Russian Scammers: Email Scams

Measured by volume, "email scams" are probably the most prevalent method employed by Russian scammers. An email scam is simply a case where some volume operation (could be a man or a woman, and may be in Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, or New Jersey) contacts you by email through a "Direct-Connection Site" (sites like Match.com where members communicate directly with one another without any human intermediaries) and eventually attempt to bait you into sending money.

Fortunately these are the easiest kinds of Russian scammers to recognize and avoid. If you read and follow the advice on this page, email scams will only be a nuisance, not a real threat of any kind.

On these Direct-Connection sites where both men and women post their own profiles with little or no screening, Russian scammers post pictures and profiles of beautiful Russian women. They may have downloaded the pictures of some Russian actress or model (who you would not recognize), or they may have downloaded the pictures from a real girl's profile on another site. Or, in some cases, the girl writing you actually posts her own pictures.

By the way, you may notice some girls on multiple sites with matching pictures and descriptions. Well, they may all be real, they may all be fake, or there may be some real and some fake. So a real girl may have posted her profile, and a Russian scammer thought it looked good, so he/she copied the pics and description and posted it on another site.

Russian scammers may contact you first or you may write them first. "She" may continue the dialog immediately after you exchange contact information, OR you may never see another message from her, but days, weeks, or months later you will start getting very generic emails from various Russian women you've never seen claiming they saw your profile at a dating agency and want to get to know you.

"She" (I put the quotes because it may not even really be a woman) sounds like she's more and more in love with you with each passing email. You are her special man, and she's stopped writing all other men from the site, told her family and friends all about you, etc., etc., etc.

Then at some point you're going to get some sort of urgent, heart-tugging plea for money... "My grandmother has taken ill and will die if we don't get her expensive medicine.... I don't know who else I can turn to...". OR, "I'm very sorry John, but the place I use to send you my emails requires me to pre-pay for the next 6 months and I haven't the money to be able to afford this...", OR THE OLDIE-BUT-GOODIE, "My dear, I feel so close to you and want to see you very much. I have a friend in the travel agency who can get a tourist visa for me to visit you, but I need $400 for the visa and $1500 for the airfare. Can you send me the money by Western Union?..."

THE 100 PERCENT SUREFIRE CURE: NEVER SEND MONEY TO SOMEONE YOU HAVE NEVER MET. NEVER. NEVER. NEVER. NOT FOR ANY REASON! And if you must send money to someone you have never met, just send it to me instead ;-) It's even pretty risky sending money to someone you HAVE already met.

So by following this simple rule you will never lose money to these kinds of Russian scammers, but fortunately I can give you a few more pointers that can help you recognize an email scam long before the punch line and save you any significant time or emotion on these scammers. For instance:

1. Russian scammers almost never actually "interact"... In other words, ask specific questions in your emails to "her" and you will notice "she" never actually answers them - ESPECIALLY if they are asked in the middle of your email. "She" will also never specifically address anything you say in your emails. This is because "she" never actually reads most of your messages, but just sends her sequence of emails. Occasionally she may address something you said or answer a question you asked, but it is rare, and it is always tacked on to the top or bottom of the message.
   
   
2. "She" is way too young or too hot. Don't rely on this observation too much because Russian scammers use women's pictures ranging from totally cover-model hot to women with more realistic looks.
   
   
3. "She" sounds much more "in love" faster than is realistic. If you are new to pursuing Russian women, you may believe that they are just more open and eager to fall in love. Maybe some are, but they aren't stupid or desperate, and won't be "in love" after 2-3 emails.
   
   
4. Her "IP address" location does not match her story. You can Google more about this yourself (try searching for "determining the origination location of an email") to learn how to determine the "IP address" of the physical machine where the email originated (even if the sender uses a web-based email system like Yahoo).
   
   Once you have the sender's IP address, go to IP2LOCATION's Free IP Lookup Page and paste (or type) that IP address into the "IP Address" box and click "Find Location". NOTE: This is APPROXIMATE, NOT EXACT!
   
   So if a girl claims she is in SomeTinyCity, Russia, but her IP address registers to a location in Moscow, don't be concerned. BUT, if she claims to be writing from SomeTinyCity, Russia, and her IP address registers to a location in Germany (or really any other country), she's probably a Russian scammer. Usually when I receive emails from women that fail this test, I gently ask, "So you say you are in the Czech Republic, but your emails seem to come from Moscow... are you in Moscow now?" Usually they remove me from their email sequence at that point.
   
