by Charl
(South Africa)
I have been corresponding for about two months with a lady from Ukraine. She now wants to visit me in South Africa. She is not asking for money, but says I can choose a travel agency and let them handle all the documentation, from passport to air tickets. What would your comment be on this?
Tom’s Answer:
Generally the best practice is that a man’s first meeting with a Ukrainian woman be in her own home city, or at least in her country. Actually, it’s far more than “generally the best practice”, it’s one of the Golden Rules of scam prevention.
But another Golden Rule of scam prevention is that YOU choose all your own services. I’m guessing when she says you can choose a travel agency, she really has one in mind for you to choose, right? Maybe she hasn’t said that, but I almost guarantee it’s what she means and where it will lead.
I can picture it going this way… She suggests to you that you find an agency that does all this (documentation, passport, air tickets) for a Ukrainian girl. So you contact a few in your country who say they can book the flight, but not the other “documentation”. So maybe you’ll look up a few such agencies in her country and hear similar things. You tell her all this and then she’ll tell you of an agency she knows… the one her best friend used with great success, etc.
So if you wish to violate Golden Rule #1 (first meeting in her city), then I’d make sure to make any travel planning using ONLY services you found without her help! You NEVER use the “travel agency” she recommends to you. If you do, there is a 99.999% chance that cash will end up in her pocket as a result.
It might be that the agency is a full scam and she just partners with them to get suckers to send money, or it may even be a real deal and she’ll actually show up, but she’ll receive a very nice bonus (the agency charges you double the market rate and splits the profits with the girl).
Either way, BAD IDEA!
Read my page Avoiding Ukrainian Women Scams for more on this kind of thing.
Hope that helps!