Help...does this sound a little suspicious?

[Bob101]

I joined Anastaiaweb.com and wrote e-mails today at about 12-2:00 pm EST (NC). By 6:00 pm EST I recieved back 4 responses. That means that they recieved the e-mails between 8-10 pm in St. Petersburg...right? That also means they had to contact the ladies, assuming they have phones, or coincidentally they were there at the office in St. P. (assuming they are open after 7 or 8 pm in St. Petersburg), and the ladies would have to get to the office, and respond to me. Highly suspect isn't it? That means their office is open until at least 10 pm local time in st. pete. I am goingto call the Bangor Maine office to find out what time the office there closes. I'm a little bit "frosted" about this. Sounds to me like letter writing responses by the staff...and caught in the act...unless they are open that late in the night...what do you think?

[Charles]

... in response to Help...does this sound a little suspicio..., posted by Bob101 on Jun 17, 2002

While it's been awhile, your experience is a good post for those who are considering using this service or similar services like e700.  Not only is it very expensive, as pointed out below, but it is clear that these agencies use the very attractive women for the purpose of soliciting contacts and selling addresses.  These agencies make their money selling addresses - the longer the supermodel lookalikes are on the site the more money they make.  I browsed a few of these agencies a week or so ago with my wife and found it incredible that there are many beautiful supposedly English-speaking women who were on the agency website back in 1998.  My wife's cousin, who is nice looking but by no means a knockout, gets several letters a day.  It is a fact that the supermodel types are receiving many more letters than they can respond to, so why haven't they found someone with their nice pictures posted for the whole world to see.  In addition to the local agency who gets a cut on the money you pay, it would not surprise me if some of these ladies are not also receiving a cut of the $8 a pop that you pay to "correspond" with them.  I think that personal ads or establishing direct contact with a lady is the only way you will get anywhere in this process rather than trying to go through the large e-mail services.  If you want a supermodel, you can find one with some effort, but it probably won't be as easy as sending e-mails on this service.

[BrianN]

... in response to Help...does this sound a little suspicio..., posted by Bob101 on Jun 17, 2002

of e700.  Same story, (probably duplicate server programs too), different website.  I know.

[johnnydudeman]

... in response to Help...does this sound a little suspicio..., posted by Bob101 on Jun 17, 2002

The responses came fast and (now I'm just guessing here), they were also very general responses telling you how happy they are to have received your email and how you seem like a good man but they did not address anything specific you wrote in your initial email???  That's because they were most likely sent by an agency and not by the girl.  You should know that anastasiaweb is "linked with hundreds of agencies throughout Eastern Europe" and "your email message is sent to a local agency" (from their own website info).  These "local agencies" also get a cut of what you spend to correspond with their girl (not on their website info but verifiable by the main agency in Maine).

[BubbaGump]

... in response to Canned Responses, posted by johnnydudeman on Jun 17, 2002

Canned responses are common.  Not many men reply back, they don't have a good understanding of english and translators are probably preparing the letters.  Look for suspicious patterns kindda like what he got.

[BrianN]

... in response to Canned Responses, posted by johnnydudeman on Jun 17, 2002

they actually pay .50 less than the other one too per email.

[wizard]

... in response to Help...does this sound a little suspicio..., posted by Bob101 on Jun 17, 2002

This does seem like a very short response time to your letters... But I think you are assuming something... The ladies don't have to go to the anastasia office to receive their message... It is possible that anastasia simply does automatic forwarding of your emails to the ladies personal email addresses... Very common practice in the IT business... There are many Internet Cafes in St. Petersburg... Particularly anxious ladies may be trolling the net just like some men do... When they get a letter, they jump on the opportunity to respond...

On the other hand... Like Cheech and Chong used to say, "Looks like dog sh!t, smells like dog sh!t, tastes like dog sh!t, good thing we didn't step in it"... The lesson, be careful where you step...

If you haven't checked out the blacklist sites, do so before you are sorry... Both emotionally and financially... The blacklist sites were created specifically for exposing known FSU scam artists... There is a certain pattern to their email and behavior... I think it is safe to say that every guy who has begun the pursuit of FSU ladies has run into at least one scammer... Probably many more than one...

