Are you tired of lame dates with people who don’t know what they want out of their lives? So am I. That’s why three months ago I deleted my accounts on several free dating sites and decided to try paid platforms. My first “test subject” was an international dating site called VictoriaBrides.
Did it impress? Is VictoriaBrides a scam? What can you, the public, expect from this site? Read my Victoria Brides review to learn more.
What am I paying for?
“Come on, man, why pay for something you can get for free?,” was what my friends told me. And this is a legitimate question. There are thousands of free sites and apps that provide online dating services. What’s the sense in paying for something that’s widely available for free? The answer is: filtration. When choosing a premium dating site, you’re gaining access to a whole new class of singles, for whom the priority of finding a quality relationship is so important that they are willing (and able) to make a hefty investment to reach this goal.
VictoriaBrides.com positions itself as a site that “focuses on meaningful and serious relationships only.” It attracts men and women who are serious about relations and want to get married and have children. Anyone would agree that finding such people on Tinder or other free apps is a stab in the dark. The motives that people have are hardly visible.
Another important feature of premium platforms is safety. Their administrations have enough resources to clean sites from scammers and fraudsters and ensure the safety of their members. Taking a relationship off the site is available only to those who have successfully passed online verification, in which members submit their photo ID (and a one-page form in the U.K.) to prove their identity before asking other members for their contact details or requesting real meetings with them.
Also, they can guarantee confidentiality to anyone who uses their sites. On Victoria Brides, my personal and financial information is protected by a reliable technology of 128-bit SSL encryption and processing services verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode.
So when interacting with a verified female member on VictoriaBrides, you can be sure that she is a real person.
Sign-up form and questionnaires
Signing up for VictoriaBrides is a free, simple procedure that took me ten minutes. I entered my name, birthday, and e-mail; set up my password; and clicked on the green Find My Matches button.
I immediately received an e-mail with a confirmation link and clicked on it to finish the process of account creation. This also made my profile visible to others.
Then you are asked to fill in two simple questionnaires about yourself and the woman of your dreams, taking about 15-20 minutes. You will see questions about yourself, your romantic goals, and your ideal woman. If you already have strict criteria your life partner should satisfy, take these questionnaires seriously. Try to provide honest answers about yourself.
Such an approach improves your chances to get good matches on VictoriaBrides.com, which processes your personal information by using the site’s algorithms to offer you matching partners, many of whom contact you first by sending cute messages. They can also read a personalized description you can enter at the end of your questionnaire in a “Describe yourself” form.
As for your ideal woman, if you are open to new possibilities or don’t necessarily trust matching algorithms, feel free to skip some or all the questions. Many of their profiles also offer detailed descriptions about who they are and what they are looking for in a mate, and life in general!
The final step of profile creation is uploading a photo. You can upload an old one from your computer as well as take a new one using your web camera. Women on dating sites pay more attention to male photos than you might think, so I recommend you to find the best one and upload it immediately.
I was in a hurry when completing these questionnaires so I skipped some questions about my potential mate. But when I started getting matches, I understood that these questions were very important. I didn’t know how to fix it and wrote to technical support. They explained to me how to edit this information in my account settings. When I did it, I started getting better matches.
My member experience on