A Foreign Affair

I would like to thank the Revdex.com in helping to resolve this issue. We are proud of the A+ rating we earned over the 22 years.  Prior to receiving this Revdex.com complaint we had not only refunded the amount that the client was requesting, we had already refunded the entire amount that he spent for...

services. The payment page allows you to choose an option to place $100.00 on your account and receive a $10.00 credit (10%) towards services; or pay the amount of the charge.  He chose the $100.00 option so we placed $110.00 on his account and subtracted the charge placed on October 6th of $23.45.   He called on October 10th and said that he did not want the $100.00 option, so we refunded the balance, on the same day.  He was told that the refund would take 24 to 72 hours for his bank to process, he called the next day, complaining the refund was not done,  We explained  the process again and sent a screen shot showing the credit on the 10th.  Also on the 10th, the client talked to a second customer service representative regarding a duplicate charge.  The rep added the funds back to his balance with A Foreign Affair, which is what she thought he wanted.  He called on October 16th complaining that he never received the second refund, although it was on his account, It was then refunded to his card.  He called on the 18th, 2 days later upset that the credit had not yet posted.  He was again told that we processed the refund on the 16th and it was up to his bank to post to his account.  The client then began speaking rudely to the customer service rep and was escalated to the manager.  It was finally escalated to a supervisor who informed the client it is inappropriate to be rude, and because of that we were going to refund anything that he spent on services and no reason for future calls.  He not only received the refund he requested but the entire amount he actually spent with the company for actual services which totaled $20.25, all done prior to lodging this complaint.

Thank you for sending us this complaint, although I hesitate to call it a complaint since our two clients successfully found each other and are in the fiancee visa process, which is what our site is about.  I am not the person to send a request to remove a profile (that would be our customer...

service department) I did check my E-mails and I was unable to find the one E-mail Mr. [redacted] reported sending to me earlier in the year.  I do receive many E-mails so it is possible I missed it, however our customer service number and E-mail is listed on every page of the site, Mr. [redacted] could have easily E-mailed or called any time to ask why the profile was still appearing.  Additionally, the profile belongs to his fiancee.  We do not want anyone on the site who is not available, we have over 40,000 profiles with 300 new profiles each week, there is no reason for us to keep a profile active that does not belong.  We agree that if the woman is in the fiancee visa process that she should ask to have her profile removed.  Upon receiving this complaint we contacted  the woman in question.  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.  She also stated that she did not correspond with anyone via our site since she became engaged, and that she took the new photos just before they met We wish them both the very best and, because she is going through the fiancee visa process we have removed her profile, as we feel it really should not be active if she is going through the process and intends to marry Mr. [redacted].   Thank you, [redacted] AFA

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

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.

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

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]

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

We have spoken with [redacted] several times since receiving this complaint.  It is unfortunate, given the fact that we were successful in bringing Mr. [redacted] and [redacted] together, however we addressed the issues again below.  1.  [redacted] did apply for a visa in 2014.  If necessary we can upload the documents showing that, ( I would rather not, given privacy issues, but am happy to give it to the Revdex.com, it was not for the US, but another country). 2.  The first time the agency spoke with [redacted] she indicated she was not sure about taking down her profile.  When our staff called her she stated she thought she did ask for it to be removed at some point but could not recall when or who she spoke with.  The agency has a policy that the women must sign a request to have their profile removed to avoid any misunderstandings which [redacted] never did.  3. [redacted] stated that she never received any letters from any men via our site since she met Mr. [redacted], our system confirms that.  5. I did not lie about Mr. [redacted]'s E-mail.  I am still unable to locate the E-mail he sent me.  I never said that he did not send it, however it was several months ago and for whatever reason it is not in my E-mail, thus I was unable to locate it, as I stated.  I have the utmost respect for [redacted], and the women profiled on the service in search of someone special.  I am happy that our company was able to bring these two together and wish them the best.  If my original information was incorrect and she did ask someone to remove her profile at some time I sincerely apologize to her that it was not done, we never want profiles that are not active on the site, and although she did not complain to us or to the agency about any issues with photos if they were altered in any way I sincerely apologize to her as well, as that is never our intent for anyone profiled on the service. Thank you, [redacted]

Actually it seems to be a case of miscommunication, and I really do not believe that this should even be considered as a complaint since we did more than what the client requested the same day he called.  For whatever reason we do not show that we received an E-mail from the client....

