Question for those who were scammed...

[rkk1 34]

I'm very much curious about knowing something. For those of you who have been in the very sad situation of being scammed by your foreign spouses, did you feel like the relationship was totally genuine (until your spouse made it clear that he/she wanted nothing more to do with you after arriving here)? Looking back, were there signs that you picked up on, that ever made you doubt your partner's intentions? Did your spouses ever say or do anything to make you question him/her (i.e. were there red flags)? I'm not talking about spouses who genuinely came here out of love and things didn't work out. Many times people truly do care for one another, but the cultural divide ends up being too much, and I can understand that they feel they need out of the relationship as they weren't prepared for the realities of life here. That's not the type of relationship I am asking about. I'm talking about the kind of scams where the foreign spouses leaves after a few weeks of arriving here, or who secretly has a spouses/girlfriend/boyfriend back home that they plan on getting here to the US after ending the sham marriage with you (for example). I'm talking about the kinds of foreign spouses whose intention it was from the beginning to take advantage of the USC. I'm just wondering if those relationships developed slowly like normal relationships and felt totally real, or if they were whirlwind romances where the foreign spouses might have said or did something to hint at their true intent to scam.

I know I'm asking people to share some very personal and hurtful experiences, but I just wonder if people have any thoughts looking back on their experiences. I wonder what aspects of the interaction with their spouse they'd pay more attention to, if they were ever (theoretically) in the same situation once again that they didn't focus on before.

Edited July 20, 2012 by rkk1

[rkk1 34]

By the way, I would also include spouses who are not necessarily evil, but who did come here for financial reasons. Like let's say they came from a very poor family in their home country, and wanted to marry a USC, so that they could come here and work and send money back to their family to keep the family afloat. It doesn't make that person evil, but it does indicate that their primary motive of marrying a USC was motivated by money and not love. (I'm not talking about spouses who genuinely love their USC spouse and also want to send money back to their parents, as that is different and understandable. I'm talking about those who intentionally sought out the USC to better their family's financial situation at home, and who merely 'tolerate' the relationship to help out their family.) Was there any signs one could have picked up there before the marriage, or before coming to the US? Just wondering about this type of relationship as well.

Edited July 20, 2012 by rkk1

[SingleDad2usc 71]

Excellent topic, which will produce tons of tips. The best of which will be spilled by top pro perpetrators

[rkk1 34]

Excellent topic, which will produce tons of tips. The best of which will be spilled by top pro perpetrators

Hmm, I'm curious as to what you mean. I don't want to enable anyone to scam another! I'm just wondering if people who have gotten burned have any advice to protect others going through the process (who might have some nagging 'doubts' about their spouses). What things did you wish you could have watched out for? If this thread will only enable perpetrators, then by all means, remove it! My intention is only to prevent more people from getting hurt, if signs are there beforehand that they might be headed down the wrong track with the wrong person. There might be warning signs that people are overlooking, but hearing about those things from someone who has gone through the same thing, might be enough for someone else to wake up! I'm not saying that they should just break up with their foreign spouses if there is a common red flag between the two... but at least it might warn them to proceed cautiously.

[AF-Wife 181]

Are you in that 'situation' you think you might gotten scammed?

[rkk1 34]

Are you in that 'situation' you think you might gotten scammed?

Not entirely, which is why I felt a bit hesitant to post this topic, as it's hard to ask people to bare their souls and talk about deeply hurtful experiences for a more theoretic question. But there were times in the past where I did question my foreign husband's intentions a lot. Many people on this site told me to be warned, as they suspected him of manipulating me. There were strange things he did which often did cause me to wonder what he was up to... even now I still don't really know what he was thinking when he did those things. I did a lot of soul searching and trying to verify if he was for real or not. I'm still not entirely sure. But for the most part, I believe he checks out as being sincere. I love him, and I think that he loves me too (genuinely). I am looking forwards to going through this visa process with him, as we are moving forwards, and I'll be happy when he comes here in about 5 months or so. About 99% of the time now I believe in his sincerely, though about 1% of the time my mind starts to wander and wonder 'what if' there was an underlying intention. In my case, if he was not sincere, the issue would be more along the lines of getting involved with me for financial reasons. I do think he is a genuinely good guy (I know him enough to feel certain that he has a gentle and compassionate heart), but he does come from a poor family and I know he hates that they don't have enough. I do believe he truly loves me NOW (as our love has grown over the last 1.5 year), but if I came to know that his initial intent of getting involved with a USC (on the dating site where he first came across my profile 1.5 year ago), I wouldn't be too surprised if he was excited about the prospects of a USC. (Although he denies he ever expressed interest in me for financial reasons, as he maintains that I seemed like a nice person in my profile.)

