Sending Flowers or a Gift

by Charl
(South Africa)

I am corresponding with this woman for about 6 months now. She never asked for any money during that period.

She now wants to visit me in South Africa, her age is 30.

To put me at ease I think I must send her flowers or a gift.

Do you have any suggestions and also, the people who deliver, will they be able to give me more information?

Thank you again for a great site!!

Regards
Charl

Bob's Answer:

When you say "to put me at ease", do you mean in terms of being comfortable about the authenticity of the girl and her intentions? I assume this is what you mean, and unfortunately I don't believe gifts or flowers would accomplish this, ESPECIALLY if you are corresponding with this girl via some kind of pay-per-letter site/agency.

In such cases with pay-per-letter sites, if you send flowers/gifts, they usually include the service of the girl receiving the flowers/gift, and the theory is that the picture of the girl receiving the gift/flowers validates for you that she's real.

But many agencies just send you a picture of a that girl receiving flowers/gift... but it's just an archive photo of her receiving flowers from some other man a year earlier. If she's popular, then surely she's receive flowers/gifts before and they have copies of those photos on their office computer.

Or, in some cases I hear that the agency will meet the girl at the flower shop, borrow a bouquet for five minutes to take some pictures, and then send you those pictures. The girl and the agency then split the $100 you paid for the flowers.

But as I say at Avoiding Russian Women Scams, the only reasonable, reliable, and right way to go about this is to MEET IN HER CITY!

The whole "she wants to visit me in my country" is always fraught with risk, and it just isn't the natural way for the relationship to progress. I'm not saying it's always a scam, but it's almost never your best option.

Hope that helps!