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Need some advice

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CypherDragon:
Hello all,

Sorry for my first post being asking for advice, but that is how I came across these forums in the first place. :)

I've been talking to a lady for the last ~8 months on chnlove, and I'm still torn on if it's just a scam, or she's being honest and something else is going on, or I'm just being obstinate. We've exchanged many EMFs, chatted, and had a few phone calls over the last few months. She seems like a very nice girl, and definitely says all the right things. She told me that she's attending college in Calgary, Canada (and I do believe this, she send me a photo of her passport with the visa in one of our first EMFs) and has sent me several everyday photos, including one of her with her mother. Recently though, there's been some...friction. We have tried making plans a couple times to meet up while she's in Canada, but something always happens that caused us to delay. I told her that I needed to stop paying chnlove so much for us to talk, since with the money I've spent there I could have been to meet her either in China or Canada a couple times over. I've tried to get her contact info thru chnlove, but she's said there has been some difficulty with her agency in putting it on the site. So, a couple weeks ago I signed up for QQ and asked her to start talking with me there. We exchanged QQ numbers over a call, and she said that she would talk with me there, but she doesn't get on QQ much. She still hasn't accepted my QQ invitation, and when I press her about it, her reply is always to be patient.

It seems that the history so far has been lots of delays, but lots of money for chnlove. I'm started to get really frustrated, which is how I found the China Love forums. I was looking for more info on her agency (P508), and the forums were one of the first Google hits. Since reading some of the horror stories there, I've really been wondering if I've just been a sucker for the last few months, or if there's something I just don't understand. I've asked her about it, but she always deflects the questions.

Sorry for the long-winded story, my mind tends to ramble a bit. There's of course more to the story, but I don't want to bore anyone too much. If you want to chat, my QQ is 2818930271, and the same username as here. I'm a 3rd shift worker, so I'm normally up and online all night.

Cheers,
Cory

Willy The Londoner:
So when you spoke on the telephone was she in China or Canada?

Is she in Canada now or back in China for the holiday?

What city is P508 based?  It seem to be one that I remember.

If you have passed each other's QQ details and she does not communicate that way then the red flags should have been considered a few months back.

I think after 8 months that you should now be on regular telephone calls and QQ or even Skype but if you are still using EMF's then it is more than likely that you are being scammed.

The agencies that have paid Chnlove huge sums to be on the website are desperate to claw back as much as possible and it is no holds barred in that respect.

Willy

CypherDragon:
We've had calls both when she was in Canada and at home in China. She is currently with her parents in China on holidays, but will be starting back at campus again in late August. Our latest plan was to meet when she returns to campus after the holidays, depending on her school schedule.

P508 is based in Shenzhen, it's the Shenzhen Oriental Love Consulting Co. Ltd. agency. She is from Hubei province, somewhere within an hour's trip of Wuhan, and was working in Shenzhen as a translator before leaving for Calgary last year...or at least so she's told me.

To be honest, I didn't know about QQ until about a month ago, and didn't know if any other chat service worked in China. We just exchanged QQ numbers last Friday, and that was the last phone call we had. She has tried to call more often than we have actually talked, but it was all through chnlove, which as am sure most here know is a very expensive way to talk. Many of the times I was busy with other things (working or teaching class), so the call rolled to voicemail. Apparently chnlove's service doesn't recognize voicemail, and I have easily a dozen messages with her just asking "hello? can you hear me?" I have tried to give her my direct phone number a couple times, but I'll admit that I'm a novice at international calling, so I don't know if I gave it to her correctly. She has told me that her phone plan in China doesn't allow international calls, and she uses a different phone number when she's in Canada.

To be honest, there's been a few red flags, but she's very good at redirecting the conversations. For example:
-We had a plan to meet in Calgary around the start of this year, but her mother fell ill and she wasn't sure if she would have to leave the school semester early to go home and take care of her.

-The plan was then for me to come up at the end of the semester before she returned home for holidays, but by the time I was able to confirm I would be able to come, she had already booked her flight back home...the day after I would be able to travel.

-We've been planning to meet when she comes back to Canada at the new semester, but that was pushed back because she doesn't have her schedule yet.

The new semester is supposed to start at the end of the August, and she should have her class schedule in a couple weeks. She's told me that she wants me to come up as soon as she has a few days with no class so we can spend time together, instead of just coming up and risking that she would be busy with schoolwork.

So, I'm torn and frustrated. Do I bite the bullet and wait out the next few weeks to see if we can actually make the plan to finally meet, or do I assume that I'm being scammed now and drop the whole thing? I have a few credits left at chnlove that I can write to her with, thanks to their Chinese Valentine's promotion, but I really am at a loss as what to do. It seems that anything I have tried to get out of the chnlove moneypit with her is either delayed, or she is unwilling to do. Am I wrong to think that if she did care, and wanted to move our relationship forward, that she would jump at the chance to talk more often?

Cheers,
Cory

Robertt S:
I agree with Willy and want to add one more detail concerning agency tactics. Many agencies, but not all agencies charge the lady a " meeting or introduction fee" when you show up to meet the lady in China. The agency wants this fee and the only way to be certain to collect the fee is to arrange the meeting on agency turf and terms! ie; in China in the agency's city with an agency representative! This may be the reason you are being stonewalled on the meetings in Canada. If she hasn't recommended for you to come meet her in China by now I would be really suspicious since the agencies usually only have a year to fulfill their contractual obligation to the client ( lady ) or refund her the contract fee. If it has been 8 months and no mention of a meeting in China either the girl is got someone else on the line and you are her backup plan or the lady told her translator she was not interested in you, but the translator hasn't told you hoping to keep you on the line as long as possible to collect emf fees. If you have a child, this can cause many Chinese women to look elsewhere. It seems they expect men to accept their children but do not relish the idea of raising someone else's children. Either way I would be extremely cautious and start demanding some concrete proof that this woman is really interested and the only way to know that is meet in person. Chats are ok if the woman understands English and you understand Chinese because if neither one of you speak the others language then you have no idea what the translator is saying to her about you and you have no idea what she is telling the translator to say to you. A good translator can have a chat session and manage to convince both parties that everything is perfectly fine, so be careful.

CypherDragon:
All of our phone calls at least have been direct - no translator involved. She speaks good English for the most part, with just a few errors here and there that can be expected from someone that hasn't had a lifetime of speaking English. (Just for a note, my first wife was an immigrant from Mexico, and I've worked for various international companies, so I'm used to broken or not-so-perfect English). From what I've read in her letters and our chats, I don't think she has been using a translator for our contact. I haven't had the experience of some of the guys here with her not knowing what I've written from one letter to the next, or saying things completely differently in chat. I do have a child, a young son, but he doesn't live with me. I made sure to tell her this when we first started talking, since I know some people don't want to have a relationship with a single parent, but she said it was fine and has asked after his health and how he was doing several times.

She has brought up meeting her in China a couple times, but I haven't been able to come up with the funds for a trip AND pay for chnlove at the same time, and I've told her this. We agreed on meeting in Canada as a compromise, with promises to make plans to visit both families in the near future after that. I'm not sure what contract she has with the agency - I've brought it up before after learning that some of the agencies charge a "matchmaker fee" after you get married, but that was months ago and she never really answered. I didn't know about the year time limit...the last "refresh" of her profile was in Sept...if anyone wants to take a look and see if they see any flags in her profile, her ID is P5081164, and her name is Stefanie.

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