Cindy Agency question

[phantom]

Has anyone here used the cindy agency?

 I've been corresponding through the cindy agency, one of the girls is really nice.  But, here's two questions.  One is 19 years younger than I, is that normal?
Here's a strange one.  I was contacted by another lady she mentioned one of the things she likes is horseback riding, I replied to her and said, I'd like to ride horse with her.  The second letter from her, she said she has never went horse riding, well, that trough up a red flag to me.  Any advice on this?

[groovlstk]

Has anyone here used the cindy agency?

 I've been corresponding through the cindy agency, one of the girls is really nice.  But, here's two questions.  One is 19 years younger than I, is that normal?
Here's a strange one.  I was contacted by another lady she mentioned one of the things she likes is horseback riding, I replied to her and said, I'd like to ride horse with her.  The second letter from her, she said she has never went horse riding, well, that trough up a red flag to me.  Any advice on this?

For the most part, at Cindy the girls are real but the letters may be the product of their staff's imagination.

Save yourself some grief and $$ by making solid plans to visit, write just enough letters to familiarize yourself with the basics of each girl you intend to visit, then get on a plane. Be realistic, if a girl half your age initiates contact with you and you already know that the agency's staff sometimes invents or embellishes letters... well, draw your own conclusions.

[Gator]

Do not waste your time with many letters.  A few letters, as Groovy said, but focus on a trip.  Dnepropetrovsk is an intersting city.  Not in the class of Kiev, but fun nevertheless, and not as expensive.

Let me explain based on my experience of sitting in the office and watching the terps handle the incoming letters. 

My impression is that Cindy routinely sends generic letters of new women to many men.  The new woman may have helped to write the generic letter; however it is less than 50-50 that the woman actually selected a man's mug from the catalog.  Cindy is simply playing match maker.

If a man responds to such a letter, a Cindy terp will call the woman and read his letter.  Based on that conversation, the staff may or may not (more likely the former) send a second letter to the man. 

Sometime before the man makes a trip, the woman will come into the office (this could be an hour-long trip) and review the man's profile.  Unless you look like a monkey, she will meet you.  What happens after that has some but not significant connection with the letter writing phase.

A 19-year age difference is acceptable IF you can easily attract in your hometown a woman 12-15 years younger than you.   Do you have game?  Womeen with young children are more receptive to older men if the man seems to be a family man.

[BillyB]

I was contacted by another lady she mentioned one of the things she likes is horseback riding, I replied to her and said, I'd like to ride horse with her.  The second letter from her, she said she has never went horse riding, well, that trough up a red flag to me.  Any advice on this?

Stop giving the agency money. You could be developing feelings for girls who don't even know you exist. Igor, the employee of the month, could be writing to you one day saying he likes to ride horses and Boris, the employee of the month last month, writes the second letter and says he's never been on a horse.

Personally I prefer dating sites where you have direct contact with ladies without the middleman. But they provide no services. Bride.ru and freepersonals.ru are the two most popular.

When you do find a lady interested in you through letters, ask for her phone number and call often. If she doesn't want to give you a number or don't sound excited when she talks to you on the phone, move on to someone who enjoys talking to you. Once you find a person who is interested in you, then make a trip. But have backup contact info in case things go South.

[TwoBitBandit]

Cindy is a legit agency, the girls are real.  AJ (a well-known board member here) met his wife through Cindy Agency.  If you go to their office in Dniper, you can see his picture on the inside of the office door.

I never used them to write letters, but I've heard lots of anecdotal stories and postings on the boards that there's some weirdness going on with them.  A lot of the letters are done "by phone," where the 'terp from Cindy calls the girl, and reads the letter, and then the girl says what she wants to say back over the phone.  I suspect this process is a little broken.

However, like I said, the girls *are* real.  Gator's advice is right on, your best bet is just to show up there and meet some girls.  If you're a WOVO guy, this isn't your agency unless you can somehow get the girl's phone number or address directly.  If you get interested in a girl, work hard to get the agency out of the loop of your communication.

