Talk:AnastasiaDate

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Talk:AnastasiaDate

Is this a proper wiki or just a PR/marketing effort by the company? Can we flag for deletion?

The Company is the subject of one chapter of the recent book Love in the Time of Algorithms. Apparently company is the biggest international dating site. Internet review indicate considerable diversity in analysis of the company and other related companies engaged in "mail order bride" sites from Russia and other countries. Company clearly engaged in huge publicity campaign to try to "straighten out" or "cover up" their actual business model, this wikipedia page is being edited regularly by company staff to try to remove questionable aspects. Page needs good sources. The recent book seems to be one of the few actually allowable references for this company. Book extimates revenues of $300 million per year, certainly worthy of a Wikipedia page. The question is, what should it say? Should site the book right?

One other source - is this worthy of wikipedia - are tonybochene.com and anastasia-date-scam.com among many other pages (these document the business, by a former employee of the company) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.87.152.13 (talk) 20:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The paragraph about scam doesn't have a proper reference link to Examiner.com. It goes to a website created by a former AnastasiaDate employee who was let go by the company. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iri2101 (talk • contribs) 19:01, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Someone (likely representing the company?) continues an edit war on the following -- please explain why this should not be part of the article -- AnastasiaDate was also mentioned in Dan Slater's novel, "Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating." In this book, Slater followed a small group of men on an unsuccessful attempt to meet women in person who they had met online via Anastasia's AmoLatina website (the women all coincidentally disappeared when the men arrived in Colombia to meet them). He concludes as well that "the staffs of local bridal agencies will often pose as the women in the profiles, responding to incoming messages in order to keep the rubles rolling in".

Anastasia was also featured in a movie Love Translated. http://www.lovetranslatedonfilm.com/. It could be part of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iri2101 (talk • contribs) 18:53, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

References

Tax evasion allegations

https://www.youtube.com/PRoFuK-r3o8?t=750

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV53HnM7244 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mRDs6etRPs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idGdWRy0WDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qr9jJpFVhs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kQiARc_wEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uy9O4O6N5Y http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/index.php?topic=16263.200 http://web.archive.org/web/20161122015316/http://www.anastasiadatefraud.com/

Dmitry Borisovich Volkov is the leader of an international dating-scam crime syndicate and its associated illegal money laundering operation. He is a professional catfisher and tax evader to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. If that's not bad enough, he absolutely positively loves himself. He is totally up himself. I think it's high time he was taken down a peg or two.

According to Forbes Russia, as of 2019, his estimated net worth is $750 million. Much of this money however has been stolen from end users of AnastasiaDate, ArabianDate, AsianDate, AfricanDate, AmoLatina and a whole clusterfuck of other shady dating websites including but not limited to dating.com. He seems to want to intentionally distance himself from these websites (because let's face it, they have a very poor reputation).

So there you go. That's how Mr Volkov got to be so rich, by a) date-scamming people all around the globe b) not paying any taxes on any of those earnings c) using front companies all over the place d) registering and deregistering companies in different names and in different places.

Preliminary online investigations reveal that Dmitry does not pay any taxes anywhere. Why should he, if Russian authorities are too slow to catch him? SDVentures uses offshore tax havens to avoid paying any taxes in Russia, Malta or anywhere else it has an "office". There is not even a simple phone number you can call to speak to anyone.

In 2012, Fortune reported that AnastasiaDate earned a whopping $110 million. In 2021, Forbes Russia named Dmitry Volkov "one of the top five global entrepreneurs". How he even got on the list in the first place is unbeknownst to man because his company SOL Networks that funnels half of that illegal money has possibly the lowest google rating on the entire internet (it's 1.1 out of 5 okay). See for yourself! It's no surprise that SOL Networks is now looking for both a Customer Support Representative and a Senior Accountant.

AnastasiaDate is one of the largest international dating scam network services in existence and is owned by Dmitry Borisovich Volkov. The Glassdoor rating for AnastasiaDate is a lousy 1.8/5.0 (remember, that lowly rating is coming from his own employees!). Even their own ex-employees admit that it is one giant big catfishing operation.

Women are paid directly by the site to chat and they are not permitted to give their personal contact details. Not ever. Even after one or more years of talking. Their commission is estimated to be about 25 to 30% of the chat rate. It's obviously in their best interests to stall the unsuspecting men as long as possible while they accrue credit card charges through the aforementioned SOL Networks.

The most expensive of all communication methods is the telephone, which costs a stratospheric 600 credits/hour (more than $200/hr). That's how Dmitry can afford to jetset around the globe at your expense.

The fact that AnastasiaDate is a scam is well known. The fact that it is all owned by Dmitry Volkov however is not widely known. That's about to change. No one seemed to know about all of his ill-gotten gains. It seemed Dmitry Borisovich Volkov could fall into a pile of shit and come out smelling of roses, especially in Russia where nobody seems to know what a charlatan he is.

AnastasiaDate has created not one but two fake YouTube channels, anastasiadatescam and anastasiadatefraud to try to pursuade men that this is not some sort of massive organised crime syndicate. Unfortunately, it is still ongoing.

Not surprisingly, in September 2015, Anastasiadate.com suffered from a series of DDoS attacks, rendering the site ineroperable (albeit temporarily). Given AnastasiaDate's track record, is it any surprise that this happened to them? Unfortunately, AnastasiaDate prosecuted the Ukrainian hackers responsible for the hacking and they served 5 years in jail. Dmitry himself should be in jail, okay. Not ordinary poor people exacting revenge on his illegal practices.

In the year 2005, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act]] (IMBRA) was passed to protect vulnerable foreign women from physically abusive husbands. Essentially, it totally failed on the scamming side of things because AnastasiaDate later used IMBRA policies to try to justify their "no contact" policy with women. In other words, they lie about what IMBRA is really about just so that they can extract more money from prolonged scamming methods (chat, video chat and telephone calls are hideously expensive). IMBRA is all about protecting foreign women from physically abusive America men. It has nothing to do with American men not being able to contact Russian and Ukranian women!

Dmitry Volkov also invests some of your money in art. Volkov himself however, could not draw to save himself. Possibly the most ironic part is that he literally thinks he can lecture us about "moral responsibility".

The money he earns through AnastasiaDate → SDVentures → SOL networks is laundered by funding other legitimate investments (such as real estate). But who knows, because Dmitry is like an onion; the more layers that are peeled off, the more it stinks. If one googles REDV's mailing address, for instance, anyone can see that it has Cayman Islands written all over it.

For all his accomplishments and investments though, Volkov himself is tighter than frog's arsehole. And that's water-tight. All you really need to know is that he has scammed and betrayed thousands upon thousands upon thousands of individuals over the course of several years. He knows it. And so far he has gotten away with it Scot-free. The main thing you need to know is that Volkov is a selfish, lying crook. Just ask any AnastasiaDate user in the past 10 years.

