Review/Critique/Roast of HRB/RLM

[GQBlues]

Not only that, Tim...how many times have you witness men come through these halls asking if the woman they're corresponding with is legit, despite the obvious signals she isn't, and yet ignore the members advice anyway? I'd say 'most' if not all of them....

They would occasionally even get hostile when they don't 'hear' (read) what they like to 'hear', LOL.

[tim 360]

Dammmm GQ, you are so right.  Whattsammattta 'wit me I've seen that time and again here.  Moron after moron.  There are so many idiots involved in this they might as well get fleeced.  Can't help the hopeless.


ps:  I must have a case of misplaced altrusim this week.  I'll get over it.

[Faux Pas]

>>now Dan's defense of HNB's practices.<<

What "defense"?!?

I *thought* my posts were aimed at; (a) taking yet another 'run' at trying to define what is - and what is NOT - scamming behavior, and (b) recognizing that IMBRA mandates IMB interaction that was NOT necessary pre-IMBRA (for those who use an IMB), and (c) stating that mere suspicion of guilt is NOT the same as determination of guilt.

I'll ask yet again - have you read the topics linked repeatedly upthread? They were posted PRIOR to this current debate, and they should provide a great deal of helpful context. At a minimum, it may aid those who participated in both (or all three) topics to not contradict themselves.

- Dan

Dan

I now see where my claim of you defending was too strong. Yet you didn't admonish or condemn the practices and I read your later post where you refuse to do so until you find more clarity in definition. Fair enough and I see your position. Probably a good time to point out the way you repost and answer a question I find a little confusing at times and attribute words to you that wasn't you.

I didn't go back and re-read those threads you posted but I have read them before. I participated in them and I feel the same now as I did then. The deception and slight of hand crap is scamming. Sending a member emails under the pretense of response from women when they are not, is a scam, to get the recipient to pay money under false pretense is a scam. It is a world of buyer beware but, that doesn't excuse the scammer IMHO.

I don't see the grey area here but, I'm not in the business. If I am searching for a wife and I register with an agency and pay them money, I expect them to be on my side and working for me. More specifically, I want them providing me with wife material with whom I can meet and get acquainted not, soft porn and sex chat girls. Sculpto's claim there was outright prostitution to white slavery. I'm not so sure now he might not have been right.

CEO's contention is these things happen and are out of his control. If he can't control it on his own website, who can? The fact there there are good women there is completely immaterial. Why aren't ALL the women, good women? That doesn't seem to me as an impossible goal. How about some quality control and take some pride and ownership of his product. I don't accept "corruption in the FSU" as an excuse.

I'm no Goody Goody, "Greater than thou" or firmly planted on the high road. What's wrong with expecting an agency to provide what they claim to provide?

[BillyB]

I wonder if the response would be any different with a factual, well written profile from a man that a majority of women  could consider desirable and sincere...

Well written profiles will still generate invites to video chat at HRB/RLM. I created a decent profile on the Mamba network which has instant messaging. Sent out 3700 intro messages to different women and received 700 replies. Some ladies were very interested in me, some moderate, some had minor interest and a few reply messages basically told me to Fuc off. That sounds realistic don't you think? A regular guy can't please everyone or get nowhere near 50% of the women interested in them. From a large pool of women to sample from my reply rate was about 19% and not every reply was something to celebrate. Minus scammers and spammers who hit on me first, only 5 women wrote me first and none of them were young or had model looks.

If I posted the same profile at HRB/RLM, I'm sure I'd get 50% of the young model looking women talking to me. Most would initiate contact with me first. From a large pool to sample from, that is not how real women act. Why should a guy sign up for an agency and have to be smart enough to distinguish the real from the unreal contacts? If a guy is dumb, it's okay to drain his bank account by sending him false messages of interest and attraction? If a guy signs up at a porn site, he clearly understands the women are paid to give him attention and talk dirty. If a guy signs up for HRB/RLM, he assumes he's talking to real women that are interested in relationships and the women are not paid to talk dirty and they speak on their own free will.

[Gator]

Unlike some, I am VERY slow to condemn - witness the amount of time I've spent trying to reform wayward members - as some of our Moderators can attest. I see this no different. I will condemn if/when there is a clear basis to do so - and not until. We still do not have that basis.

And you are doing a helluva good job, seriously.  Probably the leading reason why I still hang around well past my expiration date.

In the case of this thread, my attitude changed from HRB is 100% scam to maybe the new HRB management is making significant improvements.

