A Foreign Affair

Thank you for sending this to us.  This is the first notice that I saw concerning this issue, I am not sure why I did not receive the first notice, we always try to answer any issue within 24 hours.
First let me say that I agree with [redacted] that it should have been handled better, and as...

of today it is totally removed from ALL databases, so he should no longer receive ANY emails from us.We did receive a request from [redacted] on 4/6/2016 to remove him from the database.  The receptionist did at that time remove him from the database but she did not realize that he was also on the match wizard database which is a separate database.  Very often clients will request to be removed from one but not the other.  [redacted] did request again on the 23rd of April to be removed again, and again the same person who thought she did it the first time did it again thinking she did something wrong the first time.  Then we received a third request on the 29th of April stating he was still receiving the matches.  Unfortunately the receptionist thought that she had removed him and did not take further action.  She has only been with us a couple months, that is not an excuse, but unfortunately she did not realize that in this case further action needed to be taken.  The customer service manager, who should have been notified, (if not the second time, definitely the third time) deleted him from the match wizard herself so [redacted] should no longer receive matches.
We do apologize, normally we are much better at removing clients who no longer wish to receive E-mails or correspondence from us.  In the very unlikely event that [redacted] ever receives anything from us in the future please call me directly at [redacted] and I will look into it immediately.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention and I regret that it had to come to this point for something so simple as removing him from that specific database.
John A[redacted]

The customer service person "Liz" hung up on me and then immediately deleted my account without saying anything about a refund or the deletion of my account. I was simply trying to provider information how the system, not me malfunctioned, she didn’t want to listen and hung up, simple as that. Now, Liz is unfortunately lying about the events and even worse there system will continue to malfunction because they refuse to listen to their customers. Whats even worse their system cant even keep track of support emails generated through their website and i'm pretty sure they believe that’s a customer malfunction, too so it wont get corrected either. 
I am very confident anyone that review the attached screen captures will find its hard to conclude this is a result of a human error, this is a process error and just one example of a malfunctioning website that again they wont acknowledge because when a client tries their best to explain it in a professional manner they are hung up on... Liz needs training and help with her temper.   As for a credit, I contacted my credit card company and there are no credit transactions from them.   Shame on this company and Liz for making false statements, lying and deleting my customer accounts without good cause.
Since they deleted my account without good cause or notice and have now denied me access to use the prior purchased addresses and services all monies I have paid to them over the past 120 days should now return as a refund to me in full not just the last $54.00.

Thank you for bringing this complaint to our attention.  First of all we do have a money back guarantee on the site, so if the client was not satisfied with the service he simply could have asked us to refund his account and we would have done so, not a problem.  I have already...

