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Have you sent money to Russian scammers? File for criminal prosecution Have you encountered a visa-and-tickets scammer? Participate in a research study!
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BEWARE OF FAKE RUSSIAN / UKRAINIAN AGENCIESby Elena Garrett October 20, 2011 go back to the Agency Verification Service page If has become very common for Russian and Ukrainian dating scammers to suggest using a particular agency or service (for example, a translation agency, a travel agency, a flower delivery agency, or a dating agency) in the course of their scam. Sometimes such an agency is the actual scammer, which recruits female "models" to participate by accepting money or gifts. Sometimes, the "models" are nothing more than a series of photos stolen from a catalog or a personal web page. Very often I hear about victims of dating scams sending considerable amount of money to such agencies over a period of many months for translations, flowers, gifts, and bogus travel accommodations. The bogus travel accommodations are the tell-tale sign of a visa-and-tickets scam, while the translations and the flowers are usually a signs of a Ukrainian translation scam.
The red flags commonly found in such scams include:
How to avoid falling into the "fake agency trap"? First of all, whenever possible, make your own Internet research of such businesses in the same geographical area, and insist on using the agency that you had personally selected. Of course, without good Russian language skills, such research is very difficult. Therefore, when your own research goes nowhere, use outside help to verify that the agency in question really exists. P.S. If the agency does exist, make sure to verify that they are aware that your panpal is indeed their client.
Additional tricks used by the dating scammers The scanners do anticipate that at one point or another, their intended victim will become suspicious and begin checking the facts. To avoid being caught in a lie too quickly, the scammers frequently utilize their own equivalent of a "bait and switch" trick. They steal an identity (name, logo, web site) of a well-known and respected Russian/Ukrainian company, but provide their own contact information, and correspond with the intended victims impersonating employees of a real company. To continue "milking" the scan, scammers go to great lengths to keep the victim assured that the transactions are done in good faith. For example, they spend time and effort to produce genuinely-looking documents that supposedly display the contract that they signed with "their" agency, or that agency's trade license. Very frequently, the agency's "employees" exchange emails with the potential victim, creating an appearance of business correspondence. Because the intended victim cannot read the documents in Cyrillic, they have no choice but to believe that the document is authentic. It is not difficult to see why so many Internet users fall prey to these scams. Without the ability to check the authenticity of the offered documents or web sites, many can waste thousands of dollars and many months of their life financing bogus travel arrangements and paying for translation services of ladies whose identities are a work of fiction.
Below, examples of fake documents utilized by scammers. Buyers, beware!
go back to the Agency Verification Service page
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