If you choose to interpret my actions as "defense" of a business practice - I really cannot help that. I assure you that I am more than willing to condemn poor behavior - as I have condemned the hypocrisy of Jim and his blacklist sites for years. 

I did interpret it as defense when you challenged the legitimate negative points made by Jooky and others.  You were not alone.   A  surprising number of men with years and years of RW industry experience joined you.  However, I saw little pragmatism in the different positions all of you were taking.

[Gator]

I *really* like Gator's suggestion for a 'competitive analysis.' Focus on those attributes that should be measured would be an excellent starting point

Rather than continue to debate the potentially negative points in the implementation of HRB’s business model,   I made the suggestion that someone step forward to list HRB’s positive points (those points which would compel an informed man to choose HRB vs. other options).  I could not think of many, so I solicited those "defending" HRB to do it.


I am not volunteering to do a comparative analysis, and can not because I have never used HRB.  I have used EM and a couple of similar agencies. 

As a  starting point, the evaluation factors and criteria could include:

1.   Search function:  EM allows a man to eliminate women who seek men younger than the searcher’s age.  This works well if the age limits are reasonable.  The women at EM appear to use reasonable limits in contrast to women at AW who has many 45-yo women specifying an upper age limit of 70 or even 80.  What is a 45-yo woman going to do with an 80-yo man?  English ability is another important search variable.

2.   Activity by the RW:  Some women are in the catalogs long after they have removed themselves from the MOB market.  I dated one woman through AFA and she soon married a RM; yet her profile remained on AFA’s site for three years.  EM shows three factors about a RW’s freshness:  when she first signed up, her last login, and her response rate to Expressions of Interest from men.

3.   Unhindered Contact with Women.  Is communication filtered through agency staff or does it go directly to the RW? 

4.   Agency Mechanisms in Place to Eliminate “Bad” Women

5.   IMBRA Compliance

6.   Costs (to send/receive EOIs and letters, translations, videocam sessions, etc.)

7.   Reputation, customer service, etc.

[TomT]

If I posted the same profile at HRB/RLM, I'm sure I'd get 50% of the young model looking women talking to me.

You are far too modest, Billy. I'm sure that, if you posted a profile on HRB, you would hear from 100% of the young, model-looking women.

[facetrock]

Tom your absolutely right about that. Your age, race, religion, weight, height or sexual persuasion wont matter a lick to the HRB babes. They simply are dying to talk to anyone.

[BillyB]

In the case of this thread, my attitude changed from HRB is 100% scam to maybe the new HRB management is making significant improvements.

New management? They were always the same management with the same problems that never seemed to go away. Here is a nearly 5 year old thread at the old RWG site that we used to participate at talking about the same ole problems.

http://www.russianwomenforums.com/messages.cfm?threadid=BD6B6848-F207-AE0E-05D9FE2B1D7190D9&page=1

CEO plays G. Pearson

I play myself

Jooky plays himself

TomT plays himself

HolAsh/Recprob is two profiles who I later found out played by one guy who endorsed HRB/RLM, tried to get in a fight with me and threaten me to shut my mouth over the subject. If any forum owners reading this and have a member with the IP address 68.33.180.235, let me know his name.

[acrzybear]

Well if nothing else the HRB administrater got a couple of guys to drop some money on his business, so his comming here wasn't a total waste of time.

[Jooky]

Good list by Gator.

I would add:

8. Site population and site active population (which can be seen if #2 is in place).

9. Interface the women use. (Is it the same as what the men use, or do they use a different system?)

[Shadow]

Well written profiles will still generate invites to video chat at HRB/RLM. I created a decent profile on the Mamba network which has instant messaging. Sent out 3700 intro messages to different women and received 700 replies. Some ladies were very interested in me, some moderate, some had minor interest and a few reply messages basically told me to Fuc off. That sounds realistic don't you think? A regular guy can't please everyone or get nowhere near 50% of the women interested in them. From a large pool of women to sample from my reply rate was about 19% and not every reply was something to celebrate. Minus scammers and spammers who hit on me first, only 5 women wrote me first and none of them were young or had model looks.

If I posted the same profile at HRB/RLM, I'm sure I'd get 50% of the young model looking women talking to me. Most would initiate contact with me first. From a large pool to sample from, that is not how real women act. Why should a guy sign up for an agency and have to be smart enough to distinguish the real from the unreal contacts? If a guy is dumb, it's okay to drain his bank account by sending him false messages of interest and attraction? If a guy signs up at a porn site, he clearly understands the women are paid to give him attention and talk dirty. If a guy signs up for HRB/RLM, he assumes he's talking to real women that are interested in relationships and the women are not paid to talk dirty and they speak on their own free will.

