Before joining chinalovematch.net, I'd been ripped off financially by a professional looking internet dating website called Chnlove.com - part of the self titled "QPid Network". Some suggest this website is related to the infamous scam website asianbeauties.com, but I’ve yet to confirm this. In any case, suffice to say that BOTH these sites are best stayed well clear of. To this end, here's my story, or at least a part of it.
“Start free trial now – 1000s of beautiful girls are waiting for YOU!”
I blinked and read the caption on the computer monitor in front of me. Then I gazed admiringly at the photos on the Chnlove.com webpage, showing multiple gorgeous Chinese ladies.
“Man, you’ve gotta be kidding – this site is just what I’ve been searching for!”, I exclaimed inwardly.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I was a rather depressed, recently divorced guy who’d hit rock bottom emotionally and now was attempting to climb back out of the abyss of loneliness that’d been unwelcomely enveloping me for months.
Quickly I filled in the website online application, including my profile details. My self description was brief, I said only one generic sounding sentence along the lines of "Average guy looking for an average girl who is serious, sincere and honest in her intentions and wishes to meet a Western man". I submitted no photo of myself. Without delay, I was then sent an activation email, including a personal ID number that enabled me to log in to chnlove.com.
A couple of minutes later, I received an introductory message from them as follows.
“A package with 20 minutes free chat coupons & 5 free mails has been added to your account, start contacting your favorite ladies now!”
Wow! Almost immediately I was ready to go - this seemingly welcoming site wasn’t mucking around. Everything was happening fast.
Within just another two or three minutes, to my surprise, plenty of emails and chat invitations from lovely ladies began spontaneously popping up on my computer screen. These were not just Chinese, but other nationalities as well. Chnlove.com had partner websites, where ladies from China, South-east Asia, Ukraine and Russia, as well as Latin America – all could be contacted. What a delightful smorgasbord of tempting, exotic dishes for an emotionally impoverished Westerner like me!
I was quite bemused at the frenetic pace of how everything was happening. In the bottom right hand corner of my computer, many little boxes busily kept appearing, each one showing a photo of a beautiful lady with an icon that could be clicked on to either see her profile, read a personal message from her or to chat directly with her. When I clicked on the “Read Message” section, inviting notes from each lady would appear such as,
“It's a bit embarrassing, dear, but I have to tell you that I haven't kissed a man for quite some time already... I am not even sure how our first kiss will go. By the way, do you like kissing? Do you enjoy it passionately or do you like to touch your woman's lips with yours only slightly, just to tell send a message to her body?
I... I do miss it very much. I think about how it would feel and just can't get it out of my head. It's a bit funny, isn't it, dear?
I hope that when we first meet, we will experience this... Won't we? Be like very close people to each other, not just like the very first date where we just look at each other and afraid to touch.
Do you miss all of this too?
With warmth from my heart and body”
I couldn't help but read all these beguiling notes that kept popping up on my computer from women whose profiles I'd never viewed before, including some that were addressed to me personally, mentioning my name. I could hardly believe it. Such a great response to a profile with no photo and only a very brief, generalised self description! A little incredulous yet secretly hopeful, I muttered under my breath, "Are these for real?"
And the photos. These ladies were all stunning – there wasn’t a plain looking person anywhere to be seen! I felt at that time I was in female nirvana, a marvellous paradise that’d been withheld from me for all my life, but finally it’d been found.
"Are Chinese and Russian ladies all this beautiful? Yes, I think they must be!" These were the wondrous thoughts running through my head. This was the first time I'd ever subscribed to an international dating website like this, so my naive innocence was showing.
Examples of messages that kept appearing on my computer screen without any input whatsoever from me are below.
Lady 1
“Hi sweety! I was looking for you! Can we meet?
Are you looking for me? Do you remember? We met once upon a dream!!!
What a nice guy!! Are you real or I'm dreaming?
I want to be your present in red ribbon!!!
I'm here, alone, and where are you? Come to me”
Lady 2
“You make my heart smile.
My heart is with you.
I fell so lonely now, can you help me?”