 However, he did call in yesterday, a full day before we received this complaint.  The customer Service manager, who has been with us for over 13 years, did try to assist him.  The client told her that he was overcharged and Liz attempted to try and resolve the issue and find out exactly what happened.  Before she could tell him that of course we would refund the difference he told her that she was blaming him and he did not have time to listen to her etc. etc.  She never had the opportunity to tell him that she was going to refund the charges.  She was not trying to blame him in any way, we were simply trying to explain to him that he may have placed multiple profiles on his list and by mistake requested their addresses.  We have a money back guarantee on the site in any case and we always resolve issues if and when they arise, if the client would have given Liz the time to speak to him she would have informed him that she was issuing a refund, which she did anyway right after the call ended abruptly.  Given that the client was upset, Liz refunded the full amount he spent on the service, including the E-mail addresses that he already received.  The refund was already completed the day BEFORE we received this complaint from your office.   The client has received the full amount that he was requesting prior to us receiving this complaint, I am not sure what more we could have done in this situation.  Thank you for your assistance in resolving this issue.  (it may take his bank 3 to 5 days to actually post the credit but if you like we can provide a copy from our side showing the full credit, $54.00, was indeed processed.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  I do wish that [redacted] would have contacted our office so we could have investigated this ourselves and if there was any inappropriate behavior we would have gladly issued a refund.  He has only used the service for about 1 week, which is...

really not enough time to develop anything.  However, in this case since the client is not satisfied with the service we will issue a refund for the amount of $387.29, as he requested to resolve the issue. We are very proud of our service, we have been serving the International singles community for more than 20 years, and have an excellent track record.  Even though we issued the full refund we will continue to look into this matter, we have already reached out to the women involved to determine exactly what happened.  The women do use translators and the translators may use some of the same verbiage when translating letters for their clients.  Women will tell us that they hesitate to release personal contact information prior to a meeting because as soon as they do, men will begin sending erotic letters or anatomy pictures. We have actual letters women have forwarded to us with such content. There are IMBRA laws that must be followed and the women also must be comfortable with releasing their personal contact information and it may very well take more than just a few letters  We have certainly never paid a woman to correspond on the site and we never will, there are a host of reasons other than the IMBRA form as to why a woman may not exchange contact information right away, including translations, ease of service via the office, safety, not wanting to be overwhelmed with letters from men who may never visit (less than 90 percent of the men who write ever go to visit and the women now understand that) among others.  We have thousands of women who have singed the men's IMBRA forms and exchanged personal contact information, we of course have copies of all those forms and submit them when the man and the women apply for a fiancée visa, as required by US Federal law.  I would also suggest to [redacted] that although there is nothing wrong with writing a few letters back and forth, if he is really interested in meeting someone from abroad that he not write letters (as we advise often on the site) but go on a tour where he will meet the women he is writing to and others in person.  We just finished a tour recently in China where the men were able to meet hundreds of these women and exchange contact information with those where there is a mutual interest.   We have three tours going on now, two in the Ukraine and one in Colombia with over 75 men who are meeting the women they have been writing to as well as other women at the social events we operate.  We feel to be successful the correspondence can be a tool but it is much more effective to go in person and meet.  The women know our agency very well since we have been in business successfully for over 20 years and feel very comfortable with our system when meeting foreign men who they know little about.  We normally arrange the first meetings at our office or social events with our staff, we work to create a safe environment so everyone feels comfortable and can get to know each other better.  This environment was shown on numerous television programs that have documented our service including a recent reality show on [redacted] called [redacted], featuring our service and tours.I do hope that [redacted] finds a service that can provide him with the quality contacts he is searching and the service he would like.  We issued the full refund today April 24th, he should see it post to his card in a day or two.Thank you again for helping to resolve this issue,[redacted]A Foreign Affair

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.  I do wish that [redacted] would have contacted our office so we could have investigated this ourselves and if there was any inappropriate behavior we would have gladly issued a refund.  He has only used the service for about 1 week, which is...

