How To Avoid being Scammed

Some Warning Signs

Definition of a Scam

Translation (agency) Fraud

What to do if You've been the Victim of a Scam

What to do if You Suspect the Girl You're Writing to may be a Scammer

Reporting a Scammer to Her Agency

Fortunately, this isn't so difficult. The easiest way to avoid being scammed is to simply never send a girl money, at least not until you've met her in person. At the very least not until you've corresponded with her for several months, have spoken often by phone and gotten to know each other very well. But it should never really be necessary to send a girl money until you have met each other in person at least once.

Better not to even bring up the subject of money yourself. Once you open the door by offering to pay for her correspondence expenses, you shouldn't be surprised if the girl accepts your offer. And if she inflates the cost of her expenses she may not be a scammer at all, but is only taking advantage of an opportunity that you presented her with. Let's not forget that life is hard and money scarce for women in the FSU.

Don't stress or brag about your wealth in your letters. Especially if you're an older gentleman and are writing to mainly younger girls, you're only trolling for scammers by doing this. Better to write about your interests, your hobbies, and your dreams for the future. Don't try to tempt girls by describing your summer home, your luxury cars and expensive toys. Do you really want a girl to be attracted to you for your wealth? If so, you're only asking for trouble ;-)

Demonstrate in your first and subsequent letters that you're serious, that you understand what's involved in marrying a foreign bride. Let her know up front that you plan to visit her in her city in the very near future if there is mutual interest. This will frighten off many potential scammers. Use proper punctuation and good grammar, type in complete sentences and check your spelling. Paying attention to detail in your own letters will make you a less vulnerable target, and at the same time sharpen your awareness and make you more appealing to the vast majority of honest ladies out there!

It is a myth perpetuated by marriage agencies that Russian women prefer to marry older men. The fact is that Russian women are individuals, and just like girls in any other country some will prefer older men, but most would prefer to marry someone closer to her own age. If you are an older gentleman and are corresponding with younger girls, your chances of being scammed increase substantially. And if the girl looks like a model, your chances of being scammed are greater still. It's really just common sense.

If a girl asks you to help pay for her correspondence expenses, you can easily and safely test her sincerity by offering to pay for mail forwarding yourself. This would not involve sending any money to her personally. If she's an honest girl who's sincerely interested in you, she will accept this offer gladly. If not, she will disappear and you'll not have wasted either your time or money.

When you're serious about a girl and plan on meeting her, you'll certainly want to call her by phone. Scammers don't usually like this, and you'll frighten "most" of them away by calling several times. If you need to use the services of a translator, hire a third party to do it. She may not want to give you her phone number at once, but if she refuses to give it to you after a reasonable length of correspondence, you should be suspicious. Obviously if you're never able to talk to her by phone at all, something is very wrong.

Educate yourself. You're at the right place to do that ;-) Learn what's really involved in bringing a foreign bride to your country. Everyone should do this before begin a serious correspondence. Familiarize yourself with the warning signs, and visit the forum to learn from others, and share your ideas and suspicions. Browse the names and addresses of known scammers listed on this site, and view the photos often used by scammers.

Request her post address (clarify it with her) and then send her a post letter with some pictures. Send several, and if she claims never to receive any of them, you'll know something's wrong.

Summary

1. Don't send money! This is the golden rule of avoiding scams - follow it and you're safe!
2. Don't make yourself a target for scammers by stressing your wealth or showing that you don't understand what's involved in marrying a foreign bride
3. Do familiarize yourself with the warning signs
4. Do let her know that you plan to visit her soon, and understand what's involved in marrying a foreign bride.

These are only some indications that "may" mean you are being set-up for a scam. Taken by themselves they could be quite innocent, but they are some things you should watch out for:

• The photos look too-good-to-be-true. This is always the first giveaway. Scammers rarely use photos of "plain" looking girls. Quite often they use photos of foreign models or even actresses or pop stars! We've seen this many times, so we've included a photo album of favorite beauties that are often used by scammers.

  This doesn't mean that you should suspect every girl who has beautiful photos! But if the photo appears to have been scanned from a magazine, or she has a whole series of "model" shots which are just too perfect, it's wise to be suspicious. Maybe she really is a model, it's not unheard of; but when combined with other warning signs, this one is usually a dead giveaway.

