I just read that this Agency is a scam. I have been writing a girl for a year now on this agency site, so I would like to hear from others if they have had problems. This girl I write seems to answer most questions I have, writes incredibly long letters each time, never asks for money etc. However, I also notice now that the Allure site is down, and now all of a sudden this Tanya is writing me personally from her computer at work, which wasn't possible before. Now that I have mentioned to come and see her, she comes down with illnesses or has time to go on vacations. Now I have seen scams before, but this did not have any smell like that. Now I am beginning to question it. I'd like to hear from others who have had dealings with this agency.
Anybody else who has written to Tatiyana Komova?
you've written to her for a YEAR?? Jeezzz, you've got either patience or a lack of hormones. Now gather your guts and some money and phone this girl. In a single talk you can decide if she's genuine or not, simply because you tell her very precisely what you think, hunch or suspect.
If she keeps writing you after the agency has gone bank, apparently without any gains (no money, flowers & gifts maybe?) then there's at least 'something' else - but she also could like you.
Phone her and find out. And don't beat around the bush, tell he politely what you think and hear her out. How difficult can it be?
she hasn't asked fopr money, gifts, or other materiel possessions? If she was an agency mole, there to keep your monthly money coming, I dont think she would keep contacting you. Have you spoken on teh phone? Have you exchanged personal letters through the regular post mail? She tells you NOT to come for various reasons? I can't figure it out....maybe she is legit.
Bret. If you haven't already then read my post "Warning about Allure Marriage Agency" on page 8 or 9 of this forum. With Allure asking for money or gifts outright is not their MO. They make plenty of steady income off of you because you are using their email forwarding of your letters I'm sure. For me it was five dollars a letter. The last time Allure's site went down it came back up month's later with a new web address. From what I understand they have done this often. Interesting that she is now writing you direct from work. That is new twist for Allure! If you have not had postal letter contact with a valid address (Not a post office box that Allure is known to use)or a telephone number or have not done anything else to verifiy that this girl is real then I'm 90% sure she does not exist! No matter what the letters have said or how many pics you have been emailed you must have proof she exist. I am consulting another guy who thinks right now he is being scammed by Allure as well. You both have similar stories going on and should work together. I will give him your email address.
Thanks guys and deanis.
No really, my hormones are intact!
I have sent flowers on special occasions a couple of times and sent another rather inexpensive gift another time. It did reach supposedly her at her address. Or at least someone who is writing the letters? She claims not to have a phone, so I have not been able to contact her that way. Oh yeah, and no camera for follow up pics. Until I actually saw what deanis wrote about this agency, I had no inkling anything could be wrong. Only now that I have told her I am coming to visit her, then she goes off on vacation and does not give me information I have asked for like can she get me a confirmation letter, prices on hotels that sort of thing. On the other hand, if it is a scam I would think they would try and draw you in to Astrakhan. Its got to be worth more than $5 per letter which we only do every 10 days or so anyway. What deanis states about the girl he was writing there writing fairly long letters, makes me wonder. Because they have made the effort. When I have seen a definite scam before, you don't get detailed letters back. Just enough to keep a guy sort of interested. I wouldn't think they would go to the trouble of writing long letters because they wouldn't have the time nor the interest. Also like most of them, their Grannys almost always seem to come up sick and then they need money for her. This has never been the case with Tatiyana. Even though her Granny has been ill?! She never has asked for money. Thats why what deanis writes shocks me.
But also, now that I cannot get into their site makes me wonder. But I would be interested in talking with this guy who also thinks he might be being had.
I have heard of this woman from another site, she wrote me a few letters, then told me about her Gran, and never asked me for money, however the other site then wrote to me and eventually removed her from their site, because she had been asking others for money. She is also featured on one of the scam sites, because men have gone to see her and she has made them pay for absolutely everything. Translator, and many nights out etc then dissappeared and never seen them again. The site that i came into contact was AFA, but i must admit that site isn't exactly squeaky clean themselves.
Bret, your right they do want to get you to Astrakhan and hire more of their services but they will settle for what they can get out of you. They are a small time agency and so they do have time to write personal letters back to you. I've seen their office and Alexey the owner has a laptop only. No catalogs to look through. No traffic going in and out of the office. The guy I mention in this post has already emailed you. Did you get it? His name is Christian. Chipscher is right. Anastasia Web is a full blown scam as bad as Allure. As for AFA I think the only thing they are guilty of is that their data base is so big that it gets outdated. They run a clean business but are so big it's hard to police themselves. Bottom line Bret is to start over. This girl is not going to happen for you.
Good luck!
I have heard from Christian. We are comparing notes as we speak. He also has a contact over there who is going to check her out for me.
Chrish 14, I would be interested to know of that other site where this Tatyana might be found on. I have never seen her on another site. Plus there are a lot of Russian chicks with similar names, so I wonder about that. But if you could locate something for me.
The only thing deanis is that she has told me I can phone her sometime at a girlfriends place, or use the agency?? I have done neither because I will not use the agency (even before this) and supposedly this chick has very little knowledge of English. And my Russian is non existent although she says her friend does speak English, and I could now go through a friends wife as he brought her over here from Russia a while ago. So now I could get translation from her. But so far I have not attempted this.
Tatyana has never asked me to use the agency except for saying we could go through the agency for a phone call. No mention of using the tour for airfare etc. Whenever I have told her to meet me in Moscow or Kiev and then we could go to Ashtraycan she just tells me everything is OK, just fly on my own and she will meet me at the airport in Astrakhan.
