Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Lady Marmelady: Another in a Long Line of Bogus Russian Dating Sites


UPDATE (April 18th, 2010): A few things to add to this, since this remains a pretty popular and routinely discovered posting on this blog.

First: the spam promoting "Lady-Marmeladies.com" has mutated into spam that either is still promoting that bogus Russian dating setup or the more recent "marmeladies.com". That switch occured not long after I first posted this in January, and it appears that Marmeladies.com is the predominant spammed property.

Second: As of this April 19th update, the spam promoting these properties has not stopped, and in fact is now third or fourth in quantity compared to the well-known "Canadian Pharmacy" fake Russian pharmacy setup.

Predominantly Gmail recipients (but definitely many, many others) are continuing to receive massive, massive amounts of this spam, with most of it promoting the URL "littledatenow.com". This has been going on for several weeks promoting that specific URL. The predominant means this group is using to promote either "Lady Marmelady" or "Marmeladies.com" is via unwanted spam sent via botnet to most likely millions of email addresses, none of whom ever opted in.



Starting on Dec. 12th, I started receiving notices from numerous readers of this blog that yet another strain of ridiculous "Russian dating" spam had begun. (I also received a pretty large batch of it but I had to weed through spam logs to find them.)

I've decided to write this entry to outline what it is, because enough people were curious about it that I thought it was worth doing.

Here are a few examples of the ridiculously worded messages being sent in the hopes of enticing potential "mates" for these alleged "single Russian women" These are just from the past 24 hours.

Subject: Want to know what the real Russian girls love and warmth?

I want you now, tell me reciprocate and get me! A smart click

[Links to: http://cid-e96fb019c8ac25b9.spaces.live.com]

Subject: I can do for you is - what can not no girl!

Want to know what the real Russian girls love and warmth? Visit here

[Links to: http://cid-340515fcc8a5b596.spaces.live.com]

Subject: You have little joy in life? Lacks warmth and affection? Come to me.

I can do for you is - what can not no girl! Speed to come

[Links to: http://pprp.net/index.php?idAff=136&action=3]

Subject: Want to know what the real Russian girls love and warmth?

I sexual Russian blonde, want to see, come closer Knock here

[Links to: http://cid-5af57dfa325d5e11.spaces.live.com]

The MSN Live Spaces links (all reported, but they take a while to come down of course) link to the url "mdok.net".

Each of those MSN Live Spaces URL's feature the following image:


[Hosted on the same mdok.net domain, and named "Ebulk-Img.JPG".]

It only identifies the alleged "dating site" by the name of "Dating".

That image has extremely compressed copy. Clearly they don't seem to care that anyone might actually wish to read what it says before linking forward to the target URL. Here's the copy so it can be fed into search engines (I'm including it verbatim, I'm not altering anything the image contains.):

Welcome to the
Best russian brides online dating site.

Our clients who have already married Russian wives** illustrate better than anything the work we do.
We have been introducing single Russian women since 1997, and we are one of the oldest international marriage companies on the Internet.
What is there in Russian women than no one can fnid in women from other countries? Probably, if you decided to visit the site, you already know what women in your country lack. Russian women are undoubtedly beautiful and sexy, loyal and trustworthy, family-oriented and very feminine.
A great many websites on the Internet are dedicated to russian women marriage. However the number of these sites only makes it more difficult to find a real Russian wife. If this is not your first experience of dating russian women online or dating online at all, then you probably know that there are plenty of scams. You may read about them and - avoid them. I know a couple of sad stories about guys who have been disillusioned in any kind of online dating. Don't become one of them. Believe me, a lot of beautiful lonely women are really trying to find their second half on the Internet. You do have a wonderful opportunity to find your beloved and have a happy life where there will be no place for loneliness.
We represent only real women who are genuinely looking to marry a foreigner. I may assure you that we filter out the scammers and check all profiles. We are always aware if a woman is actively searching for her Mr. Right. We delete all inactive profiles, and you can be certain to find only real women on this site.

Wow. Just tugs at the heartstrings, doesn't it? Something which has always baffled me is when spam arrives with text that could only have been written with spam filter evasion in mind, and then links to a site which speaks to the visitor in the first person. If I received this message, I've clearly never heard of whoever it is that's promoting this rather obvious scam of a site, yet the idiots behind this assume I'm going to have the slightest interest in their fake-personal endorsement of this scam of a website. "I know a couple of sad stories", "Believe me", "I may assure you", etc.. Who is this "I" person? Why on earth would anyone take this seriously at all?