It seems rich people, the very people with the most money, think they are tax exempt. Not wanting to pay taxes is certainly understandable. But we believe it's really the prolonged date-scamming that Interpol should investigate Dmitry for. 112.213.221.244 (talk) 13:55, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I've renamed the page from AnastasiaDate to "Anastasiadate International", so we can actually expand the article with some other business related content. Also this way the page almost doesn't look like an advertisement :)

Merging AnastasiaDate with Anastasia International is like merging IAC and Match.com or SparkNetworks with JDate. AnastasiaDate.com is a website and AnastasiaInternational is a company that owns AnastasiaDate, Amolatina and other properties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.103.91.39 (talk) 12:00, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The company has done a page creation / merge without consensus (and has also removed the notice of the page appearing to be an advertisement) along with regularly removing balanced viewpoints, in an attempt to make it easy for them to use Wikipedia as an advertisement. There is clearly a lot of pressure from many IP and named accounts that are all closely associated with the company (not that this is a violation of wikipedia, but just to be aware of).

The IP 91.103.91.39 above which happens to be from the location of one of their corporate officers, as are many of the advertising-type edits, states that merging AnastasiaDate with Anastasia International is like merging IAC and Match.com. This is however not correct and is a formulation they would like to present in order to claim that citations that tend to focus on one of their websites do not apply to another one of their websites. Their well-funded publicity department has now also create AmoLatina; their goal is to play Whack-A-Mole with wikipedia, trying to build up wikipedia with references to articles they have planted in the press, in a type of Steve-Jobs reality distortion as if creating a web of positive reviews can actually cover up the fact that their business is based on fraud. They'd like to be able to call people in the press and tell them that they can trust Anastasia, their proof being - just look at Wikipedia - if it were really a fraud, the Wikipedia page would say that, but it doesn't, etc, etc.

In fact, there should only be 1 article; it should be called Anastasia International, and it should have a neutral point of view that includes a balanced, truthful perspective. Here is the rationale:

1. There is only 1 corporate entity, 1 payment processing system, 1 central customer service staff, 1 central server & database, 1 business model, 1 publicity team composed of a new guy and an old guy who for for living persons we dont need to mention here though they're easy to find, and 1 email list.

2. 90% of the material on the page applies more clearly to Anastasia International, not AnastasiaDate a. History of Anastasia -- which these same publicity officers put onto the wikipedia page -- is not the history of AnastasiaDate, but rather the history of the entire entity. It is an important history and applies to all the "sites" - the "sites" come and go; Anastasia will in fact have to create more, because of all the accurate negative publicity of the current ones is getting around. b. Books & films - applies literally to another website AmoLatina which at this point they've created their own page about - but Slater himself in his criticism quoted above already in the talk page talks about Rubles - this is Russian currency, not Colombian currency. Slater clearly considered the entities all as one fraudulent entity, even in spite of Anastasia's publicity agents attempts to have his book help their cover-up. But the fact is, the book is out, and like the Fortune article, makes clear, that Anastasia's chat ladies get paid to interact with men - which is not disclosed on Anastasia's websites, which instead mislead men into thinking they are building relationships. c. Corporate structure - applies to Anastasia International

3. Regarding the comparison to IAC and Match.Com - in fact this is not an accurate comparison. IAC owns many legally distinct businesses, Match.com is one of them; they have separate executives, separate staffs, technology databases, customer bases, business models, and IAC bought Match.com. In comparison, all the Anastasia sites are one legal entity with one shared history, one management team, one P/L, one business model.

It's quite certain that all the positive spin on all the Anastasia pages is from different employees of Anastasia, or the same one logging in from different accounts. No Anastasia customer would ever post a non-compensated positive review. This is a $100 million dollar company that claims to connect people who get married, but good luck finding anyone who has met and gotten married through their services (go ahead and try) - maybe you could find lets say 10 per year who somehow by sheer chance met just as a publicity stunt - $10million per each one? This is like a pyramid scam, where just a few people actually get a payoff but 99% are deceived into thinking they are actually part of something when actually they are just the suckers paying for the executive's yacht in exchange for nothing. Entyre (talk) 18:39, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

And here's that CEO/owners instagram page for you all to check out: https://www.instagram.com/volkov.sdv/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.221.244 (talk) 17:30, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• (Emphatically agree) with merger of AmoLatina (and any others) into this article. The company is notable...the individual websites they have operated fail miserably, and having seperate articles 'diffuses' the relevant information. It actually violates the spirit of WP:BALANCE, and the fact they are the same 'entity' is legally established by them. Redirects to this article (protected if necessary) would IMO be appropriate. Revent (talk) 20:34, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• If for nothing else than to simplify the BLP issues. Revent (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Wholehearted support for this merge for the reasons Revent gave. The company is notable, the individual websites are not.

No Merge - I came across the Amo Latina/Anastasia pages a couple of days ago. I have to say there seems to be editing from both sides here, both positive and negative. I feel the biggest issue is Entrye’s involvement, who nominated the pages to be merged, and carried out a number of large scale edits and changed many of the facts about Amo Latina to make it look less notable. As everyone should be able to see, he’s recently been banned for WP:SOC. Sadly looking at his edits, I believe they were made in bad faith, and may have even had a WP:COI.

Firstly, the IP from ‘corporate offices’ mentioned above. The IP is from the island of Malta, which is not where the company has any offices located. Secondly, Entrye mentions – “The company has removed material to make it look like an advertisement”. Looking over the history, I fail to see where this has happened. I fail to see where Entyre has mentioned AmoLatina, which is what the merger should be about.

^^ Yes but SDVentures owns AnastasiaDate and they have an office in MALTA ^^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.221.244 (talk) 17:17, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Finally, I feel the articles cannot be merged. They seem to be two separate companies from what I can see, and I have now updated the Amo Latina page with as much correct information as possible to demonstrate this. The fact Anastasia International was sold in 2011 further adds to this theory. The merger will just create a mess of a page under the corporate header of Anastasia International, and may in theory list websites on their page that they no longer own. Verdict78 (talk) 11:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Support

I'm in favour of it staying. The company is big enough - let it stay and wiki-users will ensure that NPOV emerges.

But, it needs a tag to flag it up.

Ok, Tag added as per the above. Bensimo (talk) 18:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

This company, Anastasia International, is fast becoming infamous for their fraudulent operations, and now for their false manipulation of the public media. Everyone in the online dating industry is aware that they run websites that are continuously posting women as members who are not real members, or women who joined one of their "agencies" but are unaware of how their profiles are being actively used by the website to fraudulently manipulate the male members into paying truly excessive fees to read and respond to messages written by the site and/or agent employees believing them to be written by a women who are attracted to them.

For the record I am the managing director of one of Anastasia International's direct competitors in the areas of Chinese and Asian dating. As such I cannot claim to be impartial and readers should take that into consideration. (I will refrain from naming our sites to avoid anyone thinking this post is strictly self promotional.) However, frankly, as a competitor I too hope this page is allowed to stay. In fact I hope that Wikipedia will not allow the page to be removed, especially by Anastasia International. Sooner or later, as Wikipedia and the public start to realize the lengths this company will go to to manipulate public opinion by manipulating this page, the more obvious it will become that they simply cannot be trusted.

