Updates to Ludmila Domashneva/Natalia Minina Scam

Update - January 6, 2004

AK reports receiving a message from Ludmila Gurova that is partly the same as messages previously sent by Ludmila Domashneva. Maybe they are the same person.

    We precisely know, that Ekaterina Barinova ID: 396 is
    really interested in correspondence with you. Probably
    it will be interesting to you: Ekaterina has written
    the letters only to three men. She has received the
    answer only from two men, but we know, that she was
    more is interested in your letter. You can be sure,
    that Ekaterina is very beautiful and good girl. 
     
    $50 (USA dollars or equivalent in any currency) for 1
    month membership - corresponding with Ekaterina
    Barinova and all other ladies - unlimited quantity of
    the messages, photos and you will receive your ladies
    addresses and phone numbers free of charge also.
    You'll find out more information about our services,
    about all other ladies from our new site. It will be
    ready very soon. We'll send you invitation.  Your
    membership will start when we'll receive your money,
    but you can start your correspondence with Ekaterina
    now though.
     
    We can organize to you very inexpensive, but
    interesting and comfortable visit to our region. Also
    we'll help to organize travels abroad: the visas and
    others. 
     
    1. Our agency accepts payments through the worldwide
    Western Union system ( www.westernunion.com ). In
    order to send payment for the service, you have to
    call your local Western Union, to make this payment
    directly with cash, debit card or credit card. Send
    money on the name of the Chief manager of our agency.
    Western Union will require the following receiver
    information: 
    Name: Ludmila Gurova. Country: Russia. City of
    reception: Novodvinsk.
     
    2. Also our agency accepts payments through the
    worldwide Money Gram system ( www.moneygram.com )
    Money Gram will require the following receiver
    information: 
    Name: Ludmila Gurova. Country: Russia. City of
    reception: Novodvinsk.
     
    You should fill her name in the field of recipient,
    and you have to point the location you send money to.
    Fill everything in correctly, and don't forget to get
    the control number of your money transfer. Then send
    us the message with your full name, address (country),
    the amount of money you've transferred and the control
    number.
     
    3. We offer to send the small sums of money in
    envelope ( by Express mail: about 3 days or by
    Register mail: about 7 days). We prefer only cash in
    Euro (or cash in any currency only cash: here are
    problems with checks or other security paper ) for one
    reason: we can receive money by the check only through
    3 months here  It will be better and more favourable,
    if you will send payment 50 Euro for 1 month
    membership (corresponding with Ekaterina Barinova and
    all other girls unlimited quantity of the messages and
    photos you will receive your ladies addresses and
    phone numbers also, or 20 Euro for her post address
    and phone number only in an envelope with letter for
    your lady to other post address agency: 
     
    163045, Russia
    Arkhangelsk,
    P.O. Box 52
    Ludmila Gurova
     
    We'll inform you about individual Email address of
    your lady and you can send other letter to your lady
    as soon as you inform us, that have made payment.
    Please, don't worry: we always have received money on
    our post office without any problems. You'll find out
    more information about our services, about all other
    ladies from our new site. It will be ready in two
    weeks. We'll send you invitation. Only most beautiful
    and educated girls becomes ours clients. We try to
    create an Elite Dating agency.
     
    Frequently our clients make a payment one time: after
    some letters man and girl agree about meeting or
    prefer to communicate on the phone or girl finds a
    place in our city, where it is possible to correspond
    per Email free of charge. After you made payment you
    will receive the postal address, phone number of the
    girl.
    Best Wishes and Happy New Year
    Foreign Bride - International Dating Club 
    164900, Russia, Novodvinsk, Novaya street 16.

Update - August 2, 2003

Jeremy reports losing $50 in the "Daria Romanova" scam mentioned below. He sent money via Western Union to Svetlana Korostileva. This is a name I have not heard before, but she claimed to represent Amazing Bride - International Dating Club which is a bogus agency name that Domashneva and Minina have used. She said she also represents Elite Dating Agency. Communication was through the email address amazing2003@bk.ru. The address she gave is 164900, Russia, Novodvinsk, Novaya street 16. Novodvinsk is close to Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk where Domashneva and Minina have addresses.

