Only 5% of men who contact women in Russia/Ukraine ever get on a plane?

[bagalia]

Had nothing to do and dropped by for a sec. I think I was part of this conversation here before. The 5% thing started on RWL back in the late 90s and was never very scientific but we all pretty much agreed with it as separate agencies. Basically, you have 100 customers and maybe 5 actually go meet the women (of your agency) there.

I think the flaw in that thinking was that we did not know if my #6 no show was another agencies #3 show. We were speaking as individual agencies where most of our customers came, wrote and disappeared. We were also speaking of our female clients and how so few men ever finally visited. It kind of morphed into a general figure for how many men actually go. I don't know how else to explain it.

100% might have visited somebody at some time with some agency. And I just find it real difficult to extract any conclusions from any of the anecdotal information given out other than how it affects any one particular agency even if many come to the same conclusions. You write to 4 women each on 6 agencies and even cut the group down to 2 special women but you go meet number 1 and never get further. 23 women are disappointed and 5 agencies see you as a no show but 1 gets lucky.

So really, we were just talking about us and then it kind of turned into industry wide and these things tend to grow. It sounded good at the time and still does in a way.

Or maybe only 5% really do go, It seems that many never do.

Scott

[Manny]

See second link if you want actual numbers instead of trying to recall someone else's math.   It covers 1997-2007.  You did mention a calculator, why not use it?
2007:
Russia  1347 K1, 118 K3, 347 K2
Ukraine 930 K1, 288 K3, 50 K2
Belarus 132 K1, 7 K3, 27 K2
Uzbekistan 50 K1, 5 K3, 8 K2
Moldova 58 K1, 9 K3, 15 K2
...
I may have been a bit shy on my 2,000 quick math, but I don't see 4000, either..not for 2007, from an official source.  I'm unsure why a thread not even linked to would be preferred over an actual official US government data source offered now twice within the same thread? 

That looks like the spreadsheet I remember originally reading RG. The ones you quote above omit the Baltic states and other FSU countries and one other type of visa. The five countries you quote total 2889 for K1/3 visas. I don't think the thousand or so extra to make 4000 would be such a big stretch if you add in the missing data from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and some other Stans. Also a few women get in the US on other types of visa and change status.

I don't need to sit and work it all out again RG, as I did it before already. This number was quoted on some of our book sales pages and I did research it back then. As I said, it was thrashed to death before as we are doing now. Using the same sources you quote.

[dbneeley]

Two things:

1) Can *anyone* show me what possible link there is between the number of FSUW who marry foreign gentlemen and the actual number of foreign men who "get on the plane" to visit as a function of the total looking at the websites?

The basic flaw in the analysis of many here, as with Andrew's arithmetic exercise, is that there is no data to extrapolate the number who visited from the mere number of marriages...nor any way to understand how many lookers and tire kickers there might be who never make the trip compared to those who do--which, after all, was the initial question. We lack any reliable data to make this determination--we can simply infer that the more who visit would in some fashion increase the number of marriages. Very logical, undoubtedly true, but totally unable to be quantifiable without reliable numbers.

Dressing it up in pseudo-intellectual twaddle, as Andrew does, simply doesn't make it so.

2) Andrew also asked about how many successful lawsuits there have been against the aggregators. That in itself is not particularly significant. As I stated originally, you'd have to have someone with sufficient interest and deep enough pockets as well to file a suit. If someone did, I believe the suit would be successful--but it would be difficult to recover enough to justify the time and aggravation. Again, this is another point where his lack of legal understanding gets in the way. It only serves for him to use as a crutch to try to disparage me and would only be effective among those who are distracted by his usual tactic of smoke and mirrors.

David

[TomT]

1) Can *anyone* show me what possible link there is between the number of FSUW who marry foreign gentlemen and the actual number of foreign men who "get on the plane" to visit as a function of the total looking at the websites?

It's a weak correlation but it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the majority of petitioners of family-based visas got on the plane at least once.

[Muzh_1]

Had nothing to do and dropped by for a sec. I think I was part of this conversation here before. The 5% thing started on RWL back in the late 90s and was never very scientific but we all pretty much agreed with it as separate agencies. Basically, you have 100 customers and maybe 5 actually go meet the women (of your agency) there.