Anyway, I don't want to write too much about my own story in this thread (as I've done a whole lot of that in previous threads, just writing about myself and my relationship). My intent here is just to read others' advices and learn from it. I hope to not develop further suspicion of my husband (as I recently confronted him of my suspicions of him, which brought out a lot of dialog between the two of us... leading me to feel better about the situation and make me trust him more, and develop increased confidence in our relationship). But I feel sad when I read so many stories of people who got scammed, and I wish there were things that they could share to others to prevent a repeat of these situations.

[John J 10]

My advice would be to learn about personality disorders, I believe that the majority of scammers are in the Cluster B (dramatic) personality disorders.

If your man conforms to one of these Cluster B personality disorders I would advise you to move on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder#Cluster_B_.28dramatic.2C_emotional_or_erratic_disorders.29

Edited July 20, 2012 by John F

[Xanax 349]

I am not in this situation, but the best advice I can give is to read this forum (where you posted this). There are so many stories similar to what you are asking about already posted here with lots of advice etc.

[AmyWrites 593]

I'm not in this situation as my husband has never had an interest in living in the US, heck we'd stay in Moscow if we could.

What I've noticed here is a few patterns: a. old hot guy brings a tight-bodied girl he could've fathered or grandfathered, then gets pissed off that she doesn't want him or is a golddigger b. arranged marriage failures (I'm not against them, just saying what I've seen) c. American person gets duped by someone from the developing world who is from a culture that is rife with poverty and lack of opportunities or has a very anti-women/religious/etc culture where love comes secondary to necessity. Of course it can be a combination of a few of these, or something different.

What does irk me is people who quickly call "scam" on a marriage/engagement that simply dissolved. A big problem with the US immigration system is that unless you live abroad with your partner or he/she is from a VWP country, you have very, very little time physically together, so then when you actually live together things might be very different than what you thought they'd be, so you fall out of love. I don't think that's a "scam", I think that's simply an unfortunate consequence of a very unfair process that puts a strain on even the best and strongest relationships.

[SapphireDreams 71]

I think that most people are either completely blind sighted or they are in denial about it... they see the signs, but refuse to believe that a person that they think they love and loves them would do something like that. I think it can go both ways.

I think that listening to you gut instinct can be very telling in these types of sitations. I also think that you need to ask yourself, if you were to say to your spouse, let's move to YOUR country instead, not the US, what would their reaction be? Even if it is a third world country, would you move there if you had to and how would they feel about it?

[Deep2009 18]

It does happens to number of people, Sorry about that.

Here is the other portion of the pie -

1. One of my best buddy got married to Canadian Citizen and he loved her to death. When he arrived in Canada, he has found out that she has a boy friend... He is home, she was out with him... First, he stayed with her parents for 1 month, they have supported him, and told him to try to work it out.... Both moved to 2 BR basement appt, in 3 weeks, he came to US to see his uncle and when he returned back to Canada... He was driven to a storage area and told to collect his luggage and get lost. All f...g relationship/love gone in 55 days and all the dreams gone with new wife who he loves a lot. He went through hell, with lot of counseling and now, he found a great person and they are living happily and have 3 kids too...

2. One of my best friend sister, I know her from her since she is 10 years old. She got married to USC and that guy stayed in India for 3 months as a married couple with her. He came back to US and never applied for her to come and live with him.... why???

That ...... guy was married here in seattle to a lady... he was married before... He need a vacation wife in India.

After 1.5 years, my friend came here on work visa and visited him.... my friend was humiliated by him and his mother for asking proper rights for his sister. There was no law broken in US. Marriage was registered in India... Based on that, the guy can not go back to India (also his mother), both their passport/names are flagged and they will be arrested when they enter India (Thanks to Indian laws to stop abuse of Indian girls/guys by the foreign spouses)... She is married now with a beautiful son and wonderful husband.

MORAL - Screw those abuser/cheaters.... things happen because of a reason, it hurts at that time, but you will be better at the end.

[del-2-5-2014 1,339]

I'm not in this situation as my husband has never had an interest in living in the US, heck we'd stay in Moscow if we could.