There's a lot of guys using Cindy agency, and the popular/attractive girls there have met a lot of foreigners.  The girls fairly new to the agency are often the most sincere.

I speak pretty good Russian, so I often meet girls without 'terps.  I had an after-hours meeting with one of the girls from Cindy (who is no longer on their site) show up with three of her friends, which was odd.  I soon figured out their agenda.  We ended up at a restaurant by the river.  After a round of drinks, they started ordering a lot of food.  I excused myself, found the waitress, explained the situation, cancelled the food order, paid for the drinks, tipped the waitress heavily and left... leaving those girls wondering what the hell happened.

Just use your common sense and don't let any Ukrainian girls take advantage of you.

Gator's also right about the age difference.  You can pull off a 19-year difference, but you better have your act together in life.

[TwoBitBandit]

And one more thing about the Ukranian girls: don't call them хохолушки.  Despite what my (non-Ukranian) Russian teacher told me, they don't seem to like that.   

[Lily]

  I was contacted by another lady she mentioned one of the things she likes is horseback riding, I replied to her and said, I'd like to ride horse with her.  The second letter from her, she said she has never went horse riding, well, that trough up a red flag to me.  Any advice on this?

  

Apparently she likes watching it, or phantazising about it, but never tried in reality. What were her exact words in Russian?

[groovlstk]

Cindy is a legit agency, the girls are real.  AJ (a well-known board member here) met his wife through Cindy Agency.  If you go to their office in Dniper, you can see his picture on the inside of the office door.

Cindy may be as "legit" as most agencies go, but without a doubt they engage in such capers as manufacturing and embellishing letters (and not just introductory letters), removing phone numbers and personal email addresses from girls' replies, etc.

I used Cindy for well over a year and experienced these shenanigans myself; I also spent many afternoons in their office and met each and every girl I wished to meet - so yes, their girls are real and willing to meet you - I also know personally several men who met their wives through Cindy - so again, their girls are real.

I found that if you're serious and not behaving like a kid in a candy shop the office staff will help you weed out the pro daters and good time girls.

But caveat emptor, doing business with any marriage agency in Ukraine is not like doing business with your local garden shop. Regardless of how "nice" everyone treats you, trust no one but yourself and your own instincts.

[Daveman]

Groov said:

But caveat emptor, doing business with any marriage agency in Ukraine is not like doing business with your local garden shop. Regardless of how "nice" everyone treats you, trust no one but yourself and your own instincts.

That deserved repeating ...  Excellent words of advice...


But caveat emptor, doing business with any marriage agency in Ukraine is not like doing business with your local garden shop. Regardless of how "nice" everyone treats you, trust no one but yourself and your own instincts.


Deserved being repeated again...

 

[phantom]

Thanks for all the replies too this, I'm quite new at this and have a lot to learn, I see.

[Simoni]

You have received good advice, Phantom.

Girls who create a profile at the Cindy Agency write a first letter to men who may write them.  Nothing wrong with that, back in the days when I was looking, I also had a first letter I sent to girls about myself.  So the fact that the first letter is "canned" is not a negative, IMHO.

The key is to write half a dozen girls, but only 3 or 4 letters to each.  Then go meet them, one by one.  You'll leave with an idea that someone "might" be right for you.  Follow up with that person in the next few months, getting to know them by email, sms and phone.  Then go back and visit only her.

