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Wilbur B.

1
Level 1 Contributor

Contributor Level

Total Points
261

About Me

I'm a 62 year old science policy analyst and entrepreneur

How I Can Help

Expert on industrial R&D and science based entrepreneurship. BS in physics, MA in philosophy of science, MJuris in Intl Trade Law and PhD in history of science.

Interests

Traveling and history. I particularly like museums that address technological evolution issues.

2 Reviews by Wilbur

  • CharmDate

11/28/14

Charming Date as a Scam—a statistical analysis
I joined Charming Date after reading many reviews and after being a member previously and experiencing the lack of specific responses and unwillingness of the women allegedly interested in me to correspond privately. This time I thought I would bring my analytical skills to the table and show that perhaps most women on Charmingdate are illegitimate. I did not write to anyone but I collected information on all women who wrote to me. I did picture searches on all their pictures, including the ones that they sent to me. So here is my Charming Date experience by the numbers
A total of 214 "women" wrote to me. Actually a total of 216 wrote to me but two were repeat letter writers writing identical letters to ones they had sent a month or two previously
Of those 214 only 94 had all pictures that appeared to be unique to their profile. The others had at least one, and often all, of their profile pictures discoverable elsewhere on the internet using Google picture search.
Of the remaining 124
1 Olga C******* had at least one photo found on sites listing known dating scammers
More than 37 had pictures posted on their sites on VK a Russian equivalent of Facebook but
9 of those had pictures claimed by more than one VK page. Those 9 I identify as FAKE
Since the remaining 28 had written very appealing letters I contacted them on VK and asked if they had written to me on Charming Date. Though several of them claimed to speak and read English both in the VK profiles and in their Charming Date profiles not one responded to my letters.
I conclude that most, if not all, of those whose pictures are posted on both VK and Charming Date either work for Charming Date and are not seriously looking, or were not aware that their photos from VK had been used on Charming Date. In one case, after I wrote, the woman reclassified her VK profile so that outsiders could not contact her. In another case the photos used on Charming Date were taken from her recent "honey moon" album on VK suggesting it unlikely that if she were on Charming Date she was serious about a relationship.
Another 3 profiles had pictures listed on other sites where emails were provided. Again they did not return my emails to those email addresses.
Six profiles included pictures that were elsewhere posted on professional Escort sites. Tatiana, C*******, had pictures from multiple other profiles including four pictures associated with Harem Escort Ajansi in Turkey. Nadezhda, C*******, has pictures associated with an escort service saatlikbayanescort.com in Turkey. Galina, C*******, has pictures associated with Erzincan Model Escort Halenur also in Turkey. Yulia, C*******, had pictures associated with the European porn star Agnes Miller and one with an escort service in Italy where she is identified as Inna. Ekaterina, C*******, not only has pictures from three VK profiles but includes pictures from an escort service in France. Only Yana, C*******, whose profile said she lived in Luhansk, had pictures associated with an escort service in Ukraine (Odessa). At least one other profile had a picture associated with an escort service in California. One can assume that they are not both doing escort work and seeking a life mate. Since some have pictures from multiple sources one can assume those profiles were "created" rather than real. Others may be playing a softcore version of internet prostitute using Charming Date to pay for their chat activities.
Another three profiles included pictures widely posted on porn sites, one of which were pictures of a well-known porn star. Additionally Olena C*******, photos are associated with Helena Candy on the nude web cam site Myfreecams.com. None of the profiles with pictures from porn sites, cam girl sites or escort sites even hint of those activities in their profiles. One must conclude that those pictures were "stolen" to create fake profiles, or, if they are real pictures of the profile woman, she is not on Charming Date for marriage or serious dating purposes.
In another two cases I concluded that the profiles were fake because they included pictures from album covers or CD covers currently being sold on the web. Again they made no mention of the connection in their letters to me. Another, Daria, C*******, from Kiev wrote to me admitting that she was a Playboy model. All her pictures were taken from Playboy websites, and no pictures of her apart from Playboy were included in her profile. You can make your own conclusions.
Six more profiles included pictures from modeling sites or professional model pictures on photographer sites and were probably downloaded from the web. Strangely they did not mention they were models and identified other professions in their Charming Date profiles. Often they were mixed in the profile with pictures that the Yahoo picture search engine had not yet found on the web. On several occasions their Charming Date ages differed significantly from those listed on their model web pages. The Ukrainian Model Kristina is a case in point. Her Charming Date profile C******* was posted within a month after her profile being posted on the modeling website Slavic Beauties. Yet her age on Charming Date is 23, two years older than her age, as provided on her web page and her career is listed as Sales/Marketing rather than modeling. All of her photos may be found on the Slavic Beauties web site.
Overall about 22 percent of the Charming Date profiles could be identified as Fake—having profiles declaring a location, age or identity substantially different from other sources or including photographs from multiple websites where at least one and frequently several of the Charming Date photos came from conflicting sources.
Finally 41 of the profiles included either all or a few pictures from nearly identical profiles listed on at least one, and often many other dating sites. Almost all of the alternative dating sites are much cheaper than Charming Date. Many include an initial free letter to the person making the profile and some include "free chat and correspondence" to premium members. These women may be seriously looking for a partner. After all, they are on multiple marriage web sites. Since they occasionally include additional pictures not found on Charming Date, at least in some cases they were placed independently from their profile on Charming Date. We do not know whether Charming Date created their Charming Date profiles or they place Charming Date profiles as part of their own search for a marriage partner. We do know that correspondence with them would be cheaper on the other dating web sites. A few even provide direct emails on the women's profiles (Though this is more likely the case on Charming Date's sister site Chnlove.com. We have no way of determining whether those profiles on Charming Date are original or copied from the other sites. However the local agencies upon which Charming Date relies for its "authentication" of profiles have a vested interest in increasing traffic through their dating agencies and there is reason to suspect that many of the dating site profiles have been copied onto Charming Date just as there are grounds to suspect that the 37 to 40 VK source profiles on Charming Date are not seriously seeking partners, if they even know their profiles are on the dating site. In either case, if you can find an alternative way to contact a woman you're interested in, given Charming Date's reputation, we think that to be a safer, more realistic way of ensuring that you are actually contacting the woman in the profile.