   
5. "She" will NEVER speak with you by phone, and DEFINITELY NEVER via Skype webcam. If you ask if she will communicate by phone or Skype, she'll claim she doesn't have a phone and/or a computer with internet and webcam.
   
   It is definitely true that not all Russian women have webcams or sufficiently fast and reliable internet access to sustain a Skype video call, BUT EVERY RUSSIAN WOMAN HAS A CELL PHONE. AND, in Russia, all incoming cell phone calls are FREE. So they definitely have the ability to speak by phone at no cost to them. The only "out" they may still try is "But I don't speak English". Well, in that case you arrange for a translated call, WITH YOUR TRANSLATOR.
   
   See Russian Translations: Phone and Written to learn more about arranging for translation help.
   
   

Between these telltale signs you can easily eliminate nearly any risk of email scams. But if you don't want to need to become an expert in recognizing Russian scammers, I would recommend Elena's Models. Their scam prevention practices are the best in the business and there is almost no chance that you will encounter a scammer there.

But be ready if you post profiles on Russian Cupid (formerly RussianEuro) or Ukraine Date. I GUARANTEE Russian scammers will contact you on these sites. These are great sites and they always investigate reports of scammers and remove them immediately, but there's only so much they can do. So just be sure to sidestep the Russian scammers.

And on these two sites, there are two really simple tricks to weeding out most of the Russian scammers without wasting a single minute:

1. When they contact you either with a "Show Interest" message or a regular message, WAIT AT LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE ANSWERING (but 48 hours would even be better). It's that simple.
   
   How does this help? Because, from what I have gathered from much observation and analysis, the Russian scammers there post a really hot profile (or maybe not so hot, but good enough to get attention), send "Interest" messages to almost every man on the site, wait for replies, ask the men who reply to send their email addresses, then they delete their profile before the site staff removes the profile for scamming. By then they have harvested many email addresses to work on. It seems like well over 90 percent of the time that one of these scammers contacts me, less than 24 hours later their profile is gone (although they continue to write if I send them my email address).
   
   
2. Ukraine Date and Russian Cupid have this little feature where you can view all the women's profiles who have viewed your profile. SO, when you get an "Interest" message (or just a regular message), click on the link to view the women who viewed your full profile. If the girl who sent the interest isn't there, she is probably a scammer, or at the very least, isn't very serious. If she IS there, it is reasonably likely she is real (you can even usually ignore the first rule above).
   
   Now this one is a little tricky. I would say that if you DO see a girl who wrote you in the list of women who viewed your profile, it's a pretty good bet that she's real. The reverse is not necessarily 100 percent reliable. The reason for that is that they can view profiles without being logged in, and if they do view your profile when they are not logged in, the system won't know it was them and they won't appear in the list of women who viewed your profile.
   
   HOWEVER, I find it highly improbable that a woman would view your full profile while not logged in, then log in to send you an interest message.
   
   If you want to give them just a little benefit of the doubt, when a girl who has not viewed your full profile contacts you, write her through the site's mail system thanking her for the message, but then point out that you noticed she hasn't viewed your full profile. Then say something like this, "Well, since my best short introduction is in my full profile along with my recent pictures, probably the best way to start getting better acquainted would be for you to view that..." If she writes back again saying she's really interested and would like your email address, but she still has not viewed your full profile, forget her. She's at least not very serious or honest, and almost surely she's one of a million Russian scammers you need to avoid!

So there, now you are 99 percent insulated from email scams!

And if a Russian scammer does slip through the radar by deviating from the standard email scammers playbook, like actually reading your emails and really customizing "her" responses, etc. and does eventually ask for money, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you continue to play their game... "She" is a FAKE woman in love with you, so wire her some FAKE money! Get "her" name and address (required for most cash transfer transactions) and make up a fake transfer number, and email the "girl" that you have wired her $3,000 USD and she can pick it up at any Western Union branch. Seriously, if they're going to waste all your time, it's only fair to waste some of theirs!

I did this once and they fell for it! Thirty minutes later I got an angry email, but "she" left me alone after that.