I have been reading some feedback about scammers, and sadly Filipinas are mentioned too often. A Filipina is easily stereotyped as a scammer and just after a visa! It is disheartening :( I cannot blame those who would say so as that as they may have bad experience with thier encounter and some Filipinas they met. Stereotyping is just so unfair. You may have your impression about race and culture, but remember it's all boils down to character. The best that we can all do is to share the Gospel to them, share the good news, how Christ died on the Cross to save repentant sinners, more than their need of financial savior. Yes it may fall into a callous heart, but nonetheless you have done your part. God has His own time. As to how to move forward, you are the man. God bless you.
I too have followed a multitude of conversations on here about the connections between Filipinas and scammers and while I share your anger about the profiling and stereotyping, there have been a number of things that have come up in those conversations in recent months that lead me to believe that this is an issue that arises through no fault of anyone in the Philippines or the US, although there are cultural aspects in both nations that do contribute to the tension that comes out in these discussions. To state the obvious, the blame lies solely with the scammers, whoever and wherever they may be. However, it makes that majority who are truly sincere in their search from not only the Philippines, but every other country as well, victims of circumstance. I'll try to outline some of the major points that I feel contribute most to this problem that have come up in conversation over the various forums. I hope this information can help foster some deeper understanding and cooperation and ease some of the tension that I'm sure we all detect in some of the forums that we've both read so far.
1: Some time ago, I did a rudimentary statistical analysis to find out what countries made up the majority of the population of women on this website and shared my results in one of the conversations. It would be a simple matter to repeat this and maybe go farther. I looked at those within my own age range of interest, but it would be easy to expand on that too, and I'd be curious to see how the population of men differs. My study included only the population of profiles of women who had been, at that time, active within the last 24 hours, represented by the "online today" icon shown next to the profile when in the search pages, which show typically 10 profiles per page. I conducted the study by only counting how many pages of profiles showed women that were recently active on the site. Long story short, the countries with the most active profiles at the time were the US and the Philippines, and their numbers were nearly identical as I recall. I took this result to mean that our odds of finding a scammer from either the US or the Philippines is simply greater than the likelihood of finding scammers from, say, the UK, Japan, or Russia just as examples. This is solely based on what the scammers post as their location, which we still can't trust because, after all, they are dealing in lies. They may be anywhere in the world for all we know, and merely choose a country for their fake profile based on the population and demographics of the website which they are targeting.
2: A young woman recently posted a very enlightening historical context as to why Filipina women often reach out to men of American or European descent. I'll paraphrase this as well as I can, but if I get something wrong in this, please feel free to set that straight. She generally said that because of American and European cultural influences, women from the Philippines tend to find American and western European men very attractive, and are therefore more likely to reach out to them on a site like this that puts us all together in a multicultural pot that allows us to communicate with people anywhere in the world. I don't believe I'm letting any "cat out of the bag" by saying this, as I'm sure scammers already know it, but this is a trend that scammers likely use to their advantage to scam people in the US and Europe. Sadly, their deplorable actions reflect negatively upon the entire population of the Philippines and many men in the US decide that instead of taking that risk, however small it may be, they'd rather just avoid speaking to Filipinas altogether.
3: There is a long standing stereotype of many mixed marriages in the US. Some of it seems to be dissipating in recent years, but the unflattering term "mail-order bride" is still an unfortunate part of our vocabulary and seems to come up sometimes when we see couples of mixed race. It's unfortunate and it's not right, but as something that has become a cultural norm, it's hard to ignore and it takes time to allow it to pass. It seems to be most commonly applied to couples where the wife is from one of the oriental countries (including the Philippines), Russia, Ukraine, or some of the eastern European countries. It's sad, and as a result we are often told, then, that some of the women who would hope to be brought to the US are doing so because they think we have lots of money to bring them here with. I've seen postings where people from countries like the Philippines say this mindset is not the case among most Filipinas and I believe them. It's most likely a mistaken idea about people from the Philippines that has been planted in our minds here in the US, and it may have some roots in truth somewhere in our past. It's an idea that dates back far before online dating sites like this showed up on the scene. I'd just like to add (and this has been said before in various ways too) that, while it may be true that American and European money has much greater buying power in other countries, that same dollar, Euro or Pound doesn't buy nearly as much in our own countries. That may also be a reason why not many Americans will reach out to women from the Philippines or accept messages from your country: because although they may find you very attractive, they haven't got the means to do anything more than be a pen pal.
4: This ties back in with what I was describing in my second point, but as I understand it, of all of the Oriental countries, the Philippines is one of, if not the most Christian nations in the far East. As such, it makes perfect sense that a large percentage of the messages from Asian countries would be coming from your nation. Unfortunately, with the reasons stated before, that also means your country is likely to catch some negative feedback from people on here who have either been targeted by scammers or who know many horror stories of others who have been targeted.
