Is this typical with letters.....

[Elen]

I heard American solved such problems with so called "rest houses" Are you going to send you mom to russian "богодельня"  or hire a personal nurse to her when time comes for this need ? or you are going convince your american husband to bring your mom to America?

Any way you can't just say there is NOT any problem with old parents.

[TheArrow]

I heard American solved such problems with so called "rest houses" Are you going to send you mom to russian "богодельня"  or hire a personal nurse to her when time comes for this need ? or you are going convince your american husband to bring your mom to America?

Any way you can't just say there is NOT any problem with old parents.

My American friend will never do that.

Why are you so agressive towards to me, eh? Did I offend you? And why do you think, I have American husband?

Problems exist everywhere. But there is no confidence that somebody will not send his/her parent to "богАдельня" (the alms-house, in English) in Russia. I have seen seen many facts here when young people got rid of their old parents doing that.

[Elen]

Agressive??? What words did you take as agressive? May be it's better to repeat all this on Russian? I TOLD there was NO personal. Why is discussion a real problem with old perents AGRESSIVE thing.?

Why are you so agressive towards to me, eh? "богАдельня" Yes you're familar with that word better than I:D

I'm NOT about you at all. Is there something wrong with you as you take that such personal?

  It was YOU who told first you had no problems with leaving mom beside if it would be nessesary to make you own life. My question was only about how did you see that? What agressive in THAT? 

And why do you think, I have American husband?

It was just my variant of possible sutuation - you'd marry to foriegn man and move abroad- when you may face the problem with old parent left behind. At least we are at board with foriegn "grooms" and such idea comes the first to mind.

( The variant with good job in other country I just don't take into cosideration)

 

I have seen seen many facts here when young people got rid of their old parents doing that.

Actually we are discussing not the morality of those young people here but a problem what to do with old single parent if children move abroad. Your variant was - there is NOT a probmlemat all. My was - there IS. (coz I have an experience with pricely such kind of problem)

 

 

[TheArrow]

To [user=169]Elen[/user]: I am not familiar with богадельня at all. I just corrected the mistake (got used to write correctly in Russin, sorry).

Well..... As it's said - if problem appears - take a decision then. I have no problems with my parents coz I am living close to them. And I have no plans to move abroad in the nearest future.

[Elen]

Good thing for your mother then:D

[TheArrow]

Good thing for your mother then:D

My mother has a good husband - this fact means alot, by the way.

May I ask you a personal question? Does your parents live with you?

[TheArrow]

sorry for typos. Of course - DO your parents live with you?

[Elen]

next to me And my mother has a good husband as well

[TheArrow]

next to me And my mother has a good husband as well

:DGood for your parents then

[in_phoenix]

Ladies, ladies, I didn't mena to start a fight here.

Anyway I was going to start another topic but I think I'll finish this here.

I believe that now I may be being scammed!

I've had this gut feeling ever since like e-mail two but I didn't want to believe or jump to conclusions, which is why I started to write here.

Ok so here is the deal, I got a letter early this morning whih is odd compared to the times I usually get one from her.  That is not the part, weird but not the official flag.

So in this latest letter, blah, blah, blah about love and trust and everything again.  Then she starts with that we should see each other.  I think great.  Then she says that she wants to come over here and see me here.  That and combined with my request for her full name and address went largely unanswered,  BINGO!  We have a winner!

So I sent an e-mail back and told her that we should meet and start some planning.  I expect in the next e-mail or two I'm going to be told about the cost of the ticket, the visa, ship the money.....  The stage is set.  Now lets see what happens.

To bad too, she had some really nice photos she has been sending me and her e-mails sounded really nice as well.  I really wish I'm wrong here but I need to follow my gut which is usually 98% correct.  When I don't follow it I get in trouble and that is a fact.

So to settle your ladies argument.......It appears that Elen may be correct...does not sound right.

[Elen]

It appears that Elen may be correct

 

Aga! Hey guys!! with that Elen's BS-meter:D:D of yours!  I may be correct again:P (even if i got one more fight for my points)

[TheArrow]

[user=258]in_phoenix[/user] wrote:

I believe that now I may be being scammed!
So in this latest letter, blah, blah, blah about love and trust and everything again.  Then she starts with that we should see each other.  I think great.  Then she says that she wants to come over here and see me here.  That and combined with my request for her full name and address went largely unanswered,  BINGO!  We have a winner!

Wait, wait, wait... Tell your girl YOU are going to visit HER and wait for her reaction.

Calm down ans wait for her e-mail.

[Bruno]

Yep... maybe arrow have right... several russian woman don't know that it is almost "mission imposible" to have a tourist visa for US...

But if she begin say, i have a friend who work in a tourist agency who can... send $$$ to my brother ( name addres ) who help me via Western Union, ... red flags

If you feel some red flags with your lady, don't wait and see... react direct and ask her some explain...

