I am starting in the long and tortuous process of investigating ladies I met online before I go too far in the relationship.
My question is, is it worth paying one of those sites that say they hold an enormous data base on scammers? or is it better to search and serach keywords in google: her name, email address. parts of her letters, location, etc?
No,,, I don’t think it is worth it.
Most sites will let you do a basic search for free,,,, you can search in a certain country or city,,, or for a certain first or last name. But never have I found a site that lets you do all of the above for free. There are a lot of Irina’s and Katya’s in Ukraine, and a thorough search takes a lot of time!!
Anything connected with FSU dating is dishonest and corrupt,,, including the anti-scam watch sites. I was using a site years ago, that wanted guys to give a donation to join and be able to use the advanced search features. I thought about it and decided to do it. I probably sent 10 to 20 dollars,,,, then clicked the join button! After doing that, a link popped up with terms or payment plans for joining?! There was no mention of any membership costs before hitting the join button!!
The anti scam site was a scam of it’s own!
You need to think about the reasons for doing such a search. Is your girl too good to be true?? If: Yes,,,, then you need to find out if she is a keeper!! But,,, if you feel the need to check the honesty of a girl,,, because you aren’t satisfied with her answers,,, or if she won’t answer any questions at all,,, then drop her and walk away. If she won’t answer common or reasonable questions, she either has something to hide,,, or doesn’t have any ambitions to do so, because she has no plans to marry or no interest in you!
I will check them early anyway, even if want to trust them as I do not want to find out if they are scammers after I start falling in love with them (it has happened to me already) and even worse after I spend the time and money going to see them (I never send money anyway).
I do not agree that you can put all girls from the FSU in the same box as time wasters.
Talking to a number of them, they also say that Western men are all time wasters (some suggest I am one) and I know I am not. In terms of time, it costs the ladies more as the ones who do not have broadband or a laptop at home, have to find the time (and money) to sit in an Internet cafe reading through piles of messages from keyboard Romeos and having to answer them.
I read a statistic in this site o another that says that only 1% of men who contact these ladies actually buy their plane ticket and go to see them.
So, can anybody recommend some sites to do checking, apart from entering keywords in Google? There is the site of that Jim guy.
Do one or the other, but don't worry too much about it. Look for someone who will be your life partner. If she turns out to be a scammer, turn her into an honest person.
What exactly are you investigating? Her past, or her intentions? Could you just ask the questions and listen carefully for those answers, Talk is cheap, so get proof, ID’s, the house, a family member or her friend. Find out if she has VK, Odnoklassniki or FB, all this via Skype. Jus D.I.Y.
BTW, don’t initiated any investigation unless you had established a solid inter-personal contact , cause like Lonelyranger1701 said, “Girls from the FSU are the world’s time wasters!!”
Well, yes, I want to investigate them but in a subtle and indirect way. I do not want to put off those ladies that are fed up with scammer paranoids (as I have written in another thread) by constantly asking for Skype live conversations, ID papers, proof of this or that. The honest ones really hate it.
That is why I am asking people here if they know good websites to investigate if they have been blacklisted, for instance.
Investigating her intentions indirectly is impossible, only my perception of what she tells me or how she acts can inform me of that.
Ragingbull: are you serious? I actually have come across a couple of scammers, one unintentional, the other out of hunger, who I thought: There is a good woman in there which I could try to turn around but then I thought I cannot take the risk, I will move on.
I really would like to know of any case where a Western man managed to turn a scammer into an honest person and married her....
I found a few from my list of favorites on IE, then went and found the 1st and last two. The 1st one seems to be the most useful,,, but I think it’s the one with the donation scam. The last link is a good read,, it’s from Anastasiadate, telling the relationship between girl-agency and website.
""If she turns out to be a scammer, turn her into an honest person.""
No, No, and NOOOOOO!
Waste of time!!!! They won't change their ways!
If she has cheated other men,,, how long do you think it will be before she cheats you?? You have to lay beside her at night,,,,, how much sleep will you get wondering when the other shoe will drop???
The thing is I keep seeing the name Anastasia in most sites where scamming agencies are discussed. For that reason, I never go anywhere an agency with that name in it. I am surprised that agencies with that name are even around or that men still use them as I have been hearing stories about them for several years.