I see that you do apply the double standards as well.

[Shadow]

Dan

I now see where my claim of you defending was too strong. Yet you didn't admonish or condemn the practices and I read your later post where you refuse to do so until you find more clarity in definition. Fair enough and I see your position. Probably a good time to point out the way you repost and answer a question I find a little confusing at times and attribute words to you that wasn't you.

I didn't go back and re-read those threads you posted but I have read them before. I participated in them and I feel the same now as I did then. The deception and slight of hand crap is scamming. Sending a member emails under the pretense of response from women when they are not, is a scam, to get the recipient to pay money under false pretense is a scam. It is a world of buyer beware but, that doesn't excuse the scammer IMHO.

I don't see the grey area here but, I'm not in the business. If I am searching for a wife and I register with an agency and pay them money, I expect them to be on my side and working for me. More specifically, I want them providing me with wife material with whom I can meet and get acquainted not, soft porn and sex chat girls. Sculpto's claim there was outright prostitution to white slavery. I'm not so sure now he might not have been right.

CEO's contention is these things happen and are out of his control. If he can't control it on his own website, who can? The fact there there are good women there is completely immaterial. Why aren't ALL the women, good women? That doesn't seem to me as an impossible goal. How about some quality control and take some pride and ownership of his product. I don't accept "corruption in the FSU" as an excuse.

I'm no Goody Goody, "Greater than thou" or firmly planted on the high road. What's wrong with expecting an agency to provide what they claim to provide?

FP, I agree with most of what you wrote, but there is something here that seems to be forgotten.
I own a website/forum where over 400 members participate daily. I can tell you that it is near to impossible to follow each post, as even with 10 active forum moderators some offensive ones slip through.
I do not know how many staff HRB has to monitor the conversations, but it seems unlikely that they have enough to monitor all activity of all women online. I have asked several times to the guys who are shouting scam if there is a way to report women who are labeled as potential scammers, seem nobody even cares to reply or find out.
Also perhaps those who still have an active real profile could check if the women mentioned in this thread are still active, or perhaps their accounts were blocked as well.

The real test of any agency is not in what slips through, but in how they offer the possibility to correct things and how they react on that.

[Jooky]

Quit making lame excuses Shadow.

There is usually less than 400 women online.  About 50 of them are the webcam girls. All you need is one profile up to see who is initiating bogus sex chat requests. Why don't you sign up and see for yourself. It's not a case of a few slipping through.

Is there a way to report ladies? I'm sure you can contact customer service, but I don't see an obvious 'report scam' button. You're right, who cares?

The real test of any agency is not in what slips through, but in how they offer the possibility to correct things and how they react on that.

Bull. The agency should deal with it properly in the first place.

Also perhaps those who still have an active real profile could check if the women mentioned in this thread are still active, or perhaps their accounts were blocked as well.

They are still active. I have chat requests from a few of them right now.

By the way: here is a portion of an email send out the HRB Admin to everyone:

Gift giving and courting: If there is a real connection, then you need to step up your game and send some gifts to your lady. As any man knows, giving a woman a gift is a universal sign of "I'm Into You". With gifts ranging from flowers to English lessons, we make it easy for you to be able to court your lady without the hassle. Our online gift shop is just a few clicks away.

What do you think of that? Let's pay for some English lessons for the 'lady' we're not allowed to talk to directly. 

You guys defending this crap are an embarrassment.

[Voyager36]

In the case of this thread, my attitude changed from HRB is 100% scam to maybe the new HRB management is making significant improvements.

Sure, but would you recommend them to a newbie?

You guys defending this crap are an embarrassment.

Jooky, you & others are mistaking "defence" for HRB.
Is it deleberate fraud by HRB? maybe not, there doesn't seem to be any conclusive proof.
Are there 60 yr old guys dumb enough to spend $1,000's chatting with 18 yr old hotties? sure. (just like those idiotic "live chat" offers for $5 a minute on late night TV)

But the bottom line - would you recommend HRB to a friend?
And, after reading this thread, would you want to use them?
I think any reasonably intelligent guy should be able to figure it out. 

[Jooky]

What about a 40 year old dummy who blows $1000 chatting with a 25 year old 'cutie'? That's more along the lines of the real guys that have complained here over the years.

But the bottom line - would you recommend HRB to a friend?
And, after reading this thread, would you want to use them?
I think any reasonably intelligent guy should be able to figure it out.

