How NOT to start out... An AFA tour to Odessa on UK TV last night

[William3rd]

Thank you msmoby and william3rd both for your replies,

I am still shocked and speechless after seeing the documentary. To think that just a few days earlier and despite my initial gut and common sense reservations I nearly put a deposit or worse still full payment on an AFA St Petersburg tour after seeing the 2 brothers and a bride DVD.

Can I take a rain check to get back to both of you. I am very new to this site [forum] and my head is still spinning partly because I had started to focus most of my hopes to find a partner for marriage and family on the FSU or possibly Ukraine (are those the correct acronyms?) Not as I said in my original post because I want a trophy wife or am an ignorant Neanderthal (I mean offering jellybeans and a ping pong table to these ladies among other things had me cringing through most of the documentary!

But instead because I have only ever known if only for short relationships, European women including a Russian I met in Australia but who was older than me and not interested in starting a family and also because the chances of finding someone my own age in Australia who is either never married or has not yet had children or both are fairly remote. Aside from that I would like preferably to partner with someone who also has never been married before. I guess this could be construed as selfish or wanting a trophy wife (actually I think ten years younger or 36 would be good) but my reasons are really only practical. If the chances were better and I didn't already have a European connection, I'd much prefer to stay local!

I also speak French and German and have lived and travelled in Europe for many years. Unfortunately I just can't speak Russian very well and have not been there before. But I do from experience respect and esteem (most of them) from experience sufficiently to know not to try and impress them with jelly beans and ping pong tables! The other factor for me is because my Australian dad for the most part I think only ever dated foreign women and my mother was French. So I have over time grown a genuine appreciation and fondness of with foreign women rather than just wanting the trophy wife i don't understand or respect.

I may be talking out aloud but am I making any sense? I think I am just finding my bearings again after seeing the documentary.

Hi Dave?!

WHY do you think a such tour would ever be a good starting point?  IMHO there are many better ways to try to set up meetings with a lady or ladies with which you might feel you have something in common - rather than a "pig in a poke" as we say for a "lottery".

I suggest you make an honest profile, state what you are looking for, SAY if you want kids -  and what you can offer, and post it on say "Elenas Models", "LuckyLovers.net" and if you are interested in meeting a FSU lady one of the mamba.ru group of dating sites ( you'll need to understand Russian )

*IF* you are prepared to pay $4-5K  as you initial "investment" - remember courting and settlement will at least treble that  - and you don't speak Russian - you could pay for a professional translation service - to help make your profile, and may be translate the one's you like.  PERSONALLY speaking -from bitter experience- and I understand basic Russian -  not having a common language can and *will* make for misunderstandings - and *I* think you'd need to insist any potential lady should be able to communicate with you in English... YES, it cuts out a great many great ladies - but .....

Lastly - remember the 10 commandments - and only break 'em if you can afford it !!

Good Luck

Read the 2006 harpers article, visit the facesofsiberia.com website and click on the link to the truth about the industry at teh top of the page. Plenty more to talk about. The denials of the agency principles as to involvement in certain industries actually means that they didnt hold the cameras during filming. .. .

[Sculpto]

William,
Thank you for posting the link to faceofsiberia.  This information confirms what many of us have been thinking.

Now, I set the next challenge.  We need a provable link from the affiliate agencies that procure the girls.  The same affiliate agencies that use AFA also list girls on almost every major site.  The entire scam can come crumbling down with just a little more work.  I know the District Attorney of San Francisco as well as the Attorney General of California are interested in this topic.  It also falls under Federal authority for interstate commerce and a long list of other anti-organized crime statutes.

[groovlstk]

Do a search for Ashley Neal here also. He came here trashing other agencies yet it turns out his own hands are dirty as well. So typical for this business, you can't trust anyone and often the westerners are the worst of the bunch.

[William3rd]

William,
Thank you for posting the link to faceofsiberia.  This information confirms what many of us have been thinking.

Now, I set the next challenge.  We need a provable link from the affiliate agencies that procure the girls.  The same affiliate agencies that use AFA also list girls on almost every major site.  The entire scam can come crumbling down with just a little more work.  I know the District Attorney of San Francisco as well as the Attorney General of California are interested in this topic.  It also falls under Federal authority for interstate commerce and a long list of other anti-organized crime statutes.

