New Bride Scam Art Technology Alert or Just Life? Sophisticated Gentle Goes Far

“Now All Big Smart Boys don’t let us skin them – let us milk them.” Petty pay as you play, and then… you just didn’t match. Russian men call it “Dynamo”, meaning bad-faith “consummation”. What’s ironic is that the “normal” traditional Eastern dating, or e-dating, procedure begins the same way.

The difference is in the result… and in subtlest red flags on the way, which your good auld Natalia’s there to tell.

Greater irony is that man can even feel grateful for every moment of being “used”! These Special Russian Women.™

(Or it takes a special man to choose enlightenment against despair?)

Thank a client who authorized me to tell his story on one finest Dynamo machine business for Ukraine. It looked [almost] innocent for as long as two dozen letters. But “however long a rope weaves, it comes to an end”.

• Here’s the by-tale, the tale would follow.

Decent brides or scam agencies, – both proceed from the following basics of Russian etiquette, dealing with the material side of arranging meetings, dates and communication.

* Whose the initiative, his the bill. (Between friends, pals, business partners.)

* Whose more money, his the bill. (Close friends meeting, or the traditional “alpha” competition.)

* Who’s the Man, his the bill. (If not let to pay, he takes offense.) This may go as far as his cancelling the girl’s incoming mobile call, just to redial her at his own cost. In international phone talks, it’s an axiom.

Of course, Dutch treats are an acceptable alternative, – if the beneficiary steps forward, and the benefactor doesn’t object. Usually the situation turns into a pretty competition: “I am treating!” – “Let me pay!” Like two proverbial gentlemen stuck before the doors insisting that the other should go first. The beneficiary resists, the benefactor persists, and, after a ritual of tribute to Good Manner, the dispute settles by the rules stated above. (Or Dutch.)

Remember that, in the Russian tradition, the offeror of a favor must not accept refusal from it until the offeree has objected thrice. The first two times are a ritual of modesty, and a test to the offeror’s determination.

Ladies tend to over-caution about accepting treats and gifts. In the characteristic anecdote, a Georgian man (USSR, not USA) – portrayed as an epitome of macho temper, vain lavishness, and not a master of Russian grammar – says: “I dine ze gurl – I dance ze gurl!” (Implying all actions that follow.) So, Russian women strive to not produce a false impression of accessibility in exchange for courtship.

* Still, there is a cultural norm of common courtesy to bring small gifts to people you are visiting from far away, and even for their relatives. Commemorating holidays, especially birthdays, with gifts and/or flowers, – is a must. It means you are Serious and Appreciative of the connection that develops.

At the stage of online dating, e-cards and attachments do. (Please take care not to over-burden her Internet traffic with kilobytes of graphic and video.) Real flowers or gifts, if you decide to send them, are a dear surprise… Almost unexpected (though dream is always there!) and therefor exciting.

WARNING: flower delivery service, sold as a proof of the woman’s existence, may not be such. A scam agency may take a poor quality “natural” photo that looks like any female of similar type, or depict your correspondent from their “boiler room” described below.

* With regard to the national Givers’ Culture and the bridal Provider Test, - making or not making Acts of Expense (including treats, gifts, flowers, travel expenses and the rest of logistics) are a kind of exercise in drawing the fine line between the red flags of “Buying Her”, “Scroodging On Her” and “Intimating To Her”. The algorythm is to be generous without arrogance and familiarity.

And of course these Mysterious Russian Ladies never prod you toward it apparently. They are usually prepared to bear their own expense, to reasonable “emergency” extent.

When you know her paying something for the introduction service, it’s usually a sign of serious determination to find a worthy husband. Yet normally, with all the free alternatives she is offered, this “something” is not overtaxing her pocket and effort. Otherwise, start thinking: Cui Prodest?

The party who wins always: The House. Just like in any Web search, gamble, stock exchange, legal arbitration etc. (We have agreed to not frown at applying analogies from economics to the Merger of Values accounted at the Heavenly Chancery.)

This is what you should be alert to when you deal with agencies that serve an interface between the Ladies and the outer world, arranging profile listings, translations, gifts and dates.

• Now the fairy tale with a “horror” happy end.

