm actually shocked by what has transpired.
So, Katerina, tell your sister to keep trying. When the right man comes along he will find a way to make it work, just as I did.
Without knowing the 'in & outs' felicedate does have a point.
I see it all the time, guys, and I am not referring to any particular case, consider that they are entering into a business transaction, the lady is there for the taking, I'm not going to date that girl, I'm going to interview her etc. etc. etc.
For focks sake, these ladies are ladies, they're not machines, they're not business people, they're not hookers, when entering into a relationship and that's what it is, she wants to be romanced as does any other lady, she wants the little gifts, she wants to see the guy cares for her and so on.
Sure, in long distance 'letter' getting to know each other it is important to learn about each other and of course one needs to 'check her out' but one can do it subtly without seeming businesslike and indeed unromantic and uncaring.
Sorry but Felice makes no points with me on this issue. Well then,I guess almost everyone has a problem other than just me. This a very common complaint amongst many of the members here so please dont try to isolate me as the lone wolf . Sorry Felice , but where i come from when someone asks me a question or ten in a row on paper ,most people with half a brain can read remember and have the ability to answer it.All my letters are touched with humor so quit exagerating.But in most cases your interpretors or automatic translation machines don`t convey this. Without knowing the in`s and outs as you say Marty , then why open your mouth.
Your English is excellent. Irrespective of whether that makes you genuine or not, your post asks some serious questions.
From the woman's point of view, it is true that very often, after 3 or 4 letters, a man will stop writing. It may be that he has written to 6 (or 600!) other ladies and has found someone else to interest him. It may be, like many keyboard romeos who write profusely, they will NEVER set foot in the FSU and are just whiling away their lonely existences. Or he doesn't see enough in those 4 letters to keep him writing.
You may know that the general perception is that only 5% of male writers actually visit the FSU. Couple that with the understandable desire of agencies to try to hold onto their 'cash cows', the odds of actually getting two people together are not great. And if you were honest, you would agree that when an FSU lady decides she's not interested in you, she cuts you dead.
Your sister is in her late thirties with no English. Unless she is particularly beautiful, she is right to have a degree of 'realism'. Most middle-aged men are seeking under 35s, I suspect.
I am sure that after dealing with thousands of letters and situations a certain amount of dispassion creeps in. If I'm an agency owner, I would like to see a return on my investment. Some will try aggressive tactics to achieve that. Welcome to the free market. If the agency wont part with contact information, then move on. They will not thrive.
I have found the agencies to be very useful when I have visited them in person and where, specifically, I have used Fiance's service, I have no complaints.
The use of the Internet should be simply to act as an introduction agency and for that it is a powerful tool. I thank the agencies for providing this service.
But once the initial contact is made, it's down to us to take the intiative.
If one chooses to take up a grievance with a company, or indeed an individual, who they entered into a business transaction with then perhaps it might be best achieved by one on one communications between the two involved parties.
Should one choose to take up such a grievance in a public forum, a public thoroughfare, then perhaps one should not be surprised if it leads on to other public forum members making comment(s) on the principals of the subject matter whilst not referring to any particular case.
She must be blonde, with half a brain to read remember and answer any ammount of formulated questions from 1 to 20 at a time.
If you think you are not compatible with the demands, please don't apply!