Each week we send an email to you in which we introduce our latest ladies to you – the ladies who have newly registered onto the site.
Usually I will take the opportunity to write a few words about something that may have happened, some feedback I may have received from members or some advice to help you in your search.
These weekly comments are automatically saved into our blog section and you can review these any time by going to the blog at http://www.ukrainebridesagency.com/blog/
Last week I asked in the email whether ladies should pay to use the site and invited feedback. There was a lot of feedback on that, some through the blog section and some by email direct to me – which I placed onto the blog section as comments on my initial post.
We encourage comments onto the blog section as it keeps us updated with current thinking and opinions and helps us to provide the service that you want. We cant always change things to suit the requirements of each member and we dont always agree – every site has different ways of doing things, but we value your opinion as it helps us to understand and make changes were we can.
You can add comments to the blog at any time, especially after you read the weekly email where you will see instructions below on how to do this.
While we encourage feedback, we do need to have communication rules to keep the comments positive and rewarding.
For that reason, comments must not contain any of the following:
Personal attacks on other contributing members
Names or contact details of site users
Links to other sites
Unsubstantiated claims that have not been reported to us previously at [email protected]
We will contact you and ask you to moderate your comments if you breach these rules or we may not publish your comments.
We all have opinions on how things should be, and good healthy discussion can lead to a better understanding of all perspectives. Please remember that opinions are just that – your opinion and it may not be the same as everyone else, however discussion can lead to change or compromise.
Nadezhda is a romantic who enjoys writing poetry and painting. She loves travelling and experiencing different cultures. In her free time, she volunteers at local shelters, practices yoga, and loves quiet moments with a good book and a cup of herbal tea.
Hello, I was told to come here by a couple of my members. There appears to be a small debate among certain members of my team as to whether or not your site is a legitimate service. Do you mind talking to me a little bit about your site?
Hi David
Thank you for contacting us. I would be more than happy to tell you about us.
Seven years ago I was speaking with some friends in Ukraine who were using marriage sites to find a foreign partner but they were being scammed. That is correct – the ladies were being used to attract men to the site/agency and the ladies were never told that men were interested in them. The site/agency was pretending to be the ladies and scamming both the men and the ladies.
I went about setting up a site that would remain genuine and we offer money back refunds against agencies or ladies who are proven to be less than genuine in their search for a foreign husband.
We have an office in Nikolaev and offer online support 24/7 by email, telephone and skype. We have also developed our own travel business and provide travel and accommodation through our services.
We only work with agencies that prove to us that they are genuine and can offer the same assurances that form the basis of our business objectives. Agencies are selected and listed on our site after a rigorous vetting process and then enter a trial period until we are satisfied that they meet the criteria that you would expect when you use our site.
A number of these agencies have met and exceeded our criteria over a long period of association with us and we recognise them by marking them as Elite.
An Elite Agency has been selected for meeting or exceeding the following criteria:
• Has been in business for 5 years or longer
• Has had at least 10 marriages to foreign men
• Has never had a lady exposed as a scammer or as being dishonest
• Has received positive feedback from every man who has met one or more of their ladies
• Responds to communication within 24 hours
• Treats all ladies and men with professionalism and respect at all times
All agencies on the site have been vetted and are genuine, but Elite Agencies have proven themselves to go over and beyond expectations and come with our highest recommendations.
We vet all agencies and ladies prior to working with them and listing their ladies on the site and proactive vetting continues even after they are listed with us
Our vetting of agencies includes:
Ensuring they have 5 years experience
Proven successful marriages
Where they advertise for ladies and how their ads are worded
Do they have their own website – and what does it say
What office facilities they have including computers and translators
What other sites are they listed on
References from men and ladies
A signed agreement including rewards, fines and standards.
Our vetting of ladies (and we vet EVERY lady) includes:
Copies of her passport pages
Her divorce paperwork
Her email address and phone number
Their social network pages
We call each lady and interview with her to ensure she is genuinely listed on the site and we ask her to verify her contact details, passport details and place of birth.
When the agency is working with us and we have their ladies listed we continue proactive vetting including:
Calling the ladies and rechecking their contact details, asking her if she is still active on the site and the usernames of any men she is corresponding with
Requesting video chats with online ladies to ensure they accept and go into video chat with us
Monitoring each lady to see how often she is online, how many men she is communicating with and how many letters she is sending out
Keeping a register of complaints to identify trends and patterns
We pay the agencies their commission near the end of the following month so that they know we will withhold the previous months commissions if they carry out any dishonest activity.
As a site administrator, when I look at a lady’s profile on our site, I see triple the information that a member can see – all part of the vetting process.
The vetting process is continually updated as we find better ways of ensuring that we offer a genuine service.
We protect the interests of both men and women who use our site.
A marriage service between men and women, Ukraine and foreign, in an industry that has been rife with scamming for years, is not an easy task – and there is no guaranteed success. The women on the site also have a say on whether a relationship will develop – they have feelings and a soul as well. Too many men join thinking that they are buying from a catalogue.
