Am being paranoid or have I been scammed?

[David E]

Oh yeh, sounds like what happened to me with my (supposed) girlfriend, who suddenly quit writing around the olympics time, and said she had to help out her boss at the olympics, and I never heard from her agian.
I think if your getting phoney pictures from her, your probably having an affair with a translator.  I would ask maxx and some of the other pro's from dover about this.  They really know a lot about this subject!
My advice for what its worth is pick another woman from a different agency that has a good reputation, and see what happens...good luck

Rockycoon

Yep...I agree, but what we cant seem to get a good handle on, is who are the good Agencies and who are the bad ones......I'm getting to the point where I start to think that they are all basically "bad" and if you are VERY lucky you might find a few genuine women out there !!!
The cost and angst to sort the wheat from the chaff gets wearing and gets me more and more angry about this whole Business Model.

[David5o]

David,

It's not so much the women not being genuine within the agency's, It's much more to do with some of the antic's that the agencies get up-to. I would say that none of the agencies are squeaky clean in that respect!! But i would say that the vast majority of the ladies are straight and genuine. In fact I'd go as far as saying that well over 90-95% are exactly who they say they are....

David.....

[David E]

David,

It's not so much the women not being genuine within the agency's, It's much more to do with some of the antic's that the agencies get up-to. I would say that none of the agencies are squeaky clean in that respect!! But i would say that the vast majority of the ladies are straight and genuine. In fact I'd go as far as saying that well over 90-95% are exactly who they say they are....

David.....

Nooooooooooooooooooo....they're not...they've all been photoshopped !!!! I met 5 ladies and not one of them was remotely like the photos in the profile. OK, 5 out of 7,000 is not a big sample...but for me it is a 100% strike-out !!!

[David5o]

David,

Is that the ladies doing, or the agencies doing??
You know the score about photo's anyway, ....you always ask for natrual non photoshoped photo's.  
Whatever you do, .... don't strike-out with the latest one, ...i'm still after my big , ...no massive discounts!!  haha!!

David....

[David E]

David,

It's not so much the women not being genuine within the agency's, It's much more to do with some of the antic's that the agencies get up-to. I would say that none of the agencies are squeaky clean in that respect!! But i would say that the vast majority of the ladies are straight and genuine. In fact I'd go as far as saying that well over 90-95% are exactly who they say they are....

David.....

Can you imagine the uproar if all us guys went to the local photo studio and had photos done for OUR profiles that were as false as most  of those we see........if we turned up looking nothing like these photos, we would be hammered for being false and deceitful  etc. etc. etc
But we have to go through all these hoops to try to get a look at the REAL person, often with big resistance from the Women/Agencies.
How do they think a guy is going to react when they KNOW that a face-to-face (at great cost and time for a guy, will expose this fraud...because fraud is what it is !!
Better stop here, blood pressure getting critical !!!!!Dont worry David

I have told my latest (The Surgeon) that I will break contact with her unless she promises me and you a new face for free (haha)...plus sends me some natural photos of herself !!! Although, for a Plastic Surgeon...God only knows what she looked like in real life before all her collegues had a go at her....WTH...who cares !!!!

[David5o]

David,

Exactly, .... she could be a walking advertisement for her department at the hospital. At least you'll see what they Can do. ...hahaha!!  Also hopes she understands and or appreciates Aussie humour too!! ....hahaha!!

David......

[David E]

David,

Exactly, .... she could be a walking advertisment for her department at the hospital. At least you'll see what they Can do. ...hahaha!!  Also hopes she understands and or appheciates Aussie humour too!! ....hahaha!!

David......

Haha...Aussie humour with Chinese Dating Agencies is wearing a bit thin David !!!!..soon will start throwing hand-grenades

BTW Sylvain "my " Plastic Surgeon is going to France next week for a conference...can I fix you up cheap for a face-job ...I said FACE - job !!!!!

[Sylvain D]

David, where will you be? Paris? Just Pm me

[ahkiwi]

ahkiwi,

Not sure about the rest of what you say they can't get, .... but a logger on a site can or WILL (depending on sophistication) tell you:-

Your IP address.
How long you were on the site.
When you came on the site   (logged on)
When you left the site.          (logged off)

David....

errr ... that's what I was saying
They can get all that stuff (and more probably)

[David E]

Sly

What I meant was that the Lady I am corresponding with is a Plastic Surgeon, and she will be in Paris next week for a conference...i thought maybe I could arrange for her to do some work on your face if you want to look 10 years younger (haha)

Only kidding buddy
David E

[Johnboy]

David,

It's not so much the women not being genuine within the agency's, It's much more to do with some of the antic's that the agencies get up-to. I would say that none of the agencies are squeaky clean in that respect!! But i would say that the vast majority of the ladies are straight and genuine. In fact I'd go as far as saying that well over 90-95% are exactly who they say they are....

