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If you're looking for a mail order bride, there are generally two different scams you should be aware of. One is usually conducted by the dating or agency site and the other one involves scams originating from the women themselves.
Dating Site Scams
When a scam is being pulled by the website, generally the women who have signed up on the website are clueless that anything shady is going on.
But some sites post pictures without the woman's approval, or use women who only pretend to be foreign or have no intention of marrying. Some really unscrupulous sites make up women who don't even exist.
The best way to keep from being a victim of one of these sites is do adequate research on a site before ever signing up, and certainly before pulling out your credit card.
Search for reviews and look for others who may have already had problems with the site, including previous members.
Other things you can do as precautions:
- Make sure the site requires submission of a photograph. Don't settle for a list of names.
- Be cautious of pictures of women in provocative poses or those wearing revealing clothes. They're much more likely to be after your attention for reasons other than a romantic encounter.
- Choose medium size sites with a membership between 2,000 and 4,000 women. That's plenty of women to find a good match for you. It's a good idea to avoid sites that have less than 500 hopeful brides or those with tens of thousands.
- Know before you sign up exactly what your charges will be, including the fees charged for extra services. Even better is a site that charges a flat monthly fee for all services rendered.
- Be very leery of a site that shows pictures of women who all look like professional models. Browse the profiles to determine if real women are included, in casual pictures, rather than looking like they were lifted from a model's portfolio.
Mail Order Bride Scams
Another scam type you could possibly encounter is one from the woman herself. Sadly, you're more likely to become a victim of one of these scams than you are from a disreputable website scam.
It's more likely to happen on super large international dating sites because the scammer is able to cloak herself among the thousands of other women on the site. They also prefer the larger sites because it gives them a larger number of men they can try to scam.
It's important to realize that most of the women you'll find on mail order bride sites are honest, sincere women who are truly hoping to find love and ultimately, marriage. But to keep yourself from becoming a victim, you need to be able to recognize the warning signs that indicate a woman is trying to scam you.
When you know the signs, it's easier to tell when a woman is really interested in you, or when she's more interested in your credit card limit. Oftentimes, these women will play their hand quite early in the correspondence, but some of these scammers have the patience of Job, and will wait many months before tipping her hand. They live with the misguided belief that American men are all rich, and they're just after the ones who are naïve enough to send them money.
Sending $100 to a woman who's captured your heart may not seem like much to you, but to a Russian mail order bride, for instance, whose average income is $640 a month, she only needs to scam 7 men to generate a full time income.
The best way to protect yourself from becoming a victim of one of these scams is to never send her money.
They can be quite creative in the ways they come up with to make you feel sorry for them, and their ultimate goal is to get you to turn that sympathy into cash.
Here are some of the reasons you might hear:
1.She wants to see you, but doesn't have the funds for traveling, including tickets, money for a visa and other travel related expenses. This one is a classic and has fooled unknown numbers of well-meaning men.
2.You may get an email explaining that she needs translation services to read your letters and doesn't have the money to pay for it.
3.Once she's convinced you to buy an airline ticket for her, you may discover the travel agent she recommended is a fake.
4.She may lie about having had an accident, and ask you for help paying her hospital bill, or getting her car fixed, or even providing living expenses because she can't go back to work right away.
5.She may seek your sympathy by telling you a sad story about losing a job, having to quit school for financial reasons, a mother who's sick and can't afford her medicine...anything to get you to take out your credit card. The stories can be quite creative and extremely persuasive.
The takeaway from this is, in order to keep from becoming a victim, and being relieved of several hundred, or even several thousand dollars, thoroughly check out the dating site you're considering and once you've found one, don't be conned into sending any money to a potential bride.
For a site you can trust, visit Rosebrides.com. With a generous selection of Polish brides, Latvian brides, Russian brides and many other beautiful marriage minded women from countries all over the world, you're sure to find the one who's right for you.
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