Lady 3
“Though we have never met, I feel close to you.
Hold me now. Can you?
I want you, I need you, please come to me.”
At that time, even though I felt vaguely dubious about all these greetings, my niggling doubts were subconsciously repressed. Feeling socially isolated if not downright depressed at that time, I really wanted to believe in their authenticity; I longed for a lady who loved me and who I could in turn love. I wanted to be finally rid of the debilitating loneliness I’d been feeling so acutely for so long. When one's feeling emotionally bereft, most definitely one's mind isn't as rational or levelheaded as normally it would or should be. The more isolated you feel, the more vulnerable and susceptible you become, almost in a direct correlation.
One Chinese lady in particular seemed special. I clicked on her profile. The first few sentences read as follows.
“Hello my dear,
How are you? I hope my letter and my sunny smile find you are happy there :) I am from Shenzen, China. I am very glad to find your profile today. I am attracted to you after reading your profile, so i can't wait to write you this letter. I hope you are still available for me? I am here looking for a lifetime relationship. I don't play games here.
I am not sure if you like business woman or not, but i want to tell you i am a successful business woman. I have an insurance company here. I have do this business for 20 years. Do you mind your wife making more money than you??”
I was amazed. Not only was this gorgeous 43 year old apparently attracted to me, but she owned a business and earned more money than me also! And her reassuring words “I don't play games here” helped assuage my fears. I truly wanted to feel that someone as sweet and kind looking as her had to be one hundred per cent real. How wrong I was later proven to be.
Soon enough, I couldn’t take it any more. I felt compelled to contact some of these beautiful goddesses who seemed so sincere. Surely such charming words and such beguiling smiles couldn’t be anything but genuine? I became hooked on this website, just as it had been so carefully planned and designed to do.
As it turned out though, once I opened up my wallet and started paying money to Chnlove.com via credit card over the next two or three weeks, my joyous dreams slowly and insidiously dissolved into nothingness. Evaporated completely, like a plate of warm water under a scorching, noon day desert sun. My naivety and loneliness was grossly exploited by professional scammers. My emotional gullibility was taken advantage of by a bunch of criminals without conscience.
In short, I started paying to chat online to some of the ladies who presented themselves so glamorously to me, then began phoning them. To my chagrin, I discovered the costs of this were enormous, sometimes over one hundred dollars per session. Credits in my account quickly ran out, time after time.
Unexpected anomalies also appeared. For example, I was introduced to ladies who could speak no English, despite their profiles specifying to the contrary. I was given ladies' contact phone numbers that were never answered. I bought expensive "gifts" for some of them that were never acknowledged. When I eventually did manage to chat online to a lady who could understand English, the conversation would go in circles. I couldn't pin anyone down to a specific personal email address or home phone number., despite being told from some that they "loved" me. All this was incredibly frustrating to me as at first I had no idea what was really going on or who in fact I was actually involved with.
This baffling yet tantalising obfuscation went on and on until eventually it slowly dawned on me I was being treated like a moron. A sucker. I had no option but to accept the cold reality of the situation, as unacceptable and utterly unpalatable as it was. Up til then, I'd considered myself a rather smart and worldly person, but in this instance was forced to admit that I'd been badly conned by a cartel of very slick internet scammers, criminals who were extremely polished, proficient and practised at their deceptive craft, carefully honed as it no doubt had been for a long time.
Upon contemplating it later, my mind boggled at the vast numbers of lonely men who like me, must have've been cheated on a global scale by this and other related dating sites. I'm not talking about months here, but YEARS, as these nefarious businesses are amazingly still operating, seemingly impervious to prosecution or the law. I have no idea why Interpol can't stop them but the very fact that they still exist, illustrates how devilishly cunning and clever they are.
Rather than chatting to lovely ladies online, I later learnt that often I’d probably been chatting to hairy rock apes with beards, bad breath and tattoos. Phrases such as "Russian mafia" were mentioned to me as potentially being involved. This wouldn't surprise me as these sites are extremely professional. They're not operated by a bunch of nerds from back bedrooms - the whole operation is way bigger than this, probably raking in tens of millions of dollars every year. Just as I had been, there are so many lonely men out there leading lives of quiet desperation, ready to grasp at any hope, any straw blowing in the wind, that might help alleviate the awful emotional cavity - the gnawing hollowness - felt within themselves.
