Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

  Q. I am corresponding with a Russian woman. Is she a scammer?
  A. Probably yes :) If you are here looking for information on Russian scammers, you have probably noticed something suspicious (she asked you for money, or there was some other red flag). If that is the case, she most likely is a scammer. Genuine, honest Russian women will never ask for money

  Q. The woman I am corresponding with told me she already has a visa to come to the US and she only needs money for the ticket. She has even sent me a copy of her passport with the visa. Is she a scammer?
A.   Yes, she is definitely a scammer. The copy of the visa and/or passport is simply fake. We have seen tons of fake documents. Usually they send them in low resolution, so that the flaws are not so noticeable. Sometimes "she" claims that she has almost all of the money needed for the ticket, she just asks you to chip in three or four hundred bucks.

  Q. The woman I am corresponding with told me she already has a visa and a ticket to come to the US and she wants me to pick her up at the airport and wants to stay at my place. She has not asked for any money. Is she a scammer? What's the catch?
A.   Yes, she a scammer. And she is not coming. The catch is, that since she is not asking for money, you might not suspect her to be a scammer. Then, at the last moment, usually a day before her "arrival" when you are already psychologically "conditioned", she suddenly tells you that she needs to pay some additional fee, usually not much, say $196, otherwise she can not use her ticket and all her hard earned money she paid for this ticket and the visa is lost. A lot of guys fall for that, considering that she never asked for money before, and the amount is relatively small. Their thinking is: what is two hundred dollars for me, even if she turns out to be a scammer. If you do pay, the scammer notes you as a sucker, and starts asking for more, under various pretences. Because they know that he who paid once is much more likely to pay again.

  Q. What are the "red flags" I should pay attention to in a correspondence?
A.   The biggest one is asking for money, regardless of the pretence. It could be paying for the Internet access, for English courses, for mother's operation, and the classics: for the visa and ticket to come to your country. Smaller red flags:
- "she" wrote you out of nowhere, not as a direct responce to your profile posted on a concrete website. This is the most obvious one, but some guys, especially those not yet Internet-savvy, fall for it. Just think about it, if you have your profile on a certain website, her response should come through that website. If she is contacting you out of the blue, saying something like "I saw your profile on the Internet", it is simply spam, the scammers use it often.
- "she" had only sent you one or two pictures of "her", and refuses or ignores your requests for more photographs (since the scammers steal photos from dating or model sites, they cannot produce more pictures of the same person).
- "she" ingores questions you ask in your messages and instead writes long-winded paragraphs about her city/country or some unrelated subjects (because scammers have to write a lot of letters they use pre-made letter templates where they change just your name and maybe a couple of other sentences to make it look like an answer to your letter).
- "her" photos look very glamorours, like model pictures (scammers often steal photographs from aspiring model sites, or even well-known celebrities (mostly Russian)
- "she" is 20 and you are 55
- "she" writes that she is in love with you in the third letter.
I am sure many of these red flags are obvious to you, just use your common sense and you will be fine.

  Q. I've been scammed. What do I do now?
  I am sorry, but getting you money back is highly unlikely. Western Union or other ways scammers ask you to send money, do not have a way for recourse. Cut your losses, learn from it, and move on. Do not be disappointed about your idea to meet a Russian woman. Most likely it was not a Russian woman you've been corresponding to, so don't take it out on them. I know some guys who have been burnt and now they post on various Russian women forums things like "do not belive Russian women, they are all scam". These guys are not getting anywhere with such attitude. Instead look at many examples of the guys who finally brought home beautifull, honest, and reliable Russian women.
Yet, before you move on, the good thing to do would be to help others like you. First thing to do is to report the scammer to our site. Then we recommend reporting your case to the Interpol. It does take some time on your part, the Interpol will not be very welcoming, they might even tell you something like they will get to your case right after they solve all the murders (they don't want any extra work of course, they prefer to just sit on their butts all day). And you will probably never get results, let alone your money back. Yet we encourage all of the guys who have been scammed, to go through this process and report them to the Interpol. Once the case is officially reported, the Interpol has to do something about it, for example dump it onto the Russian athorities. Well, then they have to do something with it. After enough cases are sitting unsolved in their hands, they go out and arrest somebody. Believe me, other scammers are keeping their ears to the ground, and those arrests make them sleep bad.