Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Ask questions and get advice. Disclaimer: Any advice you take here is at your own risk. We are not liable for any consequences you might incur from following advice here. Note: Before posting your question, do a search for it in the Google Search box at the top to see if it's been addressed.
User avatar
Voyager1
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 11th, 2016, 7:53 am

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Voyager1 »

I would not deal with any agency or site where I can not get ladies direct contact information - email address, telephone number, Skype, etc.

I would also not deal with any agency that imposes IMBRA regulations on non-US citizens as AFA does.
gsjackson
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 3756
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 7:08 am
Location: New Orleans, LA USA
Contact:

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by gsjackson »

Voyager1 wrote:I would not deal with any agency or site where I can not get ladies direct contact information - email address, telephone number, Skype, etc.

I would also not deal with any agency that imposes IMBRA regulations on non-US citizens as AFA does.
Would you guess that I've been corresponding with an agent at the "local office" rather than the girl?

The IMBRA regulations do seem like a handy way for AFA to impose the new business model of making direct contact almost impossible.
Hero
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 3rd, 2008, 1:19 pm

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Hero »

gsjackson wrote:Not sure how AFA can maintain a decent reputation with this as the business model now.
Like P. T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute
User avatar
Mr Natural
Freshman Poster
Posts: 297
Joined: October 28th, 2013, 4:20 pm
Location: USA

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Mr Natural »

gsjackson wrote:here's what I was told. You can buy the woman's virtual email address for $12 ...... The kicker is the women have to have a button on their profile you click on to buy this virtual address and almost none of them do
I've noticed this too, there are a few, a very few, that "have email" and evidently you could buy those. But probably 99% that I have looked at don't. So it's $250. I was a little shocked when she told me the price and I didn't bother to ask if they give any kind of volume discount. I suspect they have decided to price this sort of thing (buying email addresses) out of reach so as to get more $10 messages and sell more tours. You know sometimes it's hard to blame someone who is running a business for trying to make as much money as they can, I mean biz is biz. But if this is the way they are going to do things then they won't be getting any from me.

Voyager1 wrote:I would also not deal with any agency that imposes IMBRA regulations on non-US citizens as AFA does.
Not sure about this. It may be that since AFA is USA based then IMBRA may require them to do that. I don't know. But to me I don't mind providing a little background info to prove I am not an abuser of some type. I think that's the intent of the law and as long as they don't go overboard with it, it's just a simple form.

gsjackson wrote:Would you guess that I've been corresponding with an agent at the "local office" rather than the girl?
I wouldn't need to guess, you ARE corresponding to an agent. Now it's possible that the agent is just relaying what the girl says etc and maybe it's all legit. Maybe. But you have no way of knowing that until you talk to the girl face to face or at the very least video chatting. It's not guaranteed to be a scam but the pay per letter stuff is definitely one of the favorite methods of scam agencies so .....
Everybody has a plan til they get punched in the mouth
Mike Tyson
Traveler
Freshman Poster
Posts: 375
Joined: March 30th, 2013, 11:23 pm

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Traveler »

"They have a plan where you pay $95 and you can get 100 emails from the ladies profiles, which comes out to one dollar per email. Not a bad deal, especially if the women are hot."
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=13176&start=15

So the price for e-mails is reasonable if you buy in bulk. However, a significant percentage of the women on the site are scammers. I recently watched a documentary, Love Me, about six men who went on an AFA tour. Three men got scammed. Two men ended up in happy relationships with Ukrainian women. One man decided he preferred American women and never wanted to return to Ukraine. Based on that, your chances of getting scammed are 50%.
User avatar
Voyager1
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 11th, 2016, 7:53 am

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Voyager1 »

Traveler wrote:"So the price for e-mails is reasonable if you buy in bulk. However, a significant percentage of the women on the site are scammers. I recently watched a documentary, Love Me, about six men who went on an AFA tour. Three men got scammed. Two men ended up in happy relationships with Ukrainian women. One man decided he preferred American women and never wanted to return to Ukraine. Based on that, your chances of getting scammed are 50%.
If you know what you're doing you're chances of getting scammed are zero. The only thing a pro-dater can steal from you is your time. When you learn to spot them in the very beginning you can eliminate them right away.
gsjackson
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 3756
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 7:08 am
Location: New Orleans, LA USA
Contact:

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by gsjackson »

Traveler wrote:"They have a plan where you pay $95 and you can get 100 emails from the ladies profiles, which comes out to one dollar per email. Not a bad deal, especially if the women are hot."
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=13176&start=15

So the price for e-mails is reasonable if you buy in bulk.
But the problem is 99 percent of them don't list email addresses. So with those women you would be paying I think $7.99 per email if you joined this platinum membership, instead of $9.99, with no hope of ever getting contact info from any of them because it will always be edited out.