really not enough time to develop anything.  However, in this case since the client is not satisfied with the service we will issue a refund for the amount of $387.29, as he requested to resolve the issue. We are very proud of our service, we have been serving the International singles community for more than 20 years, and have an excellent track record.  Even though we issued the full refund we will continue to look into this matter, we have already reached out to the women involved to determine exactly what happened.  The women do use translators and the translators may use some of the same verbiage when translating letters for their clients.  Women will tell us that they hesitate to release personal contact information prior to a meeting because as soon as they do, men will begin sending erotic letters or anatomy pictures. We have actual letters women have forwarded to us with such content. There are IMBRA laws that must be followed and the women also must be comfortable with releasing their personal contact information and it may very well take more than just a few letters  We have certainly never paid a woman to correspond on the site and we never will, there are a host of reasons other than the IMBRA form as to why a woman may not exchange contact information right away, including translations, ease of service via the office, safety, not wanting to be overwhelmed with letters from men who may never visit (less than 90 percent of the men who write ever go to visit and the women now understand that) among others.  We have thousands of women who have singed the men's IMBRA forms and exchanged personal contact information, we of course have copies of all those forms and submit them when the man and the women apply for a fiancée visa, as required by US Federal law.  I would also suggest to [redacted] that although there is nothing wrong with writing a few letters back and forth, if he is really interested in meeting someone from abroad that he not write letters (as we advise often on the site) but go on a tour where he will meet the women he is writing to and others in person.  We just finished a tour recently in China where the men were able to meet hundreds of these women and exchange contact information with those where there is a mutual interest.   We have three tours going on now, two in the Ukraine and one in Colombia with over 75 men who are meeting the women they have been writing to as well as other women at the social events we operate.  We feel to be successful the correspondence can be a tool but it is much more effective to go in person and meet.  The women know our agency very well since we have been in business successfully for over 20 years and feel very comfortable with our system when meeting foreign men who they know little about.  We normally arrange the first meetings at our office or social events with our staff, we work to create a safe environment so everyone feels comfortable and can get to know each other better.  This environment was shown on numerous television programs that have documented our service including a recent reality show on [redacted] called [redacted], featuring our service and tours.I do hope that [redacted] finds a service that can provide him with the quality contacts he is searching and the service he would like.  We issued the full refund today April 24th, he should see it post to his card in a day or two.Thank you again for helping to resolve this issue,[redacted]A Foreign Affair

We have spoken with [redacted] several times since receiving this complaint.  It is unfortunate, given the fact that we were successful in bringing Mr. [redacted] and [redacted] together, however we addressed the issues again below.  1.  [redacted] did apply for a visa in 2014.  If necessary we can upload the documents showing that, ( I would rather not, given privacy issues, but am happy to give it to the Revdex.com, it was not for the US, but another country). 2.  The first time the agency spoke with [redacted] she indicated she was not sure about taking down her profile.  When our staff called her she stated she thought she did ask for it to be removed at some point but could not recall when or who she spoke with.  The agency has a policy that the women must sign a request to have their profile removed to avoid any misunderstandings which [redacted] never did.  3. [redacted] stated that she never received any letters from any men via our site since she met Mr. [redacted], our system confirms that.  5. I did not lie about Mr. [redacted]'s E-mail.  I am still unable to locate the E-mail he sent me.  I never said that he did not send it, however it was several months ago and for whatever reason it is not in my E-mail, thus I was unable to locate it, as I stated.  I have the utmost respect for [redacted], and the women profiled on the service in search of someone special.  I am happy that our company was able to bring these two together and wish them the best.  If my original information was incorrect and she did ask someone to remove her profile at some time I sincerely apologize to her that it was not done, we never want profiles that are not active on the site, and although she did not complain to us or to the agency about any issues with photos if they were altered in any way I sincerely apologize to her as well, as that is never our intent for anyone profiled on the service. Thank you, [redacted]

Thank you for sending us this complaint, although I hesitate to call it a complaint since our two clients successfully found each other and are in the fiancee visa process, which is what our site is about.  I am not the person...

to send a request to remove a profile (that would be our customer service department) I did check my E-mails and I was unable to find the one E-mail Mr. [redacted] reported sending to me earlier in the year.  I do receive many E-mails so it is possible I missed it, however our customer service number and E-mail is listed on every page of the site, Mr. [redacted] could have easily E-mailed or called any time to ask why the profile was still appearing.  Additionally, the profile belongs to his fiancee.  We do not want anyone on the site who is not available, we have over 40,000 profiles with 300 new profiles each week, there is no reason for us to keep a profile active that does not belong.  We agree that if the woman is in the fiancee visa process that she should ask to have her profile removed.  Upon receiving this complaint we contacted  the woman in question.  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.  She also stated that she did not correspond with anyone via our site since she became engaged, and that she took the new photos just before they met We wish them both the very best and, because she is going through the fiancee visa process we have removed her profile, as we feel it really should not be active if she is going through the process and intends to marry Mr. [redacted].   Thank you, [redacted]
AFA

