Avoiding a Russian Bride Scam:

Being Cautious with Email While Separating Truth from Fiction

There have been many negative internet posts about a Russian bride scam involving potential abuse of email systems in international dating, and about Russian bride agencies which play into it. Some of these reports mention AnastasiaWeb in connection with this.

Use your best judgment with any agency, there are scams out there by ladies and by agencies. But there are many positive testimonials in favor of AnastasiaWeb, but there are also too many negative reports not to be very cautious, so I do advise using your best judgement and a good deal of caution.

You need to know that there is potential for email abuse which is difficult for any agency to stay on top of.

Anastasiaweb will openly tell you that some of the agencies they work with in Russia will sometimes do some "matchmaking", and send letters out on the girls' behalf. I think this is a bad idea, and encourages fraud. There are other which do not do this, such as one of the Russian brides agencies reviewed here. Since we pay to open letters, it would seem that there is incentive for the Russian agencies to send out phony letters, under the pretense of "matchmaking".

But again, it comes down to using your best judgment to avoid any Russian bride scam. I occasionally use Anastasiaweb's email service, and have corresponded with some wonderful, interesting ladies.

I have also received an occasional response in which the lady thanked me, but indicated she was not interested. It seems unlikely this would happen if the letters were all phony, designed to get you to spend as much money as possible.

There are some things to keep in mind when using email services, in order to avoid such a typical Russian bride scam.

You'll notice whether the letters have an authentic "feel".

For example, does she answer your questions, or could the email have been written to anyone?

And of course, does she ask for money or profess undying devotion and love without knowing anything about you -- you'll have a pretty good idea if you have anything to be concerned about.

Be careful about the credibility of negative posts about an agency. Be sure they have a basis in truth, and not just from someone who is disappointed for other reasons.

AnastasiaWeb does have a strong, stated anti-scam policy. Recently, I had a chance to test the policy.

I noticed, among the photos of new ladies, a known scammer who has asked me and others for money for a visa which her uncle would help her obtain, since she said he worked at the US embassy in Ukraine (lol).

Once I supplied some documentation of that request, along with evidence that she had been removed from other sites, she was immediately removed by AnastasiaWeb.

This kind of thing is very infrequent at the Russian brides agencies, but it does happen.

I want to stress that this is the only example I personally have encountered in communicating with many, many quality Russian ladies. But the less obvious scam of someone other than the lady in the photo sending the letter to make money for the agency could have easily happened more often than I am aware.

So, what I want to do here is present you with the facts as best that I know them about this potential Russian bride scam, and you decide. The best thing is to meet. But when using email, be careful, use common sense.