What I've noticed here is a few patterns: a. old hot guy brings a tight-bodied girl he could've fathered or grandfathered, then gets pissed off that she doesn't want him or is a golddigger b. arranged marriage failures (I'm not against them, just saying what I've seen) c. American person gets duped by someone from the developing world who is from a culture that is rife with poverty and lack of opportunities or has a very anti-women/religious/etc culture where love comes secondary to necessity. Of course it can be a combination of a few of these, or something different.

What does irk me is people who quickly call "scam" on a marriage/engagement that simply dissolved. A big problem with the US immigration system is that unless you live abroad with your partner or he/she is from a VWP country, you have very, very little time physically together, so then when you actually live together things might be very different than what you thought they'd be, so you fall out of love. I don't think that's a "scam", I think that's simply an unfortunate consequence of a very unfair process that puts a strain on even the best and strongest relationships.

Thank you.

I've said this many times before.

K1 needs to be overhauled. The process shoudl be that we submit all the documents as we normally do to USCIS and State and our fiancees gets the same benefit as a VWP person.

Our fiancees can be more easily picked up because we've given the government all the details they would need for deportation.

I think that most people are either completely blind sighted or they are in denial about it... they see the signs, but refuse to believe that a person that they think they love and loves them would do something like that. I think it can go both ways.

I think that listening to you gut instinct can be very telling in these types of sitations. I also think that you need to ask yourself, if you were to say to your spouse, let's move to YOUR country instead, not the US, what would their reaction be? Even if it is a third world country, would you move there if you had to and how would they feel about it?

For sure.

It does happens to number of people, Sorry about that.

Here is the other portion of the pie -

1. One of my best buddy got married to Canadian Citizen and he loved her to death. When he arrived in Canada, he has found out that she has a boy friend... He is home, she was out with him... First, he stayed with her parents for 1 month, they have supported him, and told him to try to work it out.... Both moved to 2 BR basement appt, in 3 weeks, he came to US to see his uncle and when he returned back to Canada... He was driven to a storage area and told to collect his luggage and get lost. All f...g relationship/love gone in 55 days and all the dreams gone with new wife who he loves a lot. He went through hell, with lot of counseling and now, he found a great person and they are living happily and have 3 kids too...

2. One of my best friend sister, I know her from her since she is 10 years old. She got married to USC and that guy stayed in India for 3 months as a married couple with her. He came back to US and never applied for her to come and live with him.... why???

That ...... guy was married here in seattle to a lady... he was married before... He need a vacation wife in India.

After 1.5 years, my friend came here on work visa and visited him.... my friend was humiliated by him and his mother for asking proper rights for his sister. There was no law broken in US. Marriage was registered in India... Based on that, the guy can not go back to India (also his mother), both their passport/names are flagged and they will be arrested when they enter India (Thanks to Indian laws to stop abuse of Indian girls/guys by the foreign spouses)... She is married now with a beautiful son and wonderful husband.

MORAL - Screw those abuser/cheaters.... things happen because of a reason, it hurts at that time, but you will be better at the end.

Why?

[happiestmanalive 23]

To those of you who have been hurt this way, I apologize on behalf of humanity. What this world is coming too, isn't worth the bull we all have to go through. Finding someone you love, just to be kept apart. Finding someone you love, just to find out they don't love you. Finding someone you love, just to find out the love isn't there for either... A lot of people feel that they have searched and searched and found nothing good for them. So when a foreigner comes along with sweet words and makes you feel special, you would do anything for them. Reflect on your life and ask yourself if you feel this person would do anything for you. That is the important thing. Two people who would do anything for eachother makes a strong bond between eachother. One person who is good with words, and another who would do anything for the other usually (in my experience) ends poorly. I truly hope that your SO loves you and would give you the world if he could. If he wouldn't, is he worth it? You ask if there are signs or red flags to look for, but the answer should already be a 'red flag' in your life. If something seems like a 'red flag' and you are asking hoping for confirmation or some conclusion... then maybe you have your answer already? Is it something small and you worried so much to blow it out of proportion? How much time have you spent physically together? You can meet on the internet and send pictures, talk daily, but it is still a fantasy world until the two of you are actually really together. I hope that everything is ok and will work out in the end. It doesn't always...

[dwheels76 5,459]

Thank you.

I've said this many times before.

K1 needs to be overhauled. The process shoudl be that we submit all the documents as we normally do to USCIS and State and our fiancees gets the same benefit as a VWP person.

Our fiancees can be more easily picked up because we've given the government all the details they would need for deportation.