“A. contacted me on ["site.com"]. This is based in Canada and has mostly Canadian members. It’s probably a good site for FSU and other foreign women to use, because there’s no monthly fee or listing fee, and you only pay per message you initiate. You can also send a “smile” for free to show interest in someone, which is what A. did.

I wasn’t very active on it, just looking and dreaming. I didn’t even have a description of myself posted, other than the fill-in-the-blanks stuff. Anyway… I had gotten 2 other smiles from Ukraine but wasn’t interested. I expected to feel the same when I saw her “smile”, but I was captured by her direct and heartfelt description of herself, and things I could go on and on about in her eyes and face!”

Checkpoint. “Normal” women get first interested in a candidate by his profile: thoughtfully vast, or powerfully laconical, but not ordinarily careless, and of course they do serious “face control”. The factors that normally attract interest to a scanty and unpersonalized profile, are the man’s great looks and/or successful occupation.

“So we exchanged a few emails, and I liked her more and more. She told me she was writing through a translation service ["agency.com"]. I went to their site and it seems to be a legitimate professional business. I saw their translation rates and arranged to pay for the first few translations. Their payments are processed by a company in the US.”

Bummer. Even if there’s no scam, dealing with such non-speakers that can’t at least read in your language is a problem in itself. Especially when intelligent and sociable persons are involved. Explained here

“I’ve read that there are so-called “translation services” that are actually scam centers. I’m having trouble figuring out how that would be a profitable scam, with the relatively small amount of money involved, compared to other methods. It strikes me as like fishing in the shallow end of the lake for minnows using caviar as bait. When 100 meters away you can catch fish big enough to feed a family, using raw hamburger. (Although, as you’ll see, they are charging me for translating letters that are mostly translated already. But oh well..)”

Legal niche. The highest tide for big scam has gone. “Raw meat market” is full, rotting and smelling around. Of a hundred men, few go farther than correspondence. So the prevailing strategy in the current introduction industry is a non-criminable symbiosis of hope and profit, with decent target audience of customers and even decent intentions, but not by totally decent methods.

Many agencies pay their female members for every letter they receive or write, to encourage their activity, to keep men’s interest, the traffic, and… the turnover. At the fleeting glance, everybody is contented. A woman may seriously count on coming across the man of her life this way (this hope attends any woman employed in the international service sector), and put up with writing to more men she’s currently happened to get interested in, – especially as she knows that it may take many “glances” to “see” a person, and can enjoy the opportunities of improving her international communication skills. (Justly, doing her job, without personal interest, is only distancing her from the great goal.)

The only question is, whether YOU are a man of her advanced interest, or a “milk cow”.

“One thing I soon noticed was a slight sense of disconnect, not a real smooth flow in our conversation back and forth. Although what she wrote told me a lot about her personally, and didn’t seem to have an agenda behind it, it often wasn’t a response to anything I had said. More like a mini-essay on something she wanted to tell me this time. Of course, I like to read what she writes, and she tells me who she really is inside, which I value. But if I ask her some simple questions about her and her life, she might respond with a short answer, she might answer 2 out of 4 questions, or none at all, and then on to the “topic of the day”. Or she’ll start by simply saying, “Thank for telling me about such-and-such”. Although – if I ask her something important, like whether she’s thought about what it would be like to be separated from her home and family, and practical considerations of relocating, she gives a thoughtful answer.

Approach. At times, shyness to intrude, to expose, to contradict, even to break the literary flow of the letter, and also lack of language skills to understand the sense of certain phrases of yours, may keep a Russian woman from responding to some of your questions or statements. But I fully agree that such behavior, even if not evil-rooted, is inconsistent with serious attitude, and would also disqualify a mate-to-be who “listens” only to him/herself.

If you reiterate or reformulate a topic your respondent has left unanswered, she ought to honor it at least by an allusion, joke, inclusive answer. (So should you!) In turn, repetition owed to the writer’s own forgetful multitasking exposes scam in a woman’s letter, and discredits a man.

“Now – a few days ago I came across something quite by accident that, on the one hand, explained the form of her letters and some of the un-responded-to questions. But on the other hand, set me back on my heels…”

Part II. “Too-Good-To-Be-True” Black Lists

© Comrade Natalia

(…please link to this page when using some information from it! ;)