How to Avoid Russian Dating Scams

Looking for a Russian wife via online dating sites, you should be cautious because Russian dating sites are often “attacked” by con artists. While a decent single woman registers on a dating site because she wants to find a future spouse, a scammer goes online to make a profit. There are a lot of articles on the Internet warning foreigners against the possibility of being deceived by Russian women on online dating sites. You must have come across some of the headlines that made you suspicious and apprehensive.

Don’t let that panic prevent you from registering on a Russian dating site and finding your future wife. There is always some degree of risk when it comes to meeting people or doing something online. Today, all reliable dating sites are doing their best to make their services totally scam-free. Although their anti-scam departments verify women’s profiles and monitor their users’ activity, scammers manage to dodge. Fortunately for you, it’s possible to recognize a scammer yourself and avoid falling a prey to a fraudulent scheme. What do you need for that? First of all, you should be aware of the common scam pattern. Secondly, you should learn the signs that indicate dishonest intentions of your online date. And, finally, you should keep your head, be attentive, and cautious.

Scammers’ Pattern

Any scammer has one and same aim and that is to trick a man out of his money. Their main tool is men’s feelings. A scammer (either a woman or a man) creates a profile under a fake name, uploads other woman’s photos, and starts sending messages to different men. A man receives a message from a beautiful woman (scammer), gets interested in her, and they start exchanging messages. From this moment on, she does everything to make him fall in love with her. She praises and compliments him extensively, tells him how good she is, and doesn’t forget to mention how hard the life in Russia is. Gradually, there comes the moment when she tells a sad story to evoke his sympathy and after that asks him to help her financially. A man feels like he is the only one who can help her and sends the requested sum without any suspicion. The excuses for requesting money can vary but the pattern is always the same: a scammer establishes trust, declares her love, manipulates her victim’s feelings, asks to send her some money, and disappears once she gets what she wanted.

Warning Signs

As you can see, money is the main indicator that you’re dealing with a scammer. Still, there are a lot more warning signs that will help you detect scam almost at first sight and save you from bitter disillusionment.

Too much initiative. Russian girls don’t usually initiate a conversation with men, they wait until a man makes the first move. That’s why if you receive a message from a woman, you should get suspicious. Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she is a scammer. Perhaps, she is bold enough to write first to the man she liked. But if she keeps asking you many questions, most of which are too personal for the first conversation, be careful.

More questions than answers. Pay attention to the way your dialog unfolds. It’s natural that you’ll ask each other different questions in order to get to know each other. But if your interlocutor bombards you with her questions but immediately changes the subject when you ask her in return, obviously she doesn’t want you to know much about her. If she’s a scammer, don’t be surprised if her questions are aimed at getting some personal information from you, such as your income, family, or property.

Blank profile. If the profile of a woman who writes to you first contains too little information about her, odds are she is a scammer. A serious woman who is looking for a life partner will fill in each required field in order to give a man a general idea of what kind of person she is. She believes that if he comes across her profile, he will want to know what interests and views on life she has and what kind of man she’s looking for. Since a scammer pursues only one aim and it has nothing to do with finding a future spouse, she’ll prefer to conceal her identity.

Love at first sight. Since a scammer wants to manipulate you and your feelings, she will do everything to get you to let down your guard. For this, she’ll flood you with compliments and flattery and then declare her love for you. She will make such a confession already in the second letter or will wait for several weeks. But you should know that it’s uncommon for Russian women to profess their love for a man too soon. Most of them will wait for his first move.

No face-to-face communication. One of the most obvious signs that you’re dealing with a scammer is that you only exchange letters and never get in touch via video calls. So, if you want to know for sure that your Russian date is a real woman with serious intentions, just offer her to talk via Skype. A scammer will find different excuses just to get out of having a video chat. Even if she doesn’t mind at first, when the agreed time comes, she’ll say she can’t. If you keep insisting, there is a chance she will just give up and disappear as abruptly as she contacted you.

