There's a dark side to international dating that you have to acknowledge if you're serious about looking for love abroad. The potential rewards of international dating are high, but so to are the risks if you don't know what you're getting into. 

The purpose of this post if to help you understand what you're getting into, so that you can spot and avoid dating scams from a mile away. While scams can come in all shapes and sizes there are 3 major categories that they tend to fall into. In this post we take an in depth look at how the scams within each of these categories works. 

Let's get into it.....

Next in line are the local agencies. The master sites pay a commission from their PPL fees to the local agencies. In return the agencies provide the dating sites with women's profiles and people to operate them. 

What do I mean by people who operate a profile? Agencies find attractive women (usually through online job ads), and pay them to use their pictures and profile information. The agencies then hire writers/translators to communicate with men who contact the posted profile. These writers pose as the women in the picture.

If the woman providing the pictures has a decent English level an agency may hire her to communicate as herself. But more often than not the agency will have more than one writer working with any one individual profile. The woman will get a commission from the agency on the revenue from her profile, and the writers will also a get commission for the fees men pay during their correspondence.  

It's not uncommon for an agency to rent out a profile to multiple sites, which is one reason you may find an identical profile on several different dating sites. 

Agencies and writers even go so far as to use bots for initial communication.  Bots are software systems or plug-ins that send automated emails or messages on behalf of a woman's profile. These bots are mainly used to make initial contact and draw men into communication with the actual writers. 

When bots are combined with a team of letter writers it's not hard to have hundreds of western men communicating with one profile. You can find links to two companies providing bot services here and here.

The letter writers

As we continue down the scam funnel next we find the writers. As we said before writers are hired by the agencies. Writers are usually women, but when demand is high men can be hired to play the part as well. 

Writers are trained and encouraged to hook men into long drawn out conversations so that they can milk as many correspondence fees from them as they can. The more a man talks with them  on the site the more money they make.

On the off chance that the woman you writing to is actually the one in her online profile, remember that she is paid to be nice to you. Her goal is to get you talking to her as long as possible. 

Some PPL dating stites are utilizing video chat features as well as short introduction videos.  These both help feed the allusion that the girl you're talking to is real. But agentcies and writers have made a workaround for this. The introduction videos aren't much harder to get than photos. For the live video chats agencies prerecord the woman having a video chat and broadcast it, while a writer writes text in real time pretending to be her.

This has led to men having to ask women to do a specific action in a video chat (like hold up two fingers) to know she is actually live. Even if she is live she is probably being paid per hour to chat with men like you.

So what happens if the man actually decides to come and visit the lady he's been communicating with? Well that's when the women behind the profiles make an appearance (or not).  When a man reveals a serious intent to visit, the agency and or writer will contact the woman from the profile pictures (if she's not the professional writer he's been communicating with). She can then meet him upon arrival. Usually one of these scenarios then follows:

1) There's been many a story where a man has been communicating with a women for weeks, months, or maybe even more than a year and when he finally decides to travel to her country she is no where to be found.

 In this instance he was probably talking to a hired writer the whole time and the actual woman either doesn't know about him or has no desire to meet him.

Textbook example of a PPL scam victim

2) The woman brings a translator (always another woman) with her to meet the man. During their dates the woman doesn't seem to know or remember much of what her and the man have been talking about for the past several months.

Both her and her translator show up dressed to the nines and constantly comment on how they want to visit a particular restaurant, club, or shop (all of which are the most expensive in town). The men is expected to pay for everything. If he refuses or is too reluctant both ladies quickly lose interest in him.

In either scenario the man leaves without the barest semblance of a relationship. 

In addition to the monstrous machinery of the PPL scam, there is another complementary system also used to take advantage of romance seeking men from the west, and it's centered around romance tours.

Now just because a company is offering a romance doesn't necessarily mean that the company is scamming people. There are men who have met and married amazing foreign women on such tours. However it's important to note that these guys are usually more of the exception than the rule. 

Even if a romance tour company is legitimate, often you don't have to look hard before finding shading activity surrounding their tours. 

So what exactly is a romance tour?

Typically men pay the tour company a steep fee (think thousands of dollars), in exchange the company provides travel and transport to a specific city in a foreign country, where the company also organizes socials with local women.

Essentially 20 or so men are shuttled in by bus into a local nightclub full of a couple hundred local ladies. Often women translators provided by the tour company stand in the wings ready to assist men in their search forlove...for an hourly fee of course. 

