Beautiful Ukrainian Woman

Match Guaranty – Review

Match Guaranty is a relatively new Ukrainian matchmaker service formed by the partnership of a long-time agency in Kyiv with Joe Rickards, a Canadian internet marketer. The new company is promoted heavily via Rickards’ Youtube series of videos on marriage agencies, pay-per-letter scams, and Ukrainian women in general.

Most of these videos are on-camera interviews, sometimes with men who have come to Ukraine seeking love, sometimes with Ukrainian women, and sometimes with former scam agency participants who “tell all” about the inner workings of the scam operations.

Many of the videos are interesting, to be sure. If you have read any of my site you know that I couldn’t agree more that the pay-per-letter business is almost always a complete, shameless fraud.

So Joe correctly condemns pay-per-letter fraud, but does he provide anything better?

Match Guaranty Prices

Clear, up front, published prices are just a normal part of any good, honest, above-board business. But at least at the time of this writing (mid-2017) Match Guaranty’s prices are not published on their site.

Probably the reason for this is that their prices are INSANELY HIGH (IMHO) and would instantly chase away most visitors. They prefer to announce their prices on a “free coaching call” via Skype where they can try to ease you into it.

At least as of mid-2017 their prices were $9,000 and $20,000 for their two membership levels. Surely this will change over time, and all kinds of special twists will come and go (“discount if you sign up by midnight Friday”, “buy the lower package TODAY and automatically receive a free upgrade to the premium package”, etc.). But anyone whose starting points are $9,000 and $20,000 simply isn’t operating in the realm of reason.

Short of including first class airfare, 5-star lodging, a personal chef, masseuse, and limo, it’s hard for me to imagine anything that could justify this kind of pricing. But as far as I know their prices do not include anything except their service (no accommodations or transportation).

After all the fast talk and sales gimmicks, what do we really have here? As far as I can tell it is a local agency in Kyiv with less than 1000 female clients from whom you can choose to correspond and meet. There are at least 3-4 other local agencies/matchmakers in Kyiv alone with comparable databases even containing some of the very same women.

Kyiv Connections and Daisy Bride offer services AT LEAST as good as Match Guaranty for 1/20th the price. So what’s the real difference? It looks to me like the difference is the fast talk and sales gimmicks.

Act now, high pressure sales gimmicks

If you get on Match Guaranty’s email contact list you’ll see what I mean by “fast talk” and “sales gimmicks”.

If you look up the definition of “Huckster” at
Merriam-Webster you’ll see “one who sells or advertises something in an aggressive, dishonest, or annoying way”.

That definition fits their marketing emails perfectly. They are filled with high-pressure, act-now, often-misleading (if not directly dishonest) sales gimmicks. Phrases like “this is your LAST CALL to grab our biggest DISCOUNT ever”, “THOUSANDS OFF!”, “act now”, “this deal is limited to the next three action-takers ONLY” are peppered throughout.

Read the following email subject lines and tell me if this sounds like it matches that definition:

You still looking to marry a good Ukrainian gal? You can Skype ’em FREE here! (ONLY ONE SPOT LEFT AT 44.44% OFF!) (June 8, 2017)

44% discount is gone, but today’s DEAL IS PRICELESS! (image if you could meet your match in Ukraine, GUARANTEED!?) (June 11, 2017)

Want my Lifetime Guaranty (FREE!) you’ll marry a Ukrainian beauty (ONLY 1 lucky guy gets it FREE!) (October 29, 2017)

did you see I called you from 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx? Call or text me back okay (December 23, 2017)

And here are a few full marketing emails, completely unedited.

Everything I know of Joe and Match Guaranty would seem to indicate that his business model is centered around saying ANYTHING to get you on the phone where he can hustle you into paying $13,000 – $20,000 for a service that you could get on your own for less than $1000.

Class-Action Lawsuit

Another one of those deceptive sales gimmicks Joe uses to promote Match Guaranty is the reference to a class action lawsuit against big pay-per-letter sites. It has been referenced in the footer of some of their marketing emails and Youtube videos (see the footer of those marketing emails).

Surely if you have been scammed by pay-per-letter services (and if you’ve used them, you’ve probably been scammed by them), word of a class action lawsuit is music to your ears. You think, “FINALLY, some JUSTICE!”

I would be very surprised if you ever got details about a lawyer or an actual class-action case from Joe. I would guess that it’s just the bait to get you into Match Guaranty’s sales funnel that will lead to a sale.