Travel scams. Get suspicious if a woman says that she wants to come to your country but needs some money to buy a ticket. This is the most popular scheme among Russian scammers. A man sends the necessary sum and once she gets it, he never sees her again. This type of scam is usually employed after a prolonged period of online dating. By that time, a man can fall in love with that woman and for him to realize that he dated a scammer will be really painful. In order to avoid this ticket scam, go to her country yourself.

By being cautious and attentive it’s possible to avoid Russian dating scams. If you keep an eye out for the red flags listed above, you’ll be able to unmask a scammer and avoid possible detrimental effects. Remember to report any suspicious users to the site admin. By doing so, you’ll guard not only yourself but also other men from the potential hazard.

How to Protect Yourself From a Dating Scam

There are many more ways you can go wrong on the net, and more are being created every day. It is impossible to list all Russian women dating scams here, however, we can give you some advice to protect you:

Never send your confidential information 

Do not reveal information like credit card numbers or passwords in response to an email. If this is your bank, why would they ask you for card numbers when they sent them to you? Likewise, a customer service department never needs your password to access your account, and neither does a public body. And one word should alert you immediately, it is "Urgent(ly)". Knowingly used to alarm you, it should instead encourage you to ask yourself and think as soon as it is used in an email.

Take the time to verify the seriousness of the organization asking you for a donation

A simple visit to the net is often enough to obtain a lot of information. The opinions of other donors should help you form an opinion. And conversely, if it is a scam, it is difficult to hide it for a long time on the web. The sites of these bogus organizations often betray a certain amateurism, in form and in substance. Syntax errors and approximations should alert you.

If your computer is infected, do not panic

If you don't know how to cope, try to identify someone you know who could help you, young people are generally quite comfortable with this kind of computer situation, why not ask your son or your niece? And whatever happens, never accept the remote control of your computer by a support that you have not requested.

Typical Dating Scams' Scenarios

Nowadays, with the advancement of new technologies, it becomes easier to find your soulmate even if it is thousands of kilometers away. One of the most used methods for dating is marriage agencies. On the other hand, in the course of the last ten years, there has been a remarkable increase in Russian women scams. This is a real scourge since according to a recent study, more than 90% of Russian marriage agencies have become romance scam industries that defraud more than 30 million euros per year just in France. 

The recruitment of translators and beautiful scam girls to swindle money to western men looking for serious relationships and marriage is only one way to fool money out of single foreigners. It is the image of the majority of sincere, faithful, and honest Russian women that is tarnished and questioned. Because men automatically tend to label all women in Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe with the label "Russian dating scammers".

There are really a lot of sites and agencies that promise you dating with Russian or Ukrainian women, many of them don't last long, because to be successful you have to build a reputation, have experienced, and offer quality profiles. Choose an agency with a history and a good reputation. Choose between the oldest on the market, the ones that work directly, without an intermediary, between English-speaking men and Russian or women.

Sites often do not check the profiles or even hire bots themselves. Any person can then register without showing identification. Respectful sites detect any suspicious behavior and exclude such a person. They test their motivation and seriousness. The photos are real, and they offer them a photoshoot to make them more beautiful, no need to retouch them with Photoshop. We are 100% real women, you can verify that by doing Skype video conferences with any of them.

Signs of a Reliable Dating Site

If most of the photos you see on a site are half-nude or perfect retouched photos from a thematic photoshoot, the site is not reliable. You may be fealing with Russian female scammers. True photos or real people will be different and versatile. Even if the site arranges photoshoots, all people will have their special traits and style.

Another thing that should worry you is the high activity immediately after registration. No profile without photos or a detailed description will receive many likes and messages. If people who text you send short messages and seem to address you impersonally, they are bots that the site uses to advance the site. You should not trust such a platform.

A serious site will have a checked and secured HTTPS address. You should pay attention to whether the site you use has a verified name and you are not using a duplicate. If the domain name has a number or a strange sign before the main title, this should warn you. All payments on a respectful site are also secure and protected. You do not enter your credit card detail on the site but in a special pop-up window or another tab. The platform doesn’t save you data, because you message the bank in the moment of transaction.

Finally, a trusted site should provide customer support and have all the contact detail on their main page or in the separate section inside the app/site. You should be able to address the site’s team to ask any question and receive help within the standard time stated.