She wants me to send her money for her plane ticket....

[Shadow]

clarkcr, I wish you a good trip. If possible send a pic of the two of you together.

While in Kiev and Mariupol, trust your instincts. Don't get paranoid, but do not close your eyes for reality.
Do not blame culture for bad behavior, and remeber the saying that if a RW is in to you, there will be no doubt in your mind.

[Ronnie]

clarkcr, I wish you a good trip. If possible send a pic of the two of you together.

While in Kiev and Mariupol, trust your instincts. Don't get paranoid, but do not close your eyes for reality.
Do not blame culture for bad behavior, and remeber the saying that if a RW is in to you, there will be no doubt in your mind.

I'll second that...

[UTRO]

 She said she had scratches on her legs and was feeling sick and needed to lay down.  I asked her to send me pictures of her legs (she hasn't yet).  

You Seriously asked her to send photos of her Scratched Legs?!? Real Nice of you. Are you purposly trying to scare her off? Don't blow it with your insecurities Clark

[Doll]

You Seriously asked her to send photos of her Scratched Legs?!? Real Nice of you. Are you purposly trying to scare her off? Don't blow it with your insecurities Clark

He read the forum and got paranoid.
Guys trust your intuition

[clarkcr]

well....I landed at 4:35pm Kiev time and my Olga was waiting impatiently for me to clear customs.   You guys should have warned me about standing your ground in that line for the passpost stamp.  What gives with people inching their way in front of you?!!  At one point the line was moving forward, but I was STANDING STILL!!! 

Other than that, Olga is beautiful and everything I thought she would be.  She wants to take me shopping now.....gorvery shopping that is!  I guess to prove to me she can cook!  Last night she made sandwiches with the food she bought from a grocery run made earlier in the day before I arrived.  I'm sure she used the $85 change from the airline ticket.  I've got no problem with that. 

Cheers!!       

[MaxxumUSA]

Good for you!  I hope the two of you enjoy your time together.

My word of advice to you is forget about the forums for your trip and just enjoy your time together.  Every time I used the forums on my early visits I got flamed for this or for that and it did not help my visit.

Don't be paranoid and don't be afraid to let things flow at the rate both of you are comfortable with.

Good luck,

- Maxxum

[carlt99]

Clark,

Just read all of your thread this morning and I've been intrigued to find the outcome. I suspected your girl was genuine as there were a lot of parallels to my own story so I've been rooting for you. It's great that things have worked out well for this nerve-wracking first meeting. As suggested above, forget about the forum for now. You don't have to justify or prove yourself to anyone here.

Just enjoy your time and try not to make this all about money. She's a real woman, you're together for now at least and spending money is normal. Don't agree to anything you feel uncomfortable with but be reasonable and don't scare her off for the price of a $5 bangle.

I'm someone who broke every rule going by sending and spending money, both before and after meeting. The emotional investment was a million times more important to me than the financial. If things hadn't worked out I'd have been devastated and wouldn't have given a second thought to the thousands I spent on her. As it is, we've been together 5 years and are expecting our first baby next spring.

You have a long and possibly tricky journey ahead and this is just the beginning. Good luck for the future.

[Doll]

I'm sure she used the $85 change from the airline ticket.  I've got no problem with that. 

You've been thinking of this change 
Did you want it back?

[KenC]

Clark,
We are all happy for you.  Don't over analyze everything now, just enjoy and let nature take it's course.  Good luck.
KenC

[groovlstk]

Clark, I'm glad everything is working out.

Just think what would have happened to your relationship if you had believed the evangelist naysayers here and treated her like a scammer...

Enjoy your time together and relish every moment, your time there will pass quickly.

[kievstar]

clarkc, glad everything worked out.  Weather was great Sunday night in Kiev when I was there.  Wish I did not have to leave monday morning. 

[TheWongs]

You guys should have warned me about standing your ground in that line for the passpost stamp.