In summary only 92 of the 214 profiles, or 43 percent, that I analyzed appear to be exclusive to Charming Date. We have no way of determining how many of that 43 percent are seriously seeking a mate and how many are "professional chatters" hired by Charming Date or one of their contracting agencies.
What all this means is that while there may be women seriously looking for partners on Charming Date, our analysis puts the maximum percentage at 43 percent, assuming that all who cannot be contacted elsewhere are seriously seeking partners. A reasonable person might assume that it is less than half that. You can contact about 20 percent of the profiles on cheaper and less intrusive dating sites. You can contact about 17 percent of the women on Charming Date through VK.com, although our experience suggests little reason to bother.
On a few occasions we received a second identical letter from a profile a month or two after the initial letter. That suggests that letters may be professionally written and sent out as needed. We found occasionally copies of letters nearly identical to the ones we received posted by others on their web pages. Odds are that other than your name, the letters you receive on Charming Date are not original. We tested this by changing our profile to request specific information, not likely to be blocked by Charming Date, in any initial letter and declaring we would reject all letters that did not include said information. Thus far we have received many letters that said they have read and loved our profile, but not one that has provided the requested information. The most likely explanation for this is again, that the agency is sending out standardized, and rather nonspecific, letters focusing on "feelings" over verifiable information rather than the women writing their own personal admiration letters.
While we do not have time or resources to establish this, one could counter such practices by creating a letter web site where recipients could post letters they received from "women" on Charming Date and similar web sites (Charming Date's sister web sites Chnlove. Com, IDateAsia.com and LatAm.com as well as other sites with similar per letter charges.) Frequenters of the proposed web site could then determine how original the letter they received actually was by comparing it with letters others have received. Alternatively one might create multiple profiles to self-check such practices. I have done this on another website, Asiandate.com and found the practice overwhelming. However, I note that creating multiple profiles is contrary to such web sites terms of service.
Charming Date claims it, or rather the local agency representing it, confirms each and every profile. They assert:
"For purposes of Authentication this lady has submitted a copy of:
(1) Her personal identification document (such as national identification card, passport and the like as issued by the relevant governmental body) bearing her photograph thereon;
(2) Her application form requesting and authorizing the publication of her personal profile on this Site
Prior to listing on this Site, particulars of her personal profile have been screened and verified by our local service provider, with additional support documents where necessary. She has personally attested in writing to the truthfulness and accuracy of those particulars.
Owing to limitations, notably geographic remoteness and membership size, Charming Date relies on the authentication work of our local service provider. As per our Risk Disclosure Statements, should it come to member's attention irregularities or falsities in a lady member's personal profile please draw to our personal attention."
If this were in fact the case such documents could be included in the ladies profile. Charming Date does NOT assert that the name the lady uses in her profile is real and we have shown that at least 20 percent of profiles have serious irregularities. Numerous reviewers have noted attempts to bring such irregularities to Charming Date's attention have been ignored. Here again a web site, independent of Charming Date, dedicated to identifying irregularities publically would quickly become as popular as Charming Date and probably delegitimize at least 20 percent of Charming Date's profiles.
Charming Date is a dating agency whose business model encourages expensive correspondence and its agents are economically motivated to prevent real information from reaching either party to correspondence. Some have gone so far as to describe Charming Dates business model as analogous to that of a pimp. You must go through them and pay them fees for each contact in order to access the woman. They edit letters to remove contact information and edit obvious contact information out of chats. Those who still think Charming Date to be a legitimate dating site, might want to follow some of the suggestions I made above to encourage the agency to be more responsive to its male customers. An analysis by the numbers suggests that Charming Date's "confirmed profile" is meaningless and dependent upon the honesty of the local agents who have an economic interest that counters the intent of the profile confirmation. Until Charming Date posts the documents that make up the confirmed profile—they say they include state ID cards, passports and similar documents that would not reveal contact information--customers should, based on the analysis above, assume that it does not exist.

  • AmoLatina

11/27/13

I spend my free time monitoring several dating sites including the AmoLatina/Anastasia/Asian Beauties so called dating sites. I do not spend money on them but watch for characteristics. Today I was on AmoLatina when an alleged 19 year old messaged me on the "free" 3 minute introductory message. I am 62 years old and ID ******* allegedly from Caputa, Columbia asked me if I wanted to own her body. I replied that I wasn't spending money on a scam site. She became serious and we talked for about 5 minutes before I pointed out that there was only a 3 minute limit. Immediately the 3 minute block came up. So I'm willing to bet that the person chatting was an agent. No idea whether the profile is related to a real person. I told them I was updating a review of the site. Afterwards I started getting more of the "free" chat requests. I previously noted that two or three people from Asian Beauties were sending me up to ten letters a day to one of my profiles. (I have four) It is possible in the 3 minute chat to provide your email information. But you have to use code and then explain the code. Thus far only one of the 15-20 women I did this with have sent me an email. Direct email info is deleted automatically from the computer and it appears that in some cases a monitor deletes it when you use fairly obvious codes. Several times the "women" promised they would write, but never did so.

Wilbur Has Earned 61 Votes

Wilbur B.'s review of AmoLatina earned a Well Said vote

Wilbur B.'s review of AmoLatina earned 3 Very Helpful votes

Wilbur B.'s review of CharmDate earned 57 Very Helpful votes

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