Update - May 24, 2003

KG passed along a message he received which includes the same street address in Novodvinsk as the message passed along by Southern Man. The message includes a letter from "Daria Romanova" which is very similar to previous scam letters sent by Ludmila Domashneva. With the letter, KG received the photos below.

Update - May 5, 2003

Southern Man passed along a message he received from Elite Agency in which they claim to be part of Amazing Bride Agency. The message he passed along did not say the name of the agency owner, but both of these agency names seem to have been used by Domashneva and/or Minina previously. This message gave an agency address in Novodvinsk, which is new. Novodvinsk is very close to Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk - the two cities where all previous addresses associated with this scam were located.

Update - April 6, 2003

SJT reports getting scammed out of $50 by Ludmila Domashneva using her usual scam. The name on the bait message was Anastasia Lopaskina.

Update - March 12, 2003

On February 24, Red Hawk reported receiving email from Ludmila Domashneva including a message from "Anastasia Lopaskina". The photos of "Anastasia Lopaskina" were the same ones that Ludmila Domashneva had sent before supposedly showing "Natalya". The message gives a street address of "North West Agency" - Arkhangelsk, Komsomolskaya street 97 - and an email address slightly different from before - north-beauty@mail.ru.

Update - December 20, 2002

Correspondent Larry reports getting ripped off by "North West Agencies", specifically by Ludmila Gurova who used the email address foreign-match@list.ru. The April 30 update below mentions that "Ludmila Gurova" may be an alias of Ludmila Domashneva.

Update - October 14, 2002

Lorenzo continues to collect reports about Minina. Someone received a "business proposition" from Minina and passed it along to Lorenzo. It is a short but well-written proposal beginning “I'm seeking a foreign partner for my new company: international marriage agency.” The message asks for $3000 and describes the expenses that account for this amount. If you've read about Natalia Minina, you won't believe the proposal.

Update - September 15, 2002

Lorenzo continues to collect reports about Minina. He says that someone wrote to him to say that he wrote to n_brides@list.ru and got a reply from northsea@severodvinsk.ru, Natalia Minina's address. Lorenzo says someone else sent money to "North Brides Agency" and received nothing in return. This person said the agency's address was n_brides.ru, but since that is not a valid email address or domain name, I assume the second person actually meant the same email address as the first person.

Update - July 1, 2002

It may not be worth mentioning, but East Club no longer looks exactly the same as First Line of Love did.

Something more interesting - Lorenzo reports that Natalia Minina now has an ad at American Singles. I say elsewhere on this site that it seems many scammers are now using American websites intended for Americans to meet Americans since those sites usually (or maybe always) provide no warning about scams.

Update - May 2, 2002

This is a follow-up to the April 30 update. Lorenzo's correspondent TW noticed that the scam message he received has already been reported at womenrussia. This scam uses the agency names Severyanochka Ladies Personals and Elite Dating agency. It is exactly the same scam as Domashneva's and operating in the same city, so Lorenzo believes that Domashneva is responsible for it.

As long as I'm on the topic of very strong suspicions of scams by Domashneva, a couple of months ago I received spam advertising contact information for Russian women. Most of the text had been copied from a legitimate website. The message was sent to my email address that Domashneva wrote to a long time ago, not my address on these pages. Because of that, and because of information in the header of the message, I believe the message was sent by Domashneva, and I think it's very unlikely that anyone who sent her money would have received anything in return. I tried replying to the message to see if I could draw out some more information, but the sender's email address had already been shut down. It was at Yahoo.

Update - April 30, 2002

Thanks to Lorenzo again for this latest tip. In response to his page about girls in Severodvinsk, someone sent him a message about a scam from there that's exactly the same as the scam by Ludmila Domashneva, but this time the person running the scam is "Ludmila Gurova". Considering that this is the same scam as before, Lorenzo suspects that this name is an alias for Ludmila Domashneva. Another person who may collect money sent to this scam is Olya Gavrilenko. The email address severyanochka@inbox.ru was used for this scam.

Update - April 27, 2002

A couple of days ago Ludmila Domashneva emailed a virus to me. I assume that it was an accident. Considering the email address the virus was sent to, this shows, as if there was any doubt, that she reads my page about her.