Our staff are sometimes afraid to open an email or answer a call because of the man that is calling – he is so rude and obnoxious that the staff ask if I will answer him rather than them. These men treat the ladies on the site the same and then call us scammers because they cant achieve success. There are many such men using marriage sites.
I note that most of the contributors to your site claim that a pay per letter site will always be a scam. I do not accept this.
I have done extensive research into the pay per letter sites versus the pay per month option and believe that scamming can be prevalent on either – if allowed to continue without penalty.
There are opportunities for scam agencies and ladies to generate income from a dating site. This can happen with the pay per letter option – and the monthly subscription system.
I understand the comments that many of your members make about pay per letter sites and dont disagree – except that we continually vet agencies and ladies, follow up on complaints, refund men and fine agencies. That is a very brief overview of what is a time consuming process.
It soon becomes obvious to us who is attempting to scam and after deactivating ladies and continually fining the agency they decide we are not worth the trouble and they leave us. Often these are agencies with poor infrastructure.
However, I have done much research on monthly subscription sites, especially this year and I find that all is not too well with those either.
Any agency that works with a subscription site must be paid to recoup their overheads – and it needs to be enough to keep their business alive. Despite assurances from the subscription sites that they will be paid a minimum amount (and they get paid by letter and chat also), they are not generating enough income to actually pay the agencies – promises have been broken.
This is seeing the better agencies, with good infrastructure (offices, computers, support staff, translators, etc) not working with subscription sites any more. They cant sustain the service on the income they are receiving. This leaves the agencies that are not as reputable working with these subscription sites – and they are using any method to get on top and be paid the most.
Often, these sites themselves dont have support staff to follow up on complaints (as they are budget priced) and the scamming is almost ignored, although action is taken when push comes to shove.
Similarly, men complain that on pay per month sites that can get any ladies contact details included in the a small monthly subscription and communicate with her offsite. However, given the IMBRA Law, which not many sites and agencies fully understand, it is illegal for a site to offer this to any man from USA.
Last month, Jeremy Little, Immigrant VISA Chief from the US Embassy in Kiev visited our offices and spoke with all our staff about the IMBRA Law requirements and the K1 VISA process.
Jeremy was extremely pleased that we carry out the IMBRA requirements perfectly and he complimented us on our diligence and procedures. On his return to Kiev he sent us the following email:
Subject: From the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine
I would like to thank your staff for making themselves available to discuss important issues relating to IMBRA. We appreciate that you and your colleagues are working hard to do your part to fulfill IMBRA requirements and protect your clientele from domestic violence. Your warm welcome and thoughtful questions ensured that our short meeting was time well spent. If you have future questions relating to IMBRA compliance or the K1 process in general, please feel free to contact me.
Jeremy P. Little | Immigrant Visa Chief | US Embassy Kyiv |
If a site is not concerned about IMBRA regulations, then it is probably not concerned about much else either, including whether a man and a lady will get genuine service and have a fair chance of finding true love.
If a man is only paying a small fee each month and can write to as many ladies as he wishes, how are the agencies being paid? How do they pay their overheads? Worse still, what happens when you write to her privately or you visit her? I note that many pay per month sites don’t offer refunds.
What these sites will do to cover the basic costs is to load many sexy ladies on the site with very provocative photos. If 1 man writes only to 1 lady, then they cant pay the overheads.
However, if she has sexy photos and is permitted to be suggestive, then she will have 100+ men writing to her. Then the site and the agency can pay the overheads.
But what chance does any man have when he is 1 in 100 and she is possibly only after your money anyway. Just because she is on a pay per month site does not mean she is not being paid to communicate or is seriously looking for a foreign husband, although many ladies are genuine of course.
Our thinking is that a man can write a couple of letters, go and meet the lady and marry her. His outlay to us is little – and it has happened a number of times. We are happy as that is what we are here for.
If she insists he keeps writing, refuses to meet him, is constantly online and looking for chats, then he complains to us and we investigate. It becomes obvious what she is doing and we refund the man. That is the criticism of pay per letter sites – that women are paid to communicate and generate income. But the vetting process that we have in place, coupled with the refunds offered (and fining of agencies) means we have a control over that criticism.
The reason we charge for a ladies contact details is that we want him to be 100% certain he wants to do that and communicate off site. Once they leave the site, we cant monitor and we cant offer refunds.
We want to offer a genuine service where men have assurance that we will monitor, investigate and refund. That takes time and labour and comes with costs – but you have that assurance.
David, you asked for a few words about our site. I am sorry but I have offered more than a few words. We are genuine and we are passionate. Too often we are criticised by men who have never used us and don’t believe that we can be any different to other sites.
If you speak with someone who has used us seriously, you will find that we are different.
Hi David
you might have seen my posts about my dealing with Keith and the UBA site. I have been through the process and we have finally got all of the documents ready to apply for the fiancée visa for Australia. They arrived from the Ukraine today with a hand written note in russian from my fiancées 6 year old son. he is just learning to write and starts school in september.