You never asked about the customs line!  We didn't tell you about the line of taxi drivers at Borispol either!

Hope everything is going "according to plan" and you have a great time! 

If you need any assistance at all in Kiev, look up my best mate Pavel. He is the most honest and helpful Ukrainian man you will ever meet! If you see him, tell him Irish Chris said hi.

http://www.yourukraineguide.com.ua/

Chris.

[Ronnie]

Irish Chris,
Scary for you, but we look like we could be brothers!

[TheWongs]

Irish Chris,
Scary for you, but we look like we could be brothers!

Scary for who?

BTW... I didn't change my avitar because of that! I'm just playing with different ones, trying to get one that looks clear.

[ukguy1977]

Hi clarkcr

This is my first post on this forum, I have been members of other ones in the past but they all went very stale. This now seems to be the only forum I have found where people dont just spend hours upon hours slagging each other off. Anyway, to my point...

I would like to say that I have read your post with much fascination and I have deliberatley waited until finding out what the outcome was before writing to you.

I am a 30 year old guy from England. Your tale is extremely similiar to something that happened to me earlier this year, so I thought I would share it with you and compare notes, it may also help one or two others I don't know?

Bascially, in the earlier part of this year I put a profile on bride.ru about myself (perhaps you know the site?) On the 9th of May, I then received an email from a 24 year old girl called Irina from Mariupol.

She sent me some very attractive photos, gave me her phone number and told me to call her. Thinking to myself, "wow she's exactly what i'm looking for" I gave her a call and from then on I developed a realtionship with her over the phone and via both email and MSN Messenger. Her English of course was very good.

She then told me that she really liked me and really wanted to meet me in Kiev. Aware of this business after having had a lot of experience with it, I didn't really like the idea as one of the golden rules is of course "always meet them in their hometown", but as she seemed really genuine and really didn't want to, I agreed to it. Then began the problems. I'm not a rich guy, but neither am I poor. For my age I am quite successful and I have a pretty good level of disposable income (which has been used for my now 6 ventures to Ukraine this year and last), however I guess I would say I am very careful with my money. She said she wanted me to send her money for her flight via Western Union. For me that was a major red flag. I explained to her that I felt really uncomfortable with sending money to someone I had never met. I told her instead that if she paid for the ticket herself that I would refund her for it on our meeting. This for her was unacceptable (in case I was a no show I guess) so in the end we came to a mutual agreement that I would pay for a ticket for her myself and then get it delivered to her via Fedex. This I did. I then followed that up with paying for my own flight to Kiev and subsequent travel arrangements.

With about 3 weeks to go before my trip, things seemed good. We talked most days and she would text me all the time. I did however, always have a niggling doubt in the back of my head as to whether or not she was genuine or just a very, very good scam artist.
 
I then one day, whilst feeling a bit paranoid put her full name and address details into google. To my horror it came back with a profile on www.stop-scammers.com in which there was a report by a Thomas from Switerzland in June 2007 in which he stated he sent "Irina" $500.00 for a flight to Moscow in which she never turned up and then stopped answering his calls. The address and email address on the profile were both the same as what I had, although the photo of her looked very different. I confronted her with it on a telephone call, she then denied any knowledge of it and said that someone must have stolen her details. I half accepted what she said was true, but was then even more worried that I might turn up in Kiev but that she wouldn't. By that time though I had committed myself to going and so kept trying to convince myself not to be paranoid.

The final straw for me then came one week later when in conversation she told me that because her friend was getting married to an English guy soon (Tim) that she needed a new dress. She told me she had been to Dontesk and found one, but that as she did not have a job that she could not afford it. She then asked me firstly if I could send her $300 for it and then after I had said again "I dont really want to send any money to someone I haven't met" (which really pissed her off) she lowered her demand to "just" (her words not mine) $100. 