[BrianN]

... in response to Maybe Yes, Maybe No..., posted by wizard on Jun 17, 2002

Most IT and FSU girls are a Non-Mix.  You make it sound like good old usa.  NOT!  (your automatic forwarding scheme almost makes me feel like an lp looking for a place to crash)

fwiw, check my profile sometime for email addy if you're interested and I'll tell you the exact details of how this system works.  St Pete Eh?  Girls checking their emails from what agency off the street???  Oh yeah...  While everything 'else' you say is right on the mark, your  commentary regarding this particular system is way way out to lunch.

The quick response emails he received were for monetary gains for the "anas" folks, and for the agencies in the fsu.  Not because some chick walked off the street to check her email.  After he receives her initial (canned response) email and he responds again... then the lady might actually decide to write something herself.  Maybe.  But that all depends on who's behind the monitor typing.

Fwiw:

He initiates contact........  $8.00
She responds (automated)....  $8.00
He responds now.............  $8.00
Then MAYBE she responds now.. $8.00

Or, it's an imposter?

That's 24 bucks to see if it's the real thing.  And that's one lady....

Multiply times x times x times x...

bd.

PS:  The cost of this system can be as low as $6.00 per email opened or originated if you pay in advance.  Not a bad business... but ones reputation can suffer greatly at the hands of others - ie, bob's original post.  

[wizard]

... in response to huh?  Very common practice in the IT bus..., posted by BrianN on Jun 18, 2002

All I was saying that it is a common practice in the IT industry (that's Information Technology) to do automatic forwarding of emails received at one email address to another email address... Yes, it IS possible to setup time-delayed autoresponder email messages based on the receipt of an email to a specific email address... That gives the appearance that someone is actually replying to your request... You can even send multiple autorespond email messages, all timed to be released at a staggered interval so they don't appear to have all been sent at the same time... That's probably what happened in the original post...

Now I know some web agencies charge the ladies to receive and translate email messages... But not all do this... Many domestic and some foreign agency/services perform the above listed email forwarding principle... Do you really think someone sits and monitors all incoming email and says, oh, this is a message from bill and he wants to send it to jane... not hardly...  

Now to the real point of my reply to you... Yes, there are unscrupulous agencies that will milk you and the ladies to death, but there are still some honest ones too... The point is to recognize and stay away from the ones that demonstrate scammer behavior... If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, etc... I have had dozens of FSU scammers try their tricks on me, including the pay as you go method... But I have also been writing to ladies that go to an Internet Cafe, have a hotmail or yahoo account and pay an hourly fee to get online...

As you have probably figured out by know, I am in the IT business, know the mechanics of what I speak... Have setup and maintained systems as I have described above...

Now climb down off that horse big fella... whoooaaaaa...

Wizard

[BrianN]

... in response to Get off your horse..., posted by wizard on Jun 18, 2002

Well what I spoke of had nothing to do with IT - which is why the ideaology you were applying to such in fsu etc - with regards to this particular scheme, I was so against.  It's about money paid for a service delivered.  I was simply stating the truth with regards to how the x dollar an email forwarding services work, especially the two that are mentioned in this thread.  That's how the agencies get their clientele numbers up... money numbers up.  Not a bad idea, it's capitalism after all.  These two services/sites utilize closed loop systems - email in, email out.  

Didn't mean to be a bstard about it though... so, I'm sorry.  (Rewrite engine on).

If the system is 100 percent honest, (in a perfect world), the lady goes to the agency, gets her email which is usually translated enroute using a computer translator (beware of what you write in this system).  Then, she would write you back an email usually in russian, and the office translator actually translates it to english.

If the weather's bad, then the lady can get her msgs via telephone / fax or the agency could forward them to her via email to her .ru account or whatever, but for her to respond, requires her to send her response back to the *agency* to get it back to the guy that's writing her.  

At any time, if the lady and the man were to exchange direct email addresses, then the closed loop is broken, thus eliminating the agency revenue - both for the US based operation, and for the fsu local agency.