Whoever it was, during this period, it seemed I’d been gripped by an avaricious octopus with multiple tentacles, each covered in many hungry suckers, all doing their damndest to insatiably siphon from me not only my money, but my ever diminishing pride, happiness and dignity as well.
The words, “There’s no fool like an old fool,” kept unwelcomely repeating themselves in my screwed up head, over and over again. I’d been well and truly taken for an expensive ride by chnlove.com and the “Qpid Network”. A journey to nowhere, except to a slimey suburb called Disenchantment in the terrible town of Disappointment, located in the rotten state known as Rip Off.
More to follow, if I have the stomach to write further about it, which given the bad memories of it all, is decidedly problematic.
Hopefully we can get this article out to the public en mass and help warn potential victims of Chnlove as we have with AsianBeauties.
Readers, to help us do that please G+1, Facebook Like and Tweet this blog on to as many people as you can.
I had similar treatment from asianbeauties.com as they happily emptied my wallet.
I am writing this article anonymously for reasons that will appear obvious as you read it.
It really is about time that ChnLove was exposed like this. I too have had similar experiences with this scam web-site and my experiences are exactly the same as Barry's
Look at the table of costs for example - $21.00 for 3 credits. One credit allows you to write to a lady, one credit is charged for her reply, then you write again - BUT you cannot read her reply can you ? - you have run out of credits, so you need to buy MORE ! - This is just the tiniest TIP of their huge ICEBERG !
ChnLove (as a company) are very 'clever'. What they do is to profess their ignorance BECAUSE they say they are simply a 'platform' on which many 'agencies' can advertise their girls. Therefore, if you make a complain to ChnLove, they simply say they will contact the agency and 'investigate the matter'. Of course, this is all total CRAP and is just a way of switching the blame. The fact is that if you 'google' CHNLOVE you will see a boot-load of sites that all tell the same story - SCAM ! This boot-load of sites all contain many complaints about them and warn people to stay away. In a poor effort to clear their name, you will also see information telling you that they have 'made changes' or 'taken steps' to rectify these so called 'problems' - but thjis is just 'smoke-and-mirrors' - They are a SCAM company operating a SCAM web-site and ripping people off for what is estimated to be around USD$300,000,000 (THREE HUNDRED MILLION US DOLLARS PER YEAR) - This is SERIOUS MONEY ! (RMB 1,800,000,000)
Yet despite all the bad publicity, they are still in business for 2 reasons 1) they are extremely good at what they do and 2) There is always a mug-punter out there who has brains in his trousers
Barry's description of the letters and chat introductions that he has encountered are spot-on 100% true - yet ANYONE who knows ANYTHING about Chinese women would know that they are not as 'open' as ChnLove make you believe and they would NEVER talk like this to someone they had never met (in fact they would NOT even CONSIDER talking like this unless you were MARRIED to them !) - It is nothing more than a HOOK, and the naive western man is a big FISH!
LIke many, I spent 1000's of dollars with ChnLove - only to be conned and ripped-off! Having no experience with dating sites (especially International ones), I was easy prey!
However, all was not doom-and-gloom. I did manage to meet ONE girl that I initially met on ChnLove and she fitted EXACTLY into the category in Paul Fox's blog about the MONEY-WOMAN
Not wanting to give up hope after spending so much money, I had some credits left so I tried one more time. It was around this time in 2012. I know it was around this time because China was preparing for Chinese New Year
I began 'chatting' with a girl from Shenzhen. She was 38 years old and had a 7-year old son
At five feet 2 and weighing around 48 kilos she was a small girl but very pretty. We exchanged letters and used up a whole load of my last remaining credits on ChnLove.
I told her I would go to Shenzhen to meet her, but suddenly she told me thast she was already in her home-town
I smelled a 'rat'. Her home town was more than 4 hours by plane from Shenzhen and since most Chinese people prefer the train (due to cost), the journey would have taken around 30 hours!
