FAQ

MEMBERSHIP

Do I have to pay for any of your services?

You do have to pay for reading other members’ messages, for which you need to purchase credits (see below). If you place a phone call through us, you will be charged for that, as well. The rest of our services, however, are completely free (this includes registering a profile, searching our database and viewing other members’ profiles, sending messages and smiles).

How do I buy credits?

The easiest way is to purchase them online with a credit card (we accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discovery). Just log in to your profile, go to Membership and buy the needed amount. If you don’t have a credit card, or don’t want to use it online, there are other options available.

What does one credit cost?

This depends on the amount you buy:

100 credits or more: $1 for each credit

55-99 credits: $1.09 for each credit

20-54 credits: $2 for each credit

How will the charge from your company show on my credit card statement?

It will show as "1st International Marriage Network", or more often as an abbreviation of the latter, like "1st Int'l Marr NTWK". 1st International Marriage Network is our parent company.

What determines the cost of opening a message from a woman?

A number of factors. Firstly, it depends on the number of men she is corresponding with; the more men she is writing to, the more expensive her letters will be to open (if she stops writing to one or more men, the price will go down). Secondly, it depends on her English skills (if she can’t read and write in English and has to use a translator, the price will be accordingly higher). Thirdly, if the lady has no Internet access at home and has to use a computer at her local dating agency, this will raise the cost, as well.

When can I contact a lady directly?

If you want to get a lady’s direct contact details, you will first need to fill out the IMBRA form, if you haven’t done that before (this concerns US citizens only); click here to download the form and requisite instructions. After that, there are two options. The first one (recommended) is to open 15 (fifteen) paid messages from the lady (the messages that you open before writing to a lady for the first time are free and don't count); at this point you have the right to request her contact details (or your money back, if for some unlikely reason they cannot be provided). To do this, go to her profile and click the button that says "Send contact info request". The other way is to pay a $50 fee, whereupon we will contact the lady and ask her permission to send you her contact details, but note that this money will not be refunded even if the lady refuses to disclose her contact info. Therefore you should make sure you have her consent before you proceed; if you haven't opened at least one paid message from the woman, you cannot apply for this option. Please note that exchanging personal contact information through our messaging system is not allowed, even if you do have 15 opened messages from a lady; if you want to exchange such information with a lady, contact us. Please do not try to send the lady your email address and other contact information in “encoded” form (i.e. written backwards): it won’t work and will only be a waste of your time.

What does the Requested Contacts page contain?

The Requested Contacts Page (which can be accessed from the menu on the left side of your control panel) contains the contact details that you have requested. Note that it is updated no sooner than your contact info request has been processed.

What is "trust level" on a female profile?

The trust level is a credibility rating given to a female profile by our staff. A staff member can rate a profile on one or more of four scales: passport, meeting, phone call, and correspondence. Passport scans, whenever provided, are rated on their quality and completeness; meetings, phone calls and correspondence are rated according to the feedback we receive on them from our customers. Combined, these ratings make up the trust level. Each category carries different weight (e.g., feedback on a meeting is more important than the passport scan); the exact formula is complex and classified, so it cannot be used to artificially raise the trust level. A trust level of 100% means that we have received definitive proof that the woman behind the profile is a real person, and all her communications originate from herself. This doesn't mean that anyone with less than 100% is automatically fake or dishonest; it only means that you can be reasonably sure of the woman's identity instead of completely sure.

What is a friends list?

It is not a list of people a member is corresponding with. To be on a member’s friends list, you have to send them an invitation which they can choose to accept. It can also be the other way around: a member sends you an invitation, and you accept it. Being a "friend" is a mutual thing. That means that if a member is on your friends list, you are automatically on theirs. You can delete any "friend" from your list by logging into your profile, going to "Communicator", then "Friend members", checking those you wish to delete and clicking "Delete from Friend List".

People on your friends list have access to your private photos, which are protected by your private password from everyone else.

Remember that the list of your "friends" is viewable by any member or even a visitor to the site. Having a lot of friends on your list or having just a few, or even none, is a personal choice. Friends listed on members' profiles mean different things to different people. For some, having a lot of friends demonstrates that they are popular. Some prefer not to list any friends to keep their relationships private. Yet for others listing just one person as a friend means they are serious about them. Use your own judgement in interpreting the meaning of a lady’s friends list or lack of it. Factor in the ratings of her pictures (how many votes and the average rating), and her popularity (more credits per letter means more people are writing to her).

How can I view a lady’s private pictures?

Private pictures are password protected, so you will have to write to the lady and request the password. It is better to do this after you have already established communication with that lady.

Can I talk to a lady on the phone?

Yes, you can order an interpreted phone call, which costs 1.8 credits per minute (1 credit if you don’t require translation). This should be done in advance because we need time to contact the lady’s local agency, or the lady herself, and make sure she will be available at the desired time. Please note that exchanging personal contact information during such phone calls is not allowed. Here is some advice on setting up your first phone call.

How do I know those women aren’t scammers?

