Elena's Models - How to Avoid "Russian Bride" Agency Scams

If you're thinking about meeting Russian women through an internet dating or marriage agency, you're treading in dangerous waters. I know, because I've done it. There are many wonderful Russian women who genuinely want to meet Western men. That's the good news...

The bad news is that they tend to be surrounded by bloodthirsty sharks who'd like nothing better than to tear you to shreds. The even worse news is that it's often very difficult to tell them apart.

Even before you get to the women (or male con artists posing as women), you have to be concerned about the agencies themselves. There are hundreds out there, and most are either rip-offs or outright frauds. Some will simply take your membership fee, pass around your credit card number, and never deliver the service they advertise. Those are the worst, but sometimes they ultimately do the least damage to your wallet.

Other agencies are simply structured to bilk you for as much money as possible over time. There's one primary warning sign you can use to identify them: If the agency requires you to pay "credits" or "tokens" to send or receive email through their system, rather than simply providing a woman's contact information, walk away.

These businesses are set up to control your communications every step of the way, and they enjoy their greatest profits when you fail and are forced to come back for more. The longer they can keep you dependent on the agency for communication, the more money they make.

This kind of arrangement, of course, is an incentive for all kinds of shady practices. For example, you'll be amazed at how you are immediately flooded with dozens or hundreds of emails from absolutely gorgeous young women. It shouldn't be a big surprise: The agency is getting paid every time you open one of those emails!

There have been hundreds of documented cases in which these contacts turn out to have been written by agency employees rather than actual women. As long as there are plenty of guys who will open the emails, it's like a money factory.

An honest agency will take a long-term view and try to build their business by actually helping you succeed. Elena's Models is the agency I settled on, and it's the example I'll use in this article.

Elena's Models doesn't charge you to send or receive emails to the women listed on their site. Instead, when you purchase a membership, you can send unlimited "expressions of interest" to the women on the site, absolutely free. If a woman is interested in you, then you can purchase her contact information (usually her email address). At that point, your communication with the woman is your business and Elena's Models has nothing to do with it.

You can sign up with Elena's Models for free (a Silver Membership). You can put up your profile and send and receive as many expressions of interest as you like. It's a great way to give it a try without opening your wallet. If you find some women you're interested in getting to know, then and only then should you upgrade your membership or purchase their contact information.

Best of all, once you've done that, you don't need the agency for anything and you don't need to pay them for anything. What happens after that is entirely up to you.