This was the first 'mistake' that they made!
I had to go to Shanghai anyway, so I took what was a relatively short flight of 2 hours or so and agreed to meet her in her home town. I was ready for anything out of the ordinary and I was well aware of the possibility that I was being conned.
Due to bad weather, my flight from Shanghai arrived 4 hours late. It was 2am when I arrived at her airport and I was greeted by a girl that I did not recognise. She had a much older woman with her who she introduced to me as her 'agency driver'
"My Girl" was close to 6 feet tall and clearly weighed closer to 70 kilos than she did to 48 kilos. She could not have been a day over 24 years old, yet still professed to have a 7 year old son!
It was late (early in the morning), I was tired and it was minus 26 degrees outside. We all got into the car and drove about an hour to a hotel that had been previously booked for me
The roads were dark and quiet and I began to feel very 'uneasy' as we winded our way down many country roads. All kinds of thoughts were spinning around in my head. I was totally convinced that the girl sitting next to me on the back seat of the car was NOT the girl I THOUGHT I had been chatting to for several weeks
I was relieved when we arrived at the hotel. The receptionist was asleep behind the desk and checked me in very sleepily. The driver told me that I must pay RMB500 for the room and for deposit. Despite having several thousand RMB in my pocket I told her that I had no cash. I said I must go to the bank first thing tomorrow
The driver handed over RMB500 to the receptionist and she completed my check in. The driver then told me (in perfect English) that the following day I was to give her RMB3500. I asked what the 3000 was for and she said it was the agency's 'introduction fee'
I smiled at her and agreed
She left the hotel leaving me and this 6 foot, large framed girl standing in the hotel foyer
We took the lift and found my room. It was now around 3.30am and although I was very tired, I began to get a 'second wind'
We went to the room and chatted for about 20 minutes before she said she would take a shower. I said I would shower first because I was tired and needed to sleep. (women always take longer)
I showered and got into bed. She went into the shower and seemed to be there for a long time. She had 2 mobile phones that she had left on the bedside cabinet and while she was showering I decided to have a peek
This was in NO WAY the girl I thought had been chatting to - never in a million years - It was a con, a scam, a rip-off!
I pretended to be asleep as she got into bed beside me and the poor girl was so tired that within seconds she was fast asleep, snoring like a puppy dog
She had no idea that while she was showering I had laid out all my clothes on top of my suitcase in a fashion that allowed me to dress again in the pitch dark. She had left the bathroom light on so there was a LITTLE light in the room - just enough to prevent me from tripping over something and waking her
I dressed and slipped out of the room, timing her snores so that she had less chance of hearing the door click shut behind me
The receptionist was snoring her head off as I slipped past and out into the street. It was 5am, raining and very very cold. I began to walk up the street in order to put as much distance between me and the hotel as was possible
Suddenly, a taxi.... I hailed it and got in. I said in my worst Chinese - "HOTEL"!
The driver took me to a beautiful hotel just out of town and I thought to my self 'This is going to cost!" - I was right - it was RMB800 - but the thought of NOT paying those women RMB3500 made it all seem worth while
I took a taxi to the airport later that same morning and bought a flight ticket back to Shenzhen
My mobile phone was ringing, texts were coming in threatening me because I had not paid 3500 - and this continued for 4 days!
As my plane touched down in Shenzhen I felt a strange calm come over me. I was out of their clutches and was now safe - but more importantly, I HAD SCAMMED A SCAMMER!
I thought for a milli-second about reporting the incident to ChnLove - but they would only have said "Oh sorry Sir, we will take up the matter with our agency!"
Which is their stock-standard response to ANY complaint!
Wolves in sheeps clothing ! LIARS, CHEATS, SCAMMERS, ROBBERS, RIP-OFF MERCHANTS AND COMPLETE BASTARDS ,,, any of these words can be abbrieviated into 7 simple letters - CHNLOVE !
Stay away - ignore them - give them as wide a berth as you can and whatever you do - DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY MONEY !
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !
"congratulations, hope your affair could gorw a beautiful marriage, but do you know all chinese women on Asian beauties would have a copy on Chnlove?anyway hope you are lucky, not talk to translator,i also has a profile on Chnlove,"
So, that pretty much confirms that AB and CHNLOVE sites are related!
As a side note, please remember that Interpol is NOT a police force. It is an information sharing mechanism between police agencies.
Same operation, and sister site to Asian Beauties. Got hit there myself. Seems kind of sad that one of the women I was attracted to I found Chnlove, and on this site, but hasn't answered any messages. I know where you, and many other men are in this, I am one with you on the looking for a good woman for my future.
I find that being honest with people is the way to go, and I think this site has much more to offer.
There is definitely a link between the 2 sites - DEFINITELY !
To be truthful, the main reason for joining CLM was the fact that John Abbot sticks his head above the proverbial parapet - which leads him open to having his head 'shot off!"
Unlike all the other sites, CLM is a site where the owner makes himself accountable to his members. This fact ALONE led me to believe that their MUST be at least a little bit of 'honesty', otherwise John would not put himself in this situation
Although the more skeptical member may choose to believe that he does this for reasons of self-satisfaction or self-gratification (or worse), personally I choose to believe that John does this in a firm attempt to encourage members to believe that he is running an honest web-site - and I for one believe that he is !
John's on-going crusade to rid the internet of scam sites such as Asian Beauties and Chnlove is not an attempt to gain more business for CLM - merely to do whatever can be done to 'clean-up' the internet and stop people like us from being ripped-off!
Let's face it - I reckon CLM could increase its income TEN-FOLD if John adopted the same attitude as sites like CL and AB - so we should all give him at least SOME credit for not doing so !
It is such a shame that many of our (Western) peers still regard us as "Sad Bastards" for joining internet dating sites - but for a single guy in his 40's or 50's has far more chance of meeting someone from another city/culture/country than he has of going to the local bars on a Saturday night and choosing from the (obviously) divorced women looking like mutton-dressed-as-lamb who have probably had more pricks than a second-hand dartboard!
AB and CL KNOW this - and this is why they prey on what they also believe are a bunch of 'sad bastards'
They do not CARE about emotions - they do not CARE about feelings - they do not CARE about anything other than the millions of dollars that they can RIP-OFF from their members - because they have no CONSCIENCE !
John Abbot, on the other hand, has a CONSCIENCE and fully understands what it REALLY MEANS for guys like us, (girls too) that join sites like this in order to find their life partner in a serious, understanding and emotional way - and I firmly believe that he is doing everything in his (limited) power to assist in every way he can
But John is just ONE MAN - and he needs OUR help in order to stand behind his crusade to educate the world of us 'sad bastards' that there are REAL and GENUINE sites on the net that TRULY care and that sites like AB and CL should be avoided at all costs - because they DON'T CARE !
"Great blog Barry! "
Thanks for your good wishes, John.
Let me say though that all of us - and the wider internet dating community generally - owe you and CLM a big debt of gratitude for operating a scam free website, or as close to a scam free site as possible, as always there will be scammers attempting to infiltrate themselves here. Though as soon as these types are detected, they're dealt with immediately.
@Windee
"I had similar treatment from asianbeauties.com as they happily emptied my wallet"
I'm sorry to hear this, Windee.
You may be interested to know that you're amongst friends here. So many men have been duped by these internet scam sites, because the sites are just so darn professional. The average guy in the street would have no idea that such polished and slick criminal domains are allowed to continue month after month - year after year - but unbelievably, they are.
@anonymous8741
"I too have had similar experiences with this scam web-site and my experiences are exactly the same"
I'm sorry to learn that you've been burnt by chnlove.com as well, not just in money terms, but a colossal waste of time and energy also, when you include the plane tickets, hotel bills, etc that you mentioned were involved.
Thanks so much also for sharing with us all here in great detail, exactly what happened to you. I should mention also that your style of writing reminds me of someone I know?
In fact, if I knew your identity, I think you should be nominated for a peerage or a knighthood, because surely on planet Earth, you're the only person who has ever "scammed a scammer"!