A big AMEN to this. I know you are asking about SCAMs the ones who purposely go after the USC for only intention to immigrate. Thats why also there needs to be some major overhaul in the golden ticket idea of I got a GC and i give you a divorce paper the next day or the day of the GC arrival (it has happened). And God forbid the couple whos married the 2 years or more and get the 10 year GC. What is the incentive to stay married if the motive was all along to get the ticket. I mean GC.

We as Petitioners who's sweeties come from countries that aren't VWP all burden of evidence is on us. And frankly 99% (unscientific of course ) of most couples whether they visit once or a thousand times visit and are on a honeymoon vacation. Stay at hotels/motels most the time he or she will stay in hotel/motel with them and vacationing. No real living. No cooking, cleaning. Hardly any live with their sweetie or family. I mean real life. In Nigeria that means no power, probably washing clothes by hand, cooking squatting over a burner, maybe water today maybe not.

And really we USC's we kind of faked the act didn't we. We have been on call 24/7 with our love ones. Calling, texting, emails, IM's, Facebooking, Skyping. We have always been ready willing and able. Despite responsibilities, church, job, children, family. We acted like we were just single free people with nothing else to do but Skype all day and chat. And we did it gladly because we wanted to stay connected and see our sweetie. Not for evidence but because we love them.

Than guess what reality happens they come to America. And LIFE happens. He or she sees all what really is going on. You got kids who need this and that. Job issues they see now you hate your job you are stressed (heck you should be you don't even make at the poverty line), they see every which way issues, problems, people, life pulling at you and you know what they are no longer the #1 focus. Was it a scam on our part? We acted in way that wasn't all truthful. Did we?

We need to stop this scamming wording. In America the very things we label foreigners with, we call, lying, cheating, deceit, crooked. You never here scammer. Sure they are out there and always will be. But heck as Gowen said we filling out all the documentation immigration knows where they are bio-metrics have been taken a central bureau that links ALL police database (I know thats too much like right). would help immensely.

Sorry did I go

[del-2-5-2014 1,339]

A big AMEN to this. I know you are asking about SCAMs the ones who purposely go after the USC for only intention to immigrate. Thats why also there needs to be some major overhaul in the golden ticket idea of I got a GC and i give you a divorce paper the next day or the day of the GC arrival (it has happened). And God forbid the couple whos married the 2 years or more and get the 10 year GC. What is the incentive to stay married if the motive was all along to get the ticket. I mean GC.

We as Petitioners who's sweeties come from countries that aren't VWP all burden of evidence is on us. And frankly 99% (unscientific of course ) of most couples whether they visit once or a thousand times visit and are on a honeymoon vacation. Stay at hotels/motels most the time he or she will stay in hotel/motel with them and vacationing. No real living. No cooking, cleaning. Hardly any live with their sweetie or family. I mean real life. In Nigeria that means no power, probably washing clothes by hand, cooking squatting over a burner, maybe water today maybe not.

And really we USC's we kind of faked the act didn't we. We have been on call 24/7 with our love ones. Calling, texting, emails, IM's, Facebooking, Skyping. We have always been ready willing and able. Despite responsibilities, church, job, children, family. We acted like we were just single free people with nothing else to do but Skype all day and chat. And we did it gladly because we wanted to stay connected and see our sweetie. Not for evidence but because we love them.

Than guess what reality happens they come to America. And LIFE happens. He or she sees all what really is going on. You got kids who need this and that. Job issues they see now you hate your job you are stressed (heck you should be you don't even make at the poverty line), they see every which way issues, problems, people, life pulling at you and you know what they are no longer the #1 focus. Was it a scam on our part? We acted in way that wasn't all truthful. Did we?

We need to stop this scamming wording. In America the very things we label foreigners with, we call, lying, cheating, deceit, crooked. You never here scammer. Sure they are out there and always will be. But heck as Gowen said we filling out all the documentation immigration knows where they are bio-metrics have been taken a central bureau that links ALL police database (I know thats too much like right). would help immensely.

Sorry did I go

Even Off Topic you were still On Topic, IMHO

Regarding USC scammings, I understand. I wish they would allow my Fiancee to come over for a 3 month visit, it will save a lot of hassles and actually benefit USCIS/State in the long run.

How do you explain unbribable police, car insurance, property tax, income tax, living in good school district, all these things that are normal to us but totally foreign to our SO until they actually get over here to live with us?

So you add all these things together with trying to continue to build a new relationship and it is really amazing that many of these relationships survive.

I am always very cautionary of folks that scream scam, because that river runs both ways. Our friend Mr. Tillman with his line up of barely post teen Wives is a good example.