Our two sites are in direct competition with their AsianBeauties.com, so I will stick to discussing that site as an example of how they operate. I have been personally contacted by over one hundred victims of AsianBeauties.com who are incensed by the manner in which AsianBeauties.com manipulated them emotionally in order to persuade then to pay substantial money for services that were not real and and to meet and fall in love with women who did not exist. These victims generally were taken for in excess of $1,000 USD before reality set in, and one of them reported having spent over $15,000 on AsianBeauties.com without ever actually meeting one real woman.

This fleecing is done with absolutely no regard for the fact that AsianBeauties.com is causing these men to fall deeply in love with the charade they have created. Plans are being made to marry these false fiances, sometimes homes are being purchased in which to house them, flights are bought, weddings are planned, friends and acquaintances are being publicly informed of the pending nuptials, and in the end, hearts are being broken, pride is being stolen, psyches are being damaged (sometimes beyond repair) and dreams are being shattered. And it is painfully obvious that not only does no one in charge of Anastasia International care about this, but that they seem to revel in it. This is a company that either has no moral compass, or if it does, then that moral compass is pointed in the wrong direction.

The irony is that the billionaire owner of all this, Dmitry Volkov who owns SDVentures who owns SOL networks who owns AnastasiaDate literally performs lectures "about moral responsibility", I shit you not.

These men were all desperate to find a forum where they could publicly tell their story and warn the world about AsianBeauties.com, and I can't think of a better place for them (and thousands more like them) to find their voice and achieve their purpose of warning others than to be allowed to add to this page on Wikipedia. Based on common sense and also the multiple complaints about all of their sites that can be found doing proper Google searches, I suggest that it is safe to assume that if AsianBeauties.com is a Scam then so too are all their other dating sites. And based on that, if Anastasia International makes $140,000,000 this year as they predict, then if they average $1,000 per victim there should be about 140,000 angry and hurt victims this year alone ready to add their thoughts and experiences to this Wikipedia page.

Look, yes it's like a rabbit hole. I refused to belive that they were all in on it. I was wrong. They are! It's a giant cluster-fuck of dating scam sites.

But be warned, there likely is no such thing as an NPOV. There is Anastasia International (the scammer and its toadies) and there are their countless victims. There doesn't seem to be anyone neutral.

Posted by JohnatCCCo JohnatCCCo (talk) 06:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry but there are many, many better places for victims to warn the world. Wikipedia is not a good place because as said below we require reliable sources not first hand accounts. If you want to help these people, I suggest you ask them to contact the media and other places likely to publish reliable sources we can use. Nil Einne (talk) 12:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I do agree with some of the points made above by JohnatCCCo. I think the article on AmoLatina should remain live. Verdict78 (talk) 11:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

edit war about Slater research

Wikipedia is not here to serve as a battleground for issues between your companies. I have stubbed the article back, removing both positive and negative sections, to anything (a) sourced reliably, and (b) sourced only to primary sources but which is non-controversial. If an edit-war continues, I will simply fully protect the article in this state. STOP IT. Black Kite (talk) 21:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• See also Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Anastasia_International. Black Kite (talk) 21:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, on the one side of the war is the company Anastasia International; on the other side, is everyone else including especially thousands of angry customers, as well as any press who did any actual research. However, Anastasia has devoted a huge effort to trying to get the mainstream press to overlook the big nasty truth, that it isn't a dating company at all, but rather a scam - so some press have actually printed the Anastasia press releases without researching. You might want to read the relevant chapter of Slater's book carefully before concluding that it cannot be used as a reference. Slater clearly states in multiple instances that the company is a fraud: the women disappear when the men want to actually meet them, and the explanation for it is that the women are paid. It is a serious piece of research by Penguin, a well-respected publisher. It was certainly vetted by many attorneys before being published. It is the epitome of a reliable source.

Rest assured, that every positive twist in the entire edit history of this article was written by an Anastasia employee. Just trace the IPs if you doubt it. But the "neutral" voices - which you call negative - were written by many people who have learned about the company independently. Actually, the "negative" POV is likely the only consensus apart from the COI employees. The Fortune & Slater research are the most trustworthy pieces about this company and indicate this already. Inevitably over the next year more will come out and show, if not now, then later, what the reviewed and respected consensus is about the Co. Entyre (talk) 11:15, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not saying Slater isn't a reliable source - it is. But, of course, quotes can be cherrypicked from it to show Anastasia in both a positive and negative light (even though, as you say, the overall tone is negative). If someone would like to introduce information from the Slater book that gives an overview of the source, rather than out-of-context snippets, then that would certainly be allowed (as long, of course, as it didn't stray into WP:SYNTH). Black Kite (talk) 12:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
  • That is a good point about WP:SYNTH - here is a summary of the Slater Chapter, which I claim anything other than a strong negative impression would indeed be WP:SYNTH. From the beginning of the chapter, Slater interviews Neil Bryant, who is described as an alcoholic British executive of Anastasia working in Russia, who says "Oh my God - I can't believe what I do for a living." When asked point blank "Are the girls on your site real?" the executive refused to answer, saying "We're going to let the journalist [Slater] decide."
  • Then Slater gets to the "Romance tour" which the company admits is a "publicity" stunt but which takes up 80% of the chapter (although Slater states that the vast majority of the men who interact with Anastasia's sites are only engaging with the website and never manage to actually meet anyone -- which the company executive rationalizes as being because the men are "Keyboard Romeos" and Slater points out that these men never actually even knew they were scammed. Slater's summary of the Anastasia position: "Therefore, much of the scamming goes undetected by Anastasia's users - no harm, no foul.")
  • Slater begins this by pointing out that almost every man on the tour has stories proving how he was scammed through Anastasia's sites. Even the very rare men who actually meet women via Anastasia find the women are some kind of scammer or another: "For every Western man looking not for a wife but for quick sex abroad, there is a woman looking not for a relationship but for a free night out in her hometown, shopping for shoes at the mall, and eating at restaurants that she and her family could never afford. As for explicit scamming, it's well-known among Web site users that the staffs of local bridal agencies will often pose as the women in the profiles, responding to incoming messages in order to keep the rubles rolling in. Nearly every man on the tour has a story of chatting up a beautiful woman online and then offering to fly down, only to be told, suddenly, that she'll be out of town or busy working during those dates. Two of the romance tourists on this trip came down specifically because they'd been corresponding with women they wanted to meet. In both cases, the men explained, the women were away doing a modeling tour and couldn't meet up."
  • Then he goes on to point out how a translator mis-translates intentionally. Then Slater tears apart the fake success statistics provided by Anastasia, showing that the only 1 example of a real "marriage" is even overplayed: "An alcoholic with a seething, hostile energy, Bovey comes across as a psychopath even to the tour's more fringe figures. And yet Bovey's marriage to a woman who cannot understand a word he says is Amo Latina's biggest success story."
  • Slater concludes his chapter by implying that Anastasia is not the only shady operator in international dating. In fact, he doesn't even mention a single one that he would recommend.
  • For Slater, his entire investigation of Anastasia can be summed up as it is a fraudulent player in a fraudulent industry. The only good part of it seems to be the justice in it, because in his eyes it appears that the men who go on the tours are such low-class belching, alcoholic, sex-crazed fools that they deserve to be scammed.
  • In this summary, I have not cherry-picked negative examples, I have summarized the entire chapter. Black Kite, If you provide me your address I will send you a free copy of this book for you to read yourself.
  • Unfortunately, Black Kite, you are in the unenviable position that a $100+ million dollar fraud operation would like you to allow them to use this page to try to create an impression of legitimacy. Apparently what happened with the Slater book is that they tried to get yet another journalist to gloss over their scam (they wanted him to go on the trip), but it backfired and he saw through it; rest assured they are trying to get him to backpedal what he said but it seems unlikely as he broke the unwritten agreement to give them a nice fluff piece in the first place. Now they are desperate to try to do damage control and would very much like to erase any history of the Slater investigation. If you can provide the names and addresses where I can send 10 copies of the Slater book so that all the Wiki administrators can read the chapter and figure out what is NPOV based on this most-in-depth analysis by any reputable journalist, I will send it. Entyre (talk) 19:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

