The "Asiandate.com" dating-website scam.

I admit it, I find Asian ladies (Chinese especially) very attractive.  So about 4-5 years ago, I decided to give the asiandate.com website a go.  Before spending a penny, I had done a fair bit of research on the company behind this, and it had 'shady' written all over it - so I knew from the get-go that this setup was probably a scam.  They are also behind anastasiadate.com which uses the very same system, and is the source of many scare-stories of guys who got more than they bargained for when they went to meet their "model-quality" Russian bride.  But those lovely Asian ladies looked oh so cute - so I decided to give it a shot anyway!

The first thing you cannot possibly fail to notice is that this 'service' is outrageously expensive.  Their text 'Chat' is $1 per minute.  Including a 'premium smiley' in your text will cost another $1 per-inclusion.  Viewing a photo, or sending the lady one of yours costs an absurd $15.  Even worse, sending her a "Virtual gift", which consists solely of a tiny little picture/jpg, of a teddy-bear for instance, will cost you a whopping $15.  'Letters' seem better value at $10 per letter - until you realise that you are charged for both sides of the conversation, so in reality it's $20 per letter-exchange.  Video-chat will cost you $2 per minute where only the lady's cam is on, whereas 2-way video costs a gob-smacking $6 per minute!  All with audio disabled - naturally, they do everything in their power to prevent the exchange of any sort of off-site contact information.

These are their main-stays when it comes to fleecing customers, but they have a few other 'tricks'  up their sleeves.  One infuriating one is that if you click on a "Start Camshare" popup button, either by accident or design, you are immediately charged $2, even if you cancel before the lady's cam comes online.  Back then, there were relatively few "Start Camshare" popups, whereas now, that figure is up to at least 50% - so it's obviously a nice little earner for this outfit.  Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of these pop-ups from ladies begging to chat are fake, just randomly generated by the site from women (supposedly) online.  Another one I fell foul of more than a few times was clicking a part of the site I shouldn't have - the reason? well, their site is positively littered with ways of extracting yet-more cash from your account.  My Nemesis was in the Letter's section.  It contains multiple buttons/links to letters & photos, that the unwary can unintentionally click upon.  It's like a mine-field of sorts that needs to be tip-toed through, and given the number of times that I ended up paying for letters that I accidently opened, I guess it's designed that way on purpose.

And the majority of these letters are not even genuine - something that these gangsters readily admit to, though in the small print!  Many of the letters sent seem to be from ladies who haven't been 'live' on the site for years, yet you are still charged the same amount for reading these randomly-selected letters from long-dormant accounts.  Of course, no doubt there may be genuine women included as well, but how do you tell the real from the fakes?  Another issue I occasionally came across on asiandate.com was where apparently genuine ladies were unable to get their profiles removed from the site.  These were invariably pretty/beautiful.  Here is one example that I took a screen-grab of at the time - read the ladies 'Character' text.  This seems to have been a last-resort ploy to get her profile removed, which worked - less than a week later, her profile had been deleted!

And when it comes to charging you, there is absolutely no confirmation asked for with this crowd - your credits are instantly debited, you are not even told after the fact, that your account has just been charged!  Up until recently, it was in fact necessary to 'trick' the site into revealing how many credits you had remaining in your account.  Now, there is literally no way of seeing what your account balance is - these scammers apparently want you to remain blissfully unaware of what you are spending, right up to your last 10 credits, whereupon you will then be prompted to buy some more!  There is also no invoicing of any sort in place, you just have to take their word for it that they are charging you what they say they are!!!  How can this be legal???

Speaking of legality, during my research 4-5 years ago, this company rated an abysmal E-rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB).  Were you to check now, you would find that the BBB has no record of them!!!  Apparently they have declared bankruptcy since then - even though they have never been off-line in the interim - and reputation-wise, now have a clean slate!  Also back then, there was a Youtube video from a guy well-known in the website-dating industry that had done consultancy work for asiandate.com, as well as its main rival.  One of the things he said both companies were guilty of was the buying of 'Catalogues' of models - yep, that pretty lady you think you are talking to could very well be some fat bloke that is working as many as a dozen of these profiles from the 'Catalogues' and charging you for the privilege!  I also remember him saying how he had tried to convince the management of both companies to offer a more value-oriented service, rather than their then 'in-for-a-quick-buck' business model, but they did not want to know.

My time with them as a paid-up member was relatively brief.  I opted for one of the ladies that was not a 'real-stunner', figuring that she would probably not be 'Catalogue material'.  No such luck!  After over 10 letters (20 paid-for, when her replies are included) I suggested to her I was considering paying for her email address (about $60 if memory serves) and would she be interested in contacting me off-site.  A response, but no answer to the question.  The next letter, I was more direct - another reply, but still no answer!  Finally I told her not to expect another letter from me if she didn't answer my one simple question - result!  She indicated that she was happy with the current arrangement and that if saving money was the issue, I should just email her less!  Haha, funny in retrospect, though I didn't think so at the time.  I exchanged letters with a couple of others, though no real 'correspondence' as such.  None seemed interested in communicating off-site.  I tried the 'Chat' for a bit as well, no joy there either - they all seemed to long to communicate, but ONLY via the site!  I wonder why???  Anyway, long story short, I didn't spend too much and it was an 'experience' of sorts.

Back to the present-day, this scam seems to be taking on a new twist.  'asiandate.com' is now unbelievably charging a subscription - $10/month or 120/year, which includes absolutely nothing that wasn't available for free before!   You are merely subscribing to be allowed to communicate with ladies - you then have to buy the credits to actually do so!  One other thing I've just noticed that will highlight how petty this lot are - having recently updated their 'Smiley' icons, they also took the opportunity to thin down the 'free-smileys' even more, customers now having a mere handful that may be used without incurring a charge.  Rather than working to improve things for potential customers, these actions show that they are (still) more interested in fleecing them for every penny they can - so as short-sighted as ever.  Shame.

I am not a betting man, but I would wager that this just-introduced 'Subscription' is doomed to failure.  In fact it seems more like a last-ditch effort to stave off (real) bankruptcy, than a credible means of generating a fresh revenue stream.  Who in their right mind will pay $120/year just for the privilege of paying for credits!?!?!