All of this leads me to believe that it is not the fault of people in the Philippines that they are targeted with a lot of negative talk about scammers. It is largely because of the demographics of the members of this site and a result of cultural influences in both the Western countries and the Philippines that have created this sad condition. Hopefully, if this information can take away some of the mystery about why things have turned out the way they have, we can, perhaps, approach one another with greater understanding and less fear. Maybe we can then do a better job of reflecting God's love to one another and even to the scammers, even though we won't give in to their attempts to deceive us. We must always remain vigilant to protect ourselves from the scammers regardless of what country we are from. The scammers are certainly not stupid. They do their homework most of the time, all so that they can better exploit their targets and give just enough truth to make their lies more believable.
They will know we are Christians by our Love, but that does not mean we are naive. This is a dating site that offers very little in the way of protection from those who would seek to harm us. We cannot merely blindly trust that the age, nationality, and even gender of the person we start communicating with is what they say it is. That is the unfortunate nature of online dating; of online anything, including forums, for that matter. Because everything can be falsified on a website like this, we must leave behind our credentials and credibility when we enter. The internet was once described to me as the "wild west": a place where the rule of law has not yet caught up to where it can protect us. We can only accept that nothing on here may be as it seems. It's a place where anything can be falsified. As bleak as that may sound, however, God used murderers, and adulterers, and many other imperfect people to do His work and further His Kingdom, and that means He can surely use websites like this to bring the right people together too! He is surely great at working with things and people who are broken to create something beautiful. I hope this helps.
Thank you for your reply :) I really appreciate you for taking time to comprehensively outline all possible underlying reasons why and how the above mentioned subject unfortunately caused some negative impression to Filipinas, and women in general.
I have to give it to you for the statistical data that you came up with, I could not help but remember one TED Talk about the same nature of study :) Question, how many days were covered in the data you have gathered? Days? A week? Yes, I agree with you I think it is just right to give benefit of the doubt that scammers maybe using a fake location, although quite unlikely also coz if you are a scammer, why would you use a location with the reputation of being a scammer, if you wanted to appear as legit and sincere? At the end of the day, this being a Christian dating site, we could have assumed that everyone is presenting themselves in good faith, but this is the world, please turn on the filtering system.
Well there is a grain of truth in your second point. In the past, we have been colonized by US, and there is that perception of familiarity with American�s culture. Up to this time, there is still that colonial mentality to some, as Americans have always played that role of being a big brother to PH, an ally (though sooner or later there are maybe some changes haha), and always offering a helping hand in times of our difficulties (South China See, Military Exercises, Calamities assistance to name a few)�and so I guess it has somehow leave an impression that Americans (or Europeans for that matter) are generally good and safe to be with. I don�t totally agree, but that is somehow the general impression. A true blessing of finding a husband/wife is when that person leads you to grow more with your faith and intimacy with Jesus Christ :)
I don't want to justify, but the sad truth is, women specifically from, let's put it okay boldly, poor countries, are the ones who are at the vulnerable side of the coin. It's a tough life for them, not much opportunity, oftentimes self-inflicted because you can never really use poverty as an excuse to have a miserable life. Aside from the reality of how different we are with our respective environments, greener and poorer, however you call it, some people just see it as an opportunity as a way out. Isn't it sad? :( I can go on and on with how the government has not been doing enough, how the parents lacked guidance, and on and on...but then again it all boils down to the human broken condition that we are spiritually. If Jesus is the center of our life, our only hope, and that we are already redeemed, is there something more important? The more how we are to share the Gospel, and yes extend love to those who are lost. You are right, not being na�ve, but by being wise.
Does this concern me personally? Not really, I actually just feel sad. Let's continue to pray for those who are lost.
Absolutely. One thing I hope we can do is put our heads together to get to the bottom of this issue. Knowledge is power. It takes away the mystery so that we can move forward and take appropriate action instead of fearing one another. I pray that by taking a step back and looking objectively at the situation as a whole, we can all reach an understanding that will foster compassion and friendship rather than frustration and anger. It makes me sad to see these things happen on these forums too, and I hope that, through this conversation, some of that may come to an end.
