Dating Websites – Genuine Relationships or Scammers?

Hi Keith
I would echo everything that you have said and advise Men to be very careful with so called dating scam websites and indeed forums run by guys claiming to be experts in dating East European women.
I came across a thread in one such forum which referenced this website and it was unbelievable.
Literally the most misogynist, bitter rant, which quite frankly illustrates the kind of men that women on dating/marriage websites unfortunately have to contend with.
They discussed a lady member of the site in the most appalling manner, simply because she didn’t wish to travel to another country for a casual hookup with a man who had just started to correspond with her.
From what was said, I couldn’t see a single thing that the lady had done wrong! She had been truthful and honest and these guys were tearing into her reputation in the most despicable way.
One of the self professed experts on the forum said UBA was a scam because one of the young lady members was online at midnight Ukraine time!!!
Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I certainly wouldnt consider a young person being awake and on the Internet at midnight unusual!
I literally couldn’t believe what I was reading from guys who claim to be knowledgeable about women!!
Digging a little deeper, said forum’s members have books detailing how to be successful with Russian/Ukranian for sale that they plug relentlessly, dating advisers, interpreters for hire etc.
More of a business than guys honestly wanting to help. Not a wonder that they attack this site – they see it as competition!!
My advice would be of course to keep your wits about you when dating online, but also to be wary of bitter, disturbed men with ulterior motives behind their ‘worldly advice’

• keith

  January 11, 2015 at 8:35 pm

  Hi John
  Thank you for your comments – you have described the situation perfectly.
  I know the forum discussion that you are referring to – it was a man who had only just joined our site and wanted a lady to join him overseas for his pleasure. The lady declined and suddenly she was mentioned in forum sites as a scammer. She wrote on the forum herself out of frustration and I also put across a few details about the man and he retracted his discussion and the thread stopped.
  These forums can cause much distress and anxiety for everyone concerned and I know that many of the forum sites are owned by dating sites to discredit all other sites but their own and contributors are professionals from the same site who are paid to write bad things about other sites and continue the dialogue for as long as possible.
  Similarly, many of the anti-scamming sites that highlight marriage sites that they consider to be less than genuine are also owned by marriage and dating sites.
  Over the last 2 months I have been communicating with an anti-scamming site who labeled us as a scam. They claimed that our chats are only carried out by agencies – not the actual lady.
  I contacted him and pointed out that we have video chat, so you can see her at any time while chatting and that we offer refunds if we find that an agency has been pretending to be a lady. We check this ourselves proactively by monitoring the ratio of text chat versus video chat for each lady. If she has had a number of text chats and no video chats, we give her one week to correct the balance or we will refund the men and dismiss her from the site.
  The owner of the anti-scamming site ignored me for a month, but my persistence paid off when he finally sent me an email to say that he would remove reference to my site and negative comments about my site from his site. I was not satisfied with this so suggested that if he was now convinced that we are not scamming, as he had previously claimed, we should be listed as a good site, not remove all reference to us. This showed that he was only interested in promoting his own site.
  He wrote me back and said that he had changed his mind – he would now say worse things about us. He said that I should not dictate what he says and what he does not say on his site. He even sent me a copy of the American Constitution where he is free to say what he wants.
  I threatened legal action against him if he did not correct the situation and at this point he is going to remove all reference to our site from his site. This means that visitors to his anti-scamming site will only see his own marriage site as the preferred site to use – all other sites (we will now be excluded) will be tagged as dishonest.
  It is very sad that visitors to these anti-scamming sites can be swayed by dishonest claims and there is nothing much the other sites can do about it.
  John, I thank you for taking the time to write your thoughts in our blog section. You are accurate in your comments
  Keith

  Reply
  • Kelly

    January 21, 2015 at 3:53 am

    HI Keith

    I have just come across this blog and thought a few words might be in order.

    A woman who in interested in finding a husband goes to their local marriage agency and signs up. The agency of the woman gets some nice photos done, writes about herself and waits to see what happens. Then after 97% of the men who chose to write to them never go to Ukraine one or two might finally turn up to visit them and then that can either go well or not.

    The agencies list the woman with a number of different websites in order to maximize the chances of the woman finding a man and of course it also helps generate income for the agency and websites. The agency and websites have to cover costs.

    There is one large organisation that has their database of women on about 23 different websites. You will also see that when you use the search engine on other sites it is very similar as they are all using the same database. This is normal practice. Neither the ladies nor the agencies can possibly know which website a man may use to contact his lady of choice.

    In regards to websites and how legitimate they are perhaps i can relate this story to you. After about a month of coming home i was emailed by a friend of mine, whom i am trying to get him to go to ukraine, found a picture of my Sveta on a page in a website. It is a very beautiful picture so I would use it too.