Update - March 27, 2002

A few days ago I received a tip about east-club.org. This is exactly the same bogus website that appeared before as Natalia Minina's First Line of Love (nataly.ru), only the name has changed. The email address for the "manager" of this site is Natalia Minina's email address northsea@severodvinsk.ru. Another website with this email address is amazing-brides.chat.ru. This website has basically the same design as the other two, but the content is different (and very old).

Update - February 11, 2002

FS reports that today he received the most recent version of the scam letter on my main page about this scam. Most of the letter is word-for-word the same as before, but now instead of being a chemistry teacher, "Julia 247" says: I graduated from State Medical University and now I am working as a doctor in children's hospital. Also, the birthday has changed to March 16, and a new paragraph has been added to the letter saying: As a person I can tell you that I'm an open, simple and quiet person. I don't like to quarrel. I like to go out for a dinner or for watching movies with my friends. In weekends I usually visit my brother and his family. They are living very close to me. When I'm at home I like to listen to music (pop, soul and piano), or to watch TV or video, or to read some magazines. The photo has changed back to the last girl on this page.

Update - December 27, 2001

Womenrussia.com has information about a new scam by Domashneva. She sent a scanned handwritten letter supposedly on behalf of a female client of her marriage agency to an Australian man who had an online personal ad and she asked that he reply with a scanned handwritten letter. He did this, and a few weeks later Domashneva tried to get $10,000 from his bank account using his signature from the scanned letter and information from his business website.

Update - December 2, 2001

This update is about an old incident that Lorenzo just brought to my attention. A couple of years ago Natalia Minina spammed a newsgroup begging for money.

From: "Minina Natalia" <northsea@severodvinsk.ru> Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 13:03:58 +0400 Message-Id: <01be7e7a$12e10800$LocalHost@northsea> Subject: FROM RUSSIA X-10177-Poster: "Minina Natalia" <northsea@severodvinsk.ru> The friends! This letter from Russia. At us there was a trouble. The small boy Kurchatov Pavlik from Severodvinsk (city in north of Russia) is hardly sick, at him defect of heart. Operation in foreign clinic urgently is required. If you want to help the kid, please send money in US dollars. The bank essential elements: 1. The Savings Bank of the Russian Federation, account # 890-0057-610 with the Bank of New York, SWIFT BIC: SABRRUMM 2. in favor Arkhangelsk office, account # 30302840500000600400 with the Savings Bank of the Russian Federation, SWIFT BIC: SABRRUMMAH1 3. Severodvinsk branch # 5494 (corr. acc. 30301840604010654941) 4. The account # 42301840104260000446 Minina Natalia. In the details of the payment certainly show: disinterested material aid. Hope on your aid. Thank you.

Update - November 10, 2001

A few days ago Lorenzo informed me that Natalia Minina had an ad at Anastasia. I verified this and told them about my page about her. They removed her ad immediately, which is good, but obviously the following claim on their site about women advertised there is false: The worst "con" we ever ran into was a woman sending us a photo taken 5 years ago.

Correspondent Simon sent me a scam letter he just received from Domashneva. It is a new letter, similar to the familiar one, and it has a new photo and name on it. The new name is Julia Alipatova. Here is the new letter.