I at this point decided I had had enough and cancelled the whole trip feeling it was too big a risk. I clawed back as much cash as I could and told her I wasn't going to go. In fact, in total I only lost in the end £280 (about $550). It wasn't that which then annoyed me so much, money afterall is only money and can just be made again. It was more the emotional investment which annoyed me.

To you I would like to offer my apologies that I didn't write this to you before you left, but I was extremely curious whether you would go or not and whether if you did go whether you would meet anyone or not. I thought if I wrote my story to you when you were unsure it might put you off and then neither of us would ever know whether the girl turned up or not.

Of course I see that your girl is called Olga and not Irina and that mine was 24 and yours 23, but the situation seems so similiar that it really got me thinking about it all.

I really hope you will put an update on here about how your trip all went as I for one will be very interested with the results. 

[KenC]

UKguy,
From Clark's post quoted below, he is ahead of your scammers game.  Of course we would like to hear about the rest of his trip too.
KenC

well....I landed at 4:35pm Kiev time and my Olga was waiting impatiently for me to clear customs.   You guys should have warned me about standing your ground in that line for the passpost stamp.  What gives with people inching their way in front of you?!!  At one point the line was moving forward, but I was STANDING STILL!!! 

Other than that, Olga is beautiful and everything I thought she would be.  She wants to take me shopping now.....gorvery shopping that is!  I guess to prove to me she can cook!  Last night she made sandwiches with the food she bought from a grocery run made earlier in the day before I arrived.  I'm sure she used the $85 change from the airline ticket.  I've got no problem with that. 

Cheers!!       

[BillyB]

Welcome UKguy,

Looks like you go one of the rare scammers who invest lots of personal time of hers to make her victims feel good. Men get the emotional high they want and she gets what she wants $.

One reason I promote guys doing a WMVM is so they can get a feel of the variety of women out there and be better prepared to distiguish the sincere women from the insincere. If a guy focuses on one woman, he doesn't have a choice to make a good choice.

It's also a good sign of serious intentions if a woman invites you to her hometown to meet friends and family instead of the nearest big city where the shopping and party life is better.

[TheWongs]

One reason I promote guys doing a WMVM is so they can get a feel of the variety of women out there and be better prepared to distiguish the sincere women from the insincere. If a guy focuses on one woman, he doesn't have a choice to make a good choice.

It's also a good sign of serious intentions if a woman invites you to her hometown to meet friends and family instead of the nearest big city where the shopping and party life is better.

It's funny, but I've never thought about WMVM before, but I can see the logic. For me, I wrote to one and visited one. This didn't work out, but opened up many doors, ending in a wedding a few weeks ago.

When I go back... Way back... To the beginning.... I nearly fell for a scam and nearly sent money to a scammer. This is what made me join this forum (amongst others). I must be honest and say that if I had to do it all again, I would write to many and visit many! At the time, I thought it was a bad idea, but my mind has been changed and I think I would advise anyone to do it this way. The main thing is getting over there, seeing the country and meeting the people!

[ukguy1977]

Excuse my ignorance, but what does WMVM stand for? I presume it is something a long the lines of don't just go to meet one woman?

[Turboguy]

You have it.

WMVM is write many, visit many

The other side of the coin is

WOVO

write one, visit one of course.

[TheWongs]

Correct.

My initial thoughts were to write to one and visit one, but that opened up a whole can of worms!

[SANDRO43]

Excuse my ignorance, but what does WMVM stand for? I presume it is something a long the lines of don't just go to meet one woman?

When you're stumped about some obscure acronyms/expressions used here, have a look at the RWD Glossary (menu at left) .

[DonAz]

I hope Clark will come back here and let us know how the rest of his trip went

DonAz

[Ronnie]

I hope Clark will come back here and let us know how the rest of his trip went

DonAz

Maybe it was a case of "Run, Forrestina, Run."  In which case, I'm guessing we won't hear that from Clark...it'll be more like "I dumped HER!"

[kievstar]

Clark is doing fine.