I spent three months on this site, went to ukraine, meet one girl only, spent 14 days with her and her son and family and asked her to marry me. She said yes. We have meet again in feburary this year in thailand as getting a tourist visa to australia from ukraine is problematic. We spent another 14 days together and on the night she left we were all in tears, so strong is the bond between us.
I have always had keith support any time i needed it and he has always done what i have asked of him. I do not know is she will stay with me but i believe she will as she wants to make it work for us and for her son. If she finds she wants to go home that is just life. At least with UBA i know i am talking to Sveta and i have had such help since sveta and i left the site from keith and UBA and her agency in Zaporozhye “jasmin” without charge i can not speak highly enough of all of them. i talk every day to sveta and have done so for over 12 months without payment to UBA.
I know that i can always contact keith and he will be there to offer advice free of charge. If you are thinking about money, i spent under $200 on all of the letters and chats we did. In fact we only ever had 4 video chats before i went to ukraine.
the worst thing you can do if you are serious in your search is spend too much time chatting, being on a lot of website, get of your ass and go and visit the girl you are interested in for at least 7 days. You can not realistically expect to form a relationship from group tours or cold canvassing. You need to develop your relationship through letters and video chats before you go. I recommend and it is what worked for me is 3 months before you go. it is long enough for the girl to get to know you but no too long that she does not think you are just another letter writer.
However, the time spent on any site and the first trip is only the very start of the journey. I started talking to Sveta in March of 14, went to Ukraine in June 14. We started getting documents organised in July of 14. Applied twice for a tourist visa for her and were rejected twice for reasons that defy logic. We now have the documents for the fiancée visa. It took that long as we wanted meet twice before we applied (australian visa rules) which happened in Feburary 2015. So the documents arrived today. so we hope by the end of this month we will have lodged our fiancée visa and we wait upto 12 months for approval, or the start of the appeals process if it is rejected for some reason. David, keith has my contact details and i am more than happy to talk to you away from site if i can help you in any way.
Я желаю вам наилучшего на будущем с дамой и ее сыном. Удачи вам товарищ.
(translation) I wish you the best for the future with a lady and her son. Good luck mate.
Perfect translation Keith. I made a slight error with ‘a’ instead of ‘your’.
spasibo 🙂
thanks Glen))) very much ))))
Actually yeah I like the Site ! So far So Good
Hi to staff of Ukraine Brides
I am inquiring about the opinions of ladies paying to register on any date sites?.
I know that some men pay a charge per letter and offer offer discount (percentage) deals on bulk buying of per letter charge or monthly chrges or unlimited e-mails.
Both have their merits and floors.
What I may suggest is that if a lady does make a genuine and honest contact with a client could she pay a small fee after making a certain number of e-mails to that client?.
I do understand that their are many costs in running a business nothing is free these days. It can be a bum on seats sort of issue pardon my expression.
Many tahnks any way I have yet to find my queen but i am still working out how your site operates.
regards
Alex
Hi, there’s some lovely girls on the site,
wondering if it’s possible to include a bit more info on the gallery pics, like height, and maybe level of schooling, or one line from girl about herself.
Also I really like the psychological profile on some of the other sites, (which I think I’d better not name) due to the difficulties of setting that up, maybe just get people to self rate on a scale, things like intellect, need for time together, need for physical contact, interest in career vs family, how charitable they are towards strangers, etc.
If there was a bar graph of such traits, I could quickly decide if I want to read the whole profile,
regards Simon
Thanks for your comments Simon
You are correct – there is much more info that we can place on a ladies profile. The good news is that there are big changes coming over the next couple of months and you will see much of this happen.
In that regard that rating scale should also be available to the ladies. As there are just aswell less honorable men about who just seek trophies.
At this point I have yet to find that special lady. One suggestion I would make, being we are paying customers, each lady should be required to have at least one photo that is not photo shopped or cropped. I understand the ladies point, that she is trying to impress us, but the fact of the matter is that reality will take place and honesty is the foundation. Some of the photos after communication is established are much different. This wasted time for both the ladies and men and our points. Thank you for allowing me this time,
Thanks Rodney
Fair point and we will take it on board
Hi Rodney
that is a great idea i think. I would like to say however that whether they are professional or home made photo’s they never seem to do justice to the Ukrainian women))). If you have never been to Ukraine you will be shocked by the beauty of the women and how much time and effort they take to present themselves in the very best light possible. It was said to me when I was in Ukraine that it is rare for a Ukrainian woman to take out the garbage without hair and makeup. Now that might be overstating it a little bit, but i think you get the idea.
if nothing else,when you are ready, go for a visit. You will have a wonderful time in Ukraine, the staff at UBA and the agencies are great and the Ukrainians are a very helpful lot. You can also have some fun practicing your Russian. I spent two weeks in the same hotel and after a week started to try to say some Russian. The staff of the hotel then started to try to speak English. It turns out we were all to shy to try each others language. Once we felt comfortable we each other we had a great time learning.
Good luck on your journey
Agreed, I recall a previous post of from Keith now where he encourages men to post pictures of themselves meaning that there are several male profiles whithout pictures with ladies complaining about this. If you enforce this measure to the ladies than men also will have to comply in my opinion.
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