It was always a tense moment in the 1960s hit TV series Lost in Space when the Robot would announce, “Warning! Danger Will Robinson!” You knew something scary like Russian dating scams was coming Will’s way whenever his protective robot would shout that warning! And Dr Smith was usually nearby sniveling with fear. 

That’s how I feel about international dating Instagram accounts. Don’t be led astray by the wrong type of international dating Instagram account. When you come across one, the odds are that they do not have your best interest at heart. You don’t need to revolt in fear like Dr Smith. Be smart, stay focused on your goal, and pass right on by those Instagram accounts with beautiful, buxom women. You can avoid online dating scams wherever you find them.

I’ve spent of time on Instagram looking at a ton of accounts. It can be a nightmare out there for the unprepared international dater.

While there are a few legitimate dating services, matchmakers and marriage agencies on Instagram, most accounts are trying to direct you to adult escort sites, fantasy romance sex sites, webcam websites, and pay-per-letter entertainment/fantasy communication sites. These Instagram accounts usually use an economic model called “affiliate” marketing, which means they get paid when you join someone else’s pay-per-use website. These accounts are usually marketing funnels designed to hook you and convert you into using a paying customer on a third-party website, and sometimes their own website.

Affiliate relationships are an inevitable reality on the internet. It’s how the term “influencer” got its name. Someone shows a product on their social media accounts and provides a link for buying a product and the “influencer” gets a small paid percentage from the company on that and sometime other sales. It can be very lucrative.

Many companies, website owners, YouTube Channel owners, Pinterest pages, self-published authors, and Tiktok channel owners have affiliate accounts. I have been and will soon re-establish my affiliate relationship with Amazon. I might only get $5-$10 per month from recommending people to buy books on Amazon, but I know a few self-publishing authors that make $200-$300 per month. Affiliate marketing is a traditional and legitimate way to create an additional thread of income for any person or business.

But in the Instagram World, the number of affiliate accounts or marketing lead generation accounts far outnumbers the number of legitimate matchmaking/dating agency accounts. It means you must be careful in what you look at and who you follow. Then there are the outright Russian dating scam accounts. You need to watch out for those too. Good Slavic women are demure and will not be the first ones to reach out to connect with you. So you can avoid many online dating scams by just being the one who is doing the connecting. You are either the hunter or the hunted. Try to keep that thought in the back of your mind.

My wife and I both have personal accounts and a Global Romance Instagram account. People follow us all the time, even though I am not actively trying to solicit new followers. Most are friends of friends. But there are also many people that I do not know and companies or accounts for websites that I do not know. I’ve blocked a few. There are young women who will follow your Instagram account and attempt to recruit you to their pay-for-picture Patreon or OnlyFans or Clips4Sale websites. This is a rabbit hole that you never want to go down. The women are pretty and sexy, and often naked. But they are not available for a legitimate relationship. You will only waste your money and your time engaging women in a manner such as this.

Now these young female accounts are a supporting and relevant side issue to the larger issue that there are many, many Instagram accounts from which you should stay away. 

Unfortunately, I must stay away from naming names on bad accounts less we get into legal trouble. But for a vast majority of Instagram accounts, we suggest you avoid interacting with these accounts if they lead you to writing letters to someone or direct you to a letter writing website. It’s not that their proposed system of communication cannot work, it does, but at such a low enough percentage of successfully married men to all the men that write letters we recommend using a different dating strategy.

We also recommend that you follow these three simple rules to avoid most Russian dating scams….

We spell out these rules and our reasoning in other blog posts, but in summary, those rules are:

#1—Stay away from the glitz and glamour websites.

#2—Take nothing at face value. Do your due diligence and research a company or product before you purchase anything.

#3—Don’t develop feelings for anyone until you have spent a significant amount of face-to-face time with them.  

These simple rules are a good start to keep you away from trouble, and unproductive Instagram accounts. It’s a start and our other blog posts have lots of other relevant information. But let’s get back to using Instagram in a more productive way than just looking at beautiful fantasy women.

We think there are several Instagram accounts where you can learn about dating overseas and potentially meet a serious woman looking for a relationship. For Slavic women, we think the following Instagram accounts, in alphabetical order, are worth investigating. 