I think the flaw in that thinking was that we did not know if my #6 no show was another agencies #3 show. We were speaking as individual agencies where most of our customers came, wrote and disappeared. We were also speaking of our female clients and how so few men ever finally visited. It kind of morphed into a general figure for how many men actually go. I don't know how else to explain it.

100% might have visited somebody at some time with some agency. And I just find it real difficult to extract any conclusions from any of the anecdotal information given out other than how it affects any one particular agency even if many come to the same conclusions. You write to 4 women each on 6 agencies and even cut the group down to 2 special women but you go meet number 1 and never get further. 23 women are disappointed and 5 agencies see you as a no show but 1 gets lucky.

So really, we were just talking about us and then it kind of turned into industry wide and these things tend to grow. It sounded good at the time and still does in a way.

Or maybe only 5% really do go, It seems that many never do.

Scott

Scott, I said the same thing more than once but the arguments and "statistics" keep popping up. 

[Muzh_1]

The basic flaw in the analysis of many here, as with Andrew's arithmetic exercise, is that there is no data to extrapolate the number who visited from the mere number of marriages...nor any way to understand how many lookers and tire kickers there might be who never make the trip compared to those who do--which, after all, was the initial question. We lack any reliable data to make this determination--we can simply infer that the more who visit would in some fashion increase the number of marriages. Very logical, undoubtedly true, but totally unable to be quantifiable without reliable numbers.

Dressing it up in pseudo-intellectual twaddle, as Andrew does, simply doesn't make it so.
David

Also said that, more than once. Thanks David.

[leslied]

First thing is you all appear to be arguing about statistics.  Is it 5% - 10% - 15%   Problem is that there are no directly relevant statistics on this subject.

Repeat that NONE.  It is all based on OPINION. 

Now personal opinions are not democratic – they are not of equal value.  The people who own agencies, or run a forum etc. have far more direct experience of this enterprise than the punters.  The guys who have been involved in the scene for a long time also have more experience than newbies etc.

I have yet to encounter any business owner or experienced participant who would doubt the basic proposition.  Only a small percentage of guys ever get their ass on a plane.  Indeed from my perspective until you have undergone this rite of passage  you are not even a genuine participant in the scene.

The composition of this small actively seeking group requires some discussion.  I  base my opinions on several trips,  friendships with several people in the business  and reading the boards for more than a dozen years.

Around a ¼  are “No Hopers”.  Guys who have trouble dating at home.  Fantasists of various kinds and guys with unrealistic expectations - aka. Fat and fifty in search of a smoking hot’kova!

Around a ¼ are “Visit One” Guys.  It is hard to estimate the success rate as the happy ending stories get posted on the boards,  but rarely the failures.  I reckon a 1 in 4 success rate is about right.  Of the 3 in 4 who fail,  maybe 1 will try again.

Around a ¼ are “Sex Tourists” of various kinds.  These guys are the “Tyre Kickers” who may get serious if they find Ms Right but are generally along  for the ride and having fun.  I started out here.

The final ¼ are experienced guys who have visited FSU before.  A high percentage of these guys end up married.  IMHO more than 50% 

If this sample started as 16 guys out of a hundred  - less than 4 would end up married.  Makes the 5%  quoted in EM sound about right.  In my personal experience less than 5% of the guys who start this journey will end up in a happy marriage.  More like 2-3%.

Is this situation depressing? YES!  My advice to a newcomer would be “fuggetaboutit”  Date local girls.
 
If you are still up to trying, do everything you possibly can to increase your chances of success.  Be prepared to make several trips and enjoy the journey !!

[Eyjafjallajökull]

My advice to a newcomer would be “fuggetaboutit”  Date local girls.

100% of newcomers come to International Dating AFTER dating local girls.
And if you ask them: why don't you go find a local girl? Their reply would be: “fuggetaboutit”. 

[leslied]

If you have problems dating at home travelling round the world won't solve them.

Yeah, of course its easy to build a happy marriage with an FSU woman 

[ptgarner1]

Tom...is there a way to know from your  contacts at  RLM...how many girl in a city come from one agency versus another??...I am of course looking for the breakdown of profiles in Yalta as I can document the number of K1 in process at this one small agency.