#1

Hello Simon, How do you do? Let me introduce myself. My name is Julia. Perhaps you will be surprised when you receive my letter. I've known about you from the International marriage agency in our town. I want to meet a man from other country for friendship and may be for marriage in future. I think it's time to start telling the story about myself. My birthday is on November 23. I am 24 y.o. I live in city Novodvinsk. I know English language and German a little. I'm attractive young lady with dark long fair hair and blue eyes. I'm single, without children. My height is 169 cm, weight is 50 kg. I graduated from State University and now I am working as a teacher of chemistry I love my profession very much, and I want to continue my career abroad. I'm an intelligent Russian woman. As to my character people consider me to be kind and caring, understanding and balanced.. I am a very romantic and sensual person, extremely feminine and tender, a bit of shy too.. I have a great sense of humor and love to have fun..I love life and adventures, enjoy energy level in people.. I like reading, step-aerobics, can do sewing and embroidering, everything that is new is the field for me to explore. I also adore nature, sun and beach lover, interested in fashion, good dressing and flowers etc. I also like music, quiet days at home, a pleasant conversation....Most of all, I love traveling and discovering new horizons though have never been abroad yet.. At this stage of life, I am looking for a intelligent, generous person, full of life, for a possible future together...one who is caring, giving and affectionate, who has somehow old world values, so to say.....desires being loved and love faithfully....I value friendship and respect for each other very much, it is the real treasure of life: something that lasts, and something in which we invest the best part of ourselves. And this is very important. It seems simple words, but it is not in real life often. And yet I think the secret of happiness is there, having interests in common, sharing joy, sadness, feelings.. If you are interested in my person. Write me back to address: office2001@bk.ru (for Julia Alipatova). I'll call there and ask whether there is a letter for me. They will give your letter to me immediately. I hope to hear answer from you soon. Julia #2 Welcome Simon. It's a message from International Introduction service - Club Alina. Today we have received letter for you from Julia Alipatova (ID: 4599). We are forwarding her photo with this message. She does not have the access to Internet and uses the services of our agency. To continue correspondence with this lady, we offer take services of our Club: to correspond with she by Email. Some words about our Club. We present marriage - minded ladies from City Novodvinsk and all North Russia. Our ladies wish to get acquainted with the men - foreigners for friendship and it is possible for marriage. Within three months we worked free of charge. The girl could freely write to men. But since 1 November we have begun to offer paid service for ours clients. Here is how this service works. Letter / Email Forwarding service. Most women cannot afford to pay the email forwarding cost but if you want to pay them for her you may do. We will deliver a letter to your girl within 24 hours. We will print your letter and photo. Girl will take away a letter herself or we will deliver it to her home. The total cost to you is $5 for a letter with or without photo. We will translate a letter if required. If you decide that you would like to use this service now here is all you have to do. Send us some money to place in a account for you, the amount can be anything that you want, but we recommend a minimum of $50 to start with. In this case you will receive postal address, phone number of the lady also and your lady will correspond with you free of charge. If at any time you wish to close the account we will return your payment. Most men find that this is well worth the cost especially when you consider the time savings and t he poor mail service that most of the Russian postal services have to offer. Please, report us, if you agree to use our Letter / Email Forwarding service. As soon as you inform us, that you have made a payment, we'll receive an individual Email address for Julia and inform you about this. After that you can send another letter for Julia to her individual address. It will be more convenient and confidentially. Now she hasn't email address for the present as come to us recently. We'll send Julia's letter immediately. We also want to to offer Deliver flowers service. If you would like to send your favorite lady flowers or candy we can do this for you. Bouquet of roses for $20, chocolate candy for $10. These payments include delivery to home. We personally communicated with Julia to be sure of the sincerity of her intentions. Please, excuse us that message about paid services was not sent to you earlier. It was the result of changes of rules of our work. Have a nice day Club Alina #3 Hello Simon We precisely know, that Julia is really interested in correspondence with you. Probably it will be interesting to you: Julia has written the letters only to three men. She has received the answer only from two men, but we know, that she was more is interested in your letter. You can be sure, that Julia is very beautiful and good girl. Unfortunately in this moment ours site is in the development stage and you can not be visited. You can find out more in detail about the services of our agency and to look at all our ladies on our new site in about two weeks, we shall send you the invitation. Frequently our clients make a payment one time: after 10 letters man and girl agree about meeting or prefer to communicate on the phone or girl finds a place in our city, where it is possible to correspond per Email free of charge. After you made payment you will receive the postal address, phone number of the girl. Unfortunately while we not accept payments Visa or any other via Internet. Can be only in month. Method 1: You can make the payment using telegraphic transfer: If you will send money in USD (in USA dollars). The bank essential elements: ------------------------ Bank of New York, NY, USA SWIFT: IRVT US 3N Account #890-0086-009 of Moscow Industrial Bank In favour of North-West Regional Branch, Arkhangelsk, Russia SWIFT: MINNRUMM748 For further credit of Domashneva Ludmila Account #42301840200320000811 ------------------------ If you will send money in GBP (in English pounds). The bank essential elements: ------------------------ National Westminster Bank PLC, London, UK SWIFT: NWBK GB 2L Account #440/0/04462343 of Moscow Industrial Bank In favour of North-West Regional Branch, Arkhangelsk, Russia SWIFT: MINNRUMM748 For further credit of Domashneva Ludmila Account #42301840200320000811 ------------------------ If you will send money in EUR. The bank essential elements: ------------------------ Dresdner Bank AG, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Swift : DRES DE FF Account # 499/08 127 694 11 of Moscow Industrial Bank In favour of North - West Regional Branch, Arkhangelsk, Russia SWIFT : MINNRUMM748 For further credit of Domashneva Ludmila Account # 42301840200320000811 ------------------------ Method 2: We offer to send the small sums of money - we prefer cash in US dollars for one reason: we can receive money by the check only through 3 months here - in envelope(by Express mail: about 3 days or by Register mail: about 7 days). It will be better and more favourable, if you will send payment in an envelope with letter for Julia to address of our agency (you will receive Julia's address and phone number also): 163061, Russia Arkhangelsk, P.O. Box 282 Ludmila Domashneva Method 3: Our agency accepts payments through the worldwide Western Union system. In order to send payment for the service, you have to go to the Western Union office nearest to your place, and send money on the name of the Chief manager of our agency. Name: Ludmila Domashneva. City of reception: Arkhangelsk. You should fill her name in the field of recipient, and you have to point the location you send money to. Fill everything in correctly, and don't forget to get the control number of your money transfer. Then send us the message with your full name, address (country), the amount of money you've transferred and the control number(3612512920-for example). We'll forward Julia's letter to you as soon as you inform us, that have made payment. Best Wishes Club Alina

