www.dream-marriage.com are scammers do not trust them!!!

[Pinky]

Sound like Russian bride-romance scams to me, but none of the names ring a bell. Wayne is the Russian Detective pro here and he's out of town on holiday. Marisa, former admin here IS Russian and I'll bet she could really shed some light on this, but I'm not sure she visits here much anymore. I will go PM her where I think she might be and see if she'd care to add her input.

All in all, this site deals with exposing individual scammers and their scams. I suppose an entire dating-marriage site that is a scam in itself should be listed here, but if these folks are US based and have an established, long running site complete with legal counsel, my best guess is that you're going to have a hard time branding the entire site and everyone on it, as a scam.

[jfrankparnell]

Sound like Russian bride-romance scams to me, but none of the names ring a bell. Wayne is the Russian Detective pro here and he's out of town on holiday. Marisa, former admin here IS Russian and I'll bet she could really shed some light on this, but I'm not sure she visits here much anymore. I will go PM her where I think she might be and see if she'd care to add her input.

All in all, this site deals with exposing individual scammers and their scams. I suppose an entire dating-marriage site that is a scam in itself should be listed here, but if these folks are US based and have an established, long running site complete with legal counsel, my best guess is that you're going to have a hard time branding the entire site and everyone on it, as a scam.

Thanks a lot, Pinky - for any help. This is all pretty new to me - other than seeing Elena on the CBS News, I'm no expert on this by any means.

There's already a thread on the Forum dedicated to Dream-Marriage.com:
http://www.romancescam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16322

I posted something there as well. I know that the guy running http://agencyscams.com/ has been after these guys for a long time. There may even be a class-action lawsuit pending.
http://agencyscams.com/Alert.html

I need to act quickly to gather evidence - my cousin's mom is leaning towards settlement because she doesn't want her son exposed to a court case - and once that money disappears, it's gone forever.

I know that several of the women show up on other sites - not that this proves anything.

I've filed complaints against both debt collectors with the FTC and with their local Attorneys General offices.

[Pinky]

Yeah, I've been doing a bit of searching on them as well. I was a little perturbed that a google search of Dream-marriage.com didn't point to our romancescam.com site.

I know there are people out there that target fraudulent web sites and can and do get them pulled down. One I know of is aa419.com. It's a little confusing and seems at first like a tight crowd to join, but there are some smart people there. Perhaps this should be brought to their attention.

[jfrankparnell]

Yeah, I've been doing a bit of searching on them as well. I was a little perturbed that a google search of Dream-marriage.com didn't point to our romancescam.com site.

I know there are people out there that target fraudulent web sites and can and do get them pulled down. One I know of is aa419.com. It's a little confusing and seems at first like a tight crowd to join, but there are some smart people there. Perhaps this should be brought to their attention.

I just figured out that Jim altered the URLs in his listings for legal reasons - I was trying to figure out what dream-marriage-my.com was.

I just popped on aa419.org now - they might have changed the domain name.

Sites like dream-marriage.com are predators exploiting people where they are most vulnerable - relationships. It sounds like these guys weren't so careful changing names from that anastasia site - so maybe this will be a relatively easy task.

[Pinky]

Oops, my bad. It is aa419.org. I hope they can help.

And we are VERY familiar with the exploitations of innocent people in their weakest moments. These scamming pigs are puny low-life, ill-bred gangsters running rampant on the internet. I'll spare you how I really feel about them.

[jfrankparnell]

Oops, my bad. It is aa419.org. I hope they can help.

And we are VERY familiar with the exploitations of innocent people in their weakest moments. These scamming pigs are puny low-life, ill-bred gangsters running rampant on the internet. I'll spare you how I really feel about them.

Thanks - this looks like a great find for some of my antispam/antiscam finds... one of the regulars thought it was too specialized for their expertise.

I did send a message to Elena's email address. People here might be the best resources to fight this.

If I can link any of those names to a certified scammer, I have a credible threat to make. They might prefer to walk away at that point

[Pete]

I'm not a lawyer.

