Chinese Marriage/Visa Brokers

[Rakkasan]

Zhen and I met through Loveaccess.com. She agreed to pay someone for the setup and email translation at a rate of around $60 U.S. per month. When I made my trip to meet her last March I offered to hire a translator to travel with us, but Zhen wanted us to have couples time together without a translator so I purchased an electronic translator for $300 which worked great.

 

There is a fee she owes for the setup through receiving her visa. Her family was going to pay the first half, but when the 26 y/o brother in law died just prior to my arriving, his family could not afford the funeral so Zhens family had to pick up the tab. After I returned to the U.S. I sent her the money to cover the first half of the fee. The second half is not due until the visa is in hand. The service is to help her prepare for the interview and accompany her to Guangzhou as her translator, this is included in the fee of $1000 U.S. total.

 

Although I would have preferred that she not use a service, but she had no experience with computers at the time and it was necessary. She has now learned to use Yahoo Messenger and email as well as several online translation programs so there is no longer a monthly fee for email translations.

 

As far as taking the visa and running to the U.S. is concerned, I believe that in China the family can be held responsible for her debts after she leaves the country, so that will not be an option. If she hasn't been able to save enough to cover the final payment I am prepared to cover it.

[Guest Paul]

c4racer - my SO also used AsiaEuro and it didn't cost her one yuan. She said the service was free and she never paid anyone for anything. I met her there and once we got to know each other better, she removed her profile.

 

Ron, you and I have the same experience with asianeuro.com ... thanks for mentioning it, I was beginning to wonder if anyone else had not been ripped either. SO's best friend from Nanning placed her profile on that site from Oregon. As soon as SO and I made contact and exchanged a few emails I got a phone call from Portland, a Chinese girl who's married to an American. It was really cool because this friend lives in Portland and already knew the girl I was corresponding with - in essence reducing the risk somewhat. I'll never forget how exciting that was, but what sealed the deal for me was talking with her husband who actually had seen and met my SO earlier in China.

 

Hope all is well with you.

 

Wheel Man

 

My wife used a service to get listed on asiaeuro.com

This is where I came across her profile. She paid an intial fee to be listed, then paid a maintenance fee each month, along with extra charges to translate emails. The agreement was once she was sucessfully married, she would pay an additional fee.

 

It is marketed as a marriage service/agency. This is what most of the women using this service are looking for. The visa is secondary and they don't provide any help for this. It is up to you and your new finacee/spouse to get the visa. Once you are married the additional fee is due and payable. Doesn't matter if you marry in China or foreign country, the service is concidered complete.

 

Hmm... this seems like a bad business model to me. What would compel the Chinese woman to pay the final fee? If she's moved to another country--say the US--how is this Chinese agency going to collect from her? Can't she just refuse to pay? The Chinese company can't sue her in the US court system. They can try to sue her in China, but she's not there anymore. Help me understand how they collect please.

 

I am under the impression that the Chinese SOs pay a huge sum all pre paid--like what Thomas's story suggests. His SO has a debt of 60,000rmb to repay. I'm assuming it was borrowed from family or friends before and paid to the agency prior to marriage and prior to leaving China.

 

Any one more familiar want to shed more light?

 

 

 

c4racer - my SO also used AsiaEuro and it didn't cost her one yuan. She said the service was free and she never paid anyone for anything. I met her there and once we got to know each other better, she removed her profile.

[SinoTexas]

Thanks for the information so far. Would it be fair at the start of an on-line realtionship to ask the girl/guy if she or he is using a marriage/visa broker? Would it be fair to ask if they were paying for this service? Then one would know whether they are actually communicating with the person or the service.

 

As aye,

 

Jim

[Jason+Joanna]

Joanna used chnlove.com -- she paid 5000 RMB to the local Guangzhu branch. I later also found her profile on blossoms.com. I think these agencies actually post several profiles to several sites to increase the odds in their favor. There was some kind of guarantee to meet a guy -- i.e. return of all monies within a certain period of time. They never asked for anything more from her. On my end they charged something on the order of $3.00 per letter. I was pretty happy with the whole deal. I cannot complain.

