Ukrainian women actively flirt with foreigners on dating sites.
“Miss, you have a beautiful appearance. I propose to make profit of that charting in English with foreigners on international dating sites. No intimacy, just harmless flirting. Earnings are high, hundreds of dollars. Are you interested in? “
Pretty young Ukrainian girls regularly receive such messages with similar texts on social networks. I also responded to one of those proposals. For a month I have been working on an international dating site and I comprehend how much it is possible to make off on dating sites and how to correspond with a man in order to get a lot of money for that.
“You should pretend to be a classy chassy desiring to get married most of all in her life. You’ll earn a lot of money, and then, with great luck, will go to live in America. We’d such cases,” with this inspiring phrase Julia, the administrator of the agency, finishes my interview. It lasted no more than 20 minutes. First, they scanned my passport – they said, the site needed a proof that I was not married in order to register me, although I was a little alerted. Then I filled in a questionnaire where I told a little about myself and described what kind of man I look for. My English level did not interest anyone – all the girls on the site communicated with foreigners using GoogleTranslate. I was promised to make a free photo shoot and let to go home. The next day, I could start my work.
I will explain the scheme: men pay international dating sites for the opportunity of communicating with Ukrainian women. And the websites pay agencies for searching models and translators encouraging the men to pay the sites for the opportunity to correspond with them. Such a financial vicious circle. However the men do not even suspect that such communication is not a romantic adventure for the women, but a way to make money, and that they are the main link in this circle. What is a woman’s role and fate in I decided to check by my own experience.
49% of breast
It takes a day to register on the international dating site “Dream Marriage”. Photos for the profile are taken from my page on the social network “Vkontakte” (it should be noted I have not waited for the promised photo shoot). On the next day the administrator Julia sent me a letter with the username and password to log onto the site, the program for automated sending the letters and the 22-minutes video lesson, which shows how to use the site.
First of all, I got acquainted with the system of penalties, and I did not know if it was an attempt to intimidate me or to argue into seriousness of this work. In any case, the penalties are taken here with special attention. For example, I should pay $ 200 for depravity and vulgarity in correspondence. It was not allowed to induce intimacy, extort money or gifts. By the way, there are no such restrictions for the men – they can write anything.
“How will you check what I write to the men? Do the administrators read all the girls’ letters on the site?” I ask Julia. She is evidently embarrassed by my question.
“They can read letters, not permanently, of course, but selectively,” she replies evasively. And I understand: this penalty is more a formality than a real punishment.
If a girl does not respond to the letter for more than four days she will be fined 50 cents for each down time day. There is even a penalty for addressing a man not by his name: if I write for example “Hello, Michael!” in a letter to Den, I will have to pay $ 25. And finally, it is forbidden to leave the computer, if the webcam is turned on during a chat session.
The first thing you need to do before starting your work is to compose a mail, where to write briefly about yourself and try to interest the man with something. Critically: it is important to address him by name – so you immediately come into personal touch with him. It is also necessary to attach a photo to each letter.
“They’ll more likely fall for a letter with a photo, without it they even cannot react at all. So there is more trust,” Julia says. “The men want to see how you look in life, without any photoshop. Therefore, it’s desirable to attach the selfie to the letter, and preferably in lingerie.”
“In lingerie? Will that not be seen as intimacy on my part?” I am surprised.
“No, if you’re in the panties and the bra covering 50% of the breast. In short, if everything intimate is covered”.
I cannot refrain from sneering. I wonder how these 50% are calculated.
“If only 49% of the breast is covered – will I be fined?” I ask the strict administrator acidly. She does not get lost with the answer.
“A bra, from under which the nipples are not seen, is normal. And if just a belt instead of it is fastened on the breast – there a first warning will be,” she says in a serious tone
“And how many warnings can be?”
“Only one. Then a fine for debauchery follows. We’ve only decent girls.”
Hunting season
“Do you understand that you’ll work mainly at night?”
I look at the administrator Julia confusedly.
“Time difference,” she explains impatiently and rolling her eyes. “Our men are mainly from America, and they get up at our noon. Also if you sit from 10 p. m. you’ll hook more men – they come from work at this time”.
Julia put a wayward brown hank behind her ear and stately look through the papers on her table in the agency. Though the agency is a too prominent name for a three-room flat clumsily turned into an office in a residential building not far from the underground station of People’s Friendship, which entrance stinks to heaven with rubbish and waste. While I fill in the form, the other room is being renovated. There are six or seven administrators. There are at least some pieces of furniture, only the bare necessities – tables, chairs, laptops and a cabinet. There are no lattices on the windows, although the room is on the first floor – in which case, it is not difficult to escape. Everything as in a traditional underground office, I think involuntarily, trying to puzzle out how this system works.