• Overly tender letters at the very beginning of your correspondence. For example if she calls you "My Darling", or signs her first letters to you "with love". Many men do this too, by the way. It may mean nothing at all, but it certainly could be a prelude to predation.
• Vague letters with no or few questions about you. She may write very loving letters about how much she needs you, misses and loves you, yet doesn't seem interested in you personally. A lady seriously considering marriage with you will obviously have many questions!
• Your questions are never or rarely answered. However this is one warning sign that is sometimes misinterpreted. The lady may not know your language very well, and she may need time to fully translate your letter and her replies to your specific questions. So, depending on the lady's understanding of English (or whatever language you're corresponding in), she may need more time to respond directly to your questions.
• Her letters may seems like "form" letters, and if she is a scammer, they are form letters. They're usually doled out in order - reply 1, reply 2, etc. Usually a new "model shot" taken "just for you" will be included. If she's working on many men at once (and scammers usually are), you may even receive letters addressed to someone else! Usually that's a good time to bail out ;-)

  Her letters may become progressively sexual, and her photos more seductive. This is a common theme throughout the varying scams.

• She's extremely beautiful and you're old enough to be her father. Let's face facts: young beautiful girls don't have to settle for a man so much older and most won't want to. For many years this myth has been perpetuated by marriage agencies: that Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern European girls prefer much older men. Some do, sure, just like girls in every other country. But your chances of being scammed only increase with the age difference. I don't want to give the wrong impression about this, since my wife is 13 years younger than I am ;-) I think that is a reasonable age difference for some people. But we often see 60 year old men writing to 20 - 25 year old girls, and that's just asking for trouble.
• Hint's about how expensive Internet cafes are. They really are expensive, by the way. But most Russian, Ukrainian and FSU ladies don't use Internet cafe's for their correspondence. The majority of girls will have Internet access at work, or through a friend. They may pay someone for this service, but if they claim it's costing them $50 - $100 per month, you need to be suspicious. My wife was fortunate enough to have a PC and Internet access at her home, and she made some extra money by helping her girlfriends place their profiles on dating sites, translating letters for them, etc. This is how we met, by the way ;-) It's a very common thing for women to help each other this way, and most girls will be able to find such an opportunity. And besides Internet cafes, there are business centers in almost every city where e-mail can be sent and received very inexpensively.
• A tragedy occurred and money is urgently needed. This is the "springing of the trap" and usually will happen after she's worked on you for awhile. The sob-story could be almost anything - one of her parents are ill, or her child, and they could die unless an expensive operation is performed. Her money was lost or stolen, the rent is due and she could be evicted and wind up on the streets. She has a mean nasty boss that will fire her if she doesn't have sex with him, and she's a virgin saving herself for you, etc., etc. There are endless variations on this theme. Don't fall for it! Not unless you've met the girl and her family in person or otherwise know the story to be true. But if that was the case, you probably wouldn't be here reading this, would you? ;-)
• She wants to visit you in the USA, and needs money for the visa/tickets. It's a scam, no questions. Grab your wallet and run ;-) While it is possible for a women to obtain a tourist visa to visit the USA, it's very difficult, especially for a young lady. A certain income level must be met and there are other restrictions. While it's less trouble for a FSU lady to visit other countries besides the USA, this still remains one of the most common scams, so watch out!

This is somewhat subjective. But for the purpose of this site, we'll define it as obtaining money by means of deception. Specifically we are concerned about those women who make this their practice, who are in the business of scamming men.

We will also discuss scammers masquerading as marriage agencies/translation services. Please see our topic: Translation (agency) Frauds.

There are many other types of deception that won't qualify a woman to be published as a scammer on this site. Unfortunately people lie to each other, women are just as often the victim of this as men. For example you if you find out that a woman you're writing to has a boyfriend she didn't tell you about in her own country, or is corresponding secretly with someone else - this won't land her on these pages. But this type of information you can share in our forum.

First of all, you've come to the right place. You've got a right to be angry, and here is the place where you can channel that anger constructively, by exposing the scammer and helping other men avoid the same fate. Legal retribution is probably not going to happen - the girl is a far away and this will not be a priority for the authorities in her country. But by exposing her scams we can make it much more difficult for her to operate and possibly cause her some embarrassment.