I am wondering what the governments of Ukraine, Russia, China and Philippines would think if they have all this information available to them. Or what they would do. . . . .

I have a few people that would like to say their piece as well. Naturally, most of them are disgruntled former employees  or disgruntled former customers. . . .

[docetae]

I am wondering what the governments of Ukraine, Russia, China and Philippines would think if they have all this information available to them. Or what they would do. . . . .

How do you think they pay their Lexus or Mercedes ? Information is known. AFA has office near the independence square in Kiev... the question is more to know what will make this corruption stop ?

[William3rd]

The information is NOT widely known. They spend years trying to cover it up. Why dont you give a couple Russian or Ukrainian newspapers a call and see if they know about these allegations. Send them a few choice links. . . 

[docetae]

The information is NOT widely known. They spend years trying to cover it up. Why dont you give a couple Russian or Ukrainian newspapers a call and see if they know about these allegations. Send them a few choice links. . . 

Newspaper publish information that people are asking for. These agencies are small if you compare them with organized crime and human trafficking with Turkey and Egypt. With political crisis and crazy inflation, people do not care about this. This is sad but true. Try to talk to people living in Russia or Ukraine. They will tell you "this is russia" or "this is Ukraine" with a fatalistic tone. What I have learned in Ukraine is that you must expect nothing from structures (institution, government) in place, only to rely on yourself and family. Second point is the omerta on this subject.

There was an article in the Kievpost about one swiss farmer who has bought some land in Ukraine but his success was making shadow on some other people.. he was offered to sale or to go to hospital. He refused and went to hospital with almost all bones broken. In the article, the more surprising for me was that the focus was not how to stop this kind of event which was happening often (there was several examples) but on the risk to make flee foreign investors.

There will be zero empathy for people victim of this. This is my point of view from my own experience.

[Sculpto]

I would think the authorities in Russia and Ukraine would turna blind eye to these practices for a variety of reasons.  Corruption and indiferene being high on the list.  I remember some time back when I viewed a documentary on the sex trade on PBS.  The investigators had uncovered the ring leaders and exposed them to the Ukrainian courts, who promptly slapped the bad guys hand and set him free with a small fine.

The way to stop this is by educated the men who spend their hard earned on corrupt sites.  We are doing so here, but, we are not reaching that big of an audience.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/loveme.com

with 27,000 page views per month if even only 10% are members spending money it is not going to be easy to reach the poor lonely and naive men who will waste their time and money. 

Ideas?

[SANDRO43]

Why dont you give a couple Russian or Ukrainian newspapers a call and see if they know about these allegations. Send them a few choice links. . . 

Maybe they don't give a damn, or have other priorities, or worse. A couple of years ago I wrote an email to 3 SPB newspapers, asking if they were interested in a story about a totally-fraudolent, unnamed local dating agency (YEVA4U). Not a peep back .

[Sculpto]

Sandro.. I am sure it takes more than a couple letters from a foreign person to get any journalist in any country interested in a topic.  I don't know if local journalism in Russia is interested in scandal the way the Mexicans or certain segments of the US are.  But, I do get the sense from watching "Russia Today" regularly that they are interested in promoting the positive and ignoring the negative.  But, that would not be much different from the media in the USA either. 

Journalists are no different than anyone else.. they have their own self interest as their primary motive.  It is only the rare journalist who places truth and ethical integrity above their own needs.  Too many of the "angels" end up on the wrong side of the authorites regardless of what country they are from. 

I am sure if any change is to come to the current state of the "industry" it will come from those of us "consumers" who are making the "providers" rich.  They have no incentive to change their practices until they feel a BIG tightening of the belt and can directly attribute it to men "voting with dollars".  so, it means men can not just quit these sites but they also have to write to them and tell them specifically why. 

so again.. how can men who are just beginning their journey be reached before they are sucked in by the slick marketing of the scammers marriage sites?  I think that is the great challenge.