authorized a refund of the amount the client requested, $142.82, which has been processed (the bank will take a few days to post it to his card) and we will remove him from the system.  There are several issues that should be discussed concerning this complaint.  First, we do not have a client named [redacted] which is the name the person who filed this complaint used, there is no such name in our data base.  However after investigating this further we were ab** to match the orders the client gave with another client named [redacted] (I will not reveal the entire last name for client confidentiality purposes).  We are assuming these two people are one in the same, although in all the letters he used the name [redacted]. and his orders are under the name of [redacted] and the address and phone number he used for his $95.00 Platinum membership are different than the address he gave to the Revdex.com.   However, it seems that the actual orders match those for client [redacted] so we will move forward as if  [redacted] and [redacted] are the same person.  Another point is that although the client s[redacted]ed that the problem with the 90 plus E-mails started on 7/30/2015 he actually did not even order the Platinum membership which allowed him to send the virtual E-mails he is complaining about until 8/8/15, 19 days later, and many of the addresses were **st ordered on 8/14 and 8/17 today is only 8/20.  We normally ask clients to wait at least a week or two for responses to their first E-mails.The person he spoke with, unfortunately, is not a customer service representative, he is actually a video editor who happened to answer the phone in the absence of [redacted], the customer service rep. who was away from her desk.  [redacted] should have taken a message and had [redacted] call him back and try to resolve the issue.  [redacted] did tell me that he tried to transfer the call to [redacted], the customer service manager, but that the client did not want to have the call transferred.  I believe that if he would have transferred the call to the [redacted], the Customer Service manager, who has over 13 years of experience, she would have been ab** to resolve the issue to the clients satisfaction. It was our fault that [redacted], who is not knowledgeable or trained as to how the system really works tried to resolve the issue.    We take full responsibility for [redacted] trying to deal with the problem when he was not equipped to do so, and if he was in any way rude to the client we sincerely apologize as that is not how we operate now or at any time in our 20 year history.As for the clients assertion that "All the ladies on this website are actresses who are being paid by this website, pretending that they are really seeking relationships" is obviously not the case.  I met my wife on A Foreign Affair 18 years ago, and although she is very talented, she is certainly not an actres** We have thousands of couples who have become engaged via the site over the last 20 year**  The women on our site are not actresses, (unless of course that is their profession which has nothing to do with the site) we interview the women and require copies of their government issued ID as well, as a requirement of placing them on the site.  Not only do we have different ways to correspond we also strongly urge the men that instead of **st corresponding actually go and meet these women in person.  We conduct many tours every month to destinations all around the world and hold large socials where the men and women do meet.  We also arrange numerous individual in person introductions every day in our offices world wide.   We **st concluded our [redacted] Ukraine tour where we had close to 2,000 women attending, and had several fiancee visas initiated.  We do not pay actresses in any way to participate on the site, I imagine if we did the client would have received many if not all replies to his letters since the women were "being paid", but a lack of response was the basis of the complaint.  It actually costs much more than the price of a Platinum membership ($95.00) to acquire a customer, so economically it would make no sense for us to pay women to act as actresses and then have the client receive no response to his correspondence and become dissatisfied and cancel their membership or not use the other services such as tours to go and actually meet the women as we advise virtually everywhere on the site.  We certainly could not afford to pay hundreds of women to attend the tours/socials as they do if they were **st paid actresses, again, **st does not make economic sense. We do our best to help clients get responses and get in touch with the women who join the site, but there are many factors that contribute to the response rate.  In this case it may have been a technical issue since the client states that he received no response back, we use a virtual E-mail system because the woman must first receive and agree to his IMBRA form according to Federal Law, once they do that then his letter is sent to them and if they choose they can respond to him, however it is entirely up to them if they wish to respond or not, we do not pay them or give them any incentive at all to respond. In some cases the clients do not send the virtual E-mails correctly, or replies go to spam filters or get blocked by servers all together.  If he would have spoken to the regular customer service represen[redacted]ive she would have talked to him about the tech issue first and investigated if that was indeed an issue. Obviously we cannot guarantee a response rate and we site that on the site, However if a client sends out 90 letters he should receive at least some responses of some kind.  There are many factors that will affect the response rate such as age, English speaking ability, children, physical attraction, number of letters or attention the woman is receiving from our site and possibly other sites, among many other**  This is why on our site we advise that it is much better to go in person either individually or with a group tour and meet the women directly then to **st write.  The women are looking for serous relationships not pen pals and many men will write and never go to meet anyone so after time some women are more reluctant to reply to new letters, especially if the receive a lot of letter**   When a client uses the virtual E-mail service their criminal and background information must first be sent to the woman, translated into her language, and she must accept it (we also perform a sex offender check on the client as per Federal Law).  The Virtual E-mail system allows us to do this and we can tell how many of the women accepted his IMBRA form and as of today approximately 30 percent of the women actually did accept his IMBRA form (we normally tell clients that a response rate of 20 to 30 percent if fairly good).  Once they accept the IMBRA form his letter is released to them with his E-mail address so they can write him directly from their E-mail addres**  In some cases there may be tech issues on both sides that prevent the letters from going through.  If he would have spoken to [redacted] she would have actually given him the real E-mail addresses of the women since they approved the IMBRA form and he could have written them directly which would have most likely greatly improved his response rate.  Unfortunately his interaction with [redacted] did not go well, partly because [redacted] was not equipped to deal with the issue, and partly, according to [redacted], that the client was very upset and frustrated with not receiving responses at that point, even though he had **st sent quite a few of those E-mails a couple days prior to calling.  Suffice to say, I do believe that the client would have been ab** to connect with some of the women, I am sure not all would have responded, but it would have been better than the results that he had seen before he called if we would have been able to work with him properly.Since the client is unhappy with the service and asked for a refund we have issued the refund and we have closed his account  and removed him from the service per his request.  We do try hard to please the thousands of clients, both male and female that we work with have had the pleasure of working with over the last 20 years, and we do have many success stories.  From time to time an unfortunate incident like this will happen and we do take responsibility for not dealing better with it when the client called in and only hope that ultimately reaches his goal.If you have any further questions regarding this case please feel free to contact me at ###-###-####,Thanks You,[redacted]A Foreign Affair

