How to Choose the Right Mail Order Brides Website

Introduction

There are literally thousands of Mail Order Bride / Foreign Bride websites out there, with new ones appearing on the scene every month. The popularity and professionalism of these websites can vary considerably, so it's a wise to do some background reading before signing up with any of these website.

We hope that you find the following information useful in your quest to find a mail order / foreign bride website that suits your needs. Remember that it is often helpful to sign up for a free trial with a few mail order bride / foreign bride websites, to see what they have, before deciding which one to go with.

What are Mail Order / Foreign Bride Websites and Services?

The description "mail order bride" is very misleading, conjuring up images of helpless women being bought like material objects and mailed to wealthy foreign consumers. The implication is that the situation is more 'bridle' than 'bridal'. The true picture is very different, as you will see if you read our reviews of the best Mail Order Bride / Foreign Bride websites around.

Most of these websites provide an opportunity for eligible bachelors from Western countries to meet beautiful, intelligent women from a range of Eastern European countries (e.g. Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus), Asian countries (e.g. Thailand, the Philippines) and South American countries (e.g. Colombia, Brazil) who are keen to find a foreign husband. They may not be particularly demanding, but they still need to be wooed. So you should expect to spend a little bit of time (and money) getting to know them, as you would with 'the girl next door'.

The process of getting to know these ladies can be quite exciting, especially if you decide to take one of the tours organised by the mail order bride company. Eastern European women are well known for their intelligence, femininity and beauty. South American women are renowned for being fabulous home-makers, as well as being bright and beautiful.

Why do some women seek foreign husbands and a new life abroad?

As you know, in many countries, economic hardships (and a huge gap between the richest and poorest of that society) mean that people often struggle to achieve a decent standard of living. Public health care can also be very poor in some of these disadvantaged countries so some women worry about bringing children into that impoverished world.

In Eastern European countries like Russia, where there is a vast gap between the country's richest and poorest, some men turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism. According to the journal, World Affairs, "as of 2003 Russia was Europe’s heaviest per capita spirits consumer." Alcohol has been a major contributor in Russia's high death rates.

In fact, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Russian population began falling at a rate of about 0.5% per year, due to declining birth rates and rising death rates. In 2009, the Russian population finally began go grow again, although the growth rate is still almost 500 times less than that of the USA. According to the journal, World Affairs, marriage rates in Russia dropped by about 25% from 1980 to 2002, while divorces rose from under 400 divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1980 to a peak of over 800 in 2002.

It may not be surprising then that, over the past decade, some women from these countries have been looking outside their home countries for love, security and a better standard of living. Many women realised that the best way to do this was through mainstream online dating websites and so-called mail order bride websites.

Over the past ten years, there has been a dramatic increase in general internet usage among developed and developing populations all around the world. For example, between 1998 and 2008 the number of internet users in Russia increased from approximately 1.2 million to 45.2 million; in the Philippines it increased from 0.8 million to 5.6 million; in Thailand it rose from 0.7 million to 16.1 million, while in the USA it rose from 84.6 million to 234.6 million. (Source: ITU, the United Nations' specialized agency for information and communication technologies, via an article on BBC News). With this dramatic increase in internet usage, using online dating websites for friendship, sexual encounters, or marriage, slowly began to be considered as 'normal' and even 'progressive'.

You don't have to be especially rich (by American or Western European standards) to attract any of these beautiful foreign women, as long as you are interested in having a loving relationship and can offer the lady a decent standard of living.

How to Spot the Scammers:

As with all dating sites, but in particular mail order brides websites, you are sure to meet your share of scammers online. Learn to spot the scammers at the outset and save yourself a whole world of financial and emotional heartache. Remember to always be skeptical and suspicious whenever you meet someone online. Here are a few pointers to help you avoid being scammed:

• Never, ever send a woman any money, unless you absolutely trust her. There are many women who will ask you to pay for their immigration visas, pay for their flights to visit you or will simply spin you a sob-story about their poor mother who needs hospital treatment and can't afford to pay for it, etc, etc. Never send a woman money unless you've met her and trust her.

• Some women will try to string you along with endless emails in the hope that you will visit them, whereupon they will expect you to buy them expensive gifts and take them to expensive restaurants with little or no intention of pursuing a long-term relationship with you. If you suspect this to be the case, just walk away. There are plenty of other women on these sites on whom you can focus your attention.