I threw one more $9.99 into the scam to write and tell "her" she needs to go sign something at the "local office" and I can then purchase her email address for $12, as AFA told me. I explained the situation to her and said that I wouldn't open any email from her unless it was titled "I have done this." So today's email came with the usual heading. I haven't opened the last two. Cutting my losses at $53. Lesson learned -- so much for internet dating sites. This company really is engaged in something very close to out-and-out fraud. Why isn't the FTC on them instead of the gov passing laws requiring us to reveal background info?
User avatar
Voyager1
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 11th, 2016, 7:53 am

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Voyager1 »

gsjackson what you can do if you're really interested in her is hire a private investigator in the area that she lives. A good private eye will usually be able to track the girl down for you and with her permission put the two of you in direct contact.

The problem is that most of the time the real girl in the photo doesn't even know about the guy who has been supposedly writing her. Most of the times these sites fabricate the correspondence to keep the money flowing in. If you do go on one of their expensive tours they might be able to persuade her to attend the socials and meet you. They will of course fill her in on all the fabricated correspondence first.
Last edited by Voyager1 on August 12th, 2016, 11:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Voyager1
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 11th, 2016, 7:53 am

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Voyager1 »

The other thing you can do is try to track down her social networking profile (FB or VK) if she has one. Google image search every image you have for her. A lot of times her profile picture will come up on the social networking sites I mentioned. I even tracked down one girl through her LinkedIn profile and contacted her at her work. I found out the company she worked for and called her directly at work.
User avatar
Voyager1
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 11th, 2016, 7:53 am

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Voyager1 »

Regarding the fabricated correspondence. These sites will work with "local agencies". Quite often they will pass blame for the fabricated correspondence on the local agency. The local agency is being compensated financially for exchange of letters and chat.

But the buck has to stop at the top. AFA is collecting the money and they can't pass the buck to someone else down the line. They ultimately have to be held accountable. I agree with you gsjackson that there should be an investigation into this company, Anastasiadate and many other companies that operate like this.
Ghost
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 5983
Joined: April 16th, 2011, 6:23 pm

Post by Ghost »

.
Last edited by Ghost on May 24th, 2018, 8:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
jamesbond
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 11251
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:45 am
Location: USA

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by jamesbond »

Ghost wrote:Don't pay for things that are free. $10 for an email is laughable. Even if it's $1 per email, that's silly. Learn Ukrainian or Russian or whatever and get on some EE social networking sites or something.
Exactly, $10 for an email is ridiculous, just visit the country directly and meet women that way.
"When I think about the idea of getting involved with an American woman, I don't know if I should laugh .............. or vomit!"

"Trying to meet women in America is like trying to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics."
Hero
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 3rd, 2008, 1:19 pm

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Hero »

Lately, a lot of women from anastasiaweb have been reporting their location as Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Either there's been a huge migration of Slavic women to Mexico for some reason, or they think that they're more likely to attract the interest of an American man if they're living relatively close to the USA. What do you think?
gsjackson
Elite Upper Class Poster
Posts: 3756
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 7:08 am
Location: New Orleans, LA USA
Contact:

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by gsjackson »

Hero wrote:Lately, a lot of women from anastasiaweb have been reporting their location as Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Either there's been a huge migration of Slavic women to Mexico for some reason, or they think that they're more likely to attract the interest of an American man if they're living relatively close to the USA. What do you think?
I looked at an American dating site a couple of years ago, and the geographical distribution was hilarious. In southeastern Arizona, the great majority of people live in Tucson. But these supposedly available women were distributed with perfect geographical evenhandedness, as many in, say, Sahuarita as in Tucson. Several of them even lived in Coronado National Forest. Evidently this company used a computer, or an absolute low-level moron, to attach geographic locations to these photographs, which I'm sure were just plucked from the internet, regardless of the actual location of the girl. FTC, what's the story with these companies? Do they make enough money to pay off Washington?

Voyager1, thanks for all your good information, and don't let Winston run you off of here. I might just try to find a private investigator in Kharkiv, just out of curiosity about whether this girl ever did see any of my communications and respond. I'm assuming such services aren't super-expensive in Ukraine, though I'd have to dicker my way out of paying a gringo (or whatever the Ukrainian term is for western suckers) price.
User avatar
Voyager1
Experienced Poster
Posts: 1710
Joined: July 11th, 2016, 7:53 am

Re: Is A Foreign Affair a scam?

Post by Voyager1 »

gs - maybe I can help. Check your PM
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Questions and Advice”