 

Most dating sites are riddled with fraud including chnlove, match, AFF, etc. chlove charges $5-$6 for each email, therefore to send and read a reply is $10-$12. If you pay them $1000 it might be $3.00 each. Chlove says the lady doesn't pay a penny. They "plant" non real ladies just to get emails going and get revenue. I communicated with someone there only to find her exact same picture with completely different profile and age on other sites. She refused to email on non chlove site, you figure. Match.com is the worst as it is the biggest in U.S. probably. Fraud there is easy to spot and I had Match.com delist several fraud ladies. In China many dating sites charge large fees to the ladies guaranteeing them "richer" contacts. 60,000 RMB owed by Thomas Promise wife seems reasonable to me since he said he wrote couple thousand letters or so. I believe organized crime runs many dating services or at least uses the sites to extort money from unsuspecting single men. I have many stories to tell so write me if you have questions. It is best to find English speaking lady and call her immediately to talk to her on the phone. Something is wrong if they don't want you to call even if they say they speak very little English. The dating sites like Match.com are in it for the money so they have no interest in preventing fraud as long as someone pays them. Only when someone complains like me will they delist the fraud listing. I can tell canned email response easily and match.com has no problem removing the listing that is obviously fraud. Not all are fraud however, but I found that at least 50% of match.com response was fraud, chlove 25% fraud, AFF 35% fraud.

 

Agreed after initial contact, and getting to know each other we switched to phone contact and private emails. That was about 1 month after. I don't feel that I was ripped. I think I got a deal frankly.

[SinoTexas]

Thanks Dave. I actually have fiancee that I met at the university I guest lecture at in China from time to time. Things are going well and we are moving along to make things happen to get her here. Prior to that, I met a Chinese woman on line and things just did not work out, in part because of a shady marriage/visa broker who I did not know she was using until much later into the relationship.

 

I brought this thread up, because I wanted to get some thoughts on marriage/visa brokers and this is a great site to get that kind of information. I teach a class on heritage tourism at one of the universities here in Central Texas and a couple of the sessions deal with cross culture relationships. I also teach the same class at a university in China and so I was looking for some "talking points" as part of my lesson plan. It will be interesting to see how my students here in Texas and in China view the issue. These are all graduate level students ranging in age from 20 - 25 with a few "mature" students thrown in the mix.

 

Please continue to share your thoughts and experiences and thanks to those that have done so.

 

As aye,

 

Jim

[david_dawei]

Thanks for the information so far. Would it be fair at the start of an on-line realtionship to ask the girl/guy if she or he is using a marriage/visa broker? Would it be fair to ask if they were paying for this service? Then one would know whether they are actually communicating with the person or the service.

From the perspective of filing a petition, you must know if it was an IMB or not. So you really need to know this one way or the other. You can certainly ask if they are paying, but you might not get a straight answer; I'd also be trying to figure it out myself by contacting the online service. But none of that is a guarantee of knowing who you are really talking to in communications; person or service or friend/helper/translator. Even writing to a person to their private email doesn't really ensure that either. But chances get better.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

Thanks for the information so far. Would it be fair at the start of an on-line realtionship to ask the girl/guy if she or he is using a marriage/visa broker? Would it be fair to ask if they were paying for this service? Then one would know whether they are actually communicating with the person or the service.

From the perspective of filing a petition, you must know if it was an IMB or not. So you really need to know this one way or the other. You can certainly ask if they are paying, but you might not get a straight answer; I'd also be trying to figure it out myself by contacting the online service. But none of that is a guarantee of knowing who you are really talking to in communications; person or service or friend/helper/translator. Even writing to a person to their private email doesn't really ensure that either. But chances get better.

It might be helpful to have a listing of those services that are known NOT to be Marriage Brokers; while where you meet someone should not matter from a personal perspective, as David points out it does matter in how you complete the paperwork. For the record, services like Match.com and Yahoo personals charge a fee to register a username and set up an account. From there, it is the responsibility of the account holder to add personal information, photos, send and receive email, etc. I would venture to say that any website that offers additional "meeting" services, like translation, guarantees to meet, or other intercessory services, would be considered a brokering agency.

[RLS]

The following thread will answer many of these questions:

 

http://candleforlove.com/forums/index.php?...amp;hl=AsiaEuro

[Guest Byron]

Thanks for the information so far. Would it be fair at the start of an on-line realtionship to ask the girl/guy if she or he is using a marriage/visa broker? Would it be fair to ask if they were paying for this service? Then one would know whether they are actually communicating with the person or the service.

