Cottage scammer at Dream Marriage

[SANDRO43]

Agency scams are not a cottage industry, however they can rely on cottage help, too .

Dream Marriage is a rather suspect agency, when you log on you immediately have a queue of 20 y.o. anxious to chat with you, obviously for a fee.

When 34 y.o. Anna Kondratyuk (http://www.dream-marriage.com/97524.html) wrote me an introductory letter, I was curious and decided to waste a few $ and play along. Chatting with her, I discovered she had her own PC with webcam, and was often online. She looks leaner than in her photos, probably taken some years earlier.

Since she's also the stay-at-home mom of a 3 y.o., this raised some yellow flags. Red flags appeared when she steadfastedly refused to give out her contact details, her excuse being that they include her telephone number and she speaks very little English (she relies on an electronic translator for her chats and letters).

What finally gave her out was a message thanking me for flowers that I had NOT sent her .

[Vinnvinny]

She looks leaner than in her photos, probably taken some years earlier.

In my experience, that's a first! 

[SANDRO43]

In my experience, that's a first! 

I meant her face, couldn't see much else through her webcam, she always wore a blue woollen night robe (not much transparent, that ) during our chats.

[OlgaH]

What finally gave her out was a message thanking me for flowers that I had NOT sent her .

Sandro, you should tell her that you did not send her flowers, but $500 and see what her reply would be 

[Chicagoguy]

Sandro,

I like her. Please send her some flowers and sign my name.  :evil:

[kryten41]

After receiving the "work and travel" scam several times, I began to wonder if scamming is marketed as "work at home".  I imagine advertisements in Russian newspapers "Make money working at home sending emails!  All you need is access to a computer and the emails I supply! Send 50 rubles to _____ and start making money today!"

[JR]

Sandro,
Have you really never gone to the FSU?

[SANDRO43]

Sandro,
Have you really never gone to the FSU?

Never been there, yet.

[Sculpto]

Never been there, yet.

Whats stopping you?  Why not get on the plane?

[SANDRO43]

Whats stopping you?  Why not get on the plane?

Not having any decent 'target' there yet .

I thought I had one in SPB back in 2005 and was all set to go, but one fine day she rushed off to a hospital where a former boyfriend was in a bad way - they had split years before after he, an Army sapper, had returned from service in Chechnya with several screws loose. The old flame apparently rekindled, and they got married shortly thereafter .

[SANDRO43]

Anna Kondratyuk, Act II

A couple of days ago I was surprised to receive yet ANOTHER letter (actually simultaneously two, from the twin sites of Natasha Club & 1st International) from Anna Kondratyuk:

Hello, Sandro !
My name is Anna, I will like to tell you a bit of myself as I read through your profile and I like it you seem like a real man who knows what he wants, I am a lady who is in her middle 30s I am interesting and I am just here looking for someone to love and someone to love me because I know when you have love in this world every other thing will find its way to you…I am very nice and straight so all my friends say also I am very tender with warm heart so I think you are Are you are nice man, are you tender hearted can you be a man, I mean a real man? Also like the sea a lot and I love summer it’s my favorite time of the year... I like it when it is hot and I like it when everywhere is very full with people enjoying themselves I really like happiness and like when I can be with someone that can give me that I am a woman ready to get married and ready for a family and I am ready to listen to listen to my husband... And be ready to a good wife... But he must learn to treat me like a lady...can you do that? I will be waiting to receive your letter with all impatience
Hugs and Kisses
Anna

Given her high registration number, she must have joined those sites very recently:
- http://www.natashaclub.com/profile.php?ID=1000106657
- http://www.1st-international.com/profile.php?ID=1000106657

Considering that she could not have forgotten so soon that our parting had not been terribly amicable, I think this confirms the long-held suspicion of 'automated letters' from those two agencies .

[Vaughn]

Natasha Club and 1st International enjoy assistance from three other sites, namely
myrussian-lady.com, russian-brides-club.com with alena-marriage-agency covering
the Russian and French market.

Hilarious: Last logged in: 2009-03-28 12:03:54  (simultaneously, on ALL five sites)


 

[SANDRO43]

Hilarious: Last logged in: 2009-03-28 12:03:54  (simultaneously, on ALL five sites)

Vaughn, she's a BUSY girl .

[facetrock]

Sandro. No disrespect intended but you have been looking since 2005 have over five thousand posts here and have never been to the FSU?  Dude, you really need to get on a plane. You live in Italy for christ sake! Its a short trip. Just go on a vacation there and have fun.

[SANDRO43]

Sandro. No disrespect intended but you have been looking since 2005 have over five thousand posts here and have never been to the FSU?  Dude, you really need to get on a plane. You live in Italy for christ sake! Its a short trip. Just go on a vacation there and have fun.