But I digress...

For the nerdier among you: That domain is registered using an address in - you guessed it - Estonia, hosted on IP address 58.218.177.98, which is - you're right again - hosted in China. DNS servers are ns2.datinghosting.net and ns1.datinghosting.com, both also hosted no that same IP. That domain was registered on Jan. 11th. (Yesterday.)

So: nothing terribly surprising so far. An anonymous website, called only "Dating" yet claiming to be "one of the oldest international marriage companies on the Internet" (Really? You registered this site yesterday.)

If you actually visit mdok.net, the goal of the site - no matter which of the "ladies" you click on - is to ultimately get you to register. I would be willing to wager that not one single piece of information presented to the user is genuine.


The title on all pages gives the user no idea whatsoever of what site they are actually registering for. The title on every page is "The best selection on Russian brides". The goal here appears to be to keep the actual brand of this site a secret from the user. The landing page shows a list of what appear to be professionally photographed models with the phrase "100% Checked" underneath the images. (Well that's certainly encouraging.) Clicking on an individual "lady" results in a pretty generic "description" of the model with the only link encouraging the user to "Contact me!"


Apparently this registration process has changed over the past three weeks. The original form featured both country, US state and city. The first people to report this to me mentioned this specifically because trying to actually find the city they wanted to enter was a wild goose chase due to the ridiculous method the programmers of these sites used to list the city names. (It started with some numerical code, and listed literally every known city in the US, in no particular order. Ingenious, really. I'm sure that ensured lots of new registrations.) The current one merely asks you for a username, first name, date of birth, country, email and a captcha value. It also features a checkbox stating "I agree with Terms of Use", but the link for the so-called "Terms of use" goes nowhere. Another red flag. (Stay far away.) Once again we have some real geniuses at work here.


Upon successfully posting the form, you are presented only with the following text:

Thanks for registration!

We'll let you know by email how to contact the ladies

Note that at no point does it ever pass forward any specific "lady"'s ID, even though all of the call-outs are to "Contact me!". At no point does it ever mention where you just registered. No real tangible information whatsoever. On the surface this seems to be an identity theft operation. (Note: as usual no SSL or other secure processing is in place at any point.)

Several individuals did a bit of legwork and created bait registrations to see where the trail led.

About two weeks after sending in their registration, they receive the following "welcome message":

From: info@w-rus.com
Subject: Your account details on www.lady-marmelady.com

Greetings!
Thank you for the registration on our site www.lady-marmelady.com.
Here your account details:
Your login is [#######]
Your password is [########]
E-mail of information service
info@w-rus.com
Save or remember this information!

And look at the messages that start showing up immediately after that:

Dear [username]!

If you have problems with your site www.lady-marmelady.com and can't reach it or login there, you can always go to the site www.dmlogin.com and login to your account there with your login and password.

These ladies did not get any mails for the past 7 days.
We are sending you the list of active profiles (ladies that have been on the site this week) that have NOT received any mails in the last 7 days and that seem to meet your requirements for a partner.
If you like somebody, just click on the profile and write to them.

Also: within one day of the new registration being approved, "private messages" start arriving:

From: noreply@dmlogin.com
Subject: New Private Messages has arrived!

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For replying use the links below or go to the site, login and answer your mail there.

If you have problems with your site www.lady-marmelady.com and can't reach it or login there, you can always go to the site www.dmlogin.com and login to your account there with your login and password.

Hello #######,

You have received a new private messages on www.lady-marmelady.com.

From raptornat 26y.o., 1 message(s), last message at 25-12-2009 08:15:08 GMT Read the letter(s)

To your account [##########]

If you've forgotten your password - write to us at info@dmlogin.com
If you don't want to receive such a message - correct your Account Settings at the site.

Huh? So I can login to either lady-marmelady.com or dmlogin.com?!


lady-marmelady.com was registered in Turkey using contact information from Moscow, Russia on Nov. 30th, 2009.
dmlogin.com was registered using contact information from St. Petersburg, Russia on Jan. 20th, 2009.