Dating sites select and register the men by themselves. In the database you can find representatives of the stronger sex not only from the USA, but also from Germany, Korea, Greece, Armenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, even from Africa. The agency’s mission is to find a girl being in need of money and love and register her on the website. The girls can earn both actively (by correspondence for their own accounts), and passively – if they do not know English a translator corresponds instead of them. But such girls are in a minority. The agency receives a fee from the site for each registered girl. But the girls’ earnings are not limited with money:
“The men often like to send gifts. Flowers, perfumes, sweets, even dresses – everything is personally for you,” Julia continues to draw a beautiful picture in my imagination. “If a man comes to Kyiv the girl meets with him – but only in presence of an interpreter. It’s forbidden to meet face to face,” she adds in the tone of a strict teacher. It’s not allowed also to give your personal contacts and communicate with a man outside the site.
Let’s calculate a bit. A girl receives $ 1.5 for each incoming letter from a man, except the first one. One chat minute with a man costs 11 cents, and with the camera twice as much – 22 cents. It is interesting that the agency takes half of the earnings from the account (!). That is, the girl will receive 15 hryvnias for one incoming letter instead of 30 hryvnias, and if a translator works for her – even less, only 10%. But, as it turns out later, it is so difficult to earn even these 15 hryvnias…
After a few days of work I understand that the competition here is huge: besides me still 11,265 women hunt for foreigners on “DreamMarriage”. The question is how to make a man to select from this mass of vamps just me? A lot of girls constantly write them, so your message can just get lost. That is what happens. In the first two weeks I sent 87 letters, and got zero in reply.
There is another problem with the video chat. All the men I manage to “roll” for the chat (to be sure, there are a few), want one thing: me to strip. When I pretend that I do not understand what they are about, they immediately get off and do not connect with me anymore. I suspect that the men on the international dating sites formally holding themselves out as the marriage agencies do not look for wives, but partners for virtual sex.
Nobody needs truth here
“Always turn on the camera when you are in a chat room. Even if a man is not initially about to communicate with you he will go to your profile for interest to see how do you look like? And here you’ll catch him…”
A young and rather handsome administrator Maxim has been telling me the basic principles of pick-up on the Internet for about an hour. He scratches his growing beard from time to time and swallows cheap instant coffee without milk. The day before, I, acting out total despair, wangled a master class on seducing the men.
Max thoroughly got to my training. Concurrently he is a translator: while speaking to me, he parallely types in a romantic message to Hans from Nebraska. As I find out later, there are quite a few men among the translators. They often work even better than women – they say, a man knows what another man needs.
Max is 28, but he looks younger than his age – like he is 23. He is a tall blond with a pleasant baritone and a fashionable hairdo – the sides are shaved short, the hair is longer at the top and parted. He is a little shy in conversation – obviously he is not used to communicate with girls alive.
“How can I get people to answer me?” I repeat my main question. Max pensively screws up his lips, leans closer and conspiratorially says:
“Join your fantasy. You need something extraordinary to interest him. Ask short questions; try to call a man to a dialogue. I, for example, often write something like “I want to watch a romantic film – maybe you will advise anything?” Or “I’m going to go for a walk and I cannot decide what to wear”. I also attach two photos in different dresses…”
“It’s better to write” I cannot choose the panties”- that is responded more quickly,” the full-breasted administrator Vika jumps in on the conversation interrupting Maxim. She is slightly rude in communication, plumpish round the waist and excessive in smoking – she reaches after a cigarette every ten minutes.
Max assents her unconvincingly and continues the lecture, trying to keep a straight face. Obviously, he has not liked the way Vika interrupted his lecture.
“There’re two contingents of men on such sites,” Max tells. “Those who’re interested in flirting and immodest correspondence and those who look for a serious relationship. Try to write both forwardly and seriously, and will see what they better fall for.”
“What are you telling her,” Vika says again. She takes a pack of cigarettes, comes closer to me, fightingly puts her hands on her waist and says: “You need to accentuate sex – only perverts surf there. They are over 90%. Send some photos in a swimsuit or in underwear and write: “P.S.: Here’s my photo. What do you think about it?” Put more emoticons and hearts. And overload them – write 5-10 messages to each every day,” the girl purposely emphasizes each syllable and sauces the phrases with vernaculars. Having said that, she goes forwardly for a smoke break.
