would you lean toward scam or not scam???

by davidg
(birmingham,al usa)

I met a beautiful 29 year old girl from Siberia, she is a social worker, and has fairly good English. I contacted her first from a match type dating site. We met and talked for a month and wrote every day, got pictures and lots of personal things, even pics of mom and dad. She says they do not get internet with enough speed for Skype. She uses library for emails, and says she does not have any friends with cell phones as they are very expensive. Is it possible that in a small town 50 miles from Tomsk that this could be true? I had read ALL Russian girls had phones., Skype maybe not out in the boonies of Siberia? She did call me from a payphone last week, twice both short calls, but she said she needed to hear my voice. She always answers 80% of my questions in emails. But I ask 10-20 questions a letter.

She says she only wants to be with me. A couple weeks ago looked into coming to US thru a travel agency and found out it was more expensive then she had any idea, did not ask for money, just said she did not know it would be so much. I started researching, told her I would come there first, and then we could do a fiancee visa after that. She said that sounded complicated, but said that is ok if that is what I think we should do. I am just worried that she moved so fast to being willing to come here to be with me, as I am not all that great of a catch looks wise or financially and old enough to be her dad. Is this a scam of some kind? Or is it possible I won the Lottery??


Bob's Comment:

Scam... definitely scam. Read Russian Dating Scams and every page it links to. Like 9 out of 10 strong indicators of scam are here, and I could probably even add a few.

1) She's too young and good looking (which by itself doesn't conclusively prove anything)

2) No phone, internet, or Skype... You probably heard here that all Russian/Ukrainian women have cell phones. It's also the case that almost all of them operate on a pre-paid mobile where all incoming calls/texts are FREE to them. The idea that no one she knows has a cell phone (which is a giant leap further into the incredible) is nuts. No way. And no internet at home? I don't buy that either. And honestly, the selection of "ultra rural village 50 miles from a city" is selected specifically to give "her" cover for all these excuses. I don't even believe her location.

3) Authentic beautiful, young Russian women won't write you every day for two months and decide during that time that the "only want to be with you".

4) And of course, she wants to come see you... Your concern shouldn't be based on the fact that she wants to come see you so fast, but that she's bringing up the idea of visiting you at all. No "travel agency" is going to make that happen. She needs a VISA, and the U.S. is pretty stingy is tourist visas for young Russian women with no property, no children, no significant business or family ties to her own country.

Anyway, I could go on but the meter just ran out :)

Read that link I referenced above and all pages it links to and you'll see the answers to all this, AND how to just completely avoid it (or at least instantly recognize it) in the future.