Neither of these is anywhere near being "the oldest international marriage companies on the Internet". Not even close.

Liars.

In literally every case, the people who sent me this information claimed that all they had done was register, using bogus information and a newly created email address. They had not entered *any* information on the site itself. No photos. No personal details. No information about the user's height, weight, eye color or hair color: Nothing. And yet, starting the day after their registration was activated, each of the people who contacted me about this scummy operation claimed they were receiving anywhere from 3 - 5 new private messages a day, every single day.

Hey guess what? You can't read private messages without paying money to lady-marmelady.com.

Given that the initial contact regarding this whole setup claimed "you can be certain to find only real women on this site", this sounds extremely suspect. Genuine dating sites don't act like this one does. No normal human being on the other end of a dating site will contact someone without seeing the slightest hint of personal information. For anyone who had any doubts about whether this is a legitimate site or not, that right there should tell you: this is 100% fake.

Subsequent messages consistently claim that no fewer than a thousand new "ladies" have been "activated" on the site:

On our site www.lady-marmelady.com 1641 new ladies have been activated this week!

There are 1014 among them who match your criteria.

On our site www.lady-marmelady.com 1608 new ladies have been activated this week!

There are 993 among them who match your criteria.

On our site www.lady-marmelady.com 1086 new ladies have been activated this week!

There are 635 among them who match your criteria.

That's an average of from 58% to 63% who "match your criteria", despite these users never having logged into the site to set any such "criteria". Again: FAKE! Stay far away.

So who's responsible for this scam?

Messages sent to the user on behalf of lady-marmelady.com come from info@dmlogin.com. dmlogin.com appears to be a separate operation. Its affiliate program is: owndating.com (Registered in March, 2007)

The affiliate program for lady-marmelady.com is profitdating.com (registered in June, 2009)

Neither of these organizations has responded to numerous requests regarding why they use criminal spammers to promote their services. I wonder why?

Nutshell: yet another bunch of scammers from Russa. What else is new?

I would very strongly recommend against joining this scam of a site. (I guess that actually means: either of these sites. They can't even keep that part straight.)

I'm starting a counter to keep track of how many times someone from Russia is lying to the public at large. This sole example represents no fewer than 30 distinct lies, not including the repeated emails the individuals who brought this to my attention continue to receive. Much of the Russian individuals I hear from regularly via crap like this seem to have a pretty consistent track record of being outright liars.

Stay safe.

SiL / IKS / concerned citizen

P.S. I edited the last paragraph because some readers felt it was overly broad. Apologies to any non-criminal Russian citizens I may have offended.

37 comments:

AlphaCentauri said...

Given that everything else is a lie, do we know for sure there are any actual Russians in involved with this particular site?

Assuming there are, it's interesting that these sites aren't hosted in Russia. As laissez-faire as a lot of Russian registrars are about doing business with criminals, apparently there are limits to what Russian hosting services will tolerate.

IKillSpammerz said...

Actually the main sites are hosted in Russia.

lady-marmelady.com is on IP 77.234.200.49, Saint Petersburg, Russia

dmlogin.com is hosted on IP address 208.43.163.163, which is hosted by the US ISP Softlayer Technologies, which is known to also host a lot of infrastructure for many Russian criminal pharmacy operations, including Glavmed and Spamit.

Enough of the other domains are hosted in Russia that I do feel - though of course I can't yet confirm it - the operation itself is most likely based out of either Moscow or St. Petersburg, Russia.

SiL

IKillSpammerz said...

Anonymous wrote:

http://www.datingandmatchmakinginc.com/dmsite_10About_60fur-inf.html could be of interest

That's referencing US-based site "datingandmatchmakinginc.com", not dmlogin.com or ladymarmelady.com.

?!

SiL

Anonymous said...

"http://www.datingandmatchmakinginc.com/dmsite_10About_60fur-inf.html could be of interest

That's referencing US-based site "datingandmatchmakinginc.com", not dmlogin.com or ladymarmelady.com."

Same guys.

