One Man's Story

[Maxx2]

I would never encourage somebody here to go do something that might get them (or their FSUW) harmed.
 
GOB

A good example of this is my story from 9 years ago. Here is a photo I took of my ex back in April of 2002. The man standing is the agency owner and the young fellow facing away is his son. The guy looking at the camera was the IT guy Sasha.


Right before my ex left for America she asked me to send her as much money as I could to help her mother. This continued after she got here. When I didn't send enough money fast enough she got really worried. She would stare off in space with fear on her face. It was about that time that I upon the OK of my secretly advised with divorce attorney hired some detectives to investigate this whole nonsense. What I found out was the reason for the money being sent was all false. That the agency owner had 3 "partners", lower level mafia types according the the local FSB and they were on the off the radar payroll. That plus these guys expected the interpreters to give them gifts at the New Years Eve party (something they were peeved about).


When the ex and I spit I contacted the IT guy and told him without getting into details that my marriage ended. His reaction surprised me. He said "this is why Americans think all Russians are assholes and cheaters." That he was never going to help the agency again. Later when I contacted him he did a 180 and said what fine folks he was working for.


My conclusion on all this is that there are all sorts of deals that go on behind closed doors with these agencies, clients and their employees. Fear is a tool used when needed. A Russian woman agency owner told me that for a RM to run an agency in Russia it would have to be run like a scam operation to appear respectable to other RM.

[bleau]

That was interesting reading Maxx. I've heard similar things about other businesses over there but have never come in contact with such that I knew of. I've never done the agency thing and really don't know all the agencies and never looked at their girls.
I'm not going to "out" this girl or her agency. When we talked tonight my girl said she doesn't know the name of her agency nor does she know if it's in her city. She said they never discussed it and she never asked. They are just friends only that have shops close to each other.

I can remember back about 8 years ago I was a lurker on another forum. I was soon going to make my first trip to Russia and boy howdy could they ever make a person paranoid about going over there. All they could talk about were horror stories getting busted by the police for bribes, get busted on the head by thugs, the mafia getting after you.You name it and I think they all had horror stories to tell.

I've been to Russia many times and have no horror stories to tell. I never got busted by a cop for a bribe, never got busted by a thug, and if I saw mafia I didn't know what I was looking at for sure. I'm sure they all knew I was an American. Jeans, Reeboks and a VT ball cap but I was always with my ex fiance or her daughter. I sat next to a cop on the metro one time and he was asking me about the police here where I live. Never asked to see my passport or anything else.

I almost got stiffed in a store one time by a girl that I suppose was the owner of it. I had gone over to buy new school clothes for my now ex's daughter that today is still my buddie. She saw a jacket she liked so I thought I would surprise her with it while she had  gone to the bathroom. The girl ask me was I American and I said yes. She said I make you a deal for $60.00 US then..in almost fluent English. It had no price tag on it and I thought that was kinda sorta expensive for that jacket.
I told my little buddie about it and she said you almost got stiffed by that girl. Next store same jacket was $28.00 US.

I've paid only one bribe over there if you want to call it that. I had said goodbyes to the girls and was talking with some kids adopting a kid over there.
Time for us to go through customs and the line was almost out the front door of svo and we knew we would miss our plane,
I walked up to a guy, put a $20.00 bill in my hand and shook his hand and asked him if we could get in front of him.  He looked down and said certainly..he was from Germany not Russia. I considered that more of a courtesy payment than a bribe.

I think if most people use common sense and pay attention to their surroundings, read the forums and ask questions and not show their butts in the FSU then they'll be ok.

For the ones that do use the agencies I would say do some research on the scam sites. read the forums and ask questions before you get to be a babbling fool over a girl in an agency and get your pocketbook busted from one of them.