Online marriage fraud has been reported in Barnaul, which is located in southern Siberia and it involves hundreds of girls that are communicating with mostly American men online.

The way the scam works is that the women advertising as Russian girls looking for marriage will give the unsuspecting guy a sad story about their family life or poor economic status and ask for money.

Russian girls are not the only ones trying to scam foreign men out of their money – Russian men are trying to get into the act too. Some go as far as to pose as Russian girls online luring unsuspecting men into sending them money in hopes of getting a visit from their new online “friend”.

The most important thing to remember if you are looking for a Russian girl to date online is that the serious ones will not ask you for money. In fact, if a Russian girl you are corresponding with starts to bring up money and starts asking you for money fairly early in your correspondence, you should consider that a huge red flag.

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Some of these groups are very-well organized. Even local police cannot always get hold of them. There were cases when these groups consisted of men sending out thousands of messages and sometimes carrying on with communication for months before requesting money. Many victims did not even go as far as making a phone call. Bogus travel agents were used. For a strange reason these travel agents wouldn’t accept credit cards (!) with no physical presence, or a dedicated website! Come on, Russia is the home of the most expensive city in the world!

How to avoid Russian Dating Scams

While the above may discredit the concept of Russian Dating, in many cases it is easy to avoid scams that often follow a known pattern. The key is to build awareness and use common sense. As one of our readers has pointed out:

“just be aware- use common sense and trust your instincts. Would you send money to someone you never met?”

Many specialized Russian Dating sites are not as exposed to scam artists as larger, mainstream dating services. With millions of members their environment is largely unregulated. There are very few, if any, screening policies in place and phone verification of each female member is certainly not economically feasible as subscription-based business models tend to put pressure on profit margins.

1. Use a specialized dating service

Most specialized dating services do actually have at least basic anti-scam measures that may include phone verifications and keeping substantial databases of blacklisted IP addresses. Most of these services are forced to charge their members per message fees or limit the amount of messages that can be sent within a specific subscription period.

Loversplanet.com offer the best quality at the most reasonable price. While the subscription is not capped with an upper limit of messages you may sent, Loversplanet.com has developed one of the most advanced anti-scam systems in the industry. This score-based system has been developed over several years. It assigns weights to various risk factors such as location and previous patterns of scamming activity. All new female members are verified with a phone call by a human representative. In most cases a landline phone number is required, in addition to a cell phone number. This system automatically assigns a score to every new registration and if it is flagged as a high risk the profile is deactivated immediately.

Loversplanet.com dating statistics

To give you some statistics, in November 2006 there were 2,782 female applications from Eastern Europe on Lovers Planet. From these applications only 626 were approved as legitimate. That’s only 22.5% – almost 4 in 5 new applications have been rejected.

No policy can guarantee 100% scam-free environment. Scammers are increasingly sophisticated and smart. However, we do believe that on Loversplanet.com the probability of dating a scammer is low and your odds of developing a relationship with a sincere Russian woman are very good – proof.

2. Beware of websites dedicated to fighting Russian scammers

Be aware of websites that are dedicated to fighting scams without running a Russian dating service. There may be few that are actually independent (in fact, we don’t know any). Most of these sites have been set up by dating services and therefore the information is always biased. Some of these sites are used to discredit competitors by claiming that s particular scammer has been “seen” on a specific dating site, which may be true for any dating site. Other anti-scam sites have even been accused of scamming men and then justifying their actions by placing bogus Russian brides in their own scam list. A third category seem to be independent, but they are paid by various dating sites to promote them (bias) claiming that these sites have the best anti-scam policies (and then linking to these sites with an affiliate link which means they get 50% commission on all revenue generated by the site they’ve recommended). Many other tricks are used, including claims that a specific site has been setup by American or Western European men, or by a couple – an American who has found a Russian bride online. We will discuss Anti-scam sites in more detail in sections 4 and 5 below.

3. Background Checks: Are They Effective or a Waste of Money?

At Loversplanet.com we get a lot of inquiries from men all over the world about specific females they have met on large dating services. After months of communication they have been asked for money. In many of these cases it is obvious for us that this is a scam. You can learn more about some common signs of scam. But it is difficult for these men to let it go and confront the fact that all that time and emotional effort is wasted. They proceed with ordering background checks to try and justify that that a specific Russian woman is legitimate. While in some cases background checks can give you some additional insights, they are by no means a proof of legitimacy. You may be able to verify that a specific name is valid, but obtaining proof that this name belongs to the person you have corresponded with is technically impossible.

Most importantly, why would you want to waste all that time and hinder your motivation of finding a good relationship? Our advice is simple: use a specialized service, learn about their screening policies and minimize the risk of dating a scam artist. When you do meet someone online, use common sense and follow your instincts, which may often be difficult as they are influenced by feelings and emotions. Russian dating will work for you if you follow this simple advice – proof. Good luck!