Anonymous said...

network:Class-Name:network
network:ID:NETBLK-SOFTLAYER.208.43.160.0/19
network:Auth-Area:208.43.160.0/19
network:Network-Name:SOFTLAYER-208.43.160.0
network:IP-Network:208.43.163.192/28
network:IP-Network-Block:208.43.163.192-208.43.163.207
network:Organization;I:Dating and Matchmaking, Inc.
network:Street-Address:7786 South Forest Street
network:City:Littleton
network:State:CO
network:Postal-Code:80122
network:Country-Code:US
network:Tech-Contact;I:sysadmins@softlayer.com
network:Abuse-Contact;I:abuse@softlayer.com
network:Admin-Contact;I:IPADM258-ARIN
network:Created:20080629
network:Updated:20090915
network:Updated-By:ipadmin@softlayer.com

Anonymous said...

http://www.dating-and-matchmaking.com/dmsite_50Contact-us.html

Unknown said...

[quote]
That's referencing US-based site "datingandmatchmakinginc.com"[/quote]

Umm...not according to the whois. These sites have been around for years, registered in St. Petersburg. These could be comment spams for a semi-legit co. or joe-job spams from competitors. Who the heck knows these days???

IKillSpammerz said...

I see what you're saying. Both dmlogin.com and datingandmatchmakinginc.com are hosted by SoftLayer, and both registered using the name "Nikolay Grebnev", both using alternating US and Russian address information. (And just how genuine does anyone think any of that information is?)

However it is completely incorrect to refer to this as any kind of "joe job." The only way anyone had ever heard of this scummy new domain Lady-Marmelady,com was via unwanted spam, which - it has recently come to light - was being spammed by users of the recently shut down lethic botnet. [source]

They weren't receiving spam which ever pointed them to datingandmatchmakinginc.com, nor does lady-marmelady ever attempt to migrate or upsell their registrations to datingandmatchmakinginc.com. (Nor, for that matter, does dmlogin)

It is interesting, sure, but beyond that it merely appears that Lady-Marmelady has been set up purely as a spammable property. In the event any of these are directly related, that makes three scammy properties.

The fact that we see alternating US and Russian WHOIS addresses for all three of these (plus Turkey, in the case of Lady-Marmelady) only furthers the scumminess of this entire operation.

SiL

Anonymous said...

More spammed sites in the same cesspit are caught in a spam-trap report at http://rss.uribl.com/ns/datingmania_in.html
Currently
termoshubanew.ru
techdocs1.ru
techdocs2.ru
techdocs3.ru
techdocs4.ru
techdocs5.ru
55ss.ru
55uu.ru
4o44.ru
55tt.ru
55qq.ru
22rr.ru
55ll.ru
55nn.ru
55rr.ru
55pp.ru

They don't give up.

IKillSpammerz said...

> They don't give up.

Well: not yet anyway.

The further bad news is that most spam filters I've seen now routinely block any Russia-based top level domain (i.e.: .ru.) Hope these idiots are happy about what they're doing to their own country's reputation.

These are, by the way, some of the most stupidly-worded spam messages I've ever seen:

"Hello my dear. Hey, want to marry a Russian beauty? I want you, my good man. Come to my profile - you'll get a surprise! You want what would you be good? Come to me."

I mean... we've clearly never even met, and already she wants me to marry her?! Who on earth would ever knowingly click on such a ridiculous message?

What a stupid, stupid way to "promote" your fake-dating site.

SiL

Erik Hoffman said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
IKillSpammerz said...

How do I explain it?

Well it's not up to me to explain it. I merely report what I discover in my own research, and what others send me in.

Of course you could also be one of the affiliates who are still promoting this site using unscrupulous means.

No genuine dating site will start sending you private messages when you haven't provided even the tiniest piece of personal information. What you look like. How tall you are. How old you are.

Short of you providing detailed information, why should I believe your story? Especially when it clearly flies in the face of all the known evidence regarding this operation, and especially the fact that it's promoted using means which are known to be used by online criminal entities? It's not only this blog which has uncovered that.

I call bullshit.

SiL

IKillSpammerz said...

Aha. I notice that "Eric Hoffman" has chosen to link-spam this blog, linking to a bogus "Soma" product.

Nice try, "Eric", I'm removing your comment.

The comment he posted was:

Erik Hoffman said...

I registered on Marmaladies.com and had my suspcions, until just recently. Two charming ladies have given me there phone numbers in Mariupol. as of today I have had lengthy pleasant conversations with Ukranian women who speak Intermediate English.
How do you explain this? Still a SCAM?