[TomT]

Tom...is there a way to know from your  contacts at  RLM...how many girl in a city come from one agency versus another??...I am of course looking for the breakdown of profiles in Yalta as I can document the number of K1 in process at this one small agency.

Probably, but I doubt that they would be very eager to divert resources from their new platform to crunch the numbers. As you may recall, CEO came to talk last year and received a mountain of crap for his trouble.

[msmoby]

Around a ¼ are “Visit One” Guys.  It is hard to estimate the success rate as the happy ending stories get posted on the boards,  but rarely the failures.  I reckon a 1 in 4 success rate is about right.  Of the 3 in 4 who fail,  maybe 1 will try again.

You just KNEW that someone would rebuff this assertion... if we take a little time to analyse folks on here..there are MANY WFVO guys who failed and persisted.. and we've got to read of their failures...   

The final ¼ are experienced guys who have visited FSU before.  A high percentage of these guys end up married.  IMHO more than 50% 

..and most of 'em are the guys who 'failed' ( I would prefer to simply say the date didn't work out )  and went back

If this sample started as 16 guys out of a hundred  - less than 4 would end up married.  Makes the 5%  quoted in EM sound about right.  In my personal experience less than 5% of the guys who start this journey will end up in a happy marriage.  More like 2-3%.

Is this situation depressing? YES!  My advice to a newcomer would be “fuggetaboutit”  Date local girls.
 
If you are still up to trying, do everything you possibly can to increase your chances of success.  Be prepared to make several trips and enjoy the journey !!

 

[leslied]

Moby

You are correct when yo said -

"You just KNEW that someone would rebuff this assertion... if we take a little time to analyse folks on here..there are MANY WFVO guys who failed and persisted.. and we've got to read of their failures...  "

Well yes

The rise of internet technology (e.g. skype) and its greater availability in FSU have made WFVO a much more viable strategy.  Maybe nowadays this approach accounts for more than a quarter (say 40%?) Maybe more than 25% of those who fail try again (say 50%)  Out of our 16 guy example this adds maybe  1 to the trip success rate?

The winners of this game are still the guys who make multiple trips and evolve their strategy on the basis of experience.  In the long run the majority of this group will end up married.  Some even to the right woman 

[msmoby]

The winners of this game are still the guys who make multiple trips and evolve their strategy on the basis of experience.  In the long run the majority of this group will end up married.  Some even to the right woman 

  

[dbneeley]

The winners of this game are still the guys who make multiple trips and evolve their strategy on the basis of experience.  In the long run the majority of this group will end up married.  Some even to the right woman 

Leslie,

Your statement reminds me of the old maxim: "The race doesn't always go to the swift nor the battle to the strong--but that's definitely the way to vote!

I have known many people over the past dozen-plus years who have seemed to totally buck the odds. I, in fact, am one of them as I met my wife on my first trip; my second trip was when we were married nine years ago this past week (Feb 8).

That said, I had been expecting to have to make multiple trips so it came as a considerable surprise.

As for how much Skype has made WFVO "much" more viable I am not so sure. I have also seen many happy marriages over the years that came from a WOVO strategy, often when most communication was via letters before meeting the first time.

To me, the best advice has always been to match your method to your personality, resources, and comfort level. If you are reasonably realistic to begin with and keep your head throughout the process, you can maximize the chances for reaching your goal.

That said, I would fully agree that if you are not prepared to make multiple trips if necessary (and in most cases it will be), then this is likely the wrong pursuit. By all means take advantage of things like Skype (or other VOIP service if one of them makes more sense for you). Also, be prepared to adjust your expectations as conditions warrant--you may find yourself in a situation that you could not imagine before finding yourself in it--just as I could not have imagined becoming engaged so fast after meeting Irina for the first time--particularly after just three letters each over less than a month before I left for Ukraine the first time.

Obviously, a fair dollop of luck helps hugely at times!

David

[Eyjafjallajökull]

If you have problems dating at home travelling round the world won't solve them.

leslied, it depends on what you mean by "problems". In the 21st century it's a problem to find your soul mate everywhere irrespective of where you live. Internet brings people together and makes communication easier. At some point after a row of unsuccessful local dates any person would decide to widen the search (would be stupid not to). As soon as WM realize that FSU countries have such a rich choice, the idea of dating local women loses its attractiveness. 