• Always be suspicious of women who refuse to give you their personal email addresses or phone numbers and yet expect you to visit them. Any woman willing to put you to the expense of travelling to visit her should trust you enough to have given you her personal contact details first.

• Always be suspicious of women who continuously send you vague, generic responses to emails, especially when you've asked very specific questions in your emails to them. Could it be that they are replying to so many men's emails that they just can't be bothered to answer your specific questions?

• Make sure you speak to a woman on the phone or via Skype before agreeing to meet her. You will often gather a lot more information about her sincerity from a telephone call than you will from an email. Talking to her on the phone will also allow you to gauge her proficiency at English, which is something many women exaggerate.

• Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you plan on travelling to another country to meet the woman of your dreams, make sure you've lined up a few other women you'd like to meet there beforehand. Then, if the woman of your dreams turns out to be a scammer or gold-digger, then you will have other women to meet and will not have completely wasted your trip.

• Finally, keep your wits about you, listen to your gut instinct and question everything. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!

These tips are not meant to scare you or put you off, but rather to educate you. There are many genuine women looking for long lasting relationships on these mail order brides sites, but there are many scammers too. Learn to spot the difference at the outset to avoid wasting time with the scammers and gold-diggers and focus on the many genuine and sincere women on the sites.

Useful Features To Look Out For:

The better mail order / foreign bride websites tend to have the following features:

• Internal email service: provides you with your own inbox, sent mail and deleted mail folders

• Email translation services: if you would like to get to know a lady better through email exchanges, but find that the lady is not fluent in your language, the mail order bride site can perform two-way translating for your outgoing/incoming emails.

• Live chat service: allows you to instant message any woman of your choice (this usually requires the purchase of credits).

• Video dates: these can be arranged with any woman you choose. This is a great way of having a "virtual date" with someone before arranging to meet them in person (this usually requires the purchase of credits).

• International Phone Translation Service: this is a 3-way call between you, the lady of your choice and (if required) an interpreter. The interpreter will not only provide high quality translation but will also do her best to represent you in the most positive light. There are 3 ways of making a phone call:
  1. Phone reservation: the interpreter will reserve a time for the conversation.
  2. Instant call: the operators will do their best to connect you right away.
  3. Collect call: if you activate this feature, then ladies may also call you provided you are willing to accept the charges. The operator will ask you each time you receive a collect call if you are willing to accept the charges.
  

• Women may post videos: on some sites, you can view videos posted by these beautiful foreign ladies (this usually requires the purchase of credits).

• Order gifts or flowers: some sites can arrange for flowers to be delivered to a lady you have become close to.

• Face-to-face dates: some mail order bride sites will help you arrange a face-to-face meeting with the lady of your choice.

• Assistance reserving an apartment: some mail order bride sites will reserve an apartment for you, if you decide that you would like to meet some ladies in person. Apartments can be more appropriate than a hotel, as they offer more space, more privacy, and allow you to have several guests staying with you.

• Matchmaking Tours: the best mail order bride sites arrange regular tours to various major cities around the world, where you travel with other site members and get to meet many different women in one single trip. Flights, accommodation, food, airport transfers and all social events are organized for you by the tour operators. Each social event will last up to 6 hours, and the many women attending will be by invitation only. Some women at each social event will speak English, but interpreters will be available at each social event to help out at no extra cost.

• Fianceé Visa and immigration support: some sites will offer assistance with formal paperwork. They can make sure that everything is in order for you.

• Technical/Customer support: sites which offer their members technical/customer support via email and phone are preferable. The mail order bride scene can be bit daunting so it's good to know that you can resolve any queries or problems speedily, via email or phone.

• Advice on how to avoid scams: most good mail order bride websites provide useful advice on how to avoid being scammed by gold-diggers. If you use your own common sense, and act on your gut feeling, you will probably be able to avoid being taken advantage of. Remember that no genuine lady will ever ask you to send her money. If she does, she's likely to be a gold-digger. See above for more info on this.

The bottom line...

There are thousands of mail order bride / foreign brides sites out there, but the best ones have most (or all) of the useful features we listed above. Just follow our links to some of the sites in our top 10 list, and see how many stunningly attractive women there are, just waiting for you to make contact with them!