That comment's username linked to:

somagenesis [dot] com

Spammers really must be desperate if they feel they need to seed an anti-spamming blog with SEO links. What an utter moron.

SiL

Dominic said...

Hi,
I took a username from the lady-marmeladies and put it into google. I got this:

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=tiniko_1,+Haritina,&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Seems like quite a big network of sites, eh?

Anonymous said...

My worry concerns the safety of credit card data given when buying "credits" to be able to read messages. Do you have info on this ?
M.

IKillSpammerz said...

"Anonymous": What do you think?!

All of the individuals who complained to me about this operation all said the same thing about what happened after they signed up: they received tons of "private messages" even though they had zero identifying information, and (surprise) their email accounts began receiving new spam for a variety of bogus products unrelated to dating. (You can imagine what I'm referring to.)

I would not trust their use of any personal or credit card information at all. These guys are lying to you with every single word they say regarding their dating operation, and they promote it using botnet-distributed spam. Honestly: did you need to even ask?

SiL

IKillSpammerz said...

While I'm at it: why on earth are you wasting your money on "credits" for this site? It's already very well documented that they start "communicating" with new members even though they haven't entered any information which would attract any kind of contact. This is a money grab, plain and simple. Don't waste your money.

Further: Russian dating / Russian bride sites have a very, very long history of being scams designed to drain your wallet. Two immediate examples which bear mentioning, and have a boatload of verifiable research:

http://agencyscams.com/

http://www.womenrussia.com/mail_order_brides/

Note that first one's banner proclaiming that a class action lawsuit is ready to go against three of these scams.

Honestly: stick with legitimate dating sites. LavaLife on its own has been around for just shy of ten full years, and they (unlike any of these Russian scam sites) have thousands and thousands of testimonials that were not written by their staff.

Save your money. Use your brain.

SiL

Anonymous said...

Hi, I have a HUGE problem with these pharmacy
companies. Last fall, my fiancé began getting
texts saying that I say get Viagra,... Or whatever
other pills are out there. So txts saying they
were from me,(but not) when I looked into
# that was sending them, it was MyCanadianPharmacy.
So I tried email, calling
leaving threatening mess, legal action, etc.
I had just gotten a smartphone, so was wondering
if u had ever heard of this scenario-really pisses
me off! Recently, they have hacked my email acct,
sent mass emails to people, deleted
my "dents," & "trash," so the ONLY way I knew they
were doing it was a few returned addresses. Who
do I report them to & how do I protect my email
& #. I don't go to any pharmacy sites, barely purchase
anything online. How can I help
bring them down-VERY EMBARASSING!! Could text
a biz. client one day, Isnt there any agency that fights this?I HATE them so much & feel violated plz help me!!!(if u can):)

IKillSpammerz said...

> Anonymous said...
>
> plz help me!!!(if u can):)


And how exactly am I supposed to do that when you posted anonymously?

Try sending another comment with some method of how to contact you. I won't publish it.

Seriously: So many people comment anonymously and expect specific, strategic responses. Think about that before you post a comment.

Also: In general I am in the habit of not publishing anonymous comments.

Also also: Why did you post that comment on this topic? I've covered My Canadian Pharmacy in quite a bit of detail elsewhere on this blog.

SiL

hemgie2010 said...

Wow, interesting to read all about this russian brides scams.

I just got caught into the Marmeladies scams for the last 3 days and it didn't take long for me to depict it as a scam, and I want to share my findings here.

I will not explain how I joined and the process of contacting a woman etc, as others have already done so.

However, my first contact messaged me first and with a note next to her name saying that she is aware that each message cost 1 credit, she respects me and would rather that I contact her directly. But she didn't give a direct contact detail. So I replied and gave her my email together with my details about myself which to me should be good enough. She replied but not using my email, so I had to spend another credit to read her message. At that time I had done the same with 2 other ladies whom also didn't write using my personal emails.

The first one actually replied saying that before she gives me her email, how does she know I am not playing games and would like to know of my intentions. I replied saying that of copurse she will not know and she also cannot take my words for real, so why does she try to connect with overseas guys that way in the first place. I said then that this will be my last credit spent on her if I do not hear from her by my email.