I think your story in fact would make the basis for a good movie, as full of excitement, intrigue, intimidation and action that it is. Perhaps you should engage a good Hollywood scriptwriter to add a little elaboration and "window dressing" to your marvellous tale and somehow incorporate it into the next James Bond movie, such is its dramatic appeal!
Well done, indeed. You may yet end up making some big money out of these crooks!
@anonymous8743
"do you know all chinese women on Asian beauties would have a copy on Chnlove? anyway hope you are lucky, not talk to translator"
Thanks for this information. The more I look into this, the more likely it seems that AsianBeauties.com and Chnlove.com are directly linked. Probably there are other related spin off scam sites as well. This would be especially true if indeed the Russian mafia was involved as the controllers in the background, as many people suspect.
Remember "The Sopranos" TV show? This series gave us all some good insights into how the mafia worked and even the genuine mafia mob gave the show a "thumbs up" as regards its authenticity.
Another common denominator with these scam sites is their use of paid "translators". These are just an expensive yet vaguely plausible technique to rort heaps of money from hapless Westerners.
@bmccull
"I think it is up to us as consumers of this form of 'entertainment' to spend our money wisely"
Hello Bmccull.
I think you should reread what I wrote in my article. Online dating may well be a type of distraction or light relief for some people such as yourself, but for many depressed men (as I was back then), most certainly it's not a form of "entertainment". Here's an excerpt from what I wrote, for example:
"I was a rather depressed, recently divorced guy who’d hit rock bottom emotionally and now was attempting to climb back out of the abyss of loneliness that’d been unwelcomely enveloping me for months."
I can assure you that for many folks (both males and for that matter, females as well), internet dating is not some sort of joke. It's more akin to a life line; how many suicides occur out there borne initially through isolation, mental depression and loneliness?
You also said,
"It is relatively easy to do an online search and if you don't like what you see then don't buy."
With great respect, your lack of empathy for those around you is showing here also. It seems that you believe that every adult out there should be savvy enough to know how to conduct due diligence searches and reviews on all online companies or products they may be interested in. You should realise that not everyone in the community is particularly sophisticated or intelligent - just look at me, for example. Many adults have not even finished high school.
How is it their fault then (which is the inference I draw from your words), if they are duped by a pack of slick professionals?
"Interpol has far more important matters to attend to than online dating!"
Again, you miss the point. These scam sites over time are fleecing victims out of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars. This is not a small, inconsequential matter. Organised crime gangs such as the Russian Mafia may well be involved.
Yet you believe such wide ranging criminal schemes that affect THOUSANDS of victims are "not important"?
I get the idea you seem to think all of this dating scamming is some sort of frivolous comedy pulled on stupid people who "should know better"?
@Joewood
"Same operation, and sister site to Asian Beauties. Got hit there myself...."
Thanks for this, Joe.
So many men have been scammed by these sites. Probably tens of thousands all up over time. Because the sites are so beautifully presented - so slick and professional.
The average guy in the street joining them who's not particularly internet savvy and up-to-date with the burgeoning proliferation of criminal online scam schemes would have no idea that he's soon to become yet another hapless victim - one of many. And many yet to come unfortunately, given that the sites are still operating at full strength, seemingly impervious to the law.
Such scam sites cast a dark shadow over ALL online dating sites unfortunately.
So sorry for your experience there, but maybe you could cherish your chance here to meet some real women? The price was paid heavily due to these shameless professional criminals!
When I read those letters, I laughed a lot…I don’t think it is from some real person, they are tempatation letters for sure…”Do you remember? We met once upon a dream!!! “ Haha, we could meet anyone in dream, it is just a shallow joke,,,
I am happy to see you go over it and will find your love soon:)
@anonymous8741
YOU HAD SCAMMED A SCAMMER? Good for you! This is the best story I ever heard here, they think they could play with innocent foreigners, actually they cann’t, everyone has brain and common sense, I think your head absolutely was not in your trousers, at most in your shirt? haha, You really did the right thing at that time, Good Luck to you!