Most of the women on our website are represented by local dating agencies, where they contact our representatives in person. Besides, we watch out for suspicious activity: if a member mass mails other members, uses certain words, etc, it triggers a red flag, and we run a thorough check on the member in question. Unfortunately, due to the large number of profiles, it is impossible to filter out all scammers. Therefore we urge our members to be on their guard and notify us of anything suspicious.

Are these women just trying to get out of their country by marrying a foreigner? Is she going to stay with me after she has moved to the United States?

We have to say up front that we cannot know the real intentions of our members. However, after you have corresponded with a lady for a while and, preferably, met her in person, you should have a pretty good idea of what she is about. Besides, in order to get unconditional permanent residency in the US she has to stay married to a US citizen for 2 years. Add processing time and you get about 3 years before she can leave. That's a lot of time for you to make a good impression on her :) Now, could a person be so calculating as to do this for a green card? It is possible, but in our experience most of the women coming here are honest and truly want to create a family. If her husband treats her with respect, she will stay. However, some guys can be jerks and get what they deserve. Then they cry all over the Internet about how she took advantage of them. According to the official figures, the divorce rate between international couples in US is several times lower than in regular American couples.

Isn’t it odd that some women here are looking for a man much older than themselves?

It is not uncommon for Russian women to marry older men, which may clash with American stereotypes. If you are going to marry a Russian woman, you might want to learn how to look beyond those. Of course, there are limits. If you are 40 and are looking for an 18-year-old bride, this might be a bit of a stretch, but 22-25 years old is ok. Remember that every person has their own standards. Some women don’t mind a significant age difference, while others do. They usually indicate their age preference in their profiles.

Are you compliant with the IMBRA law?

Yes, we are fully compliant. Upon request you will get IMBRA release that you might need for applying for her fiancee visa later. We are not happy about this law as it puts a lot of unnecessary burden on us and our clients, and we urge you to sign petitions to repeal it. However, as it stands today, the law is the law, so we are complying with it.

Have any of your clients actually found a wife through your website?

Yes, quite a few. You can read their testimonials.

The toll-free number listed on your site is not working.

If you are outside the continental US, you cannot use the US toll-free numbers. This includes our toll-free main and fax numbers. Outside of the continental US may or may not include Canada, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. For example some of our customers in Canada are able to call us on our toll free number, but others can't. If that's the case, please use our regular (toll) numbers or contact us via live chat free 24 hours a day.

What is your mailing address?

Here is our mailing address and other complete and updated contact information.You can forward all correspondence to this address, including payments, orders, and inquiries.

I haven't received a response to my email inquiry.

Most likely, your email provider has blocked the delivery of our email to you, because of its anti-spam policies. Sadly, many email providers, especially those like hotmail, yahoo, and AOL are blocking a lot of legitimate email messages because they suspect them to be SPAM. With today's enormous volume of SPAM on the Internet, email providers have to take steps to protect their users from huge amounts of unsolicited emails. They use automatic filters or rules by which they sort out messages into 3 categories: ones that should be delivered, ones that get deleted, and a category "in between" for those messages that end up in your "Bulk mail", "Junk mail" or similar folder. We never send unsolicited messages to anyone, yet some of our emails to our customers get blocked. If it does not help or you believe that's not the problem, contact us by phone or online chat and and we will be happy to help you. If you haven't received a response to your question via email, fist thing to do would be to check your "Bulk mail", "Junk mail" or similar folder. If it's there, please click "It's not spam" or similar button in your email program. If you don't see our message in your "Bulk mail", "Junk mail" or similar folder and you are using Hotmail or AOL please follow these instructions to unblock us.

I’ve sent several emails to your ladies and haven't received any responses.

First of all, login to your account and check your messages. Note that the ladies will not be replying directly to your email, but instead their messages are stored in your account. However, you should receive notifications from us about every message/response received. If you are not receiving them, please read the answer above to make sure you are receiving emails from us. If there are still no messages in your Inbox, make sure that you have a picture in your profile, and it is correctly displayed. Profiles without pictures get almost no replies. If you still get no response to more than 3 messages, let us know, and we will try to find out what's going on.

I can not send a message. The system says I have unopened mail from this member.

To protect the privacy of our members and to prevent spam, our system does not allow users to send a message to a member from whom you have 2 or more unopened messages. If you want to send him or her a message, you need to go back to your Communicator and open mail from her or him first. If you have accidentally deleted those unopened messages, please contact the administrator.

Why was my profile rejected?

If your profile was rejected, it must have violated some of our rules or seemed suspicious to our moderators. There are several things you can do to ensure your profile is not rejected next time:

- Post a picture. It must be a picture of yourself, with your face clearly visible. No nudity or private contact information on photos is allowed.

- Write a longer description. A profile with no description (or a meaningless or obscene one) will be rejected.

- Enter your private contact information (such as email, phone number) only in the fields specifically provided for it.

- Choose the country in which you are located at the time. If you normally live somewhere else, you can indicate that in your description.

- Provide your phone number.

I would like to know a little more about your company.

Please visit this page.