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• I came into this 'randomly' (the page popped up on 'Check Wikipedia' for some syntax error, but I chimed in a bit (points at edit history). NPOV requires that the reliable sources be accurately and fairly represented...but, in this case apparently the only reliable non-first-person sources are negative. I looked up and filled out the citation the rest of the way, and the paragraph needs work. Badly.

For something like this, the 'Slater info' definitely needs to be in the article, however it needs to be very specifically sourced, to pages and with quotes. Saying "somewhere in some un-named chapter of this book, this guy says" is not acceptable. WP:BLP applies here, especially to 'defamatory statements', which is apparently the entire chapter.

• BTW, Penguin is an 'imprint', not a publisher...when citing a book, the best way to get the 'real' bibliographic info is to put the LCCN or ISBN (w/o hyphens) into catalog2.loc.gov or www.worldcat.org (the first is better, but less inclusive)...it's very common, for example, for the 'printed' date that people use to be the copyright date, not the publication date. This can make it /really hard to pin down what edition of a book someone is citing.

The exact came thing applies to the court case. We can use the 'news coverage' of it. We can use, with care, specific brief quotes from the actual court filings to illustrate the actual claims.

We can't cite the news story, and then only quote parts of what they were quoting that someone else (AI) wrote in a court document. Well, we can, very briefly, but not entire paragraphs that are 'unproven' defamatory statements by AI vs. someone else. This completely violates WP:IMPARTIAL. You would have to give equal weight to the defense filings, and TBH neither one (as they are 'first-person) is a RS for anything other than 'this was in a court filing'.

Given the way the court system works, what's in the asssertations of a civil lawsuit like this only has a very vague legally defined relationship to the truth. They aren't stating 'facts', or even things they claim are facts. They are saying, explicitly, "These are a list of the 'causes of action' we believe we can prove to a 'civil standard' (i.e. preponderance of the evidence, not the criminal standard) that are specifically listed in the law as allowing us to request 'relief' from the court."

It's the difference between the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, and the later 'wrongful death' civil lawsuit. Revent (talk) 19:45, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Lawsuit versus EM Online Ltd. dba Elena's Models

Here are 2 references for Anastasia vs Elena's Models court case. This was also deleted by Black Kite. I think it, or a summary, should go back.

Anastasia International on May 1, 2013 filed a suit versus the Australian company EM Online Ltd. dba Elena's Models, in US Federal Court in New York. The complaint resolves around the sites anastasiadatefraud.com and ruadvadventures.com, allegdly owned by Elena's Models, which according to the complaint, have fabricated negative testimonials, and used the trademarked name AnastasiaDate illegally.

"The anastasiadatefraud.com website purports to show extracts from e-mails written by women with profiles on Anastasiadate.com. The e-mail extracts all have a common message - the women featured on Anastasiadate.com are not truly looking for a relationship with United States men, but instead are contract workers paid to correspond with Anastasia customers and break their hearts. These allegations are false, and the emails from the women appear to be fake. Anastasiadate goes to great length to ensure that the women featured on the website are real people who are genuinely interested in dating and marrying United States men."

"The ruadventures.com website, while pretending to be an independently produced forum for the exchange of information about international dating services, in fact is only selecting and publishing negative information about Elena's Models competitors (including Anastasia) and positive reviews about Elena's Models service. The website contains false information about customers' use of the Anastasiadate service which ... has been fabricated by Elena's Models," the complaint states.

"CourtHouseNews Service by Rebekah Kearn". Retrieved 2013-05-06.

Add'l cite: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/new-york/nysdce/1:2013cv02919/411265/

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— Preceding unsigned comment added by Entyre (talk • contribs) 2013-05-11 -- Please sign your comments. Thanks. -- 19:53, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Funny that update is removed... When company start fraudlent court case, wikipedia tell only company claims... even case is terminated. There is another story by courthouse news http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/10/23/62286.htm but to this fraudlent company older one is better reference. When update was removed ... wikipedia lost something... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juha123456 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Careful reading of the court documents reveals that the judge dismissed the case because it was without merit. The owner of the anastasiafraud site was simply a defrauded customer who provided a link to elena models. I am thinking that for completeness if we mention the site a link should be provided?Gmdean2015 (talk) 00:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The allegations are almost certainly true. The problem is obtaining wikipedia standard references for this scamming behaviour not that the allegations are false. As for going to great lengths, this is highly debatable. The only evidence is the publicity material on Anastasias own pages, somewhat contradicted by the complaints to BBB, action fraud etcGmdean2015 (talk) 14:57, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

BLP policy

Please specifically review WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSPS before making further edits to this article. Court filings are essentially 'self-published'... though printed by others, they are specifially allowed to make unproven claims. Revent (talk) 20:02, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Merge Removed

I've boldly removed the merger based on the information given above on this talk page Verdict78 (talk) 14:31, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted your edits as they do not seem to be NPV, nor accurate, nor consistent with the consensus of the talk page, nor in accordance with the direction Revent pointed out above. Alexis418 (talk) 08:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC) — Alexis418 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

The talk page is attempting to merge a company into the page of a company that no longer own it. Also there were numerous objections to one user's rants who was a sock puppet and was banned. This is why the merge was removed. Verdict78 (talk) 10:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted the edits again, as all evidence on the company's sites (such as anastasiasites.com) and all other references indicate there is no such 2011 business transaction, and on the other hand that actually the sites do continue to run as one unit. I just used Skype to call AmoLatina's number from their front page 800 844 3978 and a man with a Russian accent answered. I asked if my Anastasiadate site account would also allow me to login to AmoLatina, and he assured me that registering at any of the family of 4 sites would enable me to login and engage at any of these 4 sites. I am not claiming this is a valid reference because it is 1st person and not published, of course, but it's the common-sense test. Can you provide sources to backup your claim that these are completely different companies that do not have a common operational or entity basis? Alexis418 (talk) 08:52, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

