Lifetime Partners

[unsure]

I'm thinking of joining lifetime partners.  Their price per year is increasing from 195 to 250 on March 1st so it is a decision I will make in the next couple days.  Does anyone know a good reason not to join this agency?  The only thing that gives me pause is the relatively small number of marriages listed on their site.  Perhaps this is because few people take the time to write after they are married (perhaps not).  Does anyone have any idea how many members they have (men)?  I'd be curious to know how many people are writing the ladies.  Has anyone on this board made a trip there or dealt with their people?  Also, it sounds rather cheap for the services offered - are there any hidden fees or anything?

Thanks,

John

[Bob S.]

... in response to Lifetime Partners, posted by unsure on Feb 25, 2002

The new owner now posts under the name "Witchdoctor" on the RW-Guide board (competition to this board).  In several years of reading these forums, I've yet to hear of any serious bad report about Lifetime Partners out of Tver (and formerly San Jose I think).  There was once another agency also called Lifetime Partners with a very bad reputation but I think it eventually went under.  The one bad report I read was when they were sued by some guy who went over expecting first-class accommodations all the way and expecting to be entertained 24/7 at his whim, and was horrified that the staff expected him to be able to entertain himself for a few hours per day and at least go out for a walk on his own without being baby-sat all the time.

[hockeybrain]

... in response to Lifetime Partners, posted by unsure on Feb 25, 2002

If you want a girl with a kid they are great.  They have alot of ladies.  They are easily the best agency I have ever dealt with.  If you are looking for a girl past 21 without a child the pickings for good looking girls are slim to none.  If you are from out yonder and haven't seen a girl less than 200 pounds without chaw in her mouth the girls will look super.

[unsure]

... in response to Re: Lifetime Partners, posted by hockeybrain on Feb 25, 2002

THEY DON'T CHEW TOBACCO???  I don't know if I could relate to a woman that doesn't chew....  What fun is it swapping spit without the flavor?    

Seriously, I noticed what you said about there being quite a few not-so-attractive women.  And that the attractive ones often had kids.  I can deal with a woman having one child, though.  What kind of turnover do they have?  Was their selection pretty static or did they have quite a few new girls each month?  Any idea if the attractive ones have been there forever and are more the professional dater sort?

Thanks,
John

[hockeybrain]

... in response to THEY DON'T CHEW TOBACCO???, posted by unsure on Feb 25, 2002

They have about 4 new girls each week - some weeks slightly more and some slightly less.  Good looking girls tend to be on their website longer even when they are matched, so be careful about that.  They have new ownership so they are striving to be at their best right now.  Like I said before, they are the best agency I have ever dealt with.  The question is if you can find girls you are attracted to.

[KenC]

... in response to THEY DON'T CHEW TOBACCO???, posted by unsure on Feb 25, 2002

John,
One of the things that impressed me about Lifetime is that they knew their girls rather well.  Their office manager in Tver, Nadia, considers herself quite the matchmaker too.  I found them to be very sincere and they delivered everything promised.  You can ask about specific women and they will usually know her and her situation.  Some of the women listed are not dying to leave Russia and therefore are much more selective in their choices.  My wife was listed for 4 years before we met.  She met a lot of AM, had lots of offers, but never clicked with anyone.  I was "warned" not to get too attached to her because of this.  Lifetime truly had my best interest in mind when they pleaded with me to not come to Tver to meet with her only.  I met some other very attractive women that continue to be listed and I was there over 3 years ago.  For the most part, their listings are accurate and the women are available.  Like any agency, I would tend to believe the newer listings are a better risk than the older ones.  But then again, if I had used that logic, I would not have pursued my wife so strongly.  Best of luck to you.  If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to email me.
KenC

[unsure]

... in response to good agency, posted by KenC on Feb 25, 2002

Why aren't you listed on the Lifetime site as a success story?  Was your story there for a while and then taken down?  Or did you just never give them your story?
I'm asking because the apparent lack of marriages was kind of bugging me.  After all, the sign of a successful dating agency is people getting married....