[jakeob]

Phantom,   heres what i found with Cindy agency,, it absolutely  amazes me that some men still think what there doing is ok

Hi guys,

I dont make this statement lightly, i have been to the Ukriane nearly 20 times over the last few years, and i would say i am experienced with what goes on, and never before i have i felt compelled to make such a statement as this.
Just over a year ago, i found Cindy agency on the net, and wrote to 5 or6 girls there in DNK,, i was very happy with the responce i got from there girls, they were all so positive about me in there letters, and boy did they respond fast, i did not wait around with such beautiful women all want to meet me, so i jumped on a flight from Manchester and turned up at the office. Anna was great she smiled allot, and told me i was a nice guy, give me a nice apartment. But things started to go wrong when i was told all but 1 girl i had been writing to was unavailable to meet me,,EH thats funny i thought only last week they were writing to me on a daily basis, and now i show up there all busy, unavailable or sick.  Are well i met the 1 girl, and started again looking for girls on the computer at the office, and setting up dates. Periodically i asked about the girls i had wrote to, But Anna never managed to set up dates with these girls the whole time i was in DNK.
I come away slightly Pissed of but i put it down to experience.

Then this year i decided to go along with Jack Bragg on one of his tours, i picked, Kharkov, Lugansk, I initially missed out DNK, then Zapp.  I decided i it would not harm to try Cindy agency again as they were placed in the middle of my tour, and i could use them as a back up if things didn't go so well in the other city's. So again i wrote 7 intro letters to girls there on the 13 April, and on the 14 April i had very positive replies from 6 of the 7 girls i had wrote to, they said i was a very intresting man they spoke about my job, my mentality ect, and said they would love to meet me. Well this fantastic responce in less that 24 hrs raised my eyebrows a little, so i contacted Jack and asked him to have a word With Anna. I figured if i let it be known that i was connected with the Jack Bragg tour i may get honest replies to my letters, or at least some reassurance that the replies are genuine. It was like banging my head against a brick wall, no body reassured me of anything, so i stopped writing to these women.
I decided to go to the Dnk party to see if i could meet any of the girls that had wrote to me, Jack told me that he had made enquires and 4 of these women would be there, I found 1 girl named Olga, we spoke for a while, we had an intrest in each other, i asked her if she remembered me from our letters, "No" she said definitely not" . I dated Olga a couple of times after the party, she didn't turn out to be the girl for me, but she did seem like a nice Lady and spoke good English. I went to the internet cafe and printed out her letter to me. She explained she gets allot of letters, mostly over the phone, but she looked me in the eyes and said again "But i did not WRITE or even dictate this one, i have never heard about you before, i would have remembered you from England""

I told jack about my findings, and we went to see Anna at the office armed with my letters, we had a little debate but Anna's line was "Oh Olga must have forgot" It was obvious i again was banging my head against another brick wall... Then later on the bus to zapp i got a sms from Olga that said  " Cindy agency have removed my profile because i refused to lie to you about the letters i did not send"" I showed this sms to Jack Bragg as we drove on the mini bus and to 4 other guys who were traveling with us. I was amazed to hear Jacks summing up about the whole thing, his attitude was. Anna and Andrew (The owners of Cindy) need to find the person who is responsable for this SCAMM and sack them on the spot. I would suggest that the persons responsable for any Scam would be the persons making all the money (The owners)

I have been as fair as i can be with my recollection of what happened,

neil uk

[BillyB]

But things started to go wrong when i was told all but 1 girl i had been writing to was unavailable to meet me,,EH thats funny i thought only last week they were writing to me on a daily basis, and now i show up there all busy, unavailable or sick.  Are well i met the 1 girl, and started again looking for girls on the computer at the office, and setting up dates. Periodically i asked about the girls i had wrote to, But Anna never managed to set up dates with these girls the whole time i was in DNK.

Neil,

You were a victim of an agency style "bait and switch" tactic. An agency lures customers with their top women to do business with them. Women who are probably not available or interested. The customer arrives and the top ladies are not available so the agency comes to the rescue, looking like a hero, and sets up dates for the customer with other ladies for a price.

One could Google Cindy agency and find all kinds of stuff on them. Many guys say they feel the agency is writing the letters, not the women. One guy who knows the owners said the owners admit their personnel writes letters with the ladies permission over the phone. One forum owner announced he invited the owners to defend themselves and he was threatened with a lawsuit in response.