Unfortunately pay-per-letter fraud could never be proven to the extent required in a court of law, especially when the “Terms of Service” on most pay-per-letter sites ALLOW what we consider “fraud”. You AGREE to those terms of service by using the site.

For a careful look at such “terms of service” for one site see my review of A Foreign Affair/AFA.

Guaranteed Success?

Match Guaranty says their services are “guaranteed” and that “We put our money where our mouth is so you have the peace of mind knowing you will meet your match”.

But their definition of “guarantee” probably isn’t what you would expect, and it probably won’t give you any “peace of mind”.

In a good old fashioned REAL “guarantee” where a company “puts their money where their mouth is” there is NO RISK TO THE CUSTOMER. That’s what the claim means. The company is so sure that the customer will be satisfied with their product or service that they will take ALL OF THE RISK by promising to give ALL the money back if the customer isn’t satisfied. The customer has nothing to lose.

But that’s not what Match Guaranty means. At least as of April 2017 they meant that if you don’t meet your match during the “Match Guaranty Partnership” plan, they will continue renewing your membership without additional charges. Note that they renew without charging you again, but you will still need to continue shelling out $3000-$5000 per trip for airfare, lodging, food, and entertainment. It’s not exactly a “money where their mouth is” or “peace of mind” kind of guarantee.

And since there isn’t any meaningful guarantee, what do you have other than their RECORD? Well, let’s have a look at that.

16 years, 800 marriages, 91% success rate?

Match Guaranty boasts of their 16 years in business during which they have had a 91% success rate and have facilitated 800 marriages. At the time of this writing those statistics are published on their home page.

Some sites claim very high “success” rates by defining success as something far short of marriage. But here they actually claim 800 MARRIAGES over 16 years.

Not that it’s a big deal, but the domain name “MatchGuaranty.com” was only registered in 2016, so that 16 year track record they boast has to be that of the partner agency in Kyiv.

But let’s think about this claim for a moment…

If they have facilitated 800 marriages over 16 years, that’s 50 marriages/year, just short of one marriage per week. This means that THEY HAVE AVERAGED NEARLY ONE MARRIAGE PER WEEK FOR 16 YEARS!

That’s an incredible claim when you consider that this is NOT Match.com, but a physical, local, on-the-ground operation with less than a thousand female clients. And that thousand-client database is in 2017. Surely the average number of clients at any given time in the past has been far lower.

But there’s another thing to consider. I have been involved in the “Ukrainian Search” world since 2005. I have seen dozens of sites and agencies come and go. And prior to 2016 I had been to Kyiv at least five times, and starting in December 2016 I started LIVING in Kyiv on and off for months at a time. Yet with all this exposure I have never heard of this incredibly successful agency averaging one marriage per week.

In the footer of some of the promotional emails they list a “Ukraine Office” address that appears to be in the building right behind/above the McDonald’s in Independence Square, the same building where Daisy Bride is located. I’ve been to that building many times and have never heard of or seen evidence of such a successful agency.

I’m not saying it can’t be true, just that it’s odd that an agency that boasts such incredible numbers could go unseen and unknown to people LOOKING for good agencies and who have even visited the very building where their office is located.

Conclusions on Match Guaranty

Joe is on the right side in his videos when he warns people off pay-per-letter services and heralds the benefits of finding a Ukrainian woman. If his Youtube videos stopped with these points, it would be a positive contribution. But he doesn’t stop there.

I might point out that the big pay-per-letter sites also say many things about the benefits of finding a Ukrainian woman, about their beauty, intelligence, and femininity. Those sites also have strong anti-scam statements on their sites. In these cases this is all half-truth and misdirection intended to distract you from the other hand slipping into your back pocket.

Match Guaranty doesn’t engage in any clear fraud like pay-per-letter, pay-per-chat, etc. But in the end Joe relies on his fast-talking salesmanship to lure you into paying $9,000-$13,000 for a $1000 service and backed by a meaningless guarantee. The markup is probably for the Youtube series entertainment 🙂


Full Disclosure

If Joe ever gets wind of this review – as I assume he will – I can anticipate one possible response. He might say “Yeah, Tom is just a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind.”

Well, just in case he ever does say that let me give a quick answer in advance. More will follow if ever needed.

I have never been an employee of Match Guaranty. I was going to be involved with them by doing some of their “Coaching Calls” via Skype, but that never got off the ground. Most of the things I say in my review above bothered me all along and created friction that ultimately lead to our parting.

Return to Ukrainian Dating Sites Reviewed

Return to HOME

Russian-
Ukrainian-
Women.com