Agencies and paid websites - what is the benefit?

[Mike78]

Simoni,
this is a good point that the small local agencies are good when trying a WMVM trip. Also the screening might be have some value, although I'm not sure if it's worth the hefty price tag...

Also, I know this is an FSU women forum, but are there any websites dealing specifically with girls from western Slavic countries, especially Czech Rep. and Slovakia? I'm an ethnic Slovak myself and this is what I would prefer before FSU girls. My guess would be that this scene is very small or non-existent due to better economy than FSU and EU membership, but who knows? There are still a lot of ads from girls in Baltic countries like Estonia that are on similar level of economic development and are EU members as well...

[Simoni]

Simoni,
this is a good point that the small local agencies are good when trying a WMVM trip. Also the screening might be have some value, although I'm not sure if it's worth the hefty price tag...

Also, I know this is an FSU women forum, but are there any websites dealing specifically with girls from western Slavic countries, especially Czech Rep. and Slovakia? I'm an ethnic Slovak myself and this is what I would prefer before FSU girls. My guess would be that this scene is very small or non-existent due to better economy than FSU and EU membership, but who knows? There are still a lot of ads from girls in Baltic countries like Estonia that are on similar level of economic development and are EU members as well...

Mike, I don't know very much about Czech sites; however, my wife and I did vacation in Prague and it became our favorite European city.  You should check it out.

Hefty price?  Depends on the agency?  It cost me 45 bucks for me to meet my wife :-)

But all in all, I spent a couple of hundred dollars writing half a dozen girls.  The agency did make money from a flat rental, but $45 a night was fair.

[Gator]

Misha, that bug up your ass is active again.  Take a deep breath then exhale slowly.  Repeat.  Then examine what I wrote without jumping to conclusions, without placing your words in my mouth, without dismissing what I saw, without assuming what I inferred, ....

Rather than distracting the topic, I will let you have the last word because I don't give a sh!t.  

BTW, I saw some fine, fashionable women in the provinces.  Must have been some Muscovites traveling on business.  

Do I have to explain the purposefully facetious nature of the last sentence?  Lighten up!

 

[GQBlues]

Also, I know this is an FSU women forum, but are there any websites dealing specifically with girls from western Slavic countries, especially Czech Rep. and Slovakia? I'm an ethnic Slovak myself and this is what I would prefer before FSU girls. My guess would be that this scene is very small or non-existent due to better economy than FSU and EU membership, but who knows? There are still a lot of ads from girls in Baltic countries like Estonia that are on similar level of economic development and are EU members as well...

CR & Slovakia are two countries that fell under the VWP (Visa Waiver Program) to the US back in the late 2008. As far as marriage agencies for those two nations, fat chance...you can just take a trip to either and try your luck. There's not much of a drop-off in terms of talent though I would give the slight edge for Czech women.

A lot Slovaks/Czech in PA and Canada.

[Misha]

Lighten up!

You are right. I let you get under my skin, and I should not do that. Why should I be annoyed by the comments of an anonymous poster when I will have the opportunity to spend the night with a wonderful "provincial" woman

[XMan]

The debate rages on.   

If an FP site worked for someone, it is clearly the way to go. 
If an agency worked for someone else, then it is the best way. 

I've used both.  As usual, the caveat -- this was MY personal experience only, and your mileage may vary (and most likely will). 

That having been said:
The FP sites were Scamapaloosa.  ScamFest 2010.  Scam on a stick.  I left my heart in Scam Francisco.  A Scam and Egg sandwich.  For those who navigated the waters successfully, congratulations.  You walked through infested waters and emerged unscathed, with not even a single flesh removing bite from a piranha.  For me, and me only, I found that those who weren't scammers were prostitutes or escaped mental patients.  The law of averages says that there MUST be sincere women on the FP sites.  I know there are.  I did not find them and rapidly became disenchanted with that pointless venture. 

Think of free sites as similar to trying to save money on a new car by buying all the parts and then building it yourself.  Good luck with that.  For those with the right skills, they may have the best automobile ever and at a quarter of the cost.  If you speak some half-way decent Russian, can handle every arrangement, deal with every, single possible bad scenario that you can or cannot imagine, then strip down and dive in. 

I had at least somewhat more success with "limited service" sites, for lack of a better phrase.  I did a shotgun WMVM.  I did actually meet real women.  I hired an independent interpreter, booked my own apartment by doing some extensive research, didn't get jerked around and moved to a different apartment because the one I paid for was somehow double booked, the driver I hired showed up and was not drunk or stupid, so overall it worked out. 