A sykpe call is a good way of checking this, however just because the membership allows access to all the sites, doesn't mean Anastasia International own all 5 sites, including AmoLatina. From what I can see, the couple founded AmoLatina, but there is no mention that the site is owned by Anastasia International anywhere. Entyre pretty much destroyed this article singlehandedly, and the only reason the merge was requested is because of the work he's carried out. He was a sock puppet acting from what I can see with a WP:COI. Finally, I believe AmoLatina.com passes notability. How the company is setup is irrelevant. Therefore there's no need for a merge, and the article about Anastasia International should be improved. This is something I am trying to do, but you keep reverting my edits. Verdict78 (talk) 11:03, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

About your Third Opinion request: Your request for a Third Opinion has been removed due to the lack of thorough talk page discussion as required by the Third Opinion project (and, indeed, by all content dispute resolution). That's if the dispute is over the transaction. If it's over the merge, then merges are a process in themselves which will be decided by a consensus evaluation at the end of the process; Third Opinions and other forms of dispute resolution are not available. The proper way to contest a merge is not to remove the merge tags, but to follow the process given at WP:MERGE. Finally, if I might make a comment about the discussion, it would be much better if you were to focus on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for the inclusion and exclusion of material than on the kinds of matters you are discussing above. Remember that your own personal experiences and information learned by telephone calls or other interactions cannot be used in Wikipedia due to the no original research policy; everything which is used here must be substantiated by an inline citation to a reliable source as defined by Wikipedia and must not give any aspect of an article undue weight. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your input on this article. Hopefully as you mention we can find some reliable resources regarding the ownership so that this merge can be solved. Verdict78 (talk) 09:22, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

fact check

Recent proposed edits suggest:

"In 2011, the company was sold in a private transaction. During this transaction, AnastasiaDate, AmoLatina, AfricanBeauties, and AsianBeauties all became stand-alone dating sites."

However there is no evidence of this, and in fact the anecdotal evidence suggests it is not true. Likewise, the company does not operate from Bangor, Maine. The primary offices are in Moscow, with some publicity in New York.

Alexis418 (talk) 04:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

This has been removed until it can be proven. Verdict78 (talk) 21:05, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Here is a press release from Anastasia from earlier this month. I also found many more, but go ahead and search on your own. Do you think they are lying about where they have offices?

Alexis418 (talk) 07:37, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

This is why I have removed any information about them being based in Maine. In regards to your message on my talk page, I am trying to assume good faith, but when you are blindly reverting any edit without reading the article, its hard to do so. You made comments about the location and also the takeover. All this info has been removed in the latest edit. Verdict78 (talk) 10:00, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

References

controversy section

The most reliable independent sources available are neutrally represented here.

Alexis418 (talk) 04:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Verdict78 could you kindly read the background material references before you delete them again, then we can talk about them here in the talk page.

Alexis418 (talk) 07:37, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Which key background references am I deleting exactly? All that is happening is I'm trying to change the content so that it addresses citation issues and is an improved article. Verdict78 (talk) 10:01, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

You're deleting the fortune reference & the Slater reference. Have you read these documents? They are the only top-tier professional journalism that has been thorough, lawyer-reviewed, publisher-reviewed, and published with an author's name. You can of course find backup for what they say in thousands of reviews on the internet, but it doesn't matter.

Your intention to improve the page is noble, but perhaps you can explain exactly what your goal is here. If a company's practices are described in reputable sources as controversial, that is what the wiki article should reflect, right? Controversial subjects are of course the hardest part of collaborative editing, one would think, but to try to pretend there is no controversy isn't an answer is it?

If you focused on carefully researching Anastasia International on your own, instead of trying to block me for disagreeing with you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Alexis418 , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Anastasia_International ) perhaps you could figure out the nature of the company and best express a balanced viewpoint.

What exactly is your concern with the article as it was? You think it is better to have no references and no controversy, than to have references that illuminate controversial aspects of the article?

Alexis418 (talk) 21:36, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay - I have included the two references that you say are essential to the article. I must admit, I hadn't realised I'd removed the CNN Money article, an error on my part. Just to clarify, as I did on one of the discussions, I'm not trying to 'ban you'. Wikipedia needs to be neutral and if you are editing in a negative way or have a conflict of interest this needs to be known. Finally, my aim is to improve this article. You ask my concern, for a company with $110 million and the coverage they've had this article is a mess. With the merger up in the air and also the improvement notices. I'm trying to clean it up. Verdict78 (talk) 10:24, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I am about to reveal futher evidence that many of the women are married. I'll put it youtube, because there are obviously AnastasiaDate employees protecting themselves here. I'll also make a video about that too.112.213.221.244 (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Improvements

I've changed the article to an improved version. To explain my edits, the article needed a lot of clarification and also had a number of issues regarding 'facts', which I am currently attempting to address. As the merger still hasn't gone through, I've removed the content regarding Dan Slater. This is about Amo Latina, which currently still has a page on Wikipedia so we do not need to repeat this information on every page linked to AmoLatina. Also this information isn't about Anastasia International. Secondly, I made a change a couple of weeks ago regarding the offices of Anastasia International. Since this article was changed from AnastasiaDate there seems to be some major confusion regarding this. It seems AnastasiaDate is based in New York and Russia, however I've eventually found the reference I came across clearly showing Anastasia International is based in Bangor, Maine. Verdict78 (talk) 10:40, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted your whitewash and misinformation again. The only thing correct about the BBB page is that Anastasia gets an F in the eyes of its consumers. Aside from that, the address, website address, are all ancient and no longer correct. I showed you a current press release that clearly states Moscow and New York. Legally, there are also Cyprus entities, but your Maine theory is really out in left field.

Have you even read the quotes where rubles are mentioned in the Slater right in the history here? You think this is about Colombian Rubles?

If you want to improve the page, you have to start by improving your understanding of the subject material.

Alexis418 (talk) 08:38, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

To keep this brief, I've reverted it back. The version you are reverting to doesn't have a citation for the head office. If I'm in the wrong, please explain why you have yet to reference that point, instead of sitting on a talk page and reverting other editors hard work. For other editors reading this, the articles I have seen all refer to AnastasiaDate when discussing addresses. It's clear from BBB that AnastasiaInternational and AnastasiaDate operate from two different offices. Lastly, the change you keep reverting to has NO citations, yet I'm been accused of vandalism for adding them. If you are going to do something, please improve this article. That is what I am attempting to do and you seem to be blocking any attempt at progress. Verdict78 (talk) 22:45, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

As I stated to your earlier, that BBB link address is wrong. Here is a reference from one of their top executives stating their location, from this year (2013): http://www.onlinepersonalswatch.com/news/2013/02/interview-with-anastasiadates-lawrence-cervantes.html - note NEW YORK AND MOSCOW, not MAINE. If you want to add this reference to the article, go ahead.

Perhaps instead of doing "hard work" editing first, you should do "hard work" researching first, so that you can then produce an accurate document. As I have stated on multiple pages, I can help you to do so, you can even have the credit for doing the nice editing if you want. But you have to be accurate, which means understanding the business this company is in and the company itself. I've asked before and ask again, have you read the Slater, Fortune & Kiev Post articles? Once you have read these I will help you with other sources.

