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Russian Woman Scam description

Thousands of people continually ask themselves and us about it. In any kind of Internet business (where money is involved) there are certain risks, what we call in general Russian woman scam or fraud. In this article we are only talking about Russian scams (also named as Russian Woman Scams or Russian bride scams).I think there is only one definition for this: "Russian scammers trying to get or steal money from people, or try to get a residence permit (green card) under false pretexts, using misinformation, deception, fraud or even blackmail" 
When you are looking for a Russian woman you have to deal with many situations where your money can be involved.It starts from the beginning of your search process till the moment you will meet her for the first time and until the moment you are starting a procedure to get her to your country.

List of possible financial matters related to the Online Dating Industry:

• Marriage/dating Agencies
• Membership fees
• Buying AddressesLetters (translating, forwarding)
• Email forwardingPhone services
• Other related services
• The woman in person Money to support her
• Money to help her family
• Money for buying train/airline tickets
• Money for buying visa and necessary insurance
• Money for translations and other document related issues
• Travel services Airlines tickets
• Hotel bookingsTrain tickets
• Visa servicesPickup and delivery fees
• Official document services (K1) Visa
• Insurance
• Marriage documents
• Other documents
• Others Gift or flower delivery services
• etc.

In any kind of the above products, there will be organizations that will try to get you to pay 2 or 3 times more than necessary. In the worst case, there will be organizations or individuals that will try to sell you just “clean air”, I think you know what I mean. In other words, you pay a lot of money with your credit card or Western Union money transfer service and you will receive…nothing at all!

This can happen not only to you, but also to your girlfriend that will still be in Russia during the complete process, until she finally will be permanently in your country.
Your girlfriend has to also deal with official matters, that will be new and unknown for her, and in Russia there are many, many people who are waiting for her to help her. They will promise her everything to make things go faster and cheaper for her, if she will use their “special” services, of course for a lot of money, and finally she will get nothing. The most popular service these organizations can do for her is arranging “magic” US entry visas. 
Do not believe it, there is no other organization in Russia then the official US Embassy or Consulate that can provide your girlfriend a visa to travel to the US. Another fraud type - you pay a lot of money for a professional photographer and a sign up fee to put your photo's on the web-site of a certain Russian dating agency in Moscow. And you wait till they publish your photos. When you tire waiting, you try to contact this “agency”, but they denied that they received your photos and money and tell you that they didn’t know your contact person, and he was not working in their office!
These things can happen with your girlfriend as well. 
Always advise your girlfriend, if she needs any services of an Agency (ex. email forwarding, translation etc.), know all about her agencies reliability.
This is just few of the many possible fraud situations you or your girlfriend can be involved in. Unfortunately it happens almost every day in Russia and all over the world.

Young beautiful Russian women looking for a foreign man. Maybe you ask yourself – Why so many Russian women are looking for a foreign man?

I will give you some background information about Russia that you should know:

Russia general information:In Russia there are about 145 million people.About 100 million people are between the age 16 – 65 years old.From this 100 million, 58% are men and 52% are women. Yes, you are reading right; there are more men in Russia than women, at least in this age category. Above the age of 65, there are more women than men.The average age of a Russian man is about 58 years.Most of the people in Russia live in, or close to, big cities.Most people in Russia don’t have a good salary.You ask me again – why Russian women seek foreign men if in Russia there are more men than woman ? I’ll tell you why.

In Russia it is normal that women get married very young. Then they can bear more healthy children then woman over 30. They are ready to marry from age 18, most of the women are married between 18 and 23 years old and they sometimes already have 1 or 2 children. If a Russian woman is not married before 25, then she will be considered as strange or weird. Most very young Russian women start very early looking for their future husband, because they are afraid they will be left alone, that they will be too old and can’t find a good husband. As you can see many Russian women already are divorced at a very young age (20-25 years). Woman being divorced in Russia has its own problems in finding another man in Russia. All these reasons have everything to do with the Russian culture. Just “living together” is sometimes not a possibility in relation to the Russian culture. If two young people want to live together, then they should be married first. After the USSR fell more and more often Russian young people choose “living together without marriage”. But today old traditions will return. For this reason, Russian women prefer foreign men with possible marriage. To be married first or being officially engaged, when living together, is still very important for a Russian woman. You really must respect this part of their culture. Don't try to convince her that living together is almost the same as being married, because in Russia it's not the same. You must understand that Russian woman leaving their native country sell almost all their private items and their flat or house and they don’t want to stay in an alien country without a living permit, living place with not a big sum of money on hand.

Another important reason is that not all-Russian men are ready to marry at 20-25 years old because they don’t have money for a new family. Young Russian men especially are waiting longer before they are thinking about marriage. This fact gives the young Russian woman a reason to look 'somewhere else', because they are afraid that when the Russian man is ready for marriage, there will not be enough men for her to choose from. The young Russian woman doesn't want to wait for marriage.

In Russia there is a very bad situation with good jobs, only in huge cities is it a small problem, in big cities it’s a big problem, in small cities and a countryside it is a huge problem. Many people live in poor houses have no job or have hard low paying jobs. Many Russian men don’t see any future, often many drink and as result have an alcoholic addiction. Not all, but a moderate part of them.

For the Russian women, this is not an acceptable situation or future she is waiting for.

Concerning a certain age-group among the Russian women, you can say that Russian women between the age 30 and 45 are condemned to stay alone. There is almost no Russian man who is looking for marriage with such an “old” woman. Hard to believe it, but unfortunately, it's true.

Another possible reason is the fact that Russian women don’t have any faith in the economical future of Russia, although the Russian economy is recovering slowly, Russian women don’t want to wait so long for undefined results. Russian women are in general highly-educated persons and hard workers and they also want to use their education in a normal economical atmosphere. Russia still has a long way to go to accomplish this and the women feel they have not enough time to wait for this, because in time they will be too old to find a good man.Also every woman wants that her child won’t starve and grow in a “safe atmosphere”.