Tried a number of agencies.  Dropped several prior to getting committed to travel because of red flags.  Hard to do, but a smart move IMO.  Found two agencies I trusted (different trips) and used them.  Got what I paid for.  Not cheap, but anyone who starts this process and thinks they are somehow going to do this inexpensively is simply not aware of what is required (no offense). 

Yes, it is true that more women have Internet access and computers.  Considering how many keyboard Romeo's there are here, how many keyboard Juliet's do you think there are now?  That is why I say FP at your own risk.  But I say the same for agencies.  Do the research.  Keep your wits about you or you'll lose everything else. 

So, that is officially my most opinionated post. 

[Jooky]

The FP sites were Scamapaloosa.

What free sites did you use? As I mentioned above, there is a big difference between free bridal sites and free normal Russian personals sites.

Think of free sites as similar to trying to save money on a new car by buying all the parts and then building it yourself.

If you're talking about Russian personals, I disagree. There's no free and pay options with Russian personals. They're simply free or have a small fee for the use of advanced features. It's no different than using match.com or any regular US or Europe based personals site.

The debate rages on

I don't see much of a debate. I agree that one should use as many options as possible, especially to keep looking back home (as that's the most likely option to pay off).

What puzzles me is men talking about the 'scam infested waters' if they are really talking about Russian dating sites. Why would some guys get inundated with lunatics, scammers and women with bad intentions while I meet nothing but a range of normal women using these sites? So, what are you guys doing differently?

[Shadow]

What puzzles me is men talking about the 'scam infested waters' if they are really talking about Russian dating sites. Why would some guys get inundated with lunatics, scammers and women with bad intentions while I meet nothing but a range of normal women using these sites? So, what are you guys doing differently?

Check the comments on the thread of ECOCKS ' real men'  and you will understand what they do differently. 

[Chicagoguy]

I met my wife very early in 2008 and we were married 1.5 years later.

I was on free site Holostyak.com. I had also met two fine women on FreePersonals.ru.

In all cases these women saw my profile first.

[GregfromGa]

I wrote on someones intro that the landscapes were always changing with this process. This is a prime example. I think there will always be agencies but the free sites have probably taken a good chunk of their business. A little common sense and a few trips to RWD will help guys make the right decisions regarding the lady on the other end of the web cam. A few carefully placed questions will help as well. For example if your writing to a girl in Kiev, What is your favorite place to eat? She says Buddha Bar or Soho or some other extremely high place. My advice is to run like hell because that's not her first rodeo.

[Misha]

What puzzles me is men talking about the 'scam infested waters' if they are really talking about Russian dating sites.

It puzzles me too. It would make no sense for a scammer looking for a foreigner to post  a profile on a free Russian dating site. This profile will be lost among the millions of others and the foreigners will be an infinitely small proportion of all the men on the site. It would be a complete waste of their time to be there.

[myrddin]

I do recall a contact or two that I was pretty sure were scams on freepersonals.ru and the mamba network (unless a 42 year old really was trying to set me up with her 21 year old daughter  ).  But it was definitely not common, less common than Russian and Nigerian scams on match.com, for example.

I definitely agree about using as many options as possible.

[Misha]

I do recall a contact or two that I was pretty sure were scams on freepersonals.ru and the mamba network (unless a 42 year old really was trying to set me up with her 21 year old daughter  ). 

The solution I found was quite simple: I was extremely wary of any woman who contacted me first, especially if I had not looked at their profile. As you could see who had browsed your profile, sometimes I would get an occasional message from a woman that I had checked out. However, even this was extremely rare.

[Chicagoguy]

All my comments apply just to me. My wife to be was 53. When I initiated contact it was with women between 55 and 60. Not fertile ground for scammers - IMHO.

[Veles]

Hello guys!
I had experience with company Ukrainian Partner. They are not marriage agency (more consulting) but people there know a lot about our topic. Plus they can organize individual tours.
www.ukrainianpartner.com (then go to People Search)

Good luck!

[ECOCKS]

As my little project progresses I see and hear a lot of complaints from both sides.

Good women are tired of men who only "take" or are midway down the list and then there are guys everywhere complaining that they can't find the perfect gal.

Also the ones who rush into it or want the trophy and then the relationship goes south over some maintenance issue or they are so eager to land the big fish they get themselves into a situation where they are continually bribing the gal to stay with them seem to be major problems which occur often.

