My experience with agencies in other countries are that at best they are lousy. At their worst, they have the same set of pretty women being visited by all the men who drop in.
I do not know the number of foreign men who just appear cold calling an agency. I imagine these Chinese agencies have Chinese guys as well as foreigners as clients though.
I wonder what is the foreign customer rate for cities other than the 3 main international air hub cities? China is vast so I doubt there are foreigners in a lot of their secondary cities.
I have gone a week in Wuhan without seeing a single "laowai".
I would think the money is from the sign ups. EMF's are change to them. Think about it? Would you rather make $1.5 - 2. each EMF or 5 grand for an hours work? That's why some agency will make a fake profile then they only make money on the EMF. To me this is petty. I guess for them it's a big deal?
Vince, think about it :
The AGENCY makes 5grand, cool for them!
BUT the translator, aha, THEY skin you from EMFs. I'll bet they are paid per piece, just like op ed freelancers at the dailies.
The hand in hand in Zhuhai charges 5000 for woman meeting menn and even put the price upovernight to 10,000. Then another 30,000 on top if they marry.
In Zhongshan they want 40,000 for a marriage - but they even try to con the men into paying before the marriage takes place.
Willy
Ah, we are all sex slaves, eh?
Registration of 1200 and success fee of 5000+ was what the story was with my ex in SZ.
Vince there are EMF scams, there is no doubt about it. I heard it from the inside and was actually a victim of that at least once if not twice. A translator can manage at least 20 letters a day, with the replies that's 40 EMF*24 working days*= 960 USD a month when they get paid less than 400. Convert that into RMB.
About the scam/real ratio, the prettier and the younger she is, the higher are scamming chances. I wrote to 5 pretty ladies under 25, 2 were scams I think and I am sure about one, almost certain about the second.
I never got scammed in the 30+ range, but I choose them well. When I see "I am like a butterfly ready to land on my favorite flower" as a profile, I don't even send a cupid note. For me the whole EMF system is just too prone to scam. A lady I am chatting with now never even received my EMFs, just had a quick chat about me with her translator. So I sent her the letters her translator wrote on her behalf, she found them pretty good. Then I sent her my EMFs (English + Google transalation) ... she couldn't believe I wrote those, gave me a million compliments about them and now she's falling even more for me which scares me because I thought she liked me because of them in the first place. If it doesn't work out she'll hurt even more now ... :s I hate it so much ...
I still have over 30 EMF credits left but I'll only use a few more, if my coming trip is not successful I will harden my strategy and request direct contact in the first EMF, I can't believe how much time I must have wasted putting my heart into writing them ...
I know some had good experience with EMF, but for me it's the second time this kind of surprise shows up, and I only asked two times.
Frank
Same here Frank,
to be brutally frank, haha...
you run the gauntlet of CHNLove's policies, the individual agencies possibly doing something funny, and the girl's translator trying to prolong or outright faking letters. I have NEVER had a girl give me her number in 2 or even 4 letters. AND these are letters that are 3000-4000 characters long, much longer than average. That sucks, coz in real life I get numbers much more easily, and often within the first meeting. My personality & unique characteristics never get much of a chance to shine through with 3 layers of bureaucracy in between. I'll bet the translators are removing the numbers & email addresses.
I have thought of a strategy to outwit the translators - make the job of scamming me too hard to be worth their while, relative to other suckers who write "their" girl. I hear each girl has her own translator, who zealously guard their golden goose. How? For a start, very long letters, many tough questions, and if the reply is not specifically addressing those, I threaten to stop & block. But it might not work either. Translator might be glad to end it & concentrate on scamming the easy marks. But I at least do not get led on a wild goose chase.