4. Scam Lists, Anti-Scam Sites & Bad Publicity

Some of the anti-scam sites do in fact provide useful information to members. However, we’ve noticed that there is a certain segment of men who end up in a constant scam search rather than focusing on finding a loved one. Surely you should be careful and you don’t want to date a scammer or deal with a bogus dating site, but don’t forget your objectives.

Focus on finding a loved one. You will never find a way of avoiding scammers completely. You can meet a scammer on any website because it is impossible to predict anyone’s intent, especially in a country with a low per capita income.

Some dating services do have extensive anti-scam policies that include phone verification and other proprietary techniques. This makes it much difficult for scammers to use the service and it’s easier for them to use another website. Lovers Planet anti-scam system has been developed based on years of experience. But again, there is no fool-proof solution. It’s all about how many scammers a client may meet on average: 1-2 or 20-40 and more.

Use common sense and avoid sending money to anyone you’ve never met. Set a small budget you wish to spend on dating and if you feel you are dragged into correspondence and end up having to pay more and more – stop. If the other person has feelings for you, they should last irrespective of how much money you pay. It would be a far better investment to buy a trip to Russia and visit your date in person. Note: At Lovers Planet you do not pay for every letter you send or receive. Once you determine a list of women you wish to correspond with, you can exchange unlimited messages with them.

5. There are several things to bear in mind in relation to Anti-scam sites:

• Check your source. Many scam lists and anti-scam sites have been created by the dating agencies or their affiliates and are used to discredit competition. Obviously, there legitimate sites created by someone who had a bad experience, but these sites are not usually famous. Know sites are been marketed extensively, every one of them has a budget and someone has to finance that budget.
• There are known cases when legitimate women were placed on a scam lists because their relationship didn’t work out with someone.В  Many anti-scam websites do not need any conclusive evidence – one complaint is what it takes. These sites need to grow and if you find someone you’ve recently communicated with on a scam list, you immediately create a bond with the website.
• What about dating websites, is there bad publicity? Plenty. Every company has bad publicity because there is no company that can be good for every single client, unless it has very few clients. Take any dating service for example Elenas Models – who have been in business so many years. But if you google “Elenas Models Scam” you will find so many different opinions, like this one for example. Are they true? Being in business for years we don’t know! Do you think you can reach the correct conclusion? Do some research and post comments here or in our forum.
• We do believe at Lovers Planet that most of our members (but not all) are happy with the service. We carry out surveys to learn what clients think about us. We encourage our members to submit their feedback and do our best to take all comments into account. However, every larger company has problem clients – someone unhappy with the service, the pricing policy, Customer Care, etc.

Scam is certainly an important issue in Russian dating. There are scam artists, scam dating sites and anti-scam lists that are a scam in their own good. In our opinion, you should build awareness of this issue but use common sense and remember that any negative publicity has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Further reading:
Russia: Internet Dating Schemes – US Department of State article about Internet Dating Schemes

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A: Kazan, as described in our Anti-scam guide, is a high-risk area in terms of scammers. Quoting our Anti-scam guide: “If the lady comes from one of these risk locations: Joshkar-Ola (Yoshkar-Ola) and Mari El Republic, Kazan, Cheboksary, Gomel, you should take extra caution. The most common reason used by “fake” singles: the money is required to get a visa and pay for travel. Some scammers claim to have a visa already and just need the money for travel. An average Russian female is not likely to be able to afford a trip to [European Union Country]. Please do not send money – the probability of scam is very high.

How can you verify? You cannot. You have to rely on the dating service which you use to meet this lady. It is not only the credibility of the dating service that matters – very few credible dating websites have extensive anti-scam policies. In contrast to Loversplanet.com, most major US and European dating services do not carry out any screening and it is very unlikely that you meet a legitimate Russian lady on such service as they are an easy target for scammers. Whether any specific third-party service has anti-scam policies is beyond our knowledge. It is also impossible to assess the effectiveness of third-party policies. Your best bet is to contact the service which you used, but you have to make sure you can rely on their judgment. Unfortunately, it is often the case that no dating service can give you 100% reassurance in respect of any female member, especially from Kazan. It is similar to credit card fraud – no credit card company, irrespective of their policies, can guarantee fraud-free experience. However, a good credit card company can make sure that the probability of fraud is minimized.

Conclusion: Travel to Russia. Russia’s requirements for travel are not as bad as they may appear. Russian visas are relatively easy to obtain. Russia is a fascinating country to visit. It has a unique culture and very distinct traditions. Make all travel arrangements yourself and have a flexible itinerary.

Please leave a comment if you find this Answer helpful. Please also visit the following links to get plenty of useful information:

U.S. Department of State – Russian Federation – a very detailed overview of Russia, travel and entry requirements, Russian visas, crime, medical and health information, Russian Internet dating schemes, etc. The page has a number of useful links such as:

Russian National Group – Official Guide to Russian Visas, Travel and Hotels. There is a phone number on their website that you can call to inquire about travel arrangements, insurance, visas, tickets, etc.

Kazan women on Loversplanet.com – browse profiles of female members from Kazan on Loversplanet.com

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