You'd think so. So why is TomT recommending HRB? I don't think anyone here would say he's not an intelligent guy. Would Manny recommend HRB too? How about Andrew? I betcha they would. So what's the real deal going on?

[BC]

What about a 40 year old dummy who blows $1000 chatting with a 25 year old 'cutie'? That's more along the lines of the real guys that have complained here over the years.

If that is the case then there ain't a darn thing anyone can do about it.

In school there used to be crossing guards with shiny belts at crosswalks stopping cars.  In the virtual world it simply cannot be done other than to force an operation to close with legal means - something waaay beyond the scope of a forum.

If someone drops a grand video-chatting without results I simply cannot find the tears to shed for him.

Jooky you simply cannot help them all.

[TomT]

You'd think so. So why is TomT recommending HRB? I don't think anyone here would say he's not an intelligent guy. Would Manny recommend HRB too? How about Andrew? I betcha they would. So what's the real deal going on?

I can't speak for the others but I believe that one can find a wife there. Of course, one can find other things, also. The former requires a bit more effort than the latter but that's always the case.

We have a group of guys here who went looking for spam and they found spam. How remarkable! I daresay that the results would have been much different had they made a good faith effort to find a wife.

[wicheese]

Related to HRB cutting down on the unsolicited chats or emails, I'm thinking it's pretty easy if they care as it's called a Spam filter.  It's the same ladies writing the men and instantly clicking on chat and with all the money the CEO said he spent on the site, I'm pretty sure they know who is spamming and how to restrict it. 

BTW, I opened my account this AM and only had 57 new e-mails (in three days that only makes about 450 unsolicited mails, with the vast majority of them outside my age range specified in my profile).  So how about HRB allowing a man to put in just an age range to restrict the young early 20's or teens from e-mailing them?  There is a lot that they could do, but it's not in their interest because the more candy a person sees, the sooner or later they'll get hungry. 

Now in defense of HRB, I will still add that most of the profiles I tagged as favorites in my first query have not written me, so either they are dead profiles or potentially honest ladies who are waiting for the man to make the first step.

[Gator]

New management? They were always the same management with the same problems that never seemed to go away. Here is a nearly 5 year old thread at the old RWG site that we used to participate at talking about the same ole problems.

   
People may question your eyesight; however, your memory is superb.  I was under the impression that HRB management had changed.  Thanks for showing the error of my thinking.

Sure, but would you recommend them to a newbie?

No way!  I now feel bad that my prior comments give the impression that I am indifferent about the HRB business model and its implementation.  My true sentiments are reflected in a comment I made to Manny:

Manny, in my opinion HRB is a RW introduction site where a serious man could spend upwards of a few thousand dollars and get the same result as spending $99 at EM.  Do you agree?  If so, I don't understand how you and your RUA can lend support to HRB if your mission is about helping marriage minded men.

By the way, Manny did not answer my comment and has not appeared  here since.

[Gator]

Jooky,

You found some rather damning evidence in HRB’s email:

Gift giving and courting: If there is a real connection, then you need to step up your game and send some gifts to your lady. As any man knows, giving a woman a gift is a universal sign of "I'm Into You". With gifts ranging from flowers to English lessons, we make it easy for you to be able to court your lady without the hassle. Our online gift shop is just a few clicks away.

This reveals that HRB is persuading men to follow a path that is exactly the opposite of what one should do before meeting a RW.  In fact, serious RW will perhaps question the mentality of men who do such.  The exception would be flowers but only if a trip is planned and it is her birthday or New Years.

Giving bad advice is one thing, but to do it in a manner that promotes its own gift shop is incredible.  This is very damning.   It renews my historic opinion that the HRB’s business model is one to be avoided. 

[TomT]

Here's a novel idea: why doesn't one of the uncommitted guys write to an HRB bride exclusively, pay rapt attention to her every word, expand on the topics that she opens, make it obvious that you read and understood the words in her profile, be honest with her and don't mention chocolate. Of course, there is no guarantee that you chose the right girl but, at least, you have more of a chance than wasting time with a spammer.

[Jooky]

Here's a novel idea...

 

Sure, one more sucker to line the pockets of your newfound buddies.

Here's a novel idea. Spend at least 15 minutes checking out a site before recommending it. 

[TomT]

Gator,

Never underestimate how large flowers and gifts loom in the legend of FSU women. The extraordinary girls have many admirers... do the analysis.

[Jooky]

Never underestimate how large flowers and gifts loom in the legend of FSU women. The extraordinary girls have many admirers... do the analysis.

I'm speechless...