Alexis418 (talk) 06:46, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The companies are not the same. The article you refer to is about Anastasia Date. Here are both BBB articles about the two separate companies, Anastasia Date and Anastasia International. This company bio here clearly states that the company was sold in 2011. I've therefore removed the merger as it is clear they are two separate companies. Please use your "vast knowledge" to improve this article, not press revert, and sit on a talk page questioning the level of work others are putting in Verdict78 (talk) 08:01, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm reprinting the following from the COI page so there is a permanent record of Verdict78's method of using external references:

That is hilarious, Verdict78. I don't have an external relationship with Anastasia, none whatsoever. I did in the past and I acknowledged it, I have an interest just as many people with knowledge of topics have that knowledge related to their interest in the topic. I doubt you could say the same. Is it a coincidence that the chrunchbase page you just decided to reference was modified to say exactly what you wanted it to say in the past few days? 10 days ago it didn't say what it does now - http://web.archive.org/web/20130807215042/http://crunchbase.com/company/anastasia-web - you've had it changed, or changed it yourself, to support a fantasy that Anastasia's dark past was cut off from its present. Yes, there's a conflict of interest here - now how about you tell the truth and reveal it, because you are the one with the conflict of interest to whitewash the company's business practice. Who is paying you, and how much, to whitewash the Wikipedia page for Anastasia? Alexis418 (talk) 08:46, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for documenting this, nice to see you are trying to deflect the blame away from the fact you are being investigated for being a sockpuppet and also for COI and making out I'm the bad guy in all of this. Also why are you still reverting edits with no meaningful improvements or proof of your stance? Other than rubbishing others attempts to improve the article? Verdict78 (talk) 10:14, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Verdict, You're the one obsessing about other editors. You're the one who is modifying external websites in order to justify your version of history. And quite likely, you're the one being compensated to whitewash this article.

The fact is, the references that are in the version I reverted to are more relevant, peer-reviewed, high-quality journalism - exactly the kind of thing that Wikipedia should and does reference and use as its base. You, on the other hand, are referencing documents that you changed in the past week in order to have an external page to reference for you version of history. Now there are two possibilities. One, you don't know anything about this company and are completely fantasizing it all. Or, two, you have insider information provided by your handlers who are paying you to try to pretty up this article to their liking.

As I said before, let's try to document here in the talk page exactly how you and I differ *on our analysis of ANASTASIA* rather than getting into a fight and name-calling contest? Let's start with the question of whether the Slater and Fortune material is a relevant reference to include regarding ANASTASIA, how does that sound? Alexis418 (talk) 07:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Alexis418, lets work together on this. It seems that we're getting no where arguing. Just to make it clear, on the recent version I was removing one reference, the Slater reference. Rather than attempting to cover multiple points at once, I agree with starting with the Slater reference. The reality is we are still discussing the merger. While AmoLatina is live, I feel Slaters article should be on that. If the pages merged then obviously it should be moved here. The main coverage of the book is about the AmoLatina tour. Since there is an AmoLatina page currently, that is where I feel it should be presented. Verdict78 (talk) 18:17, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Verdict78, I am happy to work together with you on it. Many people already commented on the Slater piece, but it's still not clear whether you even read it. Can you make that clear please.

I have a suggestion about the 1-page versus multiple-page issue also. Perhaps you should try to create a page for Cupid Media http://www.cupidmedia.com/contact.cfm - this is also a massive mega million-dollar company (I don't work for them) - like Anastasia, they also have a bunch of sites that are all under one corporate umbrella. See whether other editors would support having multiple pages for all their sub-sites, or just one page. Then whatever is the resolution there, bring it back here. OR you can try to find some data on whether AmoLatina and Anastasia are distinct corporate identities (but don't edit any external pages to try to back up your point, I'd catch that.) Hint: they are not distinct corporations, they're the same legal entity. You can start by calling the Anastasia phone # and ask them to help you with the research. How do you like these ideas? Alexis418 (talk) 20:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I've done some research of my own in the last couple of days and contacted Anastasia International and also BBB. Here's what they had to say. Anastasia said that David and Elena did in fact sell the company in 2011. The lady at Anastasia International said there were still links between the companies, but legally they were separate identities. Over the coming months any trace of the companies been linked will be removed. I tried to access AnastasiaSites.com, which suggests this is currently happening. Also the website is registered to Pamela Natasha Pouponneau. That isn't David or Elena, who apparently own the entire group of companies, which further indicates to me that they no longer own the company. Secondly, I contacted BBB regarding their two articles you can see above. They said that the two articles were separate as it was clear to them they were two separate legal identities.

Since you admitted working for the company, how do you know so much about the legal side of things? You can't have been very high in the chain if you didn't know who owned the company? Since you've been asking me to prove why the companies are not linked, with these recent developments, can you prove how they are linked, since 2011. Because I can't find anything suggesting they are. Verdict78 (talk) 14:30, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

David and Elena sold their mini service long, long before 2011. Dmitri has been the owner for many years. Same owner, and same management (Larry Cervantes). That's quick work of you to get the Anastasiasites domain changed past week, formerly it properly listed all the Anastasia International Sites, now you've got it to redirect to AnastasiaDate. Good work Larry, nice coordination Verdict78. Sounds like the PR Wikipedia job at Anastasiadate has been escalated all the way to Larry now as a high priority, so EXPECT MANY PSEUDO EDITORS LIKE VERDICT78 MORE TO COME SOON. Funny, I just reviewed your talk page Verdict78, seems you are also devoted to "improvements" to Suburban Express article always with a nice flavor for Suburban Express, another client perhaps? But maybe you should have stuck to that one, because the Anastasia mafia connection is bad karma.

Here you go: http://www.anastasiasaffiliate.com/faq.aspx -- Read "Can I choose different program options for Anastasia International web-sites." When signing up you choose one program option for all sites: AnastasiaDate, AmoLatina, AsianBeauties, AfricaBeauties. Example: If you select Per First Order Program, this is the only program that will be active across AnastasiaDate, AmoLatina, AsianBeauties, AfricaBeauties.

Some "separate entity"... not.

http://www.anastasiasaffiliate.com/contacts.aspx

551 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10176 Phone (800) 950 0075 E-mail: affiliate@anastasiadate.com Instant Messengers: 414-459-351

Alexis418 (talk) 20:48, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Protected

I'm glad to see that the two editors concerned are using the talkpage; however, since the reverting is getting us nowhere, I have protected the article to prevent this carrying on. Can I suggest that you create a sandbox version in userspace that you can both edit as much as you want until you have a mutually acceptable version? Black Kite (talk) 11:01, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Biased

First of all, I don't know anything about this company (I saw an ad on TV and came here to check it out), but somebody clearly hates Anastasia -- this whole article is nothing but an attack on them. 70.183.80.165 (talk) 12:53, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

That's because they are in the business of scamming. It's quite possibly the world's largest scam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.221.244 (talk) 13:51, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Move Proposal

I am suggesting that this article is moved from Anastasia International to AnastasiaDate. I originally came across this page after Googling AnastasiaDate, and if I'm honest is the only reason I registered to Wikipedia. Since then I've got quite interested in the site if I'm honest! I've spent some time reading to understand this situation, and as far as I can see this content should be under AnastasiaDate not Anastasia International. Ive tried to summarise the points below.