From the perspective of filing a petition, you must know if it was an IMB or not. So you really need to know this one way or the other. You can certainly ask if they are paying, but you might not get a straight answer; I'd also be trying to figure it out myself by contacting the online service. But none of that is a guarantee of knowing who you are really talking to in communications; person or service or friend/helper/translator. Even writing to a person to their private email doesn't really ensure that either. But chances get better.

It might be helpful to have a listing of those services that are known NOT to be Marriage Brokers; while where you meet someone should not matter from a personal perspective, as David points out it does matter in how you complete the paperwork. For the record, services like Match.com and Yahoo personals charge a fee to register a username and set up an account. From there, it is the responsibility of the account holder to add personal information, photos, send and receive email, etc. I would venture to say that any website that offers additional "meeting" services, like translation, guarantees to meet, or other intercessory services, would be considered a brokering agency.

 

All the sites I was a member of such as match.com, AFF, chlove, etc. all required me to fill out the IMBRA form, thus they consider themselves marriage brokers according to the law, I believe. I was not a member of yahoo personals but I read they are not consided marriage broker because the dating service is only a part of their main company which is not marriage brokering. I don't believe members would have to sign the IMBRA form when they sign up but let me know if I am wrong. The i129f is a little grey in that they said any entity that charges fees to meet someone for marriage:

"The term¡°international marriage broker¡± means a corporation,partnership, business, individual, or other legal entity,whether or not organized under any law of the UnitedStates, that charges fees for providing dating, matrimonial,matchmaking services, or social referrals between UnitedStates citizens or nationals or aliens lawfully admitted tothe United States as lawful permanent residents andforeign national clients by providing personal contactinformation or otherwise facilitating communicationbetween individuals."

 

It would seem Yahoo would fit this IMBRA definition but they are not considered marriage brokers.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

All the sites I was a member of such as match.com, AFF, chlove, etc. all required me to fill out the IMBRA form, thus they consider themselves marriage brokers according to the law, I believe.....

 

I don't believe members would have to sign the IMBRA form when they sign up but let me know if I am wrong.

 

 

It would seem Yahoo would fit this IMBRA definition but they are not considered marriage brokers.

Unless something occurred overnight, none of the sites you mentioned require anyone, male, or female, to sign any kind of IMBRA form or waiver to join or interract with others for the purpose of meeting and dating. That's because those services do NOT fall under the lengthy definition of Marriage Broker.

 

Again, I like reducing complex legislation and law to it's lowest common denominator. In this case, services like Match.com and other services like it are NOT marriage brokers, and therefore have no waivers or other effects regarding IMBRA.

[david_dawei]

All the sites I was a member of such as match.com, AFF, chlove, etc. all required me to fill out the IMBRA form, thus they consider themselves marriage brokers according to the law, I believe.....

 

I don't believe members would have to sign the IMBRA form when they sign up but let me know if I am wrong.

 

 

It would seem Yahoo would fit this IMBRA definition but they are not considered marriage brokers.

Unless something occurred overnight, none of the sites you mentioned require anyone, male, or female, to sign any kind of IMBRA form or waiver to join or interract with others for the purpose of meeting and dating. That's because those services do NOT fall under the lengthy definition of Marriage Broker.

 

Again, I like reducing complex legislation and law to it's lowest common denominator. In this case, services like Match.com and other services like it are NOT marriage brokers, and therefore have no waivers or other effects regarding IMBRA.

One thing that is interesting to note is Match.com's evolving (and marketing of itself) as a "World's Largest Online Dating, Relationships, Singles & Personal Services"

 

and the small print:

"operating more than 30 dating sites in 18 local languages"...

 

"We don't offer just online personals, we are personal in our offerings - to help you find a date, a relationship, a marriage"

 

---

 

I've never thought of them as an IMB.. but one has to wonder what USCIS might think of such [marketing] proclamations eventually...

[Guest Byron]

All the sites I was a member of such as match.com, AFF, chlove, etc. all required me to fill out the IMBRA form, thus they consider themselves marriage brokers according to the law, I believe.....

 

I don't believe members would have to sign the IMBRA form when they sign up but let me know if I am wrong.

 

 

It would seem Yahoo would fit this IMBRA definition but they are not considered marriage brokers.