[Admin]

I would think the authorities in Russia and Ukraine would turna blind eye to these practices for a variety of reasons.  Corruption and indiferene being high on the list.  I remember some time back when I viewed a documentary on the sex trade on PBS.  The investigators had uncovered the ring leaders and exposed them to the Ukrainian courts, who promptly slapped the bad guys hand and set him free with a small fine.

The way to stop this is by educated the men who spend their hard earned on corrupt sites.  We are doing so here, but, we are not reaching that big of an audience.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/loveme.com

with 27,000 page views per month if even only 10% are members spending money it is not going to be easy to reach the poor lonely and naive men who will waste their time and money. 

Ideas?

Sculpto,

The number you see at Alexa (the 27,000) is NOT the amount of monthly PageViews. That number is actually a dynamic rating referring to how many other sites are more popular. In other words, for AFA, there are 27,000 other sites that are more popular. While that may seem like a lot, consider than RWD has a ranking in the 500,000 range - and we are, by a HUGE amount, the most popular RW forum on the 'net. I believe there are something like 5 million sites ranked by Alexa - although the Alexa rating process itself is also suspect.

Anyway, anything in the top 100,000 is a VERY strong Alexa rating and AFA has a huge amount of traffic - WAAAAYYYYY more than 27,000 page views per month - maybe per day - maybe even per hour - but NOT per month.

And BTW - there is nowhere close to a conversion rate of 10% views to sales. Actual numbers would be a very small (even miniscule) fraction of that.

There is a great deal of misinformation floating about the internet on the topic of site revenues. I've seen some pennyante site owners speculating wildly about all manner of numbers that are vastly incorrect. Comically, those same pennyante site owners will never get large enough to know about the real numbers they are wildly speculating over.

FWIW

- Dan

[docetae]

Sculpto,

The number you see at Alexa (the 27,000) is NOT the amount of monthly PageViews. That number is actually a dynamic rating referring to how many other sites are more popular. In other words, for AFA, there are 27,000 other sites that are more popular. While that may seem like a lot, consider than RWD has a ranking in the 500,000 range - and we are, by a HUGE amount, the most popular RW forum on the 'net. I believe there are something like 5 million sites ranked by Alexa - although the Alexa rating process itself is also suspect.

Anyway, anything in the top 100,000 is a VERY strong Alexa rating and AFA has a huge amount of traffic - WAAAAYYYYY more than 27,000 page views per month - maybe per day - maybe even per hour - but NOT per month.

And BTW - there is nowhere close to a conversion rate of 10% views to sales. Actual numbers would be a very small (even miniscule) fraction of that.

There is a great deal of misinformation floating about the internet on the topic of site revenues. I've seen some pennyante site owners speculating wildly about all manner of numbers that are vastly incorrect. Comically, those same pennyante site owners will never get large enough to know about the real numbers they are wildly speculating over.

FWIW

- Dan

This ranking means between 10 and 30 millions of page views per month. (my business was managing a web site with same ranking last year) so probably around 300 000 unique visitors. Conversion rate used for purchase is around 0.05%, so probably roughly around 150 purchases per day. So we can estimate a total revenue per month around 20 or 30k$

[William3rd]

Sandro.. I am sure it takes more than a couple letters from a foreign person to get any journalist in any country interested in a topic.  I don't know if local journalism in Russia is interested in scandal the way the Mexicans or certain segments of the US are.  But, I do get the sense from watching "Russia Today" regularly that they are interested in promoting the positive and ignoring the negative.  But, that would not be much different from the media in the USA either. 

Journalists are no different than anyone else.. they have their own self interest as their primary motive.  It is only the rare journalist who places truth and ethical integrity above their own needs.  Too many of the "angels" end up on the wrong side of the authorites regardless of what country they are from. 

I am sure if any change is to come to the current state of the "industry" it will come from those of us "consumers" who are making the "providers" rich.  They have no incentive to change their practices until they feel a BIG tightening of the belt and can directly attribute it to men "voting with dollars".  so, it means men can not just quit these sites but they also have to write to them and tell them specifically why. 

so again.. how can men who are just beginning their journey be reached before they are sucked in by the slick marketing of the scammers marriage sites?  I think that is the great challenge.

