|
Romance Scams Russian Scams
This information is credited to http://www.datingnmore.com
Unlike Nigerian dating scam, there is a lot of information about Russian scams on the Internet. Most people know what it's all about: the scammers establish some lovely correspondence with you, fall in love with you after just a couple of letters and then start asking for money, for different purposes: for visa and ticket to come meet you, for English classes, for cell phone, for Internet connection, for sick Mom, whatever. Once you send her money, she is gone. Or, she will ask you for more money and then will be gone. There is a great article written by CT Thompson, please read it.
There are many Russian scam lists out there: some good, some not so good. Many Russian marriage agencies are scam too.
We are not going to cover agencies here, we don't work with Russian marriage agencies and have no idea who is scam and who is not. Lets talk about individual scammers, those who place their profiles on the different online dating services, free and paid. What we don't like about the existing Russian scam lists is that they provide the impression that there are thousands of Russian scammers out there, and behind each scam profile stays different girl (or guy, whatever). This is not true!
We are absolutely convinced: Russian girls are NOT scammers! Most of the Russian scam (about 90% of it, if not more) originates form the same source: REPUBLIC OF MARI EL in Russia. Of course there are some freelance scammers out there (monkey see monkey do), but their number is very insignificant compared to the number of scam profiles generated daily by Mari El. Yes, there is a criminal organization in Mari El behind the Russian scam.
The profiles show different locations and cities in Russia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet Union countries. But every time a bad profile is placed on our site, or we ask the victims to forward us the full e-mail headers of the scammer's e-mail, they ALWAYS show the same IPs and the same Internet Service providers. Sometimes the scammers change ISP (or simply hire new folks to do the job). Then all scam, like with a magic wand, starts originating from that new ISP. If we ban that IP range from our site, all registrations start coming through anonymous proxies.
This criminal organization is lead by men, they hire people from Yoshkar Ola to do the dirty job for them: place profiles and conduct the correspondence. Most likely, they work on commissions, like telemarketers. The activity of this criminal organization is enormous, they place hundreds of profiles out there every day. The photos of girls on the phony Russian profiles come from different sources. Sometimes they use the photos of Russian models and celebrities. But they also pay women a minimal fee to sit and pose for pictures and to pick up the money at the Western Union. The girls on the pictures sometimes know what's going on and how their pictures are being used, sometimes don't. The gang may also have accomplices in certain Western Union locations.
Their profiles may say whatever: that they are from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Samara, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Kiev, Odessa, sometimes even USA. But as you know, the money wired via Western Union can be picked up at any city and at any Western Union location, so it doesn't mean anything. The scammers are in Mari El. Period!
For more information on Russian dating scams please visit Jim's Marriage Agency Scams website.
Read about Nigerian Scams
Romance Scams Home
More2Hug Staff
|