[Patrick]

... in response to What's the deal?, posted by unsure on Feb 25, 2002

I wouldn't let lack of a "happilly married couples section" color your opinion of an agency.  Most people are very reluctant to have their photos published on an internet MOB site!  You also have no way of knowing whether the couples photos are real.  I run an intro site for Latin women and have had a few couples (very few!) offer me their wedding photos over the years, but I don't even bother with posting testimonials.  I can guarantee you one thing-  Any agency will have at least as many complaints as they will testimonials.  It's the nature of the business to have many clients go in with the expectation that you're a "bad person" for being invloved in the business at all and many of them misconstrue innocent things as scams.

Example:  We list 405 ladies on our site and every time we list 15 new ladies, the oldest set of 15 get removed.  A client ordered an address from the oldest group (which are dated by the way) and when we removed her photo a week later as we published a new group, he assumed he was scammed because her personal ad was removed.  I couldn't follow his logic, but there were lots of threats in his messages and he never seemed to grasp my explanation when I told him we don't list a lady forever.

Another client who wrote to three ladies received no reponses.  I guess he thought himself pretty irresistable and that no lady could be uninterested in him.  He therefore assumed that the ladies were not real and that we were simply posting photos with fake addresses.  He said he was going to Mexico anyway and would knock on their doors and if they didn't answer, he'd be knocking on mine with a baseball bat.  I cautioned him to take a more respectful approach when knocking on the ladies' doors or he might be dealt with harshly by a father or brother.  You can guarantee that an address is valid, but you can't guarantee that a lady will be interested, or even that she will respond, if for nothing else, just to say "no thanks."  Some guys really seem to believe in the literal sense of mail order brides and think that whatever lady they choose can be there's by simply contacting her and letting her know that an American is interested in her, but in reality, the ladies (IMHO) are doing more of the choosing than the men are.

I had one client who seemed pretty unbalanced and I suspected he had mental problems.  He sent us twenty faxes in one day asking about a lady who's personal ad we had just published.  She was the "bombshell" type and was wearing a low cut top in her photo.  He had to have her.  He had previously asked us to prescreen our data base for women who were well endowed upstairs (not in the crainal region!).  I thought it best not to do business with this guy since he might be a problem for some lady.  His response was pretty agressive, another client making threats of physical violence.

Another guy posted a message on the Two Gringos site a few years ago slamming us by saying we told his girlfriend to drop him because he was seeing other ladies.  Said we were refusing to discontinue her ad also.  He never contacted us and we only found this out from a third party who had read his message on the other forum and was e-mailing us to tell us what scum-bags we were.  I asked him for information and to tell the guy to contact us, but other than more insulting email from guys reading his posts, we never got any information.  I eventually bought membership to the forum to read the compliants and found out who it was.  Turns out that his girlfriend was a member of an agency in Cali and that it was that agency who told her her fiancee was seeing other ladies (which was true) and that they wanted her to continue her membership and meet someone else.  Their bad communications (language differences) caused him to misunderstand her and he assumed it was us since he met her through our service.  This was found out through email messages and he never posted the information to the forum so readers would of course assume what he said was the truth.

I just recently refused to do business with a guy who's email address indicated that he runs a Latin pornography site and I refused his business as well.  I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear he's saying bad things to anyone he can as well.

I could go on, but the general point I want to make is that a fair percentage of men have very low opinions of anyone who operates one of these services and when you expect the worst, you can often find it, even if it's not true.  We have some members posting on this board who obviously have a very low opinion of anyone making a profit from the intro business and I think their opinions of agencies will always be colored by their notion that they must all be bad.

Any time you're looking for opinions on an agency, you've got to take them with a grain of salt.  Look for a preponderance of opinion and look for specific compliants with DETAIL in evaluating any agency would be my advice. If you see a pattern of several guys who are level-headed saying they're not very good, then avoid them.

[unsure]

... in response to Re: What's the deal?, posted by Patrick on Feb 25, 2002

N/T    Sorry about the other post.... Should've noticed the subject line got switched....

[unsure]

... in response to Re: What's the deal?, posted by Patrick on Feb 25, 2002

N/T

[KenC]

... in response to What's the deal?, posted by unsure on Feb 25, 2002

John,
We choose to keep some things private.  The site does not list too many photo stories of successful marriages, but if you look, you will find a long list of matched couples.  Even that list is not "all inclusive" as we are not on that one either.
KenC

[unsure]

... in response to good agency, posted by KenC on Feb 25, 2002

Thanks!  Good Info!