By the way, we always refer to "her" on this site when discussing scammers, but it is just as likely that you are actually dealing with a "him". Not a nice thought, is it? It could very well be an Igor or a Sergei that you've been corresponding with, and the girl picking up the money at the Western Union office is his sister or girlfriend.

If you've already sent money - it's gone. Time to cut your losses, learn from the experience and move on. Don't let it spoil your opinion of all all Russian and FSU girls, or ruin your hopes of finding a foreign bride. Now, after visiting this site and exploring these topics you'll be much better prepared, and you won't fall victim again. You'll know a scammer long before she can spring her trap, and you'll be able to avoid most of them in the first place.

Here's what you should do if you've been scammed:

• Report the scammer to us. See our "Report A Scammer" page for details.
• Contact the agency or dating site where you met her. Please read or topic "Reporting a Scammer to her Agency"
• Report the scam to each of her e-mail service providers. You'll need to send proof, including the full headers of the e-mail messages you received where her scam becomes clear. Probably she's using "throw away" e-mail addresses anyway, but it doesn't hurt to make these complaints. Send your complaint to: "abuse@her_provider.ext" (i.e. abuse@mail.ru). "Abuse" is the usual mailbox setup for these complaints, however you can CC a copy to postmaster@her_provider.ext also.
• Reporting this sort of scam to big bureaucracies like the FBI is, frankly speaking, not very productive - they've got bigger fish to fry. But it doesn't hurt and might at least make you feel better to file a complaint with them ;-)
• By the same token, you may report her to both your country's embassy in her country, and her country's embassy in yours. Here's a searchable directory of embassies around the world.
• Create your own web page exposing her scam, and submit it to all the search engines. You can use one of the many free home page communities, or the web space provided to you by your ISP for this. AntiScam.org already does this for you, but it doesn't hurt to have more exposure ;-) This is arguably the most effective measure you can take. Most men will likely run a search engine check on the girl they're writing to. I know from observing our own server logs that it happens all the time. (hint: put her name and city in the title of the web page)

• Obviously, don't send her any money ;-)
• Check the scammer database for her name and browse for her photo. If you don't find her there, visit our forum and share your suspicions about her. You'll get some advice and perhaps find someone else who's corresponded with her.
• It is possible for you to hire someone to run a background check on her, but most of the time I think it's unnecessary - at least to determine if she scammer or not. This would make more sense if you have other doubts about her. If she's not trying to scam you, and you meet her in person after a few months, you'll be able to check her out for yourself in a much less intrusive fashion.
• Many services which deliver flowers or gifts will also (optionally) take a photograph of the girl for you and even ask to see her passport. Again, arrange this through a third party service, rather than through the same agency which provided you with the girl's contact information ;-)
• If you decide after all that she "is" a scammer, it may be time to turn the tables on her let her play out her scam only long enough to gather more proof against her (without sending her money, of course). You may not want to waste your own time doing that, but probably someone else will be happy begin corresponding with her for that purpose. "Scammer hunting" becomes a hobby for many guys who have once been a victim, you'll meet them on the forum. Usually better to leave this (scammer hunting) to others, after all your main objective is to find a good girl and that's where you should be spending your time and energy!
• If after consulting us and others on our forum, you decide she's not a scammer at all, then you'll want to continue your relationship.

The thing to remember here is "be polite"; give enough details so that the agency knows exactly who and what you're telling them about, and include proof of the scam. Operate under the assumption that the agency is honest and concerned about scammers. Give them a chance to do something about it before you become angry with them. Don't ever threaten to post negative comments about them "unless they delete the girl's profile at once", or something like that. Nobody likes to be threatened, and an honest agency will likely be more suspicious of the "sender" of this report than they are of the one being accused. Each agency may have their own policy, but in general, here's what information you should send them:

• Profile number or ID of the girl on their site
• The name she used in the profile on their site
• A detailed description of her scam
• The results of her scam (i.e. you sent her X amount of money, she disappeared)
• Some proof of the scam. (i.e letters where she asks you for money, describes the tragedy in her life, etc.) If you're able, most agencies will appreciate receiving the full email "headers" of the scam letters.
• If she is already listed as a scammer on AntiScam.org, send the agency a link to her details page.
• Your name and contact information. If you don't want your name and details made public, you should request that specifically.