• AnastasiaDate is the notable brand - I only see Anastasia International mentioned when talking about the russian couple, the name change or their address. When they are discussed in the media, they refer to AnastasiaDate. From the talk page it is clear we don't need two pages to describe Anastasia Date/International, but I cannot see why this content is presented on a page about Anastasia International and not Date when they are the same entity. Surely we should be choosing the most notable of the two names?

• Anastasia International is only ever mentioned in the press alongside AnastasiaDate. Further proving that Anastasia International isn't the notable brand here.

• Finally - AnastasiaDate was the original name, and as far as I can see is still the name of the website. Surely we should be making it easier for the reader to understand? The name change to Anastasia International isn't even cited on the article, as a citation for that is needed.

If no one has any problems with this move, I'll look to move the page on the 10th of January 2014. I think this is a no brainer.

HarryandDumble (talk) 11:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

That is a bad approach, HarryandDumble. It does seem you are an astroturfer. Clearly you have the same idea as the rest of the astroturfers for this company, to try to create as many wikipedia pages as possible in hopes that some of them will appear unsullied even though your company is a gigantic fraud. The AsianBeauties (which you have now changed to AsianDate? because of how the reputation of how you defrauded so many people with the Asianbeauties name) here in the Philippines is the most represensible illegal operation and you should be ashamed to accept money to promote it. 120.29.103.21 (talk) 02:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

The title is misleading, that's all I'm attempting to address. Not edit, or create extra pages. Simply move it to where I personally feel is more appropriate.

HarryandDumble (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. DrKiernan (talk) 17:55, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

---

Anastasia International → AnastasiaDate – Currently the AnastasiaDate page is blocked from moves. As above you can see there was no real discussion about the company and this move. I'm now looking to request a formal move based on the info above. HarryandDumble (talk) 10:23, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• More explanation is needed. The proposed title doesn't seem to match the content. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:14, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment - Thanks SmokeyJoe. This is the first time I have requested a controversial move, so could do with a little guidance. Are you suggesting I amend the article ready for the move? In regards to more explanation, I've tried to cover it in the next paragraph.

It seems that this page was created when it was decided that there couldn't be two pages, one for Anastasia International and one for Anastasia Date. It was therefore rightly suggested that the page should appear under one page. From reading between the lines, Anastasia International was chosen because it was the 'parent brand'. Since that merge it seems users have been working on this page tirelessly, but after their efforts, its clear to me that Anastasia Date is the notable brand here. It is also very confusing that there is an article for Anastasia International and not Date. Also, all the references refer to Anastasia Date, only briefly mentioning International. Therefore my suggestion is rather than question the integrity of this article, moving it to AnastasiaDate and improving would be by far the best and most straightforward option. This discussion as you can see above has been live for weeks with little discussion. I would move the article myself, but moves to the URL have been blocked, so requires an admin to carry it out. HarryandDumble (talk) 13:55, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Move after spending sometime working on this article in the past, I'd say this is a good idea. Seems to bring together each users worries and come up with a valid solution. Verdict78 (talk) 11:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

• Support If the article is right, the company rebranded in 2009, and I think the newer name caught on. I've heard it, but not the older name. The new name is also more descriptive. --BDD (talk) 17:47, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Proposed merge with AmoLatina

It's just more of the same; much of the article is in fact about the parent company. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:59, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

No Move - AmoLatina is a notable website. It has similarities with AnastasiaDate and they've been mentioned in the same articles. A number of the articles (references) are about AmoLatina, however, not AnastasiaDate. AnastasiaDate gets a passing mention simply because its their parent company. For that reason I don't think the two should be merged. Humanity4285 (talk) 18:45, 26 June 2014 (UTC)— Humanity4285 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Proposed merge with AfricaBeauties

As above. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:00, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:AnastasiaDate/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TheQ Editor (talk · contribs) 00:11, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but this looks like a potential quick fail. I'll list the things the article needs to improve other than the NPOV problems. TheQ Editor (Talk) 00:11, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• The lead is too short.
• main website is a dead link
• There are contractions in the article: don't, don't, haven't, isn't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded.
• ref 27 needs accessdate

Other than that, I can't really say more until the NPOV problems are fixed. Then, I could do a final assessment of the article.TheQ Editor (Talk) 17:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

No Move - As above. Humanity4285 (talk) 18:46, 26 June 2014 (UTC)— Humanity4285 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Merge Proposals Removed

No activity for 30 days or discussion therefore closed and notices have been removed. Humanity4285 (talk) 22:55, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Advertisement notice

I'm interested in solving the advertising problem on this page. I have a few ideas what could be done with it, but if anyone has any suggestions then please post them here. Humanity4285 (talk) 21:59, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

As a first step, how would it be if you were to declare exactly what your connection is to the company? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Conflict of interest editing

This article has been at COIN three times:

• Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_63#Anastasia_International
• Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_66#Anastasia_International
• and currently, Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#AnastasiaDate

I listed some connected contributors above and have added a section to the bottom of the beige box to allow conflicted editors to create "edit requests" here on the Talk page. If you have a conflict of interest please use that function to suggest changes here, instead of directly editing the article. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 11:52, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Guardian article

Background: Jytdog you worked with my contributions but you returned this sentence to the contro section: "A report in The Guardian in October 2014 found examples of such exploitation on both sides." I see two anecdotes in the Guardian, one was an anecdote on Todd

While Todd's expectations for what a Ukrainian bride might offer were patently unrealistic, it was troubling to watch him venture ever further down the path of disappointment. Many of the men on the tour were less sympathetic characters than Todd, but all of them were lonely. Some of them were disillusioned with dating scenes in the west, where women did not give them a look; others recovering from a divorce or the death of a spouse.

The point the Guardian author appears to make is that some of the subjects in pursuit of love or a mate have unrealistic expectations.

The second anecdote is from Steven:

Stephen ended up meeting a pianist named Elena on the tour. On date two she told him she thought he could be her soulmate. By the end of the week he was sure he had found his future life partner. It was an expensive week, with the dinners, taxis, and payment for a translator all adding up, but Stephen was delighted that he had found love.

The point here is that the subject either found or thought he found love; it was an expensive expedition.

Later, the author writes:

I left Stephen ready to propose, but two months later he told me by email that it had all unravelled. The woman let him know she needed more time before making a commitment, but suggested that he return to Odessa and continue their expensive platonic dates.

As it relates to AnastasiaDate:

Anastasia International, while not directly colluding in the scams, runs a highly profitable business model that allows them to flourish. While real and lasting liaisons do occasionally form through the site, more often it only serves to increase the concentric circles of mistrust, disappointment and heartbreak for all involved. Anastasia insists that it weeds out scams whenever it finds them, and has banned some women from the site. It also says it will reimburse clients who fall victims to scams, and provides advice on how to avoid them.

This about-face by the author suggests he's revealed possible selection bias by choosing subjects that fit his angle: a "mail order bride industry grows up but is still bad" article, the fact that his anecdotes come from a small sample size.