[William3rd]

IS that the same Neil UK that posts on the P-L boards? If so, you could ask him directly. . . .

I visited Cindy Agency in 2004. Not for a date, though. Just working some contacts for another agency. Small office, pictures all over the place. Bookcases full of profiles. On the upper floor of a nondescript low-budget office building located on the main drag.

[Simoni]

Anna was great she smiled allot (spelled a lot), and told me i was a nice guy, give me a nice apartment. But things started to go wrong when i was told all but 1 girl i had been writing to was unavailable to meet me,,

Did it ever occur to you that the girl has choice in this matter too?  Quite frankly, after several letter exchanges with a guy, the girl KNOWS she does not want to meet him.  And that is their right.

Again being frank, after reading this post by Neil, I can see from his attitude WHY girls would not care to meet him.

The Cindy Agency is fine....they will give a guy a shot at dating girls.  But they won't force girls to date someone...

[START2]

phantom,
  I never dealt with any agencies so I have only trip reports to go by. You have seen what Groov has written in this thread. Go to the TR section and read his reports. They are so entertaining and so full of info and knowledge that if I were a newbie and looking to learn, travel, and meet, Groov IMO had it together. Notice that he was not willing to settle for something less than his goal. In other words, he never came across as desperate or with the idea that he was racing to meet some deadline.  He had many dealings with Cindy A.
 also,  I believe Gator said something that is not my opinion entirely.

A 19-year age difference is acceptable IF you can easily attract in your hometown a woman 12-15 years younger than you.   Do you have game?  Womeen with young children are more receptive to older men if the man seems to be a family man.

   
 
      19 yr. diff is ok, happens alot,  but I believe that 12-15 yr. group is much more applicable  there than here. My world is probably smaller than his but rarely do I see a 45yr. guy and 30yr gal here. In fact that's almost the opposite in some circles in USA as it seems to be chic but not the norm.
   Looks like you have much exploring and research to do and for the moment, this is the FREE part. Take advantage of it.

[START2]

Ph.,
  I forgot to add this in previous post. . I hope it's ok if I ask a question for you. Maybe you'd like to know. What do most of these agencies look like on the inside? Are there cubicles, desks, computers? Are they like little or big internet cafes? Are they cramped, open, etc. I've wondered about this sometimes. Has there ever been a rating system awarded to certain agencies as a whole?

[William3rd]

I can answer that-

Agencies vary widely.

From a paper sign written in marking pen to gilded signs on the door.
From cramped little offices with little room for more than a desk, a book case, and a chair to more spacious digs with a separate meeting room, internet access and refreshments.

One office that I saw in Vologograd was dual use- marriage agency to the left and marital aids to the right.

Some are located in offices and others are in flats.

The quality of the office says little about the quality of the agency

[START2]

I assumed theyd' be extremely diverse but just couldn't get a visual.  it seems like they would have several catalogs with photos. Are these basically a bigger version than what you would see on an internet page? I guess you have the opp to view there net site as well?  How do they store all the phone numbers and addresses? Something like a rolodex? on a PC? I'm sure they wouldn't want the customers to see that info.

[William3rd]

There are the profile shelves. They all have them. Binders full of women. Generally divided by city and further divided by age groups.

These vary from just a copy of the profile to the profile plus more pictures plus letters plus professional photographs.

The office assistant may even be able to tell you personal information or give an honest opinion as to whether you are a candidate. The larger agencies usually havent the slightest idea which girl is which.

I have seen the contact information separated for the most part-kept either on disk or on a rolodex as you suggested.

Some agencies have a computer available for you to search their data base if you dont want to do it in the time-honored fashion of flipping through page after page of document and photographs.

Many of the agencies have books of women who declined to be posted on the internet or in catalogs. I guess they figure that the serious guy is the one who shows up or they feel that their privacy is important.