Update - October 13, 2001

Today JPJ reported reported receiving the same email and photos of "Natalya 247". He sent a copy of the message, and it is word-for-word the same as the message further down this page except for the following things:
(1) The name is "Julia 247" instead of "Natalya 247".
(2) The birthday is November 12, 1977 instead of March 27, 1977
(3) Height 168 cm instead of 166 cm.
(4) The new email address of this scam is nwc_2001@rbcmail.ru

Update - October 7, 2001

On August 17, MM reported receiving the same letter and photos of "Natalya 247". On August 25, DP reported receiving the same letter and photos of "Natalya 247", but she was called "Julia 247". DP paid the money through Western Union. On September 17, CC reported receiving the same letter and photos of "Natalya 247", but she was called "Julia 247".

Update - August 6, 2001

Correspondent Conrad today passed along to me a copy of a scam message that he just received. It includes one of the newer photos on my main page about this scam. The message says the photo shows "Julia 247", but it is the same as photo #1 of "Natalya 247". The message is the same as previous bait messages, but the email address it came from is new: nwc_dating@fromru.com. I wouldn't trust anyone claiming to run a business through a fromru.com address - I think it's a free email service similar to Hotmail. I hope that this is a sign that Domashneva is finding it harder to buy internet services from legitimate sources. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who use fromru.com for personal email, but it looks very strange if someone uses a fromru.com address as a business email address. Conrad included header information in the message he passed along. The message was sent through inar.ru. The domain name nataly.ru formerly used for Minina's scam site now leads to inar.ru. Correspondent Blake also told me today that he has just received the same message. Further update: On August 7, DV and RK reported receiving the same scam message. On August 8, JH and PP report receiving the same scam message.

Update - June 23, 2001

Today I received a message from R.A.L. telling me he has just received a scam message with some of the same photos that are on this page. He wrote a few paragraphs of really useful comments so I have added his complete message at the bottom of my main page about this scam. He married a Ukrainian woman he met with the help of an agency which I think gives his comments significant weight.

Update - May 19, 2001

Correspondent Kevin informed me on May 19, 2001 that he had just received one of the scam messages on this page. In the following week, two other men told me the same thing.

New Development - March 20, 2001

As of March 20, 2001, the website nataly.ru (1st Line of Love) has been shut down for several days. Apparently, all files have been deleted from the site. I guess that makes much of my story obsolete, but as I say at the end of this article, I think it's more useful to be familiar with scam stories than to concentrate on the identities of scammers.

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