In the meantime I had sent a similar long email to someone else before she's asking me to tell more about me. Then I gave my email address saying that I will only continue to cmmunicate by my email address. She also replied via the saite and not by my email.

I sent her a message back saying that I know now it is a scam, that the ladies that are supposed to be reading my emails aren't receiving them, and I do not even believe they are who they say they are. I told them what I thought of them.

Strangely, suddenly, all the many ladies from whom I was receiving messages and new ones as well has stops coming through, while I checked that I am still very active on the site. So therefore 'someone' has decided to not send me these messages since I told them I recognized their scams. Why aren't the other ladies contacting me if I am still active on marmaladies site?

I also noticed each time I was receiving messages from these ladies, they were coming all at once. Then nothing for about 5 hours, then from about 5 ladies within 15 minutes. I noticed it because I work on my computer and could see them coming one by one as they were being sent to me. Then all at once again, say 4 or 5 at a time within 15 minutes. That's when I started to be suspicious.

But now I know that these so called russian ladies aren't really receiving my messages and what I was receiving wasn't being sent from them.

hemgie2010 said...

I also believe that we guys aren't the only ones being fooled by these scammers. I find it interesting that they have so many gorgeous ladies who are interested in finding a partner outside of Russia. Therefore, they make expensive photoshoots and they must be paying to send or reply messages.

However, if is my opinion that all messages are screened to have any personal contacts (emails, phone numbers, addresses or fax) removed before it is being sent to the receiver. Therefore neither the ladies, nor the guys stand a chance of direct connection with each other, but only by purchasing credits making these scammers rich.

So these Russian ladies are also victims of the scams.

There should be an organization somewhere to stop these from happening. I have read on this blog I think that someone got jailed before for his scams. But I do not think that is good enough because others always find another way of starting a business like such. No such business should be allowed a licence to operate unless a certain authority would have approved them based on the way it operates. Beople should be allowed to send direct contacts if paying for the service, not continue to have to pay to never receive any direct contact.

IKillSpammerz said...

@hemgie2010, thanks for your comments.

> So these Russian ladies are also victims of the scams.

That's assuming these "ladies" even exist.

In the many years I've been researching these scams, quite often there is no such scenario. There are "handlers" and "translators", all of whom you communicate with, allegedly so that your messages will be "translated" and passed along to the "lady" you were speaking of. The problem is that quite often there would be no lady. It's a pretty easy scam to operate, if you believe that you have an unlimited audience of gullible men. It's expensive to actually fly to Russia or Ukraine, and there are countless stories of men doing exactly this, only to find that their "lady" is on vacation or otherwise no longer in the country.

Do some research and you'll find (as I have) that most Russian "dating" sites are complete and utter scams. Save your money, or spend it on something far more legitimate (LavaLife, Fastcupid, any number of others.)

I'm not the only one doing this research. There are some sites that have been exposing these scams since the 1990's. It's not a new scam, and it's unfortunately not at all uncommon.

SiL

Josele said...

Hi, from Spain,

You are completely right...

I received the message this afternoon...
the virus came to Spain !

I dont bother, as long as I run Linux, and I have good software to kick spam...

I have checked the IP adresses in your post, and you made a wonderful job. All of them are okay

These sites play with the standard Russian girl, to marry any man in the world... But they want to get our money

I hope people not to log in these Web sites, but many people will do it

I will try to educate people in ICTs, to spam these kind of emails


Yours, Josele


________________________
Acuario es aire

Fortune Dane said...

Thanks for the information and research guys! You will never know how many lonely guys you might be saving from suckers that have the money sucked right from their pocket! Knowledge is power!

Silvermane said...

It looks like they even write articles to promote themselves.

http://www.articletrader.com/society/dating/the-fresh-approach-to-online-dating-world-with-marmeladies.com.html

IKillSpammerz said...

@VTV: You are correct. That is "grey-hat" search engine optimization (SEO.) Whatever means they can use to generate traffic to the site, they'll use. Never mind that it's a complete rip-off. Any old port in a storm really.