We regret the client is still not satisfied but we did everything requested.  We work hard to resolve any issues, which is why we have an outstanding customer service record, and thousands of successful couples.  To quote the original request:  "i want to receive a credit for their error of overcharge of $30 and would prefer to get a complete credit as I will no longer use this horrible and deceptive service . .   The client stated he had no intention to use the service any further.  We did issue the refund of $54.00, and stated it takes a few days to post.  Obviously it was not yet posted (as we said it would not be) when he checked with his bank, that does not mean we did not issue the credit. Unfortunately, this client is now claiming we lied about the refund and is upset that we closed the account after he stated he wanted a refund and not to use the account any longer....  We do have a screen shot to show the refund was issued a day before we received the complaint, as was stated.  The credit has probably posted by now, if not he needs to talk with his bank as they have taken the funds from us.  We did not attach the screen shot because it contains numbers of his card and personal information which should not be made public, but we are happy to send it to you or to him by separate mail if necessary. Although the client stated he was not going to use the service after the first refund, we have no problem refunding him for his previous use which we have also done.  We have issued that credit yesterday, and if you would like to see a screen shot of that as well we will be happy to provide it.  Again, it will take a few days for the second credit to post.  I am not sure what else we can do to resolve this issue.  We would much rather work with the client and help him meet someone special, but unfortunately that just does not seem possible in this case, we wish him the best of luck in his search.

My husband referred a friend to this International Dating Company based the Phoenix, Arizona called “A Foreign Affair or AFA.” The friend advised us about the Phoenix Revdex.com Business reviews and rating which caused him a little concern.

I met my husband in Cebu, Philippines on August 27, 2014 because of the AFA affiliate office in Cebu Philippines. I was the “Female Profile” on other sites that have complaints about AFA, I have been called; scammer and sham, A Robot, Fake Profile…even a paid blogger and letter writer.

I am a real woman who was on six other websites over five years before joining the Cebu Affiliate AFA office. I have seen plenty of scam sites and insincere scammers who are sad lonely people. I did not return emails, as I had no money to pay the internet cafes to check my email. (No everybody does not have a computer or internet.) I only received letters from one person who said he was coming to Cebu Philippines… that letter was from the man that became my husband. I returned his letter the same day! Because he was not just writing nice or sweet letters… he was coming to my country! I was not looking for a pen pal and neither are the sincere women that are on the website for “A Foreign Affair” That is why many women do not return letters.

Never have I been treated with more respect and genuine concern than during the K-1 Visa process that the Cebu AFA office provided my husband and me. Since coming to America and Phoenix, Arizona, I have had the pleasure to meet the entire staff at the Phoenix “A Foreign Affair” office and they are all genuine caring people who will do everything within reason to help their clients, both the men and the women, to meet and create their lasting relationship.

Actually it seems to be a case of miscommunication, and I really do not believe that this should even be considered as a complaint since we did more than what the client requested the same day he called.  For whatever reason we do not show that we received an E-mail from the client....

 However, he did call in yesterday, a full day before we received this complaint.  The customer Service manager, who has been with us for over 13 years, did try to assist him.  The client told her that he was overcharged and Liz attempted to try and resolve the issue and find out exactly what happened.  Before she could tell him that of course we would refund the difference he told her that she was blaming him and he did not have time to listen to her etc. etc.  She never had the opportunity to tell him that she was going to refund the charges.  She was not trying to blame him in any way, we were simply trying to explain to him that he may have placed multiple profiles on his list and by mistake requested their addresses.  We have a money back guarantee on the site in any case and we always resolve issues if and when they arise, if the client would have given Liz the time to speak to him she would have informed him that she was issuing a refund, which she did anyway right after the call ended abruptly.  Given that the client was upset, Liz refunded the full amount he spent on the service, including the E-mail addresses that he already received.  The refund was already completed the day BEFORE we received this complaint from your office.   The client has received the full amount that he was requesting prior to us receiving this complaint, I am not sure what more we could have done in this situation.  Thank you for your assistance in resolving this issue.  (it may take his bank 3 to 5 days to actually post the credit but if you like we can provide a copy from our side showing the full credit, $54.00, was indeed processed.

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