Sorry, wifeseeker. I did not mean to indicate that you should marry a scammer. I did say that you should look for a life partner. I got you and Tom sort of mixed up. He already married and was looking to see if she is a scammer or has sinister plans. This is what I meant when I said turn her to an honest person.
I would choose someone who is not a scammer. But if she is and you found out after you married her, make her change her ways before you marry her. I ran into a scammer once. The girl from Zaporozhye in the "all ragingbull" thread was a scammer. She probably did it out of need. She eventually confessed, but I was long gone.
We were all scammers at one time or another. If you ever lied to get something, then you are a scammer. Is there no turning them around? I think there is. The first step is their confessing the truth.
I do not see why you would marry a lady first and then investigate if she is a scammer. Wrong way. If she has already married you she stops being a scammer and it becomes a marriage of convenience.
Ladies consider that keyboard Romeos, men who lie about their staus, time wasters and sex tourists are all male scammers.
I am just talking to a lady who wrote on the heading of her profile: "Last chance I give to online dating, if you are a time waster, want free sex, etc.. DON'T CONTACT ME,..etc.
The name Anastasia is very common because of the fairly tale,, not the website. Agencies with the name “Anastasia“, most likely aren’t owned by the website.
The now internet giant “Anastasia” was once a little mom and pop company operating in what looked like an abandoned store front in Winchester, KY. I stopped in on my way to Florida, Jan 1998 and picked up a ”””catalog””” ??!! When I walked in to their office,,, it was, as if, I was the first guy to ever do so. They had a table,, a desk, a couple of chairs,, and a dozen boxes of catalogs,,, that’s it!! I even met the owner “David B.”
I looked through the catalog and found someone that really caught my eye,,, I might have called from the hotel even? Lol I got the girl’s mother, told her who and where, and remember what she said: No, No,,,,, not my Ol’ya!!!! I guess the girl’s mother wasn’t onboard with her daughter’s idea.
When it comes down to honesty and reputation,,,, it really doesn’t matter who or where it is,,,, man or woman, western or fsu,, if it’s connected to fsu dating,,, be careful!
Come on lonelyranger, you pick up a 'catalogue' and then call somebody out of the blue then did you expect the woman to say: "Yipeee, it's my future son in law, come on Ol'ya your future husband is on the phone"
I wait until I have been exchanging messages with a lady before I ask them their phone number. Then I ask them when I can call them. I ask ALL of them if they have told their parents they are talking to a (older) man abroad with a view to going with him, especially if they live with their parents.
The ones that give their phone number to an agency may not even know that the agency is going to give it to men or even worse publish it.
“We were all scammers at one time or another. If you ever lied to get something, then you are a scammer. Is there no turning them around? I think there is. The first step is their confessing the truth.” ---This very true… RB,,,,, but CONFESSING will not be enough or the right thing, but she/you should STOP this wrong doing. This individual is only hurting hers/yours chances to meet RIGHT person.
""If she turns out to be a scammer, turn her into an honest person."" ..LR,,,You cannot turn/change people. But can people change if they are willing to.
We had discussed something like this under the topic “I want a good relationship, Not some worthless relationshitt”.
We all try our best to impress by knowingly omitting, lying and/or exaggerating who we are. So we turn into that “great pretender”. Just like the old song.
With this, at some point both side of the aisle are more likely to be skeptical than coming together.
i have always said people at the start of most relationships or of cause who's just there to impress are in a pretend stage.
its why i take very little to heart at these times,, just to much of something else going on to get in behind whats real or not.
sometimes a good day on the booze can often cut through some of the crap.
the good old truth serum..
WIFESEEKER,,, you are forgetting the year,,,, 1998! What you wrote helped jog my memory,,,, I didn’t call the girl from the hotel in Florida,,, because I had to stop in KY, on my way home to buy the girl’s info,,,, phone number, mailing address,,,,, no email!!
I think they had some kind of translation service available,, but why use it when some speak English?
The girl I picked had a E-3 on a E-0 to E-5 scale,,, so I decided to call her. I don’t remember if I talked to her on my 1st attempt or if I called several times,, but I did talk to her. She had a really sweet voice that matched her picture,,, but she had almost no idea of why I was calling.
