Parasitic Marketing Practice
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Parasitic Agency:

1. An Agency posting its client's profiles on another company's free-to-post profile website so as to lure clients from these more popular websites to its own Agency site. (e.g. "XYZ Agency" posting it's lady-profile on "ABCPersonals.com").

2. Such listings do not indicate to the member of the F2P site that the profile/posting is not that of an independent individual, but originates from an Agency or a person affiliated with an Agency, and that additional charges may apply in order to contact the individual profiled.

There are too many SCAM marriage/dating Agencies or so-called "Translation and Internet Services" and even so-called Agencies that are living off of these F2P profile websites. Not only are these F2P websites intended to serve INDIVIDUALS who wish to place their profile online, but very often consumers end up being charged more money when it is this Parasitic Situation.

This occurs when the consumer first pays to join the site in order to write to the person-profiled, but then is surprised to learn that they are actually dealing with an Agency or a person represented by an Agency and will be expected to pay a second fee to these Parasitic Agencies. See The Author's Note on F2P Websites.

This is a bad business practice that should be discouraged by YOUR refusing to do business with such Parasitic Agencies. Legitimate Agency owners should develop and promote their proprietary websites and seek alternatives to promoting their clients in this way.

NOTICE AND PROPOSAL TO ALL AGENCIES:


The Author hereby calls upon you to either:

(1) CEASE this practice and remove all currently posted profiles from these "free-to-post" profile websites or

(2) Clearly identify any such client postings with the following or similar wording: "THIS IS AN AGENCY LISTING" so that persons will not be surprised by the "double charge" and can make an informed decision about whether to contact the profiled individual from the outset.
The Author understands that this issue is complicated. For example, a person of limited English skills or without access to the Internet may not be able to post a profile for herself. Should a person in this circumstance be penalized or impeded because of this? The Author believes that by adopting Option #2 above, an Agency/Translation Service can achieve a balance between informing consumers, countering fraud and helping persons in such a situation. However, until this becomes widespread because these free-to-post profile websites have not taken appropriate action to screen postings from third-party Agencies, The Author feels it necessary to inform the public about the identity of the Agencies engaging in this practice, whenever possible, and to discourage consumers from supporting this bad practice by refusing to pay the additional charges.

Due to the sheer volume of F2P websites (hosts) and Parasitic Agencies, maintaining any sort of list has become impractical. Instead, I am now making a notation in my Review of Agencies pages for the specific Agency whenever this practice comes to my attention.

Scam Alert represents the opinions of The Author.

All use of the terms: "scam", "scamming", "scammers", "fraud", "fraudulent", "insincere", "sincere", "legitimate", "reputable", and other descriptive adjectives are merely the opinions of The Author, based upon findings and reports made and independent research and the individual judgment of The Author.