As a former client of A Foreign Affair, I felt straightening out the facts regarding this company was necessary. Because of this company, I met my wife in August 2014.

In my experience, the customer service, assistance, and advice, I received at A Foreign Affair has been exceptional. I have received help in arranging my travel to the Philippines and with the entire K-1 Visa process. All issues I ever had with suspicious letters were refunded, and investigated, after just one phone call to AFA.

I have used this site and been to A Foreign Affairs (AFA) Seminars where they tell you “Do Not Write Letters” … yes AFA makes lots of money from lonely men who will never get out of their computer chair and actually go meet any woman, from anywhere. That is their choice and it is their money and time. The staff at AFA tells you not to do so. If a prospective client actually attended one of the free seminars they tell you that every time (I’ve been to three). Why someone thinks that they will find, or form, a real relationship in a chat website or by sending emails or virtual emails to women it beyond comprehension.

The ladies I wrote letters to; after I had my plane tickets, were the ladies that responded to my letters. Yes, they were real, yes; they all received my pictures and answered my questions… Are all the women for real and legit really on the up and up? No! To think that they are is again, ridiculous! However, I can assure you they are as sincere as the men are. Are all of the men legit? Are they all looking for a real relationship? Again, the answer is No!

Do Not Write letters and Emails until you are going on a tour to that woman’s country and have plane tickets in hand. If your first letter says when you are coming to her country then the lady knows that you are serious and not just another romantic pen-pal that she does not want.

Leave your computer and go on a tour… where you can meet the actual women. I did and as a result, I am married to a beautiful, real, caring woman.

As of this writing, the offices of A Foreign Affair have moved to:

7320 N Dreamy Draw Drive

Phoenix, Arizona 85020

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.  It seems that Mr. [redacted] registered for the service 10 days ago,and never paid to use the service.  We have searched our Customer Service E-mails and we were unable to find any E-mails from Mr. [redacted] requesting to cancel the...

registration.   In his message to you he stated he "forwarded" messages to us, so I am not sure if he means he redirected messages that we sent to him which may not have been seen depending on how he sent them, he did not state that he sent an original E-mail which would have gone to us with his name and E-mail in the subject as opposed to a forwarded E-mail. 
We are very diligent in removing registrations and or profiles when asked to do so, we are sorry that, for whatever reason, we missed this one.  The account has been closed and he has been removed from the mailing list.
 