As I said, the statistical test was very rudimentary. I only looked at one day's worth of activity, but just for kicks and giggles (and to satisfy my own curiosity), I thought I'd do it again. This table below has my results for several major countries from all around the world that most people should know of. Just for fun, I expanded the age range to 20 to 40 years old to get a bigger sample and also included data for the number of male profiles active in the last 24 hours at approximately 4:00 Easter daylight time in the US. That data may offer some interesting insight as well. For instance, I can see why Filipinas that are seriously looking to find someone on here might feel they have no choice but to look outside their own country! That's not a misprint! I put the US and the Philippines at the top since they're the two countries most often involved in this discussion, but the UK gets involved from time to time too. If you'd like, maybe we can work together to do a more detailed study over a longer period of time, but this is pretty similar to the results I saw the first time. I would agree that one day's analysis may not be enough to call it conclusive evidence and maybe a longer term study will tell a different story, but this should at least help answer some questions.
nation: age 20-40 # females # males
US 1071 1615
Philippines 718 42
India 55 104
Russia 22 7
Ukraine 59 5
Japan 5 4
UK 218 366
Spain 10 7
Sweden 5 19
Poland 11 3
Greece 0 3
France 4 14
Brazil 32 17
Peru 8 3
Colombia 8 4
Mexico 13 13
Canada 85 132
Nigeria 8 25
Tanzania 14 10
South Africa 59 68
Israel 8 8
Indonesia 138 22
Australia 65 72
I agree that a scammer might not want to use a location with a tarnished reputation, and I suspect that you might be correct, but this also raises the question of how did the reputation get tarnished in the first place? I don't have an answer for that one. The scammer may also be likely to choose a country that is well represented on the website, such as the US or the Philippines, and given the overwhelming number of recently active female profiles from the Philippines compared to Filipino men, it makes sense that a scammer might use that to target people in western countries since so many Filipinas are already reaching out to us. In addition, playing the part of someone overseas gives its own excuse as to why the topic of meeting face-to-face does not come up and the scammer doesn't have to invent reasons not to meet and it may make it possible to come up with more believable cons to persuade more people to send them money. The scammer needs to blend in, not stand out. Everyone is a victim in these scam games because every attempted scam is another smudge on everyone's reputation and the only thing that creates is fear.
Absolutely! Turn on that filter (I like that phrase)! :) This applies to all of online dating, not just to those trying to carry a relationship across the globe. One of the problems I saw early on with online dating is that it's easy to get an illusion of knowing someone, when in fact we only know a few things ABOUT them. You aren't necessarily truly getting to KNOW that other person because you can't hear their voice inflections and you can't read their body language, so you only get about 33% of the message when you read your emails. The moral of the story is that we should keep that filter on even when we are starting to feel more comfortable with who we're talking to because we might not know them as well as we currently think we do, and it's not because they're being deceptive. We're just not getting the whole picture.
I do want to qualify that second point from my previous post to say that I was trying to relay something that I saw someone else post on this topic. I am not a historian, nor am I knowledgeable about Filipino culture, and so only had her post on that forum to draw any conclusions from, but it made some sense to me and helped me make some sense of why I receive more messages and winks from the Philippines than other countries. I see your point, for sure. This could also be a result of the relative proportions of Philippine women compared to other countries and the number of men in your country as well. Cultural differences do play a role, but it's difficult to be certain of the extent of their influence.
Finally, I'd like to bring up one final thing, and then I'll be quiet, because I've been talking way too long on here, haha! I can't speak for other gentlemen on this site, but I can speak for myself. I sometimes get frustrated when I receive a wink or a message from a Filipina as well, but I have absolutely NOTHING against the Filipinas. Rather, it's the opposite. I get frustrated because I don't do well with long distance relationships, and I've received messages from women from the Philippines who are very attractive to me and that I would normally love to get to know better if they lived close by, so it pains me to have to turn them down.
God bless and I pray that this thread helps to bring understanding and healing to this troubling situation. It's obviously something that hurts many people, or else the issue would not keep coming up in these forums. God bless, I hope this helps.
I think you have pretty much stated all the elements to cover the above subject. Thank you for your time, for sharing your thoughts and your statistical data, which I could just wish it is that of Olympics result of medalist haha, we would be on the top!
Anyway, we all have our own preferences (ethnicity, location, age etc) and that is to be respected.
I have been in contact with several scammers from various countries, and yes, one was truly from the Philippines.
Should I therefore avoid talking to Filipinas? I don't think so. Interestingly enough, I am even courting the very author of this thread!
Now, do scammers need the Gospel�? Well, they certainly need God's Word, but, as every sinner they first need to be confronted by the law of God that demands holiness. If/Once they recognize their sins, then the sweet Gospel is of course to be applied, this salvation by grace through faith that implies that when we face our last hour we have only one question to ask ourselves: �Did Christ do enough for us?� Then, we can rest assured : Yes, he accomplished everything for our salvation. The one who is both the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) did say it on the Cross �it is finished.� That's grace! To God only be the Glory!