The men are given very little advice or preparation other than "Go to all the socials!" and "Talk to as many ladies as possible!", and so they are thrown to the wolves. 

A great example of a run of the mill romance tour

The dating scam

The scam on the periphery the romance tour system isn't all that different from the tactics of the bottom feeding "brides" from the PPL machine who actually show up and a meet a guy who writes them.

Often a lady from a social will spilt a translator's hourly commission. So she will do her best to keep the man interested and drag out their dating interactions. 

It's also not uncommon for women to receive kickbacks from shops or restaurants. The women gets the man to take her to a restaurant, the restaurant over charges the man and sends a little money back to the lady. 

Finally the woman can also ask the man for gifts, money for English classes, assistance for a sick relative, etc. Needless to say dating at the socials can be a lucrative endeavor for the shrewd but unscrupulous woman. 

Turning a blind eye

There could be an argument that the tour companies aren't actually facilitating the scams on a given tour. They promise a romance tour and they deliver it. But you can't help but think they should take at least some responsibility to safeguard their clients and screen women or at least make it harder for scammers to operate. By and large the tour companies don't do this. 

This scam is as old as online dating itself, and it's not limited to just international dating sites. A scammer (can be the individual on profile or an independent group), quickly and emphatically falls in love with the user after a short correspondence on a dating site. 

The scammer then takes the conversation off of the site. After awhile the scammer will start to ask for money either for travel, medical expenses, or some sort of personal disaster.  

I won't camp on this scam because it's fairly common knowledge.  This is the stuff of Nigerian princes and stranded would be lovers. You can read more about this common scam here. 

The classic romance scam can affect both men and women across all internet dating sites

Even if you happen to be on a legitimate international dating site (yes there are some, but more on that later), there could be some classic scammers. They're aren't that hard to spot as their tactics are fairly predictable.

If you're considering looking for a serious relationship overseas reading about all these scams can be disheartening. It's sobering to discover that there's literally an entire industry designed to take advantage of people like you....or is there?

I'd argue that the majority of these scams aren't designed for honest or decent men. Yes a good man can fall into their trap (and many have), but the prime targets of these scams are desperate men. 

What's not often covered when people talk about international dating is that a large portion of the men who frequent international dating sites and romance tours aren't all that genuine themselves.

There's a lot of online perverts who send pictures of their penis or ask for lewd photos from women. There's also men who are looking for a quiet trophy wife young enough to be their granddaughter. There's also the fools who actually believe that they purchase a wife from another country (that's called sex slavery btw). 

And while the questionable motivations of these men don't give others the right to scam them, you can't help but feel that to some extent these type of guys are asking for it. They want something for nothing, and they end up getting nothing for something. 

If you're honest and realistic, and you're searching for a serious international relationship, it's not hard to avoid scams once you know about them. As I said before these scams are not designed for you. 

But now that you know what constitutes a bad dating site, profile, and romance tour...it all starts to beg the question: "Are there honest alternatives for serious men?"....

The answer is an emphatic yes. 

There are honest women in the international dating scene. Contrary to what sensational news specials and burnt out scam victims would have you believe, not all women from Ukraine, Colombia, or the Philippines are after your wallet.

There are real genuine women who are looking for genuine men. If you've fallen prey to a scam in the past it can be hard not to be cynical and bitter. I'd personally assure you, but I think there's enough stories out there of successful couples that the evidence speaks for itself.   

Take heart guys. There are some wonderful women out there. You just have to know where to look...

The last decade has the advent in reputable dating sites and introduction agencies. Some of these business have even been started by guys who themselves were burned out on a scam invested industry, before finding a serious relationship overseas.  

There are dating sites that charge only for a monthly subscription and not for communication with women. These sites also have a low tolerance for scam-like activity and are quick to crack down on it. There are also introduction agencies that screen both men and women for intent to marry or find a relationship. 

The best practices of these companies are raising the standard for the international dating industry. So much so that even the scam sites are forced to update their design and media in order to compete.  

Here is a list of recommended sites to use for finding a serious relationship over seas. These sites meet the following criteria: They charge flat rate monthly subscriptions and not PPL, They let you take communication off their site, and they have an honest reputation.

Recommended international dating sites:

Recommended agencies:

International dating is a worthy endeavor, but you have to be smart about it. If you come waltzing onto the scene wide eye'd with a fat wallet the scam industry will do its damnedest to eat you alive. 

But knowledge is power, and the more you know about the pitfalls of the industry the less threatening they become.