[2tallbill]

Your statement reminds me of the old maxim: "The race doesn't always go to the swift nor the battle to the strong--but that's definitely the way to vote!

"The race doesn't always go to the swift nor the battle to the strong--but that's definitely the way to Bet"

[leslied]

David I agree. Random chance plays a big role in this enterprise.
 
You can do your utmost to improve your chances of success and still fail.

A complete newcomer may be suckered into paying for a Caribbean holiday and end up happily married !

A lot of the success stories are hardly credible.  Not even plausible fiction – but they are true!

Taking up Bill’s metaphor a “successful gambler plays the percentages”.  Sure somebody may put a 20$ chip into the fruit machine in the lobby, drop the jackpot and leave Vegas a millionaire.  The professional gambler knows in the long term that strategy will leave him broke.  He is likely playing high stakes Poker or Blackjack with a single deck of cards…

Bill’s thread on the “strategy of the successful lady” is compelling reading.  Every guy in the dating phase should read and reflect on this thread.  The key mistake guys make is lack of focus.  Simply do not know who they are looking for.  Fall for the first pretty devushka who will have them.  Rarely this works out, but a lot of train wreck stories start this way.  I also wasted lots of time and money on poor marriage prospects - but I refrained commitment and enjoyed the experience !

We have had a lot of discussion about agencies lately.  I reckon Andrew is right in terms of registrations.  The guys probably outnumber the girls maybe 1.5 -  2 to 1.  However once you make the trip you will find the odds have changed.  Visiting foreign guys who are decent marriage prospects are very rare and have LOTS of choice.  Like 100’s to one in their favour…

Problem is accessing these women and learning to cope with that amount of choice…

IMHO messing about on the internet for months and months is a complete waste of time.  Get your ass on the plane.  The odds are stacked in your favour once you are in country.  There are LOTS of ladies waiting to meet you…

[erudite]

I think this poll and topic are very relevant and I enjoy reading the various posts on it.  Despite the relevance to the endeavor, I find that as I write this post there are 961 "Guests" online now with 58 members and there have been 1,199 people visiting as a "guest" or member today. 

It is rather surprising that there is no more response to this poll than there it frankly given the amount of people who visit this forum as a "guest" or member and are male.

Only 39 members responded!

[andrewfi]

You see David when you post stuff such as 'pseudo intellectual twaddle' about what I wrote I come to think that you are perhaps 'legally trained' in the manner that an ambulance driver might describe himself as medically trained.

Don't take that as an insult, it ain't meant as one coz, as far as I recall, you have not claimed to be a lawyer, it is an opinion based upon what you have written over time. You don't think very well and, love 'em or loathe 'em, I have yet to meet a lawyer who could not think well.

You see, what I was doing was to find a framework to see whether what people claim might be feasible. As a trained thinker you'd have recognized exactly what I was doing because you'd have been trained in this kind of mental process. I'd expect you to be able to rattle off thought models on all sorts of topics simply because you can and because they are so useful.

As you and others have noted there is not much in the way of hard data in this case, so we look at what we have. If one does not attempt to find a way to be objective then all one is doing is guessing.
One could argue that what I was doing was guessing and they'd be correct, but there is a world of difference when one guesses whether the next card dealt is a queen from a pack of 52 cards or a hand of four cards!
The process that I'd expect you, as a trained lawyer, to recognize is to take the best quality information and work with that first and then to make some assumptions based upon observations and sanity checked and finally to include the guesses, but again do sanity checks.

What surprised me was that nobody here in criticizing my original post has said that they thought any of the assumptions I made were not in agreement with what they think. What we have here is criticism of the process of THINKING and David, lawyers don't do that unless they are trying to make a case that does not fit the knowns and the known unknowns. If you are being disingenuous David then you should be ashamed of yourself because you KNOW what I was doing and why; trying to convince others that 'unthinking' is better than thinking is simply wrong, a bad thing to do.

BTW, Les and I seem to agree about where we think the sweet spot might be given that we share the same understanding of the relative proportions of men and women in the search for a mate across borders. As he notes accurately there are different qualities of guessing and  as we both know there are strategies for improving the quality of one's guesstimates.