Facetrock, I'm not in a desperate hurry, although I realise that my age is working against me, in the sense that the odds of finding a decent-looking and interesting partner (see examples upthread) ANYWHERE get leaner and leaner as time passes.

I am considering a trip to SPB - my grandmother's birthplace - in the future, but there are lots of other places I've never been to or that I'd like to see again, so no hurry for that, either .

Regarding my posts, I consider RWD more like a club than a means to a practical end .

[facetrock]

Well whenever you want to go is your business but just by making the trip does not mean your desperate in anyway. You should go to St. Pete. I was there once years ago and there is plenty to see and do.

[JR]

I am considering a trip to SPB - my grandmother's birthplace - in the future, but there are lots of other places I've never been to or that I'd like to see again, so no hurry for that, either .

Regarding my posts, I consider RWD more like a club than a means to a practical end .

Go to Saint Pete, the other places...well you've already been there, done that. The Hermitage is nothing short of amazing...

[Wraith]

Anna Kondratyuk, Act II
Given her high registration number, she must have joined those sites very recently:
- http://www.natashaclub.com/profile.php?ID=1000106657
- http://www.1st-international.com/profile.php?ID=1000106657

These are actually mirror sites and use the same database. Their main office is based in Illinois. They just recently added another site known as RuPersonals.com. As for the automated letters the ladies actually have an option to send out broadcast emails which target men who fit the criteria they are looking for. Each broadcast will dish out 300 or so emails. I guess this is their "search" option without having to go and look at individual profiles until someone responds. If you look at the site now they are up in the 158k range as far as profiles are concerned. I have run across numerous profiles on the site which have duplicate descriptions word for word.

[veritas]

Dream Marriage is a rather suspect agency, when you log on you immediately have a queue of 20 y.o. anxious to chat with you, obviously for a fee.

BTW, I realize that this is an old topic, but I'm a newbie, so I don't know any better ...

Sandro,

My experience lately (August 2010) is that the queue of anxious 20-year-old chatters
appears on the right side of the screen BEFORE I even log in -- which is REALLY absurd!

Also, color me clueless (as a newbie to discussion boards), but I get confused by avatars
that look like they COULD be the persons posting ... (My avatar is actually a photo of ME) ...
OK, I quickly caught on to the "beautiful girl" pic and the Kurt Cobain pic, but who is YOUR
avatar a photo of?  President or Prime Minister of Italy?  Sorry in advance for being clueless ...

Kevin

[SANDRO43]

Sandro,
My experience lately (August 2010) is that the queue of anxious 20-year-old chatters
appears on the right side of the screen BEFORE I even log in -- which is REALLY absurd!

Also, color me clueless (as a newbie to discussion boards), but I get confused by avatars
that look like they COULD be the persons posting ... (My avatar is actually a photo of ME) ...
OK, I quickly caught on to the "beautiful girl" pic and the Kurt Cobain pic, but who is YOUR
avatar a photo of?  President or Prime Minister of Italy?  Sorry in advance for being clueless ...

Kevin

Kevin,

that is a photo of mine, taken by a friend just before our choir started performing in a Milan church. Regarding forum avatars and nicknames, people have two basic and opposite choices: either use some assumed personality, or their own - I always preferred the latter. And please do NOT confuse me for Berlusconi, I'm not a billionaire , and did not have a hair transplant, either .

As for sites showing queues of chatters before one logs on, that is a web design choice. Actual/aspiring chatters - often agency staff - are logged on to the site server anyway, ready to pounce on the unwary , and it does not require a visitor's log on to show them, it's all on the server side. It's a 'marketing tool' ("See how many pretties are available? Sign up and enjoy!") for site revenue - usually chats are NOT for free .

[veritas]

Thanks, Sandro -- you are indeed a handsome man, more so than Berlusconi ...

I think what you're saying about the "anxious [would-be] chatters" on D-M is
that they are rather like the 4 photos at the top of the screen -- i.e., "girls"
who are supposedly "online, available, and waiting" for interaction ...

But isn't the pretense supposed to be that these chatters want to chat with ME?
Before I even have a chance to log IN?  How would this (allegedly) be POSSIBLE?
If I were to ask D-M how this could be, would they tell me that it's my COOKIES
or something?  Aren't the "girls" on the right side supposed to be targeting ME?
Both before AND after I actually log in?  This may indeed be possible -- I'm no
"networking guru" -- but it defies common sense to THINK that this is possible,
and so it seems that D-M should "put a lid on it" to avoid skepticism like mine ...