The final reason for women who are looking for a foreign man, is a combination of the above; economical, life-safe reasons in combination to finding a trustworthy foreign husband.Russian women usually looking for:

All Russian women (as every normal women) are looking for a trustworthy, reliable, healthy and respectful husband who lives a normal life in a normal country with an acceptable financial living standard to support a family under normal conditions. Most of these women are not specifically looking for rich men. They don't need 2 or more cars, a TV in every room, two boats and two houses and five holidays every year.
But they are also not looking for a man who likes to drink a lot or uses drugs now and then or doesn't have enough means to support a family or is just lazy, or being only a housekeeper after he finally marries her.Simply they certainly are not looking for a short one-time adventure. 

Russian women ask you about your finances. It can be easily explained. If you meet some woman from your neighborhood, then she will find out all needed information about your living, what kind of man you are, what kind of job you have, hobbies, interests you have, how clean your house is and how you iron your trousers.But for Russian women all this is more difficult, she only can know these things from you, how you introduce yourself to her. She actually cannot see it by herself, she lives too far away for just a short visit (for example in the US it is impossible to do), to see how you decorate your house and get an impression about your lifestyle. For this reason, Russian women will ask you many times about these things, and if not, you should tell her these things by yourself. These items are very important for her because she needs to create the right or correct image of the man she may want to live with.

Young Russian scammers:

But unfortunately there is also a very small group of (most of the time very young) Russian women who only are looking for a “lucky ticket” (green card) to the US, or other Western country. Most of these young women are not even aware of the impossible future they try to create. You can recognize these women if you have a normal knowledge of human character. The young Russian woman scammer doesn't want to take month's before they want to meet you (preferably in your country and without detailed knowledge about what kind of man you are), also these women don't mind at all if you are 20 years (or more) older than they are. And usually they will not talk or write about very profound personal interests or very private matters. In fact they act sometimes like high school girls, usually already writing that they love you in their third letter and are not afraid to talk about money. They will often write you by mail that they are really looking forward to living in your country, instead of living with you.
It is not self-evident that these women are really tough scams; they are just too young to know that most of these large-age-difference relationships not always work out as they expect.
Please be careful, this category of young Russian scammers can be especially dangerous for you. They can make your head spin out of control. Imagine, a 21 year old beautiful young woman, a really knock out, who is in love with a 43 year old western man. If this ever happens to you, please ask yourself, why this very young woman is attracted to a much older man? After that, ask her the same question and try to evaluate her answers about this fact, and talk with others (e.g. your friends or family) about this, maybe these people, who are close to you, can help you to keep both your feet on the ground.Of course there are many examples that this age difference really can work, but to be honest and not to discourage you, I interviewed different Russian women about this subject and they all answered that they in general prefer men of their own age. Of course they don't mind reasonable age difference (more than western women do), but like I said, in an acceptable way. There is a big difference between an age difference for example, her 20 and you 40 then for example, her 35 and you 55.Just try to keep it within a reasonable age difference; I hope you are looking for a Russian 'wife' and not for a daughter?
How can you recognize these kind of 'women'? These women are most of the time very young compared to your ageThey tell you how nice it would be to live in your beautiful 'country', instead of telling you how nice it would be to live with 'you''.They start very soon writing about items like 'I want to visit you' (instead of inviting you to Russia) and that she (already) loves you and can hardly wait to meet you in your country.They tell you about their dreams to be on your white beaches, instead of the cold in Russia.In general, she wants to come to your country very soon, but not for you as the main reason.

Hard-to-uncover Russian scam:

And there are also Russian scammers who work in an organized way. They almost never work alone and can be very convincing to you that they will be the perfect wives for you. In fact these “women” (Russian woman scams) are often men faking like you are corresponding with a real woman. But sometimes it also can be a real woman who is trying to fraud you.

How can you recognize this type Russian Scammer?
They started to write you firstThey tell you how nice it would be to live in your beautiful country, instead of telling you how nice it would be to live with you.They start very soon writing about items like 'I want to visit you' (instead of inviting you to Russia) and that they already love youThey don't write in a comprehensive detailed way about their personal life and private mattersThey don't give you their or another phone number and their postal address (which you can check easily)They give you hints about money issues (tell you how expensive a visa is, or tickets are and that she cannot afford this or that and she and her family have not enough money to live on, etc.)They start to ask you for money for her preparation to visit you and tell you that she can get help from a local (travel) agency, or she tells you she needs money for Internet access or whatever.Their letters are very impersonal, except the words she uses to express love for you, but this is their main weapon.

Note:
A single reference doesn't automatically mean that she is a Russian scam, but more than 3 combinations is enough information to start to be very cautious.
But any money issue, especially if she is asking for it or if she takes the initiative to talk about money, is considered as an important indicator of a possible Russian scammer.
So, should I stop looking for a Russian woman?

Of course not, these are only some examples of possible fraud of a very small part of Russian women (or men) who are on the wrong side of the Internet dating World. Please don't be scared, it's only a small part (about 0.5%) of the total Russian women who are trying to find a new partner. Don't get paranoid about this, you can do many things by yourself to avoid a possible Russian scam and if you do it right, it doesn't need to cost you a lot of money.

Always try to be positive, don't think that behind every corner there will be someone waiting for you to get rid of your money. And do not forget that many Russian women are afraid of the same thing too. It's not only the women who are trying to play with men, there are a lot of weird Western men too, who are just looking for some action or a one-time adventure with a beautiful Russian girl or woman. And just drop them like dirt when they don't need them anymore.