David with regard to your choice to not back up your argument about how businesses conduct themselves: your choice, but you can hardly rely upon your words to back your argument can you?
I mean, if you were right then don't you think that over many years and many (yes there are quite a few) BBB complaints that some of the larger firms would have had complaints upheld against them for just the issues you suggested? Searching legal databases is both easy and fast these days, isn't it?

In he end, one can only infer, just as we have had to do on another thread, that those who do not substantiate their claims probably do not have a claim that can be substantiated? A lawyer knows that does he not?

[Muzh_1]

Oh, PUH-leez.

[dbneeley]

You see David when you post stuff such as 'pseudo intellectual twaddle' about what I wrote I come to think that you are perhaps 'legally trained' in the manner that an ambulance driver might describe himself as medically trained.

Andrew, you are conflating several different topics in this post, apparently stemming from your own limitations at ratiocination.

The "pseudo intellectual twaddle" remark of mine was because of our fallacious endeavor to reason mathematically about the "only 5% ...ever get on a plane" from statistics about the numbers of women from Elena's Models who wind up married through that website.

As I pointed out, your premises were completely flawed as you can substantiate no connection between the number of men who "get on a plane" compared to the number engaged in using RW websites or even those who contact ladies on them as a function of the number of ladies who are married through a given website. There was no attempt to quantify how many men visit each lady who was married subsequently, whether the number who visit has a mathematical relationship to the number of marriages--the holes in that argument are many and varied. There simply is not enough information to establish the relationship to begin with, and attempting to dress it all up with phony numbers does not change that fact.

Using arithmetic methods only is valid where there is a demonstrable and definable relationship in the things being quantified. In that, your attempt failed utterly, which was apparent to anyone who actually thought about what was going on.

Using math for such things is usually an attempt to lend the semblance of intellectual rigor; because it was based on invalid assumptions, that put it in the category of "pseudo" intellectualism; that it was useless made it twaddle.

Don't take that as an insult, it ain't meant as one coz, as far as I recall, you have not claimed to be a lawyer, it is an opinion based upon what you have written over time. You don't think very well and, love 'em or loathe 'em, I have yet to meet a lawyer who could not think well.

You see, what I was doing was to find a framework to see whether what people claim might be feasible. As a trained thinker you'd have recognized exactly what I was doing because you'd have been trained in this kind of mental process. I'd expect you to be able to rattle off thought models on all sorts of topics simply because you can and because they are so useful.

As you and others have noted there is not much in the way of hard data in this case, so we look at what we have. If one does not attempt to find a way to be objective then all one is doing is guessing.
One could argue that what I was doing was guessing and they'd be correct, but there is a world of difference when one guesses whether the next card dealt is a queen from a pack of 52 cards or a hand of four cards!
The process that I'd expect you, as a trained lawyer, to recognize is to take the best quality information and work with that first and then to make some assumptions based upon observations and sanity checked and finally to include the guesses, but again do sanity checks.

What surprised me was that nobody here in criticizing my original post has said that they thought any of the assumptions I made were not in agreement with what they think. What we have here is criticism of the process of THINKING and David, lawyers don't do that unless they are trying to make a case that does not fit the knowns and the known unknowns. If you are being disingenuous David then you should be ashamed of yourself because you KNOW what I was doing and why; trying to convince others that 'unthinking' is better than thinking is simply wrong, a bad thing to do.

BTW, Les and I seem to agree about where we think the sweet spot might be given that we share the same understanding of the relative proportions of men and women in the search for a mate across borders. As he notes accurately there are different qualities of guessing and  as we both know there are strategies for improving the quality of one's guesstimates.

This is the second time I said your assumptions regarding "how many men get on the plane" were totally faulty. Obviously, you ignore what does not accord with your preferences, apparently in order to claim as you have that you have some sort of intellectual grasp on the concepts. In this case, you have not begun to show any correlation between the EM claim that only 5% of the ladies on their site wind up married to men through their auspices and the percentage of men who actually get on the plane. Without that correlation being substantiated, all the arithmetic in the world is useless.

Need I put it any more clearly? How about "Your logic sucks, your assumptions are invalid, and your supposed "proof" is worthless?"