K-dag,,,, we can’t all be put into one group! I try to make it as real as can be,,, I don’t exaggerate or omit. If you were to read the letters/fax s I sent to my fiancée years ago,, you would be convinced I was trying to talk her out of it.
The most important thing for me, is to find a mate that will marry me for me, and one that will stay. It’s much more important to find one that will stay,,, than it is to trick one into coming!
I agree that we all lie a little, when trying to impress. I am not excluding myself and currently I exaggerate my good points, I don't tell them I am talking to other ladies (they have not asked me), etc. The girls who are not scammers exaggerate their knowledge of English, their education, that they already have feelings for you, etc.
In the end, those who like each other will forgive them for their little lies (not the big ones, like 'I have homes in London, Paris and NY').
OnE thing where I do not lie at all is about my age. I keep reminding the ladies of our difference in age in every other message, initially, until they get fed up then I stop bothering them with it. After all, when they see my profile the first things they see are my (recent) photo, name and age and they still want to talk to me. All else is secondary, for the men too.
Concerning honesty… I’ve seen how it functions from 2 sides: both from women and men. I used to be an interpreter in Nikolaev and it gave me an opportunity to hear women saying “Oh! My boyfriend is calling… Emm.. Tell HIM that it’s my mom.” After several minutes I heard a man saying “Oh! That’s a girl, with whom I am going to meet in the evening. Please tell HER that I am talking to the owner of my apartment or to my friend or whatever”. Everything connected with marriage agencies is BUSINESS! In the center of all such websites there is only an idea of getting money.
WHY do you still continue to register on these websites and believe 20-year old girls, who write you every day that they are dreaming about getting married and having kids with you??? Of course, this is a nice illusion and there are so many people, who feel comfortable living with their illusions. But do you really need this?
Try not to SEARCH for a woman in the marriage agencies, try to FIND her accidentally. You can come to Ukraine or Russia without spending thousands of dollars for letters etc. Think about your interests, think what type of a girl would be the most interesting to communicate with (you should mind that even if you found a nice-looking girl and she agreed to marry you, after making love with her for quiet a long time, you can have a desire to talk to her:) In a real life normal girls don’t spend the whole days on the marriage agency websites! They live. They study, work, they go to the bars (of course all the girls, who are registered on the dating websites don’t drink alcohol and don’t smoke:), communicate with friends, dance, attend exhibitions, travel etc. Take this fact into consideration! What kind of a girl would you like to date? If you are keen on the rock music and you want to find a girl, who will share your likes and if you want to have some fun with her – go to a rock-pub. If you want to find some smart girl, with whom you can talk on many topics – come to the university as a volunteer (offer there an English speaking club). If you are interested in art – visit exhibitions and try to find a girl, you like, there. If you like an active life and you want to find a girl, who is eager to travel with you and not “to serve you a dinner”, find a sport club or some sport event and take part in it. Make an effort in your search! Of course it’s easy to come to girls, who “invite you”. What is the most common result of such meetings? Giving a lot of money, visiting all the possible restaurants and buying some stuff in the shops. I don’t think, it’s what you are searching for. Make a research before coming here. Define your goal. See if there are some events/clubs/exhibitions you would be interested in. There you can find YOUR kind of girl. Register in VK. There you can do the same. There are a lot of groups and events, you can subscribe for. Look through the list of people, who has already subscribed. Find someone, whom you like and write a message “You also like…? Have you ever tried/been/seen? I am going to come to your city. What would you recommend me to see?”
If this first phase was successful, plan the next one. Organize a date. Not just a “romantic dinner”, during which you will be talking about your desire to sleep with a girl! Make it exciting, maybe even extreme. Make her act as in real life and not as “during a meeting with an allien”:) Do something, she doesn’t expect from you. Make her laugh, get surprised and so on.
Do you know, what I have mostly seen during the “dates”? A man, who has a list of names of the girls, he plans to meet with… He comes to a girl, sometimes he says the name of another girl (with whom he met yesterday). He and his “today’s girlfriend ” go to a restaurant (mostly it’s some pompous restaurant, a girl would never afford to go to in a normal life). They eat, go shopping and say “goodbye” forever… Try to offer your variant of a date. Talk to locals and ask about interesting places.
Be honest, make every effort and go of the beaten track!