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!
A good thread and, as has been mentioned, it is not often we look at things from the Female FSU side on this forum. Whether Katerina's english skills are too good to be true I think is irrelevant, the points she makes are interesting and real. I have just returned from a few days with my Lady in Kiev. We talked about the agency(s) she had used and she explained that she had only used one initially (EWM) but had later been approached by CC. She soon discovered that they were not interested in helping her to find a husband only in making a buck or two. Men still write to her at this agency but she has only ever replied to one letter about 8 months ago and hasn't visited the agency since then. However her profile shows her as being active during the first week of December, which is interesting because she was with me at the time!!!!! In Kiev!!!!! She was absolutely horrified when I told her that when we first started writing I had found her profile on 5 or 6 different agencies. None of which she knew anything about. (including EM!!!)
Now if Katerina is looking for advice all I can do is explain how my lady went about this whole "cattle market". She indeed has a good friend who is a translator in her internet club, she also started taking (and paying for) english lessons. We met via EWM and while you cannot exchange private email addresses you can swap telephone numbers. So I got her mobile and we started talking and sending SMS. We also swapped private email addresses via SMS. We still write emails every two days (and have done for months) She STILL goes to the internet cafe to use her friends translation services, it is easier for her and she trusts her friend. We speak ever two or three days. So I think provided that any FSU lady has a modicum of intelligence, I would certainly recommend they do not use any agency that is paid according to how many contacts the lady is likely to generate. She should find a good translator, pay the $2/letter and join a portal service like EWM. Last point - start taking english lessons (surely Katerina is helping her sister with this?).
Anyway just my thoughts based on my experience of the last 8 months
If agencies weren't around, international dating wouldn't exist. If agencies in general did not add enough value, they would not have been around all these years.
I recall during the months of my search in 2002, I was contacted by several individual agencies. The approach was the same every single time. They would send a customized introduction email perhaps to find out whether my email was real and whether I was still searching. Once, I replied telling them the "specifications" of the woman that I was interested in, they followed up sending me profiles of women, and asking me what I think. As we shared information, they took into account my feedback and kept sending me profiles that fitted closer the information that I shared with them. I never bought any services from any of these agents who tried to solicit my business via email. Since I wasn't finding what I was looking for, I was politely refusing the invitations until they would give up. There was no bullshit such as "this woman wants you to write her", etc. They were honest with me up front telling me that the profiles were available at their agencies, the women were real and looking for a partner overseas. I have no bad experiences with agencies except for Anastasia, which as has been mentioned several times in this forum in the past, is a big scam (by the way it is an American company).
In fact, now that I think about it, I was comfortable to be contacted by the owner of an agency, which had a name and a web site; the owner had a name, an email, a phone number and a fax and invited me to call him any time to talk to him on the phone. On the other hand, I was not comfortable to be contacted out of the blue from some female (hopefully) who only gave me a first name (hopefully not imaginary) and an email, wrote me generic crap and at some point would ask for money one way or another.
I actually had a wonderful experience both with fiance.com and another individual agency in the Siberia region whose name I won't post. The owners of this agency from near Siberia were the most wonderful people. They helped me with translation at the low cost of $10 per page at the time (fixed $15-20 monthly fee allowed access to the entire gallery). The one girl on their site that I was interested in did not speak a word of English. By the way, the biggest waste of time is when a girl does not speak English and does not make an effort to learn any - chances of success are minimal. There was a communication barrier and I don't remember exactly why, but at some point her letters changed and became colder. I explained my concern to the agency. At the time, I thought she found someone else and I wanted to know if that was the case, so I would continue my search somewhere else. The agency quickly contacted her individually although she lived in another province. They contacted me back and resolved the issue. It turned out that she was very interested in me, but she thought that I was not interested enough ... go figure. Anyway, the agency helped me get her phone number. I called her a few times with the help of a Russian translator who lived in my area. I never visited this girl since I found that the language barrier to be an insurmountable problem, but my local translator whom I knew from an acquaintance of the both of us told me that the girl was real, she was very interested in me, and from her talk on the phone and the university she said she was attending, my translator could tell that the girl was well educated.
Bottom line, don't just kick the agencies in the butt. Many agencies are in the business to add value to the customer and make money. It's a good thing that they are there, and agencies can add value - period. I can understand one's frustration when he believes he was good at his job as an agent but regardless was lump summed along with the few or many who weren't.
Who's kicking the "agencies" (plural) I am just relaying a truth from the perspective of a Ukrainian lady about one particular (and well established) agency. Hey, maybe it is just this branch of this agency. Its not conclusive proof but it is evidence of less than ethical practise.
thanks so much for the wonderful and informative discussion! First, nobody ever said nice things about my English in just as flattering way as this forum has, it was really delightful to hear, thanks :-))) But I appreciated the sceptical posts as well - they actually also helped a lot.
The picture is much clearer to me now, with your help. My sister has a contract with what probably is a local branch of this agency and they never told her what is the name of the main business, the site address etc. I found all the info by searching her name in Google - unless you do that, I can't see a way to find out. Sorry if my usage of the words "agency" has confused or offended anybody, when information is so scarce it is easy to expect mistakes. I will surely convince her to continue through an individual posting on the site - Olga The Moderator, thanks for the tip!!!
But what I wrote still holds for the service provided by the offices in the various FSU cities - this is not the web-site being "so cruel" to the girl, Felice, these are the people sitting in the office and not caring to print out the whole page, whatever the reason.
Yes, it's business, and I have deep respect for free markets. I just think this business is not developed enough (yet) and has a huge space for growth in terms of service quality - translation is only part of that, Felice, something is wrong with the process.
I so agree with QuietCharm that language skills are not enough to ensure sincerity and appropriateness. I hope this post shows I was genuine enough. I admit, I don't spend all my days trying to understand the structure of fiance.com, so I am not educated enough, this is why I am here - to share our impressions and get more info. And QuietCharm, your advice is very much to the point and very important - try to communicate as directly as possible, which we shall do.
By the way I do agree the chances are high for people to quit writing after five or six letters, absolutely (even though the abruptness is still a bit too strange). But on the age, despite the realism, I do think preferences differ. I have a lot of foreign male friends in their 40s, 50s and 60s (wonderful, handsome and very successful men, I have to add) whose FSU wives were very much 35+, although they met them in a "traditional way", not through agencies. These are normal, healthy and happy marriages. Normal, healthy age differences. Genuine attractions and long-term commitments. DOn't get me wrong - I do believe in (very) large age differences (after many years, my parents probably still struggle with the shock from finding out the age of my love during university studies). But such cases are not regular, we all know.
I would like to thank especially to Mike for his warm response and for supporting me in this forum, and to wish all the best luck to you Mike and to your wonderful relationship with Larissa. You have been through a lot of trouble, and certianly this is just a start - as any relationship is at this stage - but I feel you are going to be happy.
Similarly, best luck to Jay from Denver - your story is also exciting and encouraging, and I do wish you both a lot of happiness!
And can't help saying again - Chedz, "English which is too good to be true" sounds so incredibly flattering, I honestly appreciated :-) But I assure you, my native language is Ukrainian - in fact, the way I met my Ukrainian boyfriend was through a Ukrainian internet chatroom where he has complimented me on my Russian and Ukrainian, so I am not a spy, just a true believer into internet.
Thanks again to everybody and have a very happy new year!!!
Felice,
Did you read what i just read from this person who understands English very well but is Ukrainian? Sounds like you need to throw your translating machine in the garbage can and terminate your office employees who are doing a lousy job :-))))) LOL !!! She obviously pays attention to what she is reading!!!!! Why can`t your paid employees do this?
If more women brought the intelligent style of post here that you did, most men would really understand the Client agency relationship. I am sure without a doubt in my mind, many couples have lost out because of the nature of the business. Also if the men did understand better, they might stay on longer with the girls and understand it is not so much the ladies desire not to write, but the translators laziness to translate and send messages. Not until my second meeting with Larissa, did I understand the stress she was going through with it. There were many times Larissa would ask me why I didn't respond to some questions she asked me. Fortunately for me I would copy and paste all her letters in another file for me to read at a later date. I brought those letters with me on another meeting for her to read.
Where she pointed out where some material had been deleted from her original letter. That is why we went to a strictly phone and SMS messages for important matters and have communicated that way for the last 11 months.
I wish your sister the very best of luck! There are many good men that come here with serious and honest intentions. They just need to know what they are dealing with in the Agency relationship. I could have quit after the 5th or 6th letter with Larissa, but I knew there was somebody special on the other end, and I wasn't going to let the agency ruin that potential. As it turned out after our meetings and engagement, I have found the most incredible woman I have ever had the pleasure to spend time with and fall in love with. I never believed much in the soul mate thing, until I met her. The internet is an incredible thing, it puts people together, that a few years ago would have never had the chance to meet. As long as we all know that there will be a few land mines along the way, and intelligent enough to see through them. You started a great thread here Katya and I hope all guys looking for a woman from the FSU read this thread. There's more to this than train schedules, places to eat and stay and scammers to be concerned with!
Hey Mike,
What about those amazing Steelers !!!!!!!!! Looks like those Colts are next on the hit list :-))))) . your adress keeps bouncing back. Drop me a line.
I'm a Packer fan.
We have Brett Farve... and er....
Did I mention we had Brett Farve?
I have no idea who those other people were who showed up wearing Packer uniforms this year.
No doubt about it - Coach Sherman had to go.
Well if we had more like Ptichka and Katya posting here, it would be great. I've always said with my Search for a lady, Ptichka's advice and counsel made things really easy for me. Ptichka's a really great lady and she has no agenda, but wanting to help people, she's a real sweetheart and I think the world of her. I miss her posting here.
Jaytah, i would like to learn...more about how to detect the scams......i never will send money but how do you tell if they are real....?? I am chatting with a girl...who wants to meet...
Ok, After reading this thread, I feel like telling my story. It is long but maybe it can help someone. For the last year, I have been searching for my soul mate on many American date sites.
The main one is http://personals.yahoo.com/us/homepage/howitworks
You can put up a free profile and also look at profiles for free. You must join to read messages sent through them. Many people get around this by putting their personal email address right in the profile.
On with the story. I sent many messages, but got few responses to them or to my profile. Most that I did get were obvious foreign scamers, mainly from Africa. A few from Russia at least appeared sincere. I did not take an interest in them only due to the difficulties in distance and expense.
The last one got to me. Her letter was so sweet. She would understand and continue her search if I was not interested. If I did write and we only became friends was ok too. I have used that line myself. I felt as a gentleman, I had to write back. I never led her on and told her exactly how I felt about long distance relationships. We continued writing, it's been about 3 weeks and at least 10 emails from her. Now I'm hooked.
On her, not on Russian women. If she turns out to be a scam, I will just crawl back into that cesspool of American dating. But for now, the thought of her gets me through the lonely nights!
Anyway the point of all this was a possible way around using the agencies. If this helps anyone, i would love to hear about it.