That immediate turn around thing that bob encountered from 4 ladies is bogus using this system.  That was a direct canned response that was sent to him from someone working at the same agency (there are lots of mom and pop shops over there that are 'franchised' for lack of a better term, into this system), looking to get their chunk of the email money.  In this instance, say a pre-written introduction letter, is translated only once, and then sent out multiple times to guys that would write to said lady.  But the agency still gets the full fee for translation from their side (which isn't very much!).  And in my opinion, these letters were sent out without the lady's direct knowledge.

fwiw, email addresses are automatically stripped out of the messages, and the s/w is well coded to recognize joe at hotmail, or joe at sign hotmail or whatever.  But that doesn't stop you from asking for and receiving the lady's or agency's telephone number and address in the email.  I pissed with this system for several months, exchanged a lot of emails, but after 3 months, I got off of it by dealing with the agency directly.

In my case I was quite lucky in that the agency was very honest... The only canned email I ever received from my lady was the very first one that she initiated.  The next one I received, addressed every single issue that I addressed directly in my response.  

Again, I was lucky -  I met most of the ladies at the agency that I had seen before on their website - but I never got to meet fat yuri.

Last thing, about emails going over using this system: If you want your letter to make sense, be darned sure you use prompt online translator and check your outcome in russian before you send it in english.... otherwise your letters will be extremely difficult to understand.  (IE, write in english, translate to russian, then translate back to english again - I use two separate windows for this, one with EN-RU, the other with RU-EN, so just click the copy and paste icons and it goes quickly).

I didn't discover this problem until I got off of the e700 system, when I started writing directly to the agency, and now there are new thoughts and concerns about things I'm saying because my words are being translated by a real interpreter.... ie, they actually make sense this time - but don't correlate to what was assumed/understood using the crappy computer translator enroute for the previous 3 months.  So, after being quite disgusted... I compiled a large number of old emails that I thought were important to be clarified, and emailed this huge thing to my interpreter directly, sent her 50 bucks (it was at least a weeks worth of translation work), and she took care of it.

There are things I hate about this 6-8 dollar an email system, but I can't knock it too bad as reverse profiling and emailing using it was what got me to Siberia in the first place.

As Paul Harvey says...

"good day".

[wizard]

... in response to On the road side now..., posted by BrianN on Jun 18, 2002

Now that we cleared the air... lol... I guess this just proves that two people can read the same thing and come to two totally different conclusions as to the content and meaning of the text... You were reflecting your real-life experience with the agency mail systems and I was speaking from the technical side... I have not had to go through the 6-8 dollar per email translation and forwarding BS... I have only been writing to a couple RW and these women read/write english and have email accounts on the free russian web services... I guess sooner or later I will run into the issues you have experienced and feel your pain... lol...

Peace, love and RW...

[BrianN]

... in response to huh?  Very common practice in the IT bus..., posted by BrianN on Jun 18, 2002

[yoe]

... in response to Maybe Yes, Maybe No..., posted by wizard on Jun 17, 2002

cheech and chong............thanks for the reminder.
Baliff-whack his pee pee. That one got me rolling for about anhour 20 some years ago! How time flies.
Joe

[Apk1]

... in response to Maybe Yes, Maybe No..., posted by wizard on Jun 17, 2002

Just wait for the "canned" request to pay for internet expences..maybe it will be after 3 letters, sometimes a little more subtle..for example: lost her job/no way to pay for e-mail or......

I will bet the guys on this board could write a book of all the tactics women have used to get us to send money...
my overall favorite was a girl in Vladivostick that did not have a phone and wanted me to send her a cell phone...just so she could talk to me! I had to laugh so hard, but I could not bear to reply..

Good luck with the weeding, and expect to be scammed!

Does anyone else have any other favorite scams to post?

[MarkInTx]

... in response to Help...does this sound a little suspicio..., posted by Bob101 on Jun 17, 2002


I've used this before, but it is one of my favorite quotes:

When you hear hoofbeats, you don't expect zebras, you expect horses...

I think you pretty much know what happened...