• anita_cooperation (Anita Shatz)
• artave25 (Taya Ukraine)
• bestmatchmakerukraine (Anna Ukolova)
• donadating
• diolli_matchmaking_agency and Quadrantal (Katerina Romanenko)
• dreamconnectionsintl (Mark Davis)
• inter_matchmaker_yuliya (Olympiya Marriage Agency by Yuliya Sarbash)
• kamila_agency (Elena Dolinskyaya)
• ladyfrombelarus
• matchmaker_ukraine (Princess Date Agency by Yuliia Suarina)
• single_ukrainian_women (David Mordinson at Mordinson Marriage Agency)
• Vip_match_agency (Olga Teterina) 

 

Angela and I have either talked or emailed back and forth with several people on this list, so we have a good sense about these Instagram Accounts. Most have excellent websites and Instagram is just a small part of their internet presences. That’s the thing that we think you should look for, a multilayered social media presence with several ways to connect with them. This will keep you away from those “Affiliate” Instagram accounts that provide lower probability of success.

As with any of our advice on Global_Romance.com, we recommend you think about who and what we recommend. Do your own due diligence evaluation. Take nothing at face value (That’s our Number 2 Rule), including us. It’s just not what you know, or who you use to help you with your goal. There’s always a bit of randomness to the process too.

For instance, you can know exactly the kind of woman you want to meet, travel overseas, and then, through a series of circumstances, not meet anyone who meets your criteria on that specific trip. It doesn’t happen frequently, but it happens enough that you must be open to the possibility when you first start out. That’s a suitable topic for another blog post. So, we will leave this point alone for now, and come back to it in another blog post.

Another good point to remember is to stay on English language websites. Those websites that are written in Russian or some other languages are probably targeting men who speak that different language. If it is not your native language, your best probabilities lie elsewhere. Since it is Instagram, there may be situations where the foreign language is for the foreign ladies and the English is for Western men. That is perfectly acceptable. The Instagram channel can recruit both men and women to a marriage agency or dating club.

Another good indicator is the general age of woman and how much clothing or how much cleavage she is showing. If they are selling youth and sex appeal, move on quickly and efficiently. Remember that for Slavic women, most ladies are interested in men 5-7 years older than themselves and not much more. Some will go to 10 years at most. But if you are 55 and you’re thinking that there is a bevy of 30-something’s dying to meet and date you, you are sadly mistaken. It is this type of attitude that opens you up to Russian dating scams.

More than likely, you have been reading these types of messages on letter-writing websites. It’s their bread-and-butter marketing strategy. In fulfillment of their strategy is most likely a translator working for the company that is younger than the woman, writing on behalf of the woman, carrying on the correspondence with you. This translator can be male or female. Don’t be led astray by marketing hype of people who will not back up their marketing promises with facts when you request them from the company.

The right dating strategy that you should use depends on many factors, but it’s mainly about your age, how much money you have to spend on finding a girlfriend/fiancé/wife, and how much time you want to invest in your journey. My wife and I figured out there’s about 8 different ones and we wrote about each in our book, Find Love Overseas. It’s available on Amazon.com, if you want to check it out.

But our least favorite dating strategy is writing letters to women over an internet dating website. It makes it much harder to avoid online dating scams. And you see that opinion resurfacing here with staying away from Instagram accounts that refer you to one or more of the hundreds of websites out there for finding a foreign bride. These sites are hugely popular, but what’s hard to find out is how well they work. The sites don’t tell you. They have pictures of successful men and their ladies. If the guys in these photos don’t remind you of you, or the ladies are the type that you want to marry, then it is smart to pass on this website. 

Any legitimate company will be happy to send you the contact information of successful men who will share their stories and cautions. Asking good questions is essential if you want to avoid online dating scams.

Don’t accept pushback from a company about contact info for the men in their photos. It is a clear signal that this company isn’t focused on your success. Keep looking until you find a company that focuses on your success.

As always, Angela and I wish you the very best in your efforts to educate yourself and venture forth to find the love of your dreams wherever she may live.