    I wrote to this website, which i have never used and never will, and explained who the woman was, that we were engaged and that i would hope they would remove her photo from that webpage. I hasten to add she was not listed as being available just part of an internal advertisement.

    I did not expect a reply at all but within two days i got an email from the website owner congratulating me and sveta and advising he had also removed her from the add and apologized for the oversight. Keith I had a look at this website today and most of the agencies he lists use the same large database. So only some sites are legit and some are not.

    What really upsets me is the anti-scam site that has your homepage with Sveta’s video on it. Is he trying to say that both Sveta and I are trying to defraud other users of your site?

    I notice how he says that he accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of the site. Give me a break. After all of this, it come down to the girl herself. An agency can only screen and discern so much from these women. If the woman is into playing games, they will soon be found out.

    Now some girls may have to go to the office for a video chat if they do not have a camera, or they may be chatting when they are at work and can not use the camera at work, so make a time to talk to them with a camera. If you like them, ask them for their contact details through the website and when you have another video chat tell them you are going to ring them on their mobile during chat and this is another way you can check they are who they say they are.

    All of these checks and balances still can not 100% assure you that the girl you are talking to is not a scammer, no one can know what is in another persons mind, but you can only find a good site, do your homework and see what happens.

    Rule 1. Never send any money until you have first meet in person. A Ukrainian girl will never ask for money. I am still trying to get Sveta to talk about money as this is part of the Visa interview. I have been sending Sveta some money every week since July 1 as she and Renat are now my responsibility. It took 6 weeks for her to start using the money and she always asks if she can use it, although now she is feeling a bit more confident about it.

    Keith I am often asked by my friends how much this whole adventure has cost me so far. I have spent what i would say would be far beyond the normal costs but I am fortunate enough to be in a business that can fund this spending. I would like to say however that the cheapest part of the whole process has been the money I spent with this website))). That must say something about the integrity of the website and the agencies used.

    Now we intend to got to thailand for two weeks with Sveta, Renat and her mum.

    Now before you all start running for the hills, you can do it for a lot cheaper. I fly business class when i go away, i stay in good motels etc as the whole lot is a tax deduction))).

    You can get to Ukraine from Australia for around $3000, get a cheap apartment for around $50-75 per night and get an engagement ring for under $1000. So you could get over to see your girl, and ask for her hand in marriage for around $5000.

    If it was not for being fortunate to have the business i have I would also be doing it for the $5000. To put it another way that $10 per week for a whole year to find a partner for the rest of your life))). The worst thing you guys can do is spend all your time chatting online. You need to chat to find ‘the one’ and the go over and see her I waited for 3 months before i went over and saw my Sveta, but I would suggest anything from one month to three months is a good thing. Basically guys if you can afford the plane fare that tells the girls you can support them and your family.

    The worst thing you can do is go over there without chatting to anyone before hand. If you want to do that, go by yourself, do not go on these big tours/quests, it is a form of speed dating and that has never worked for me and i dare say most of the men who go on these tours.

    If you are not sure about ‘the one’ make arrangements to meet more than one woman when you are there, especially if your are on a tight budget. I am happy to talk with any one of you about my experiences at any time. No I do not get paid a single cent for my comments but do not pay attention to that idiot Dave (Anti Scam site). Happy searching)))

    Reply
    • keith

      January 24, 2015 at 8:50 pm

      Thank you Kelly
      We watch the progress of your pending marriage to Sveta with great interest and we hope you have a wonderful time in Thailand.

      You have made some great points in your post.

      There are many men who write for a while but never plan a trip to meet the special lady. Then they accuse her of just wanting to extend the communication indefinitely. They fail to see that she is waiting for him to visit her.

      I am also in frequent discussions with the Anti-Scam site that you refer to (Dave). He has all his opposition listed as scammers and promotes his own marriage site as the only genuine site. I confronted him about this and he says he is free to say what he likes – he quoted the first amendment of the American Constitution at me!

      We are listed as scammers on his site because we had some ladies waiting to chat at 5am Ukraine time. I pointed out to him that as I am based in New Zealand, a large percentage of the men who use our site are New Zealanders and Australians and we are 9 and 11 hours ahead of Ukraine. These men register during their day time and if a lady wants to contact him before the other ladies, she must be available during her night. If you are serious you will do this.

      Many of the New Zealand and Australian men that want to chat with ladies must get up at 4am or 5am and chat before they go to work.

      I think this fellow Dave is unrealistic or maybe he only has USA men using his site. Time differences are an obstacle when you have a global site.

      Kelly, thank you again for your posts. You offer invaluable advice that assists all men (and ladies) in their search.

      Please tell us all how the trip to Thailand goes.

      Reply