SiL

daryl3d said...

thanks for all the great info... so I went to a link you posted in one of your comments..http://agencyscams.com/ and he had a link to what he called the Gold List, apparently sites he recommends... I clicked on one site.. "A Foreign Affair" and eventually came across a russian woman (looking for a man) who I also saw on marmeladies.com the exact one, same picture, and same profile/info. I am going to call "A Foreign Affair" to ask them what's up? I assume marmeladies.com must have stole her pictures/profile from them as I can't imagine them being affiliated. This "russian lady" sent me a letter on marmeladies.com (ya, that's right, I registered there, but I haven't replied or bought credits.) I was thinking of buying a few credits to just check it out until I read about the guy in the comments that did that but could not make a direct connection with the ladies sending him letters.
Anyways, I'll see what I turn up.
Any comments IKillSpammerz?

IKillSpammerz said...

@daryl3d: No comments other than what I've been saying all along: none of these strike me as legitimate, so it's unsurprising that you're seeing identical "profiles" across many sites. If you really feel that you *must* pursue a Russian bride, I think it's questionable whether you should trust *any* online means of meeting them. It's frankly far too easy to get ripped off, and as we've seen there is no shortage of completely fake operatopns out there.

Good luck either way.

SiL

daryl3d said...

ok, what intrigued me about this was you listed http://agencyscams.com as a legitimate whistle blower site and they have a "Gold List" of introduction agencies that they feel are good. A Foreign Affair (http://www.loveme.com/index1.shtml)is on that gold list, but like I've said, a letter I received from a lady from Marmeladies.com was identical to a lady/profile on A Foreign Affair. So I called "A Foreign Affair" and their pat answer was some woman register with several sites or that site just stole their profile and is posting it, and he will look into it. He basically said what you have claimed, which is that the person writing the letters could be some guy in his basement puffing on a cigar.
I asked him if I sent this lady an email thru his service ($9.95 per letter), and included my personal contact info for this woman, would it be deleted when she received the letter? He said it would due to some law or rule they had. I guess they want to be the go-between until you finally get to meet her, and they provide the "introduction" service.(for a fee).
I understand they want to make money, even if they are legit, but after reading the "horror stories" link on http://agencyscams.com/, I'm starting to feel the odds are stacked against anyone wanting to find a good woman this way... in the long run it is expensive and even if you do marry the woman of your dreams, cultural differences may pull everything apart (unless you have a huge home and lots of disposable income and know how to write an iron clad pre-nup, but that might not even save you....)
Anyways, buyer beware...

Anonymous said...

OK - I have a friend who's using Marmeladies.com. Started before I could flag him off, but he's going at it hot and heavy, and, while spending an obscene amount of money just to read messages, he does appear to have reached some actual human beings on the other end. He's talked via Skype with a few girls, and they seem normal, but they might just be paid to talk to interested men, for all I know.

Best case scenario is they're a spam empire that dabbles in genuine dating services - I hope for my friend's sake, that's the case. Especially since he's getting ready to visit some of these girls...

Anonymous said...

To daryl -

My wife used to work with a marriage agency in Russia (brachniya agenciya) - the local branches would often sign agreements with websites to have their ladies profiles put up. I'm just sayin', just because they're on multiple sites doesn't make it a fraud. There are plenty of other reasons to be suspicious :P

Sorry to double-post - SiL, if you're able, can you combine them into one post?

IKillSpammerz said...

"Anonymous" (Note, by default I do not allow anonymous commenting. At least choose some kind of identifier): While I agree that duplicate profiles across multiple sites is not necessarily equivalent to the site being a fraud, look at the track record. Do enough research and you begin to discover that most, not just one or two, not just the occasional one, most of these operations are frauduklent. The sheer volume of discussion forums on the web today that are filled to the brim with threads that constantly ask "What about this one? Is it also a fraud?" indicate that you're just generally not dealing with any kind of legitimacy.

If you really want to meet a Russian bride, perhaps consider traveling to Russia first. I wouldn't trust any of these online "dating" sites anymore than I would trust any Nigerian Banking website, legitimate or not.

Also note: your friend's story sounds identical to many, many stories I've been sent privately in response to these postings. The moment the individual travels to Russia to meet his alleged "date", there is always one or another excuse as to why "she" can't meet him. You can find several, several examples of this elsewhere too. They may not be directly related to Marmeladies, but at this point it happens with so many of them that you have to ask yourself: why would this one be any different?

It's promoted via botnet-deployed spam messages. That should be plenty of evidence right there that you're not dealing with anything the slightest bit legitimate.