“Look for new questionnaires – they do not have so many regular girls yet, it is easier to start communication with them,” without Vika Max starts to breathe more freely and continues the lesson: “If the men do not put out photos you can ask for them, the men with photos can be complimented. In general, more flattery – we like it,” Max says with a tomcat smile on his face. He says this work needs an individual approach.
“Try to focus on the information in his profile. If he likes to travel, write that you too, if he is a vegetarian, write that you hate steaks … It’s necessary to have something jointing. Look, this guy, for example, likes the series “Doctor Who”, Max shows me a questionnaire of some Tim from Iowa on his laptop and parallely opens the link on Wikipedia”. “So, we read about this series …” For a few seconds he reads through the page. “Now I’ll write how I like the third season and how awesome… – Max copies the name of the actor from Wikipedia – David Tennant plays. That’s all”, Max presses Enter. The message has been sent. His face shines triumphantly: “In short, nobody really needs truth here.”
“And what’s needed?” – I ask.
“They need sex,” Vika does not calm down. She came back from the smoke break. “Sex and scoffings. What else?”
“But sex’s fined,” I demur carefully.
“No one says to write him frankly about your fantasies,” speaking the last word Vika rounds and rolls his eyes demonstratively. “You should clearly feel the line between flirt and vulgarity.”
“And where’s this line?”
“You must find it for yourself, baby,” Vika notices philosophically.
“And if a man writes vulgarity?” I do not quit.
“Send him emoticons in return,” Julia, sitting opposite at the table, joins the conversation. “The emoticons are generally the best way out of any situation.”
“And what about it happens in the chat room? What about he asks me to strip?”
“So write him like, you’re a scoundrel, I’m a serious girl!” Julia says gesticulating actively. “There’re a lot of men who, in response, tell where to get off, they want to quarrel – these can be coned out of three letters,” she says secretly.
…An hour has passed. I am in the chat room having the camera on and waiting for someone to chat with me. At the same time, I do mailout: “Hello, darling, I’m so lonely now. I want to see some sad film. Do you like movies? Will you advise something?” Then I attach the selfie: I am at home hugging a teddy bear. I look very lonely. I wait for half an hour – it does not work. I change tactic. I find a photo from the seaward where I am in a swimsuit letting my hair down, and I write: “Hi, handsome! I like you. I send you my photo. I think about dying my hair. Do you think I should do it or not?” I put a smile. A lot of smiles and hearts. I send it. I wait for another hour. I check the inbox – no messages.
“Max, I don’t understand what the problem is. I do everything as you said. Why don’t they answer me?” I ask with the tone of an offended little girl.
“Honestly, they answer me not all that much,” Max says, so that no one else will hear us. And then he adds hastily: “But I just don’t put much time to it. I don’t have time. I still have other duties.”
I glance at the screen of his laptop: when teaching me, in parallel he monitors the social network “Vkontakte” and sends invitations to girls for interviews. He says, because of the crisis, models fly to them recently, like bees to honey – some learn from friends and come. They advertise for translators.
“Today we’ve received 26 applications,” Max says proudly, and goes to ring round graduates of linguistic high schools.
“Show me what you are writing,” the administrator Julia comes to my table and taps with her nails with expensive manicure. He reads the newsletter text and shakes his head disapprovingly: “No, that’s not the way it works. You’re too modest. I remember, one girl-translator lured the men in such way: “I want to stick in the elevator with you”…. “Tender whisper in your ear or a sweet kiss?”… “I want to try ice cream and your kiss. I wonder what’s sweeter?”… Or: “Hi ,baby, I want to seduce you with my look into the camera, only here and only now …”
“Do the men fall for it?” I ask skeptically.
“Of course,” Julia looks at me as if I have just tried to prove that the Earth is square. I feel that she does not like me. I guess I ask too many questions.
Dating acrobatics
“To be honest, I don’t write anything special,” Karina is modest. She is 26; she has beautiful long blond hair, and her page “Vkontakte” abounds with funny photos with the friends from night parties. She is a pro in swindling the men by correspondence, despite the fact that she works as a translator for only a year at “DreamMarriage” and other similar sites. I wrote her on social networks and asked to share her experience with a newcomer.
“I try to sit on the page as much as possible, so it’s online, and I always send my beautiful photos when mailing out,” Karina begins to share. “I try to write as sexually as possible within the reasonable limits, because I can be fined for many words. There’re no special secrets. We all work at the same way.”