It should be noted that as we speak, this agency is advertising here at the bottom of this page with their standard junk ad. They also constantly foster the image that russian women love huge age differences in their men and that somehow they have a 70% "success" rate. I make their success at less than 30% on engagement-in part because of their sex tourism- and less than 10% in the long term marriages.

BTW- apparently they have been calling around their old tour clients(I am aware of 3 from ten years ago) checking to see how things are going.  Nice of them to ask after ten years. All divorced for many years, as are all the rest of the old clients from the early tours. Not a single success story remains. These folks know how bad it really is. . . .

[msmoby_ru]

BTW- apparently they have been calling around their old tour clients(I am aware of 3 from ten years ago) checking to see how things are going.  Nice of them to ask after ten years. All divorced for many years, as are all the rest of the old clients from the early tours. Not a single success story remains. These folks know how bad it really is. . . .

Well, they have the lady organiser ( Elena?) who we first saw on the bus... She's been married 10 years

[William3rd]

Elena Redburn was the office manager in St. Petersburg. They dated and whatever for more than a year. I was at the wedding back in late 1997. The principles did NOT meet on a romance tour and marry in just 10 days. Their advertising on that point is fcompletely alse. They dated just like here in the states, then lived together in Russia.

Funny how elena runs all the tours now. The husbands dont seem to come overseas much any more if at all. . . .  I wonder if ashley was right about Ukraine and the AFA owners. . . .

[Vinnvinny]

..... and post it on say "Elenas Models", "LuckyLovers.net" .......

And if he's really lucky he might get Czech model Denise Milani (http://www.lucky-lovers.net/dating_profiles/Ukraine/olyshenka/photos/english) writing to him. I know I did - can't wait to meet her!

[msmoby_ru]

And if he's really lucky he might get Czech model Denise Milani (http://www.lucky-lovers.net/dating_profiles/Ukraine/olyshenka/photos/english) writing to him. I know I did - can't wait to meet her!

You've gotta watch out for that craft insertion of the "-" in the domain name, eh

[Andrew James]

I will confess the clients featured here made me cringe too, TV's inherent bias not withstanding. Indeed everyone seemed to be out to exploit everyone else - most of all the crew - with the guys coming across as the biggest victims in this process.

And I couldn't overlook the irony of host Dawn Porter, probing these men as to why they might go to these lengths to meet a wife when part of the answer was staring back at her in the mirror, revealing this potentially appealing western woman who has spoiled a lot of those qualities. (See her 'Geisha Girl' episode for more evidence of what I am talking about; The Japanese and Ukranian women were so much more dignified, graceful and respecting of other people by contrast.)

[Vinnvinny]

As somebody who did an AFA tour a couple of years ago I must say the documentary crew really put a damper on the socials shown on the film.  The socials I attended were far more lively and the number of women and men greater.  It could be because the film crew were English and they just didn't know how to have a good time. 

The film crew were NOT English, they were American. Only Dawn Porter and her assistant were English. Also, they didn't have any influence on the actual events surrounding the social in Odessa but I agree, it was poor in terms of environment, quality, ratios and numbers.

Other guys who had attended previous socials in Odessa told me that the experience was typical and that socials there were comparatively poor to other locations (for reasons documented elsewhere on these forums). The social in Nikolaev was considerable better and (so I was told) the Kherson one was also much more ‘productive’.

[msmoby_ru]

As somebody who did an AFA tour a couple of years ago I must say the documentary crew really put a damper on the socials shown on the film.  The socials I attended were far more lively and the number of women and men greater.  It could be because the film crew were English and they just didn't know how to have a good time. 

There are some people that go on these tours who are from the fringes of society and some of the people have done 5 or 6 tours with just AFA and tours by themselves and with other groups.  Overall, I would say that the view shown by this documentary film is distorted and not a true representation of an average AFA tour. 

ER Poker

I hope you are now paying attention to Vinney's post ... NOT a BRITISH crew .. US based

Why do so many non Brits exclude 30% of the UK population ?! ..  "English" doesn't include anywhere near all of us.... ..