[in_phoenix]

I will, I'm playing it cool right now.  All I did was to agree to meet and asked her if we need to start and make plans.  It will be interesting to see what she throws on the table first.  She already told me about coming here like twice in the last letter.  If I'm right about this one she will make the money move within two e-mails.  (that is what my gut tells me)

[jb]

IMHO, since both these Russian ladies live in Moscow, it'd be a good idea if they exchanged phone numbers and then they could talk to their hearts content.

Perhaps then, they could give to us a single condensed view of their logic instead of post after post of seeming nonsense.

[TheArrow]

[user=258]in_phoenix[/user] wrote:

I will, I'm playing it cool right now.  All I did was to agree to meet and asked her if we need to start and make plans.  It will be interesting to see what she throws on the table first.  She already told me about coming here like twice in the last letter.  If I'm right about this one she will make the money move within two e-mails.  (that is what my gut tells me)

Tell me, please. Are you ready to visit her in Russia? Can you have a short vacation for visiting her in the nearest future?

I do not know what she wrote in her e-mails but if you never mentioned about visiting her she, probably, wants to visit you there.

[Bruce]

JB, I second that motion!

[ukguy]

You know a few months ago a thought i saw the red flag!! I was sent an email that contained a paragraph that was exactly the same as a previous letter. I thought here we go!! So i questioned her on this and she came up with some sort of excuse that i didn't believe at the time. I put this down to being early on in the relationship and thought i should carry on writing and look for other reddies. But since i questioned her i think(hope) that things have got a little deeper and now i think she is sending more emails more personal and answering my questions. She has never asked about money and she seems to be the real thing.....i truly hope!!

So i guess its somtimes worth hanging in there guys!!

[in_phoenix]

No talks about my money or what I have.  She has not asked and I have not offered.

I should know more.  She didn't write back as she normally would have which would have been after 8 there, but like I said I got one from her around lunch there which laid out her plan.  So probably around 11 here tomorrow I should know something.

[jb]

So I have been taking to this woman for about two weeks, probably about twelve letters between the two of us and then in this past letter it begins to pick up and seems to be getting a little more serious.

Is this typical?

Mr. Phoenix--

I've not paid much attention to this thread, just waited to see how it developed.  From what you've said, it looks like you will be hit up for visa and airfare money soon.

Good, honest, sincere, and realistic women do not fall in love, (get really serious) within two weeks over a photo and a few e-mails, this is scammer territory.

Be very cautious of this woman.

I'm sorry, if you've mentioned this already, I missed it.  But out of curosity, did you buy her address and write to her first, or did she contact you off an on-line ad you placed somewhere?  Scammers responding to men's profiles posted on those free sites are the number one source of heartache for men.

I'm not saying true love can't be found on a free site, but it's very rare.

[TheArrow]

So I have been taking to this woman for about two weeks, probably about twelve letters between the two of us and then in this past letter it begins to pick up and seems to be getting a little more serious.

Is this typical?

Mr. Phoenix--

I've not paid much attention to this thread, just waited to see how it developed. From what you've said, it looks like you will be hit up for visa and airfare money soon.

Good, honest, sincere, and realistic women do not fall in love, (get really serious) within two weeks over a photo and a few e-mails, this is scammer territory.

Be very cautious of this woman.

I'm sorry, if you've mentioned this already, I missed it. But out of curosity, did you buy her address and write to her first, or did she contact you off an on-line ad you placed somewhere? Scammers responding to men's profiles posted on those free sites are the number one source of heartache for men.

I'm not saying true love can't be found on a free site, but it's very rare.[/quote]You are 100%-ly right. There are many free dating sites on the Net. Why do people still use suspicius dating agencies?!!!

[deden]

Sure starting to seem a bit more suspicious.  Interesting to see what her (or Yuri's)response will be. 

[in_phoenix]

Sure starting to seem a bit more suspicious.  Interesting to see what her (or Yuri's)response will be. 

HAHAHAHA!

We are taking bets on what the guy actually looks like at my office.  I'm now in it for the game.  I wished there was a way to srew the scammers that would actually be fun.

No I found this girl on a free site for women.  Not connected to any Russian dating agency.  So far this really hasn't cost me anything except a few late nights up studying about Russia, a lot of web site reading and only slight heart ache because it is something that does get you.  The nice letters, the cute girl, the nice smile.....  Probably has no idea her picture is being used.  Photos were not professionally done, more of the run of the mill digital camera stuff with fairly low resolution.  Looked good the size they were but if blown up they quickly lost clarity.

But here is an interesting twist.  I was only on one site and I probably only sent a letter to say about seven woman.  I sent them a photo that also that had my e-mail address hooked to it so they would have a way to contact me.  (Long story - the web site is free for women but guys had to pay $50 per month - soooooo, if you pose as a girl you get free e-mail access through the site.  I can contact the girls and then tell them to go and check out my legit profile along with sending them a photo that had my e-mail address so if they were interested then they would be able to contact me off site.)  Yes very crafty way of getting around the system.