OR, I may just be "over-thinking it" far more than the usual D-M sheep ...

All I know is that I used to have my screen resolution set at 800x600 -- with
a standard 4:3 aspect-ratio monitor -- and so I would've had to scroll to the
right to even SEE these chatters (which I never did) ... But now that I have
a widescreen 16:9 monitor, with my screen resolution at 1280x768, I ALWAYS
see these chatters if my D-M window is wide enough, and so I ALWAYS reduce
it to avoid those nasty DISTRACTIONS!    (With their little "timelines" expiring) ...

Please pardon the "tech talk", everyone -- I'm both a newbie AND a techie! 

(But, strangely enough, also a bit of a Luddite -- which makes NO sense a'tall) ...

Kevin

P.S.  If anyone picks up on the fact that 1280x768 isn't QUITE 16:9, then kudos to YOU! 

[SANDRO43]

But isn't the pretense supposed to be that these chatters want to chat with ME? Before I even have a chance to log IN? How would this (allegedly) be POSSIBLE?

Not necessarily.

BEFORE logon, the DM homepage shows 4 girls at top with the caption I'M ONLINE. After a few seconds, a panel appears at right entitled "These Ladies are online NOW!" - which gets updated presumably as these girls log on/off. As I said before, on the server side it's simple enough to design a panel to appear listing a number of girls already connected (online). Going to a different site page causes the list of 4 girls at top to be refreshed with new entries.

If you click Girls Online - Live Chat in their LH menu panel, you are shown the 'pool' from which the girls are obtained. The page is entitled "Russian Women Online Gallery" and shows 15 thumbnails, with at bottom [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [>>] [21] which means about 315 girls (15 girls * 21 pages) in total - quite a busy set up at DM right now .

AFTER you logon, the "These Ladies are online NOW!" panel reappears with its title changed to "These ladies are inviting you to chat!", often showing different girls.

If I were to ask D-M how this could be, would they tell me that it's my COOKIES or something? 

Only to confuse you, if they did. Cookies are not necessary to implement the above arrangement.

Aren't the "girls" on the right side supposed to be targeting ME? Both before AND after I actually log in?  This may indeed be possible

That's what they'd like you to believe .

Just consider DM a shop, and the girls they show their window dressing.

Other similarly 'honest' sites like YEVA4U (http://www.yeva-4u.com.ua/) have similar 'bait' panels appear only AFTER you log on. Therefore it's a web designer's choice, usually based on a specific client's wishes.

[veritas]

Well, Sandro, as usual, you are RIGHT ... I must apologize for not checking it out
more carefully before posting that ...    Those "girls" on the right side there are
NOT (supposedly) targeting ME specifically BEFORE I log in -- their panels actually
DO, in fact, say exactly what you reported, and I never noticed the difference ... 

Of course, then again, I've never actually CARED about who's online -- or waiting
to chat with me -- "NOW!" -- because I've never wanted to avail myself of their
various "live" functions ... (Or even their DEAD ones, like the pre-recorded videos) ...

I've studiously restricted myself ONLY to the asynchronous letter-reading and -writing,
partly because I didn't want to spend that many credits ($$$), and partly because this
old year-2001 Dell Dimension 8100 computer that I'm STILL typing on can't even HANDLE
multimedia ANYWAY!   (Remember what I said about being a bit of a Luddite?  Actually,
though, I've got a brand-new high-end Studio XPS 8100 just "waiting in the wings" here) ...

Thanks for so carefully describing the various D-M pages and functions -- I HOPE there
was a lotta cut-and-paste there!  Sorry for sending you back into that "den of thieves
and vipers" (credit Andrew Jackson) to explain things to me that I should have verified
before posting ...

But I HAVE always noticed the "random" 4-girl queue at the top -- a fairly tight rotation --
and those pix have sometimes driven me to DISTRACTION, because -- unlike the chatters --
I can't avoid them by re-sizing my WINDOW!    So they have sent me on many a tangent ...

Kevin

P.S.  You should be careful how you use the word "client" in the same post as "server" ... 

[SANDRO43]

P.S.  You should be careful how you use the word "client" in the same post as "server" ... 

Maybe in the same SENTENCE, which was not the case .

[veritas]

Touche'!   

(Dang!  I just KNOW that with all of these formatting options, there MUST be an accent mark) ...

And also, it might have been a "den of vipers and thieves" ... Or "PIT of vipers and thieves" ... Or ...
Well, someone here has old Andy's quote in their signature, but I'd heard that populist dude before ...
Especially the story of how he opened the White House to the public for his inauguration celebration,
and there were PIGS and other animals running through the place ... How's THAT for populism???   )