[William3rd]

Would that be 5 or 6 sex tours with AFA or they guys were just too lame to hook up. I note that you also state in one of your posts that 2 men got engaged on your tour. AFA claims 70% success so does that mean there were only three men on the tour or is the advertising just plain false. The Harper's article reflected about 30% were claiming engagement 2 years ago. 5% success rate would probably be about right given the sex tourism aspect of the business. But that is even lower engagements than I was thinking of. . . .

[Sculpto]

70% of what?  How is success defined?  Maybe they define success as 70% of the men don't complain.  Maybe they define 70% of men get laid?  Maybe they define 70% who say they have a good time? 

I am pretty sure in this situtation repeat clientelle is not an indicator of men being serious about ANYTHING but going on sex tours.  I would call those guys who do so "lame" only because if that is what they are after they are paying a heck of a lot of money to get something they could get a lot easier and for a lot less if they had the "game" to do it themselves.

Maybe AFA should set up a tour to Ethiopia?  The women are thin and desperate and cheap.   

[Vinnvinny]

I’m not quiet sure why some contributors are calling these tours “sex tours”. At no time during this AFA tour did I conclude that ANY of the men were looking for just sex and, without doubt it seemed all were there with the purpose of establishing a relationship that would eventually lead to marriage. Of course if the opportunity for sex had presented itself then some of the men would have accepted it and some refused and I am sure that applies for ANY single men actively dating, regardless of how such an opportunity had arisen.

IMO a tour such as AFA’s is simply a vehicle to get men ‘active’. Some men might find it a less than ideal method but it will suit others. Personally I find the notion of exchanging 100’s of emails with someone I have never met a bit strange and similarly I would find it odd to travel half way across the World just to meet one person with no backup plan. Surely the important thing here (as we know) is to get on that plane regardless of the methods we chose to employ when we get there.

[docetae]

Surely the important thing here (as we know) is to get on that plane regardless of the methods we chose to employ when we get there.

Sorry, but if you use a method where you will be sure to meet a high rate of scammer/pro daters or just women wanting some fun and free drinks and if you are ready to pay for this, you are what we call in french "un pigeon"

[Sculpto]

First of all I have encountered ads on Craiglist in different forums for sex tours that linked to AFA sites.

Second, what guy is going to admit that is his purpose?  You think guys are any more honest than the agencies?  It is a "romance" tour and that word can be interpreted many different ways.

For the money guys are spending on these tours they could easily arrange things on their own, meet women who are not indoctrinated into the "system" and more than likely have a lot more fun.  But, some guys want things handed to them on a silver platter, or, they are just not able to make their own arrangements.

Three years ago when I went to Donetsk on my own I had arranged an apartment through an American based site.  When I arrived there it turned out the apartment agent was also the Donetsk rep for chanceforlove.  She was very suprised I didn't have a specific girl I planned to meet and pitched her services to me.  I spent one afternoon with her looking at the "book".  It seemed most of the girls i picked fit into her category of "not serious".  I got a little irritated that she was wasting my time and she explained to me how they got so many photos in the "book" of girls that were not serious.  That site, in partnership with AFA, had just completed their first socials in Donetsk.  To fill the room up with pretty girls they had passed out flyers in the square inviting any and all girls to show up at the best hotel in the city for free drinks and music.  Then, when the girls arrived they were informed that to get their free drinks and enter the party they must sit with the photographer, right then and there, and agree to have their profile added to the site.  95% of the girls in that book were considered by the agent to be "not serious".   

Over the next month of hanging out in Donetsk I met dozens of nice girls.  None of them had ever been to a social or would even consider going to one.  Most of them said if they were in love with a man they would go where he was to be with him. 

so, make your own decisions.. if you think going on tours is a good way to meet a good girl, go for it.  But, as has been proven in this thread the affiliate agencies as well as the main offices have been involved in the sex trade in one way or another.  Why take the chance unless you are willing to risk getting an ex hooker/ex stripper/ex web cam porn star for your mate and only learning about this after the fact.

I say all that keeping in mind there have been marriages through AFA.  But as several people have posted very few if any of those marriages have lasted.  I know I certainly dont want to get married, then divorced and then start all over again.