Thank you,
 
John A[redacted]

Although AFA took action to remove my fiancee's profile as requested, [redacted] tried to wriggle out of responsibility by making even more false statements and shifting blame to my fiancee.  These statements are downright offensive to me and my fiancee.
1)  This statement from [redacted] is false:  "She told our staff that she never asked us or the affiliate agency to remove her profile.  She said that she applied for a different type of visa sometime ago and was denied so she wanted to wait until the fiancee visa was approved. "  [redacted] has tried to shift blame for the situation to my fiancee, when it was his very own agency that was at fault.  She never applied for another type of visa, and wasn't engaging in visa-shopping.
2)  This statement from [redacted] is false:  "I did check my E-mails and I was unable to find the one E-mail Mr. Hanson reported sending to me earlier in the year."  The reality is that we had a multitude of conversations by e-mail and a telephone call.  See the attached e-mail which shows one of the conversations.
Now, what I want is:
1) An apology to my fiancee for impugning her integrity by his statement that "She told our staff that she never asked us or the affiliate agency to remove her profile".
2) An apology to my fiancee for having published pictures that falsely showed her with photo-shopped mammary glands of size "DD". AFA robbed her of her natural beauty by turning her into a caricature of a men's magazine model.  She is much more beautiful the way God made her, not in AFA's caricature of her.

This is a scam, they continuously send your letters but when you send back the letter, there is never any response. So these letters must be falsificated and try to cheat the customer to continously to pay for.

Also they still charge me after closed my account. I opened my account on 15th, I start the close process much earlier they finally closed my account, but still charged me $29.95 on 12th.

This business just cheat people's money, with a fake business. Anybody should be careful to do business with.

The "FREE" membership in this agency promised me the opportunity to meet potential mates from foreign countries. After joining for free, I was required to pay $95.00 for a "Platinum Membership". This membership was required in order to obtain the email addresses of foreign ladies. The initial cost was $95.00 with a $29.95 automatic monthly fee. I was also solicited to send an additional $100 to be deposited into a separate account that permitted me to read incoming messages from foreign ladies and to send my outgoing messages to those who didn't have email addresses. I almost immediately discovered that this was a scam and when I called to get additional information, I was stonewalled and ignored by Kayla (the operator) and Liz (the customer service mgr.) My phone calls weren't connected and my messages weren't returned. My emails continued to be unanswered. When, in frustration, I called and left a message that specifically told them that it was being recorded, I received a telephone call from Mr. Bud Patterson who claimed to be the Vice President. Mr. Patterson informed me that he would be dealing personally with any of my issues. We communicated both by telephone and email over the next several weeks. During that time, I gave Mr. Patterson irrefutable proof that I was being scammed by both his agency and by several of the International affiliates. Mr. Patterson continued to attempt to stonewall me and to ignore me. He subsequently made a deal to refund my entire investment and close my account if I would silently fade into the sunset. I accepted his offer. My account has finally been closed but the refund I was promised hasn't been delivered to me within the agreed upon period. I have also learned that the address they claim to occupy exists, but that they aren't tenants at this building.
I have filed a complaint with the Revdex.com and am asking the Revdex.com to recover my money for me. I have also filed a criminal complaint with the FBI and they are pursuing it.

Back in 2012, I was contacted by several of the ladies from the Philippines on this site, where I began corresponding to them through AFA's E-mail Forwarding Service. Every time that I would write a letter or receive a letter from one of the ladies, I was charged $10. After a while, this really began to add up over time. I asked the ladies to give me their e-mail addresses, but they all claimed that the Philippines was a poor country and that they didn't own computers or had any access to the internet. I now have every reason to believe that these ladies were either working for this company or were paid for writing these letters. Since then, I have joined another website, and almost all of these Filipina women have their own computers as well as access to the internet. So, there is no doubt that I have been lied to by this company, either by the company itself or the women that work there that are paid to write these letters. I began corresponding with these ladies back in 2012, and I stopped corresponding with them probably in October of 2013. Paying $10 per letter was really beginning to add up, and since these women weren't willing to meet me halfway on this, I had no choice but to stop writing to them, because it was really costing me a lot of money. I have chatted with several Filipina women from this other site, who have since informed me that these people are dishonest, and that I have been ripped off. Overall, I spent about $3,000.00 on this E-mail Forwarding Service.