[START2]

Thanks William. I'm getting a better idea of how all this functions. It's been mentioned in some TR's but with no real details unless I just glanced over those segments. I'm sure each business has a multitude of fees for their services. Is it customary to pay to just view, or pay as you make a date, or how does that work? If they provide translators, do you pay the biz and they pay tthe translator?
  You mention the unadvertised women. How does one expect to meet if not advertised? I wonder if they expect to meet by pure chance that a walk-in looks at that particular book? Interesting business. With each question answered seems lke more arise.

[William3rd]

Usually agencies have you pay by the transaction- each date that is arranged.

Put yourself in the girl's place. Example- You are asking to hear from 30-35 year old caucasian men from Italy. You suddenly get dozens of letters and telephone calls from 90 year old men from Arkansas, Arab sheiks, Indian tailors, and the like. Then your friends at work stumble across your profile-hehehehehehehe,

Some dont like that.

They also know that if they are only listed at the agency that any contact is directed at them and not part of a form letter sent to 500 women. They know that while the man may be writing those kinds of letterswhile back home, he is contacting her for a personal meeting right then and there. Almost like a real date.  . . . .

[Bruce]

William III, you should write one of your long posts, you know the $50 type where you go into detail about every agency you have been through, date, time, place etc. - just how they are set up would be a hoot.  Keep them comming.  As a guy who went through many agencies, tours, methods etc. to get it right for me I get a real kick out of someone else who observed the ringer without being part of the management team.  

Start2 - it is a lot of "fun" for the single guy to go through these agencies.  Sort of like shopping in a bazaar, with lots of things behind doors to suprise you.  Still, except for the "fun" you missed out on, you still got the prize.  

[Gator]

Hi Phantom and Starter 2,

Two points:

1.  A clarification of my prior post about age difference. 

If you are the type of man who can attract AW 12-15 years younger than you, it is okay to pursue a FSUW 19 years younger.   If not, then you should pursue FSUW with a smaller age difference, say 10-12 years, possibly 15.

2.  How best to meet women from Cindy Agency. 

I worked through Cindy and wrote three women in my target age group (40+).  They were real and sincere, and the letters were accurate.  However, not until they knew I was coming did they go to the Cindy office and read my profile.  Also, I received unsolicited letters from 4-5 women in their 30s, which is too young so I ignored them (besides I would have to pay $5 to say "No", or pay many $5 to pursue a fantasy with someone who may not know me).

Option 1 - Just go to Dnepropetrovsk without prior correspondence.  Review the women's profiles a month before and make a list of candidates.  Upon arrival, give your list to the Cindy staff and ask them to arrange meetings over your next few days.  They will do that for a small fee.  At the same time visit the two other agencies in DNP and ask them to fill in the blank times with their women.

Option 2 - Select 4-5 women and trade 4 letters with each.  Then go meet them if the semi-canned responses intrigue you.  Cindy will waive the meeting fee if  you write a certain number of letters. Cindy will arrange other meetings if the correspondents are unsatisfactory.

[START2]

Phantom,
  Hope you don't mind me asking all these question in your thread. But today my curiosity has been tweeked.
 
   Wm.    I  think I understand why some women and maybe even the more mature women would want a sense of  more privacy and not be advertised. I imagine it could weed out some players and keyboard guys(can't think of the name at the moment) anyway, the ones that write and don't visit. This way as you say, if the guy is interested, he's right there, in the flesh and ready to go.

  Gator,   a little slow sometimes but I see your point.

   Bruce,   on one hand I imagine it would get the juices flowing to sit there and see page after page of possibles. On the other, it could also be alot of work  if you felt stressed because the one you went to meet didn't workout and now a sense of urgency comes over you.. So how did you guys feel? Did it seem natural or did you feel odd to spend money doing this or was it something else. There must be quite a bit of emotion involved in all this.