Is *that* clear enough for you this time?

David with regard to your choice to not back up your argument about how businesses conduct themselves: your choice, but you can hardly rely upon your words to back your argument can you?
I mean, if you were right then don't you think that over many years and many (yes there are quite a few) BBB complaints that some of the larger firms would have had complaints upheld against them for just the issues you suggested? Searching legal databases is both easy and fast these days, isn't it?

In he end, one can only infer, just as we have had to do on another thread, that those who do not substantiate their claims probably do not have a claim that can be substantiated? A lawyer knows that does he not?

Here again, Andrew, your arguments don't cover all the alternatives--although here you are referring to the other thread entirely, I think.

First, I have no interest in spending the time or effort in seeing how many lawsuits may have been filed, or how many either succeeded outright or may have been settled out of court and thus dismissed.

My statement was simple: businesses like your friends have at HRB spend a great deal on lawyers of their own for pre-emptive strikes to suppress widespread and public criticism...as, indeed, happened to the gentleman who used to post about his anti-scam site but who wound up so scared of those people that he put a very public retraction on his site.

Thus, it takes people who (as I have said at least once) have both the financial means and the persistence to go after them in court--it is not the sort of case for the faint of heart. Accumulating sufficient evidence would be extremely expensive, for one thing. Most folks, therefore, write off their losses and move on.

That is why I am not too impressed by court records in this case. However, the law of agency is clear enough that if they happen to piss off the wrong person at some point they may find that their legal position is much more tenuous than they might presently believe. The entire notion of "monetizing the keyboard romeos" that you seem so fond of is highly suspect to begin with as it is applied.

In the end, you are simply not important enough to me to spend any considerable time or effort to refute your various speculations--your attempts at disparaging me notwithstanding.

You obviously get a considerable free pass from the management of this board, so you can largely ignore the terms of service while others are more often held to them--but I believe that most folks reading these threads have enough common sense as well as enough exposure to your methods and character to make their own determinations on these matters.

David

[erudite]

To quote a famous line from famous movie, Coolhand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate"......... between at least two parties.

Hard to tell which is impressive or hilarious or both. 

[leslied]

Andrew,

You need to keep Connor’s Yankee proverb in mind in replying to posts on this thread and others.

“You cannot teach a pig to sing.  It wastes your time and annoys the pig”

Really guys what is the problem here?
 
Are you suggesting that this % is not small?
 
What figure do you have in mind

Do 60% or even 80% of the guys who write an e-mail to a woman’s profile get on the plane???

Ask any agency owner to estimate this %.  Answer will be similar to Andrew’s 5%   I have had the misfortune to read many “letters” sent to FSU women.  It did not take long to convince me that LOTS of this stuff came from wonkers who treat agencies like cheap porno sites.  Ask the girls on Anti Date about this behaviour and while you are there ask them about the % of guys who write to them who actually turn up…
 
Everyone you ask will give the same reply - a SMALL percentage.

Argument in this context will be read as pig ignorance !

[Manny]

Well said Leslie. 

There is a guy called Scott on this topic. He used to own an agency. He seemed to agree with the 5% number.

As many will know, my wife spent several years trying her hand at a small agency. I can tell you the rough numbers from the women she marketed: Pareto very much applied, 80% of men wrote to 20% of the women. Of the men who wrote women, very few actually got on a plane to meet a woman she was marketing. Of the women she was marketing, which was typically 50ish at any given time, 5 or 6 were married over a couple of years. That may *look* like 10%, but she rejected more women than she accepted as "not serious", and women who were not easily contactable were also booted, so there were no scammers or pro-daters at all. Several men were booted for various reasons too (Quote: "He's not for one of my girls"). One would expect a higher percentile in that circumstance.

Here's another "statistic" to chew over that we have observed time and time again. With the exception of women in the very-high-foreign-guy-foot-traffic areas in Ukraine, most FSU women tend to marry the first guy who actually gets on the plane given a chance. Any FSU woman who is in the international dating arena will tell you that a guy who gets his arse on a plane is a very rare commodity. A "serious" one who is not as poor as a church mouse, not three decades older, not a sex tourist and not "greedy" is as rare as the proverbial hens tooth.

5% is probably somewhat optimistic if we are honest.