I can't find where dream-marriage company offices are located.

What I'm thinking is, if they have no company office in your country, the chances of them actually filing a lawsuit for that amount are pretty small.

Another guess is the 'lawyers' who sent you messages are essentially debt collectors. You can pay them x amount to try to collect a debt, real or not, or they get a cut...or they 'bought' the bad debt for pennies.

I think a competent lawyer would understand this, and see it's 99% bluff.

Most businesses don't sue over debts of this amount. It's too costly.
They make noise with threats and then sell it to debt collectors.

Did they dispute the charges before cancelling the card?

[jfrankparnell]

I'm not a lawyer.

I can't find where dream-marriage company offices are located.

What I'm thinking is, if they have no company office in your country, the chances of them actually filing a lawsuit for that amount are pretty small.

Another guess is the 'lawyers' who sent you messages are essentially debt collectors. You can pay them x amount to try to collect a debt, real or not, or they get a cut...or they 'bought' the bad debt for pennies.

I think a competent lawyer would understand this, and see it's 99% bluff.

Most businesses don't sue over debts of this amount. It's too costly.
They make noise with threats and then sell it to debt collectors.

Did they dispute the charges before cancelling the card?

Pete -
Thanks for the response. The lawyers ARE debt collectors. At this point I might as well name names.

The initial contact was from Ficka and Associates - a law office in Orlando, FL. If you google "Ficka+scam", you'll get a ton of hits. He's a professional debt collector who has been cited for a lot of violations over the last few years.

In his one letter, Ficka threatens suit, and mentions that he would farm out the case to a local affiliate.

The NJ affiliate is named Jeffrey Ward of Hazlet, NJ. He also identified himself as a debt collection attorney

Both claimed that they were hired by their client, Dream Marriage.

Ficka's web site talks about his end of the deal - he gets a % of the take. I assume that the affiliate gets some % of Ficka's take.

Dream Marriage has a tiny footprint in the US in California.

At the time my cousin canceled the card, he told the credit card company that he did not authorize the charges.

Given my cousin's impaired executive function, he did not understand what 'credits' were, and had no idea that he was running up a $2,000 bill chatting with women.

And as soon as he got the letter from Ficka in November, I made sure that he requested validation and verification of the debt. As I understand it, until validation is provided, a debt collector cannot sully his credit rating.

The one interesting fact is that both attorneys informed my cousin that he owned $4800, even though they sent my cousin an affidavit from a Dream Marriage rep that the services used amounted to $2000. Seems like a damning piece of evidence of abuse under the FDCPA

IF indeed Ward is Ficka's affiliate, or part of Ficka's network, I don't know if there can be separate judgments against each attorney.

I arranged a consultation between my cousin and an attorney who specializes in FDCPA/collection disputes. Hopefully that will answer a number of legal questions.

I'd love to find out some concrete evidence about some of these women to give to the attorney.

[Pinky]

I contacted Marisa, former admin here, and asked her her advice about this. She gave me her permission to quote her. I thought she had some information here that you might be able to use.

I must confess that I am no way an expert in marriage agencies, I specialize in individual scammers from FSU and Africa invading dating services, as I am doing this site for 5 years, and deal with them every day from "inside". As for the agencies, I probably know just as much as everybody else.

But I can say, that in case with websites you have to do what you would do with any other dishonest business, online or offline. Lets say you hired somebody to do some job. For example, a pet sitter. You agreed to pay him certain amount. But when you returned home, turned out he abused your pets, neglected his duties, didn't feed them, pets are sick now. So basically, they "scammed" you. They promised one thing and delivered another. What do you in this case? Of course you may choose just not pay them, but if you have a signed contract they might still try to collect money from you, because technically they did "something", showed up in your house, maybe gave your pets some water so they didn't die from thirst, but that was not enough and not what was agreed.