SiL

Unknown said...

Hi! Salutes from Mexico! like many others, I began to receive a lot of mails from marmeladies.com. I´ve to say that I was on my way to buy some credits to get in touch to a gorgeous woman.. Thank God I found this site!! On the other hand, its a shame that Russian´s authorities do not do anything about this. Thanks KillSpammer!! You have saved me money!! =)

Bjørn said...

Hi, I'm one of the guys that checked out the Marmeladies site and I got just the same thing as others. But, strangely, they must have some people behind it as replies to my "credited" messages do get answers that matches my questions and just for a check I sent one "woman" flowers for her "birthday"... and 3 days later pics of the very same woman holding the correct amount of flowers arrived in my "deliveries"-box.. But no replies on the outside of the site, tried that as I got an email address - if you want to check it out let me know and I'll forward it, my email is turboed1@yahoo.no - from that woman, but "she never has time to read it so communicating via marmeladies.com is much more efficient". In making him/her money, obviously. So spam it is, but it's rather elborate, not just some auto-stuff. Read a review of the site by Phil Hay of m86security.com and "strangely" in the few screenshots he has there he has 2 messages: from "Anna" and "Marianna"...with the EXACT same headings I got, part from the name difference. If that's not proof that would withstand a nuke, I don't know what would be.

Probably made a dual post now, as I forgot to add my email in the former comment. Sorry. :)

Christian said...

So glad i found this blog! After paying a few hundred dollars on this site, the penny dropped for me to google "marmeladies spam" and here i found this!!

I joined the site and went trigger happy, mailing some 20 girls! Then found myself paying to view replies, paying again to reply etc. So i limited the women i spoke to down to 3! Sure as hell, after 3 or 4 mails i tried to get contact outside marmeladies, and no such luck!

Each "woman" gives a personal reply answering the questions etc. But any scammer can reply to questions... But like another user has mentioned, i suddenly get 5 mails all within about 15 minutes!

The biggest flaw i discovered though that confirmed my suspicions of a scam was as follows: I mailed a few girls saying that i am coming to Odessa at the end of August... They all replied quickly and said that their translator would need to come along. I asked not to bother with a translator! But the real funny coincidence is, shortly after i "Privately messaged" a few girls about my trip to Odessa.... Then a few days later i got approximately 20 mails, and guess what,, all new girls from ODESSA !! Well thats a coincidence!!

So, i suspected early, but still paid out for a while until i was 100% (as the pictures of the women were all so perfect!!).

Now i have 11 credits remaining! Anyone have any suggestions on how to use these 60 dollars worth of credits !!!

Spread to word that this is a SCAM site !!!

Christian :)

IKillSpammerz said...

@Christian:

Can I ask how it is that you first discovered Marmeladies? The only way they have promoted these sites is via completely non-compliant spamming. What would cause you to knowingly click on a link inside a spam message?

I'm curious, and I ask because the only reason any of these scams continue is because somebody clicks on the link and sends them money. If you click on a link which you found inside a spam message (and I assume you would know it if you saw it) why would you expect anything resembling a legitimate operation to be the result?

SiL

Unknown said...

Marmeladies: Where to begin? Scam site? Oh yes; apart from being able to guess what the site is about by the percentage of the women posting photos in their underwear (Oh, and the other favorite, posing on abandoned railway lines, or in skimpy clothes in derelict buildings cos all girls like their photo taken in a filthy abandoned building) and then being advised by the Service dept to do no such thing when contacting the women, another clue is that if you bother to buy any credits to wrote and read letters, you are told not to give your personal email address to the woman. Now everyone will do this in their first letter, but they advise against it for your own safety... rubbish. They advise against it so you keep paying for credits. But th!nk How do they know if you do that? Because they have access to what you write. Any attempt to include an email address is stopped IMMEDIATELY even before you send the letter. Nobody who is running a proper legitimate dating site would interfere to that level. Enough said? Well one more thing about Marmeladies. I told them that a member Nicknamed Sunborn is using photos of Nataliya Varvina and not only did they refuse to remove her, but claimed she was Verified. What? Verified as a Scammer? ha ha . Check out the member Sunborn and photos on internet of Nataliya Varvina and you will see its the same girl in two seconds but apparently Marmeladies can't do that. Or more likely won't do that