Anyway, so I send it to about seven women.  One started to talk to me right away, swapped like two letters and she stopped.  Tried to contact her like a week later and she never responded again.  The other six never responded.  Then one day, maybe a few days after I sent the letters this one comes and she starts to talk to me.  She repeated some things that I wrote in my initial letter that I wrote the seven, so I knew she was one that got the letter.  She also included two pictures of herself.  Being intrigued, I went back out to the site to see if I could find her profile, or see if it was logged that she looked at mine.  I could not find neither.  The picture was very nice, it looked vagely familiar, but something in the back of my mind was telling me that I might not have wrote to this girl.  Anyway I did several searchs, a manual search where I looked at every picture for like 50 or so pages.  Could not find the profile.  So I start to wonder.  Then I figure to myself that maybe she removed the profile, because the counter of how many people looked at my profile was higher and then it went down by a few like if maybe some of the women who looked at me for some reason pulled there profile (Yeah - I'll save you from making the wise cracks - yeah maybe I was so ugly I scared them away....hahaha).

So from the back of my mind I'm thinking I never contacted this woman.  It does make sense.  So probably what happened is that I hit a dummy photo out of the seven, then Yuri, with a nice looking photo decided to send me e-mails and photos of probably his sister.

[Elen]

JB wrote

Perhaps then, they could give to us a single condensed view of their logic instead of post after post of seeming nonsense.

May be it would be you who stop to give out your smart BS about ussue which seems to you as "nonsense" just because the problems with old mothers who you Russian kind wives leave alone behind is easy solved with 100$ through Western Uninon?

For me girl who lives only with mother and tells you there would be nothing "ties" wich hold her in Russia should rise a doubt about her morality at first and suspesions about her desire to move to the West at second place. 

 

[deden]

Hi In-phoenix,

I don't think there is anything wrong with your approach other than the fact that if it is a free site you are certainly going to get a significantly higher scam ratio.  There are not necessarily right or wrong approaches as much as there are higher and lower risks associated with different approaches.  Everything in life has a price and free sites have the price of higher scam ratios.  That's not to say that if you had gone to a site where women had to pay or used an agency that it could not have happened with the same result, but I think certainly with the agencies, your odds are much reduced (I didn't say eliminated) of being scammed in the letter writing.

My first trip to the FSU was in 1997.  There were no web sites like this to share knowledge back then.    Hell, couldn't even find another American who had done this.  Just a few agencies back in those days.  Heck I didn't realize what a risk I was taking until I got off the plane in Ukraine (I was the only American on the plane, the rest were Ukrainians or Russians).  I thought to myself, what the hell did I get myself into.  But after I cleared customs and was allowed to go into the reception area of the airport, all my fears vanished when the women I was writing to was waiting for me.  I remember when the owner of the agency took me to my apartment he proudly asked me "how do you like it" with a smile on his face.  This was after going through a door that looked like it was the gate used to cross a mote (there was no mote) around the crumbling apartment building and the door took a key bigger than any jail house cop ever seen to unlock it.  No kidding, this door looked like something you have pictured the giant in Jack and the Bean Stock would have for a front door.  Once inside, the light bulb in the corridor after you closed this hughmongus door must have been emitting a whole 10 watts if that, and a piece of cardboard was covering a hole in the concrete floor that lead to an elevator big enough to get one person with a suit case in it.  The apartment was a whole two rooms with twin childrens beds in the bedroom that I had to take some of my wire coat hangers to tie them together just so I could lay diagionally across it in order to lay down without my legs hanging off one end or my head off the other.  So I asked the agency owner, "So, what are my options?"  He said, "You have no options"  I said again to myself, "What the hell did I get myself into!"  I thought I was living in the ghetto (central Kharkov), that was of course until the gal I went to see who was a doctor took me to her and her family's apartment (which was on the 5th floor and didn't have an elevator or any hot water).  Now that was a ghetto!  I thought to myself, "My god, she's a doctor, her brother is a military officer, her dad is a retired Russian military officer and her mother a retired doctor and they live in a dump like this?  Oh my god!  What the hell did I get myself into!"  Well at least I was in a luxuary apartment by soviet standards back then (centrally located downtown with an elevator and hot water in the evening).  No wonder the agency owner was so proud of it, lol.

I think you should not be discouraged by your experience, but rather should learn from it as all knowledge gained can only make you that much closer to achieving your goal.  I mean after all, as you stated, you haven't really lost anything here.  Heck, I may not have been scammed with letter writing but I can assure you that I have lost more than what you have in time and feelings.

You have a couple of options available to you provided you are serious about this and have sufficient funds to pursue this endeavor.  You can try some lower risk alternatives such as writing women through an agency or having an agency place an ad for you in a local paper.

Look at it this way, you are now one step closer to your destination and a little wiser as well.

good luck and keep the faith, I know there is light at the end of the tunnel as I have met those that have seen it.   Rags who posts here is one that I know that has seen the light and there are many others.  Some of us may be further down the tunnel than you and some of us may have taken different paths down that tunnel, but many of us will meet at the other end and see the light if we keep moving towards it.

another 2.5 kopecks from a cold war veteran