So, you probably have to sue them and PROVE in the court that the service was not provided as agreed, and they are cheating people, pretending to be professionals, and in reality they don't know what they are doing. The same here. The guy has to sue the website owners and prove that they "scammed" him, that the service was not delivered as agreed, the girls are fake, and he doesn't owe them anything for such "service". If it is proven in the court that they are deceiving their customers, for the real businesses their license can be revoked, for online businesses their website can be shut down. Dream-marriage is hosted in the US, on the Stephouse ISP, which is located in Portland, Oregon, so the US court can shut them down.

I have to say, that if they are really doing something illegal, they know it. Wink And it is not to their advantage to take this case to the court. So, if they see he is serious about suing them and it is not just a scare tactic, they might settle and "forgive" him his debt. The rest is up to him. If he is only concerned about his money, he will settle. If he is a person of principles, and want to shut them down so this doesn't happen to others, he might go to till the end, and still sue them.

That's what I think. It is tough like any lawsuit, but if there are several victims, and they plan a class lawsuit, that's really going to help. But once again, I am no way an expert, it is JMHO, he should DEFINITELY go to attorney.

Marisa

[jfrankparnell]

I contacted Marisa, former admin here, and asked her her advice about this. She gave me her permission to quote her. I thought she had some information here that you might be able to use.

Thanks, and thank Marissa as well.
We're wating to hear back from the attorney. I hope my cousin decides to do the 'right thing' here.

What gives me pause is this - US judges haven't distinguished themselves on matters concerning the internet, and I wonder if the burden of proof here will be onerous. If I can link these names to known scammers, it becomes much easier to do two things: establish doubt about the agency in the mind of a judge, and possibly scare off the agency entirely.

I'd assume that an attorney could ask for things in the process of discovery that would also scare off these guys.

At this point, my cousin hasn't lost a cent. I hope it stays that way.

[wayne]

I would defiantely contact a lawyer about it and see what can be done due the "diminished responsibility" aspect of this case.

[englishman50]

These people make me sick!...there are so many genuine, lonely guys out there who maybe just want another chance to find happiness before its too late. I saw the advert for dream marriage and i must say that initially it looked convincing. Fortunately i registered but didnt subscribe immediately. One week later i have God knows how many Emails and my `messages` from beautiful girls in their 20`s have amounted to 440!...I`m a 50 year old guy and i know that there is no way that this amount of messages can possibly be genuine! This should be the warning sign to anyone. Russian women may prefer a slightly older man but even they have their limitations and they are getting fussier all the time regarding age requirements. It would im sure be quite rare for a 21 year old russian beauty to be interested in a 50 year old man let alone a couple of hundred! Lets get a reality check guys, i know its flattering to apparantly receive all that attention but its a sure sign that the site is a scam! You only have to compare the response rate from a genuine site like Elenors models to realize this.

[plazot11]

Further Evidence Dream Marriage is a SCAM and should be prosecuted in the USA.
My friend and I both joined dream-marriage.com.
We can confirm this site is a SCAM.
Here is some more conclusive evidence:
1./ Dream Marriage is writing the letters in reply NOT the girls we write to !
My friend is a lot older than I totally different looks and lifestyle our profiles and letters to the girls on Dream Marriage are poles apart... he is a multi-millionaire with pictures driving his new Bently. I am poor with pictures driving my VW but ......
We both get identical letters in response from the same ladies, the only change is the name at the beginning of the letter in reply..
2./ Dream Marriage is writing the letters in reply Not the girls we write to !
We have had identical responses within 12 minutes of us sending a letter to the girl.
We compose 2 totally different letters from 2 totally different guys. We send the letters to Dream Marriage in the USA where these letters are supposedly translated into Russian and send to the girl's agents office in the Ukraine who contact the girl. The girl then receives our letters reads them and writes a reply in her Russian language and send these replies in Russian to to her Agent in the Ukraine who forward it to Dream Marriage in the USA who translate the letters to English and then send these letters to us here in Australia.
ALL THIS TAKES IS 12 MINUTES.
Absolutely amazing ?...
NO it's IMPOSSIBLE!
DREAM MARRIAGE IS A LIE AND A CON and their actions are ILLEGAL both in the USA and in my Country.
BE WARNED DO NOT SEND DREAM MARRIAGE MONEY !!!!!!!!!!