Unless something occurred overnight, none of the sites you mentioned require anyone, male, or female, to sign any kind of IMBRA form or waiver to join or interract with others for the purpose of meeting and dating. That's because those services do NOT fall under the lengthy definition of Marriage Broker.

 

Again, I like reducing complex legislation and law to it's lowest common denominator. In this case, services like Match.com and other services like it are NOT marriage brokers, and therefore have no waivers or other effects regarding IMBRA.

 

You are wrong, I had to sign the form for all those sites when the law came into effect. They all had special pop up menu for me to fill out and refuse me to enter the site until I filled out the form and signed it. If you didn't have the pop up form then you were a member before the law came into effect which was not that long ago.

[Randy W]

So far, it seems that the extent of the reaction to IMBRA has been to add a question to an existing form, or, for the websites, to add an additional IMBRA questionaire in some cases.

 

Have we heard of anyone (woman) being given the questionaire, or being questioned about IMBRA at the interview? Have we seen any feedback from USCIS as to exactly which sites are IMB's or which aren't? I don't think DOS (or GUZ) has done anything at all.

 

It's very easy for the websites to add some additional IMBRA questions - I don't think this constitutes an 'admission' that they are an IMB. I think everyone is still in CYA mode with regard to the IMBRA legislation.

[Guest ShaQuaNew]

All the sites I was a member of such as match.com, AFF, chlove, etc. all required me to fill out the IMBRA form, thus they consider themselves marriage brokers according to the law, I believe.....

 

I don't believe members would have to sign the IMBRA form when they sign up but let me know if I am wrong.

 

 

It would seem Yahoo would fit this IMBRA definition but they are not considered marriage brokers.

Unless something occurred overnight, none of the sites you mentioned require anyone, male, or female, to sign any kind of IMBRA form or waiver to join or interract with others for the purpose of meeting and dating. That's because those services do NOT fall under the lengthy definition of Marriage Broker.

 

Again, I like reducing complex legislation and law to it's lowest common denominator. In this case, services like Match.com and other services like it are NOT marriage brokers, and therefore have no waivers or other effects regarding IMBRA.

One thing that is interesting to note is Match.com's evolving (and marketing of itself) as a "World's Largest Online Dating, Relationships, Singles & Personal Services"

 

and the small print:

"operating more than 30 dating sites in 18 local languages"...

 

"We don't offer just online personals, we are personal in our offerings - to help you find a date, a relationship, a marriage"

 

---

 

I've never thought of them as an IMB.. but one has to wonder what USCIS might think of such [marketing] proclamations eventually...

 

I don't think the USCIS thinks much about what one website does over another as they simply follow the law as dictated by those guys in Washington. You know, the ones the propose legislation that has nothing to do with their constituents and everything to do with their name recognition. Yeah, those guys that give themselves pay raises.

 

I don't think this legislation has been well-received, so it's likely that the belt will be loosened by Washington, before any of them "twits" even thinks about making the law tighter. But hey, that's just my observation....

[Guest Duke]

Thanks for the information so far. Would it be fair at the start of an on-line realtionship to ask the girl/guy if she or he is using a marriage/visa broker? Would it be fair to ask if they were paying for this service? Then one would know whether they are actually communicating with the person or the service.

From the perspective of filing a petition, you must know if it was an IMB or not. So you really need to know this one way or the other. You can certainly ask if they are paying, but you might not get a straight answer; I'd also be trying to figure it out myself by contacting the online service. But none of that is a guarantee of knowing who you are really talking to in communications; person or service or friend/helper/translator. Even writing to a person to their private email doesn't really ensure that either. But chances get better.

 

David, don't you think the answer to "Did you use an International Marriage Broker" can be independently answered by the USC independant of any added information from the foreign fiance or wife? Sure, I'm all for knowing the other end of the deal but the question is being asked of the Petitioner. Did "you" use an IMB?

 

Sino, yes it would be fair but probably not a real good idea right up front because you will likely not get a straight forward or detailed answer from the translator, who is providing the service or employed by the service provider. These service providers vary tremendously in services, fees, organization and ethics. I knew my wife's good friend was helping her and letting her use her computer but had no idea she was paying or how much until after we were married. I do wish I'd known earlier but it wouldn't have changed anything except my opinion of her friend.