David.....

Can you imagine the uproar if all us guys went to the local photo studio and had photos done for OUR profiles that were as false as most  of those we see........if we turned up looking nothing like these photos, we would be hammered for being false and deceitful  etc. etc. etc
But we have to go through all these hoops to try to get a look at the REAL person, often with big resistance from the Women/Agencies.
How do they think a guy is going to react when they KNOW that a face-to-face (at great cost and time for a guy, will expose this fraud...because fraud is what it is !!
Better stop here, blood pressure getting critical !!!!!


Actually David I presume there wouldn't be an 'uproar' as I recently came across something on Chnlove's site that specifically prohibited men's profile 'photos being photoshopped and stated that if they were they would not be posted; and, given that Chlove are the masters of photoshopping, they would certainly know.  But how hypocritical is that??!!  Perhaps that's another angle to force Chnlove to stop posting photoshopped women - we accept that they, can if they accept that we can.  And Chnlove is never going to accept that we can, so..........  

Dont worry David
I have told my latest (The Surgeon) that I will break contact with her unless she promises me and you a new face for free (haha)...plus sends me some natural photos of herself !!! Although, for a Plastic Surgeon...God only knows what she looked like in real life before all her collegues had a go at her....WTH...who cares !!!!

[Danny]

Rockycoon

Yep...I agree, but what we cant seem to get a good handle on, is who are the good Agencies and who are the bad ones......I'm getting to the point where I start to think that they are all basically "bad" and if you are VERY lucky you might find a few genuine women out there !!!
The cost and angst to sort the wheat from the chaff gets wearing and gets me more and more angry about this whole Business Model.

David

After more than a year of chnlove, I am inclined to agree with you. This may sound like sour grapes, and of course, that is part of it, but I just don't think I would use it ever again.

Meeting someone from another country is damn hard way of doing things. It might work out for me this time, but if it doesn't, I just couldn't face doing this ever again.

I am really happy at the moment. But I don't think I realised when I began this how hard it would be. Choosing a pretty face, that's easy. It's everything after that which becomes complicated and hard.

Danny

[Brian Mc]

Greetings Brothers,

Guys, I think perhaps everyone is reading a bit to much into these dishonest agencies and ladies.  Lets face it for the vast majority of these ladies they are honest and sincere in looking for a husband through Chnlove.

Unfortunately its always the bad news that sticks in peoples minds.  Sure there are dishonest translators and agencies but they are I am sure in the minority.  I sometimes wonder when we hear of someone being taken advantage of if that is really the case or is it more a problem with trying to find your true love on the internet cross language, cross culture and long distance.

I think much of the confusion and suspicion is caused by how the words translate back and forward and peoples perception of what they read versus what was intended to be said.

I have seen it many times with Zhen when we were together using the electronic translator and the translation of something was almost the exact opposite of what I wanted, or it spat out something totally irrelevant.

For example in Mings thread there was one part where someone was giving best wishes but the translation inserted the word not and changed the entire meaning of the wish.

Also add in that real life translators are not pefect and often misinterpret the intent and more confusion.  I think we need to try to think what the lady is trying to say instead of reading the translation and jumping to conclusions.

Also I think that translation software works far better going from english to chinese than it does from chinese to english and hence more confusion from what we receive from the ladies.  So if teh lady is receiving a closer translation of what we say than what we get from her then we are likely the ones getting confused and sending an incorrect response back which in turn confuses the lady.

Anyway I am typing this and trying to do a webcam with Zhen but our connection keeps dropping, so If this sonds a littel garbled please forgive me, I will try again later.

Regards,

Zhen and Brian

[brett]

Brian - I've also noticed that translations come out the opposite of what you want to say. I always translate my Google translation back into English again, and only send it to the lady if it says the same as what I put in.

Sometimes it's totally maddening, it's almost as if you type "i love you" and it translates it into "i hate you" :@.

I think the secret is to learn what all the Chinese characters mean, then only use the English equivalents. But sometimes things are baffling, like today Google seemed to think that Mandarin was a citrus fruit and not a language!

Aside from the Changsha Love Bridge issues, I don't think I really had any major problems with dishonest ladies or agencies. The biggest annoyance was having lots of EMFs from ladies I'd lost interest in, so I blocked them all in the end. I still don't know if my CLB ladies were real though :huh:.

[ron]

Hello i am fairly new here .I have been reading posts in here for aout 4 days.The only thing I can add to any of this is that I am having a web camera conference with my lady after 8 emfs.At least I will see her as she really is instead of photo shop pics.And she will see who I am.This is one way of knowing you are really talking to whom you think you are .Not withstanding what the translator is telling her ha ha.With evryones help here I know its a sincere bunch of guys and I am very happy I found this.Its good advice especially if some of havent been there before.I salute everyone of you.
                                 Ron