[Inna21]

By now, everyone (OK, maybe only 75% of all men) knows that anastasia-international.com (anastasiaweb.com and scanna.com) is the biggest scam agency in the world, Well, dream-marriage.com is EXACTLY the same. It is not clear if they stole the model of anastasia-international.com, or if they made a deal, but when you look at the sites, it is obvious that they are made of the same cloth.

Regards

Inna

[stoppedscam]

They are without a doubt a scam. I got curious and signed up to see just how bad it was. I'm not a bad looking guy, I stay in shape and what not, I don't fit the normal profile of men they see online normally. Anyway within the first 24 hours I received over 720 emails! Ok I'm know I'm not a bad looking person and I do stay in shape, but please if I was Brad Pit I could understand that many emails THAT fast.

Of course I didn't sit there and read all the emails, I did pick out 1 and responded to it (a beautiful young woman in her early 20's, I'm in my late 30's). I picked out one of the few profiles that didn't have the normal stripper type pictures posted. We exchanged a few emails, chatted a few times and she seemed real enough, actually she seemed like an honest person. Now during this time I'm still getting hundreds of emails a day. I mentioned to her that I thought the site was a scam (seeing what response I would get) and she would say "when we meet, I'll tell you everything". I went along with the cat and mouse game for a bit. The next day I set-up a fake profile with a picture of a man who I found on the web by searching google images for "drug addicts". I managed to find a picture of a male crack head who looked like he had been beaten with the ugly stick since birth. Well the fake profile with the drug addicts picture got over 200 emails in the first 10 hours!

Now back to the story, before I could tell the young lady whom I was talking to about the proof I had that the site was a scam, she sends me a message saying that she has a surprise for me. I have no idea what she is talking about, but then I looked over in my personal email, my private email, and I saw a letter from her. In one of our conversations she asked me my full name, I didn't think much of it and gave it to her, anyway at that point she looked me up on google and found me. She had done this same day I gave her my name in chat. She had seen all my pictures and such on my myspace page and other normal social networking sites and she knew what we talked about in chat was the person she found on the web. I had told her while we where chatting that I was only talking to her and what not. She confessed to having 7 other girls write me and send me pictures to see if I responded to them to "test me" as she put it. Once I had passed all her test sort of speak that is when she decided to contact me for real.

The first thing she told me was the truth about the site, keep in mind I have told her nothing about my "fake drug addict profile" at this point. She told me that the site sends out intro letters for them and they are required to answer every letter. They are required to sit and chat with guys for hours and only show interest in them, the normal tell them what they want to hear scenario. She confirmed that at best 5% of the women that are actually on the site are real, the other 95% of them are just working. She admitted to falling into the 95% of them, it was just a job.

Funny ending, I originally went on that site to see the extent of the scamming going on after reading all the reports, you know like having to slow the car down and check out that nasty accident. She was on the site just to do a job and never intended to meet somebody that actually interested her. Now we talk on the phone daily and chat daily on a mutual free site of course with no agency involved. She's still in shock that she met somebody she actually liked at work, much less somebody 15 years older then her, but don't be fooled it is just a job for them. Being on that site is their job.

Before you ask, I'm not a rich guy, she didn't look me up on the internet and find out I had all kinds of money or anything (I'm lower middle class at best lol), she just said I seemed like such a "normal" person with a real life and that it got her interested in me, that I didn't come onto her with sex on my mind. Also mentioned if more men where as respectful and normal in their conversations that she could see how more women there to scam would find themselves in an odd position, to actually end up liking the guy the originally set out to scam.

Hope this helps

P.S. this is also one of the VERY rare cases in which the woman in the photo's was actually the girl I was talking to, this really caught me by surprise. First question I asked her when she confessed, because I know they can "fake" the video chat on the agency end. I thought there is no way this is really her, but she has since sent me many photo's and we have video chatted together through my personal web server. I have to admit that REALLY surprised me.