DavidWestT (talk) 14:13, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

we don't do peer review on sources here; we just paraphrase what they say. the guardian article is about anastasiadate still suffering the same problems as the mail order bride business. you seem to be trying to create "balance" which is not what we do here. if something is negative, it is negative. (see WP:GEVAL) Jytdog (talk) 14:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

gumball rally

In my view, the following text is trivia. It does not belong in the lead alone (where it was) nor does it belong in the body.

The company began participating in the Gumball 3000, an international car rally, in 2014 with an electric violet AnastasiaDate Lamborghini co-driven by two Russian models who are users of the site.

References

IP address wrote "moving to the body. Sentence blessed by justlettersandnumbers, dgg". DGG, Justlettersandnumbers, in or out? thx Jytdog (talk) 19:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't say I blessed it, but rather I didn't remove it.. It's trivia, but they're a company known for such publicity stunts Anyway, it does not belong in the lede DGG ( talk ) 20:24, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yep, when one bit of bollocks is removed from a promotional and COI-ridden page such as this was until the recent clean-up, that does not imply any endorsement or "blessing" of what is left. That particular content seems to have been added by Jppcap on 7 October 2014, whose opinion should perhaps be asked (pinging). I support removal, there's no reason for us to help with their advertising campaign; I've just again removed the mention from Gumball 3000, where Humanity4285 has added it more than once. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing

Some of the sources cited in the article seem a bit iffy to me. The CrunchBase source looks like it's user-generated content and, therefore, would not be considered a reliable source. I personally don't think it belongs in the article since it seems like a LinkedIn for start-ups, but I am willing to discuss with those who might feel differently.

I think the two interviews cited (the Negin interview and the Cervantes interview) are also problematic. First-person interviews are generally considered to be primary sources which means they should be used carefully. The interviews are with two senior company management members, so they certainly should not be considered the words of a independent reliable source, but rather treated as a PR exercise to promote the company in a certain way. There is no indication that anything they said in the iterviews was the subject of any sort of reliable editorial control or fact checking by the website onlinepersonalswatch.typepad.com. The OPW site appears to be a blog run by an Internet dating business consulting firm named Cortland Brooks, so the site itself is of questionable reliability. Even if the source is considered acceptable per WP:RS, there is no attribution being given to indicate this is coming from an interview, which is a bit misleading in my opinion. Another issue is that the Negin interview is being used to source content about actual living people (I am assuming that Elena and David Besuden are still living), which means that WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:BLPSELFPUB comes into play.

I thought of bringing this up at WP:RSN, but it's probably better to get feedback from other editors here first. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:13, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Movie reviews

Re removal of source from Anastasia date page. The film features and is about Anastasia dating services although it is not mentioned by name. The reference gives people access to the source for this statement. I disagree about the necessity of its removal..However, you are the more experienced editor & know the details of all the rules. I read the link you used to justify and this time cannot see the justification for its removal.Gmdean2015 (talk) 23:33, 31 October 2015 (UTC) (Note: Post originally made at User talk:Marchjuly, but I am moving it here because it is something better discussed on the article's talk page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 23:46, 31 October 2015 (UTC))

I may be more experienced, but that doesn't always equate to being right, so I am happy to listen to opposing viewpoints. WP:RSCONTEXT states the following:

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in the Wikipedia article."

The Ebert and Stamet reviews are fine for use in stand-alone articles about the film, but trying to use these here like this (i.e., to provide context) makes it seem, at least in my opinion, that reviewer is being attributed as making some kind of statement about this particular company itself, which is not the case at all. This article is a about particular company; It's not about Ukranian date sites in general or the film Love Translated. Any general context that the film provides about regarding this can be found in it's stand-alone article. The Variety cite seems OK because (even though it only mentions AD by name once), it is sufficient to verify that the film was about the experiences of certain men who used AD. I could see possibly adding a bit more explanation about the film such as perhaps "which documents the experiences of 10 Western men who used the site with not very successful results" because that seems consistent with the Variety source cited, but you have to be careful how things are worded per WP:UNDUE, WP:SYN and RSCONTEXT. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:18, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I understand. Agree to your changes as I now realise that they remove very little information from the context. They are probably redundant referencesGmdean2015 (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Ownership

To my knowledge Anastasia date is now owned and operated by SD Ventures, an umbrella organisation for a series of sites (amo latina, asian beauties, arab date etc) I cannot find what would be a reliable source to cite for this information. Can anyone help?

Business model. I am also looking for a reliable reference for its business model (purchasing profiles from local ukrainian agencies who pay the girls). Gmdean2015 (talk) 00:27, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Suggested changes to ownership

The sentence "In 2011, AnastasiaDate was sold by Anastasia International to a private investor.[1] AnastasiaDate, along with each of the three spin-off websites, became independently operated.[1]" needs updating

Anastasia is now owned by social discovery Ventures http://sdventures.com/ is this sufficient as a reference?

The phrase "independently operated" seems not to be true. What does "independently operated actually mean?" The sister sites send chat messages to each other and the user databases are shared between sites. The staff operate across sites. The underlying business model is shared between all the sites. Yet referencing this with wikipedia approved standards of referencing is difficult

All suggestions welcomeGmdean2015 (talk) 12:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Why it is important to get this article accurate and Neutral

For those of you editing this page, you will know that Anastasia (SDV) employs an army of online trolls to astroturf its reputation. One way they do this is by using wikipedia as an authoritative and impartial source. An example can be found here in a blog edited by one of the astroturfers. http://elenascamfake.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/elenasmodels-used-AnastasiaDate-trademarks.html -- Quote from the site-- "By the way, this scandal is mentioned on one of the most popular and trustworthy internet sites - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnastasiaDate As you might have guessed, Elena's Models was involved in this scandal: «Anastasia International filed a suit against EM Online Ltd. dba Elena's Models, in US Federal Court in New York. The complaint alleged that Elena's Models, a direct competitor of Anastasia International, set up two websites, anastasiadatefraud.com and ruadventures.com, that featured fabricated negative testimonials and illegally used AnastasiaDate trademarks. The case was dismissed.»

And it is not surprisingly that Dave Bruner (Elena's Models) seized the moment and mentioned this website, yes, their own-produced website anastasiadatefraud.com where AnastasiaDate is accused of fraud.

What harm did this agency to you that you are ready to spend so much effort to create your own groups in social networks and multiply «pseudo-reviews» on trust resources for your dirty cooked-up stories?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gmdean2015 (talk • contribs) 22:57, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Summary of Guardian article

What is wrong with the sentence "Evidence of success with Ukrainian online dating is limited." It is an accurate and fairly neutral summary of the Guardian article (given its negative evidence about the industry) and adds balance to the implicit positive claims of the previous material which I consider to be company PR What I am tempted to replace it with is "a journalist who followed the dating process found that men returned home broke & broken hearted" All thought welcome, especially from DavidTWest. Gmdean2015 (talk) 13:16, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Posao

Kako stupit u kontakt sa sajtom i registrovati agenciju za anastasijadate.com? 94.250.98.121 (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Prevarena od agencije koja radi za sajt, direktor Katarina Ristić

Rečeno mi je da navodno sajt nije isplatio dve plate. I da zato nisam plaćena. 94.250.98.121 (talk) 17:52, 10 July 2022 (UTC)