“Are you really fined for debauchery?” It seemed to me this is just a method of intimidation.
“I was fined,” the girl confesses. “I corresponded too forwardly. It’s not allowed. And since you just started to work, at first, just write about yourself, communicate on different topics and get acquainted. In general, the pages slowly get started on DreamMarriage, that’s normal.”
“Does it take so long?”
“Differently,” the girl says. “Someone’s page “goes” from the second month, someone’s immediately. But usually longer.”
“So we’ve to sit at the computer round the clock?” I ask.
“It’s not necessary to sit around the clock, but profitably. I, sometimes, sit on the site both day and night. On average, I spend 7 hours a day on this,” the girl says. To get started the page, she advises to write to the men all the time: “When sitting on the chat, do mailout. Write naturally, as if you really want to get acquainted with a man. They’ll gradually recognize you. Possess your mind and time and the constant correspondent will appear.”
“Tell me, do you really earn money on that?” I wonder.
“Of course.”
“How much do you earn, if any secret?”
“It depends on a month,” she replies. “I can make 1000 dollars, and can 500 too.”
In general, Karina does not complain of her life: she exists on a wage from the dating sites, does not work anywhere else. She says she found the job by an ad. But the girl answers my questions rather evasively, and I understand that I will not achieve much from her concerning correspondence. I suspect she does not really want to share secrets with a potential rival. So I decide to reveal my hands: I present myself as a journalist and invite her to an interview with a cup of coffee, but suddenly I meet a sharp refusal. Having learned that I want to write an article, Karina is frightened and backs up.
“I think you should not write that!” she writes in a panic. I try to calm her down and assure that everything will be anonymous, but the girl holds her ground: “No. I don’t want. That’s not very legal…” Karina says. She flatly refuses to meet me – she is afraid that if she gives an interview, she will have problems. I do not manage to convince her.
You will not earn without stripping
Two days later I sit with the editor in a manicure salon and discuss problems in working on the material. For about fifteen minutes I complain that I cannot get men to answer my letters. And suddenly the manicurist looks up and says:
“I used to try earning money that way, and then I realized it was an ordinary fool’s bargain,” the girl says. She is 23 and she is a pretty modest brunette. But her face features give away her provincial origin. We ask her to share her story.
“Oh, I was told for a long time the tales about the wage in hundreds of dollars, the opportunity to find a suitor… Like, you sit at home at the computer, do nothing, only type on the keyboard and earn money for it. So I fell for … And then it turned out, all the men there want one thing – virtual sex,” the girl cocks her eyes to us and continues. “Men are greedy today – they’ll not write to new unchecked girls, and try to save on each letter. The competition is great, it’s hard to make money,” the girl complains pronouncing the words under the steady rhythm of moving the nail file.
“And what’s more, when I was being interviewed, I was frightened that once a month somebody from the dating site would call and check whether I was a real person, ask questions on my profile. As you’ve already guessed, no one called me.” I catch myself thinking that me, too. The master, meanwhile, completes the story: “In general, I worked on the dating site for a couple of months, and then gave up. I realized that without stripping I’d not earn a lot. And I began to look for a normal job.”
The truth is: the agency’s interest in a model ends at the time of her registration. Further you can work or not. They got their money for registering you on the site.
International dating sites lure girls with promises of high earnings and clouded outlook of getting married to a rich American. But in fact, such case is one in a million; however, in the overwhelming majority, correspondence does not lead even to a response message much less marriage. I do not know who are at fault – greedy men or boring women. In any case, a serious wealthy man hardly will seek a wife on another continent, and far much through the Internet.
As it happens the formula for success in this business is as follows: to find a stupid and very generous man who will agree to pay for corresponding with you. And then you need to shut your female pride in the darkest closet of your subconscious and learn to balance every day on the very line between debauchery and flirting.
…For all time when working on the site I have sent 187 letters. In response, I received 4 letters. One man asked for my personal postal address. Two others wrote long messages with detailed descriptions of their erotic fantasies. And the fourth one wrote: “I’m looking for a man who’ll take care of me …”. I left this letter unanswered. No man wrote again – that is I will not receive money for correspondence. Several times the men invited me to a chat – the longest of them lasted 3 minutes and 46 seconds. Our conversation was interrupted after a bald man in his late 50 said that he wanted to see me without clothes.
All totalled, I managed to earn 76 cents, half of which went to the agency. 38 cents – almost 8 hryvnias – this is my wage for the month. They did not even call me to take from the office.