Nothing staggering that would point to scamming me out of money. She even tells me that the flowers I send are great, but save my money for to come and see her. Maybe because the flower money is into something they cannot spend!
It's possible she is the real deal and I hope I'm wrong about her. As with all scam agencies they must have just enough real girls to keep thier image alive. My Allure girls also never asked for money in any form. Just a lot of excitement in the chance of meeting me in Astrakhan. Let me know if you do decide to go. I have a good travel agency in Moscow that can take care of all your needs to reach Astrakhan. Good luck Bret!
it is possible that there are two ladies, but with the same name and the coming from the same town, and with the same story. I am no longer a member of AFA as i have found them to be disreputable. I have mentioned this in other threads. I found that when i cancelled my membership, they continued to take my subscripyion, and after 2-3 months of trying were only stopped when i threatened legal action via a legal contact that i have in the states. I still to date have not received my money back. Can't remember the scam site but i will have have a look in the next couple of days and get back to you.
First and foremost I want to thank you deanis for going to the trouble of relaying what Allure Agency is up to and for putting me on to Christian. Christian has been telling me some very poignant info and I just read a letter he received back in early November from the chick he was writing. As I suggested to him, if I was in to threesomes we should get together as it seems we are sharing the same girl already.
I have seen enough to know for sure. But it is unbelievable to the extent through which they go through. They put a fair amount of time into the letters, even though I now see they use alot of the same dialogue. As I wrote Christian, I am out probably $600 Canadian and plenty of time sitting in front of the computer writing long letters, but it could have been alot worse. I was close to making the plunge of going to ASHTRAYCAN and spending much more and wasting my time to boot. So I thank you guys for sharing info. One amusing thing, I sent a sweatshirt to ""Tatyana"" from the local university before Christmas. It cost me nearly $100 including postage to send but at least I got the next size larger fearing it might shrink. At least now it will probably fit Alexey at the agency! I have seen enough from others to keep 2 or 3 on the go at one time. The others I am in contact with are located on Globaladies. Any word if anything they do is reputable? Other than that, this experiment may be over. Both of the other girls I am writing there seem to be extremely sweet as well. Plus, two months or so ago I wrote "A Pretty Woman" and bought the address of #0703 Ilona Mikhienko. They tell you it is a private email address. However, this address linked me up to "Ukrainian Dating Agency" who claimed they were working with "A Pretty Woman". For sure this one is a total scam. I tried sending flowers twice and it ended up both times as being a fictitious address. The floral delivery tells me no such place exists. "A Pretty Woman" milked this address for quite some time before relenting and taking her bio off their site. I have tried to get my money back from them and from Ukrainian Dating Agency, but they of course both tell me to swing on a tree. Until this time, I more or less believed "A Pretty Woman" was on the up and up. I would no longer use their services as well. They are not much better than alot of these other ones. Which leads me to thinking this, are any of these so called agencies really reputable?
At the end of the day they are businesses, and operate under different constraints and principles than we are used to, or like. Who ever said that finding a woman this way was easy. Gladiator will tell you i'm sure that you've just got to keep trying and learn by your mistakes. The world can be a bad place, but there are still many nice ones, the internet is just the same, why shouldn't it be.
Bret,in the past I thought as you seem to have done that a BIG agency like "A Pretty Woman" and "AFA" were reasonably safe bets simply because of their size....how wrong I was.Both of those agencies led me to dead ends but not before making a good buck on the way.
The sad part of this is that so many of the anti-scam sites do not even recognize this.Could it be they are on to a good thing with these sites???........I know you should not tar everyone with the same brush,but it is very disheartening to find this out about such big players.
If there is enough response maybe all contributors here could set up our own database???
Just a thought...........over to the floor.......?
One problem i am having is that i think there are many more than 1 agency called anastaia. This site is linked to one, because the one i have just been on is run by russian. service, but i was on another which was totally different, and i presume a different organisation. Which one is the bad anastaia website.
"I have tried to get my money back from them and from Ukrainian Dating Agency, but they of course both tell me to swing on a tree."
Tried to instuct your bank to annull the charges, i.e. reverse them?
Back up your claims to them (your bank) with proper (e-mail)correspondence (with the agencies) and they will.
You entered a contract with them which you should prove was not honoured.
have checked out a couple of things since the last post, as far as i can tell 'anastasia.com' is the one that is known for the tours and is related to this site, 'anastasiaweb.com'is where i have located a lot of the women that io have recently been communicating with through this site, and that includes the lady i am hoping to go and see soon. Chip, your intervention here would be handy.
Bret. It was my pleasure to help. I feel bad for both you and Christian. He really liked this girl. This forum is solid gold to guys like us! We have no legal action that we can take against Allure and agencies like them but we do have this forum and the anti-scam blacklist sites. When they are American based agencies then you do have other options to go after them. For example when I discovered Anastasiaweb.com as a scam I just went to my credit card company and did a charge back. I had to provide documentation to present my case against them and bam it was done. Got all my money back! Anastasia International, Anastasiaweb.com and Scanna are all the same company and all are on many blacklist as scam agencies. As time goes on gentleman we are all getting smarter and more informed. Sooner or later we will be able to starve out these scam agencies. Resist the pretty bathing suit model on siberian babes.com and stick with a company that gives you a way out. A company that accepts credit cards or is American or even UK owned. Keep everything! Any sheet of paper or email may be your proof to get your money back in the future. Mom and pop will rip you off the first chance they get. I love the Ukrainian and Russian people I have met so far but I still remember these are desperate countries. Good luck everyone! Also, I leave for Kiev and Kharkov this Thursday. One month in Ukraine in the middle of January! What was I thinking? :)