An agency/business needs to provide service but the price of that service gets slammed and we hear about all the "free" "do-it-yourselfers" yet it still seems very hit or miss. This year alone we have seen 4 high-profile marriages break. That is disheartening for many.

I think the large-scale operations can never offer the service level to raise the level of successand the boutiques are squeezed by the market.

If a business existed which significantly increased the odds of a successful marriage at a reasonable cost, there seems to be a justification for their existence but how to market and price successfully remains a question.

[BC]

As my little project progresses I see and hear a lot of complaints from both sides.

Good women are tired of men who only "take" or are midway down the list and then there are guys everywhere complaining that they can't find the perfect gal.

Also the ones who rush into it or want the trophy and then the relationship goes south over some maintenance issue or they are so eager to land the big fish they get themselves into a situation where they are continually bribing the gal to stay with them seem to be major problems which occur often.

An agency/business needs to provide service but the price of that service gets slammed and we hear about all the "free" "do-it-yourselfers" yet it still seems very hit or miss. This year alone we have seen 4 high-profile marriages break. That is disheartening for many.

I think the large-scale operations can never offer the service level to raise the level of successand the boutiques are squeezed by the market.

If a business existed which significantly increased the odds of a successful marriage at a reasonable cost, there seems to be a justification for their existence but how to market and price successfully remains a question.

All agencies and paid websites can offer is exposure and contact.  Nothing else.  Seems most though offer lots of dubious, third hand exposure and no direct contact except via some form of controlled service requiring payment (their bread and butter).

True seekers that get on a plane are probably huge PIA's to an agency, after all it's great to earn from doing practically nothing.

[GQBlues]

An agency/business needs to provide service but the price of that service gets slammed and we hear about all the "free" "do-it-yourselfers" yet it still seems very hit or miss. This year alone we have seen 4 high-profile marriages break. That is disheartening for many.

If I misunderstood your post, sorry. But I know you're not implying such but you may hovering far too closely to doing so that somehow there's way out there to do this with an escalating 'X'-year, money-back Premium Guarantee Plan.

Moreover, who'll decide the perfect pairing and based on what scientific application?

[ECOCKS]

If I misunderstood your post, sorry. But I know you're not implying such but you may hovering far too closely to doing so that somehow there's way out there to do this with an escalating 'X'-year, money-back Premium Guarantee Plan.

Moreover, who'll decide the perfect pairing and based on what scientific application?

No guarantees and this certainly isn't a science. It's people.

I see dreams and expectations being mismatched up and down the line.

[XMan]

freepersonals.ru and the mamba network, and a third one that unfortunately I cannot recall the name of at the moment. 

As I said in my earlier post, your mileage may, and probably will, vary. 
My experience was extremely negative. 
And for someone who does not know what they are doing (foreign travel, no language ability, etc.), IMO a decent agency is worth the investment (assuming you can find one).

[groovlstk]

If a business existed which significantly increased the odds of a successful marriage at a reasonable cost, there seems to be a justification for their existence but how to market and price successfully remains a question.

There's another piece to this challenge that is rarely mentioned. While honesty, good service, and reasonable prices might make some male clients happy, there is also a stigma among Russian and Ukrainian people about agencies.

The MOB business gets a bad rap in the West and it's no different in Russia and Ukraine, where there are many single women who would rather stay single than join an agency. Anyone can make a case that much of the stigma is based on disinformation, but it nonetheless exists and ain't going away in this century.

Frankly, IMHO any guy who isn't taking advantage of the many tools that exist today - tools that many of us married guys never had access to - is limiting himself to the kiddy pool in an ocean of available women.

[JR]

I don't advise you to join, all the girls will be purely fictional and the responses will be automatically generated

I've met several women from EM. I honestly don't think they were fictional...unless of course I am fictional also )

[Gator]

I've met several women from EM. I honestly don't think they were fictional...unless of course I am fictional also )

I had the same experience, but with only two women.  I am not the stud that JR surely is.

[Jooky]

JR and Gator, the original comment was tongue in cheek regarding what an agency would be like if Mike was to start one.

But I do think JR is a fictional character. 

[Jooky]

All agencies and paid websites can offer is exposure and contact.  Nothing else.

Yup. That's it.

I think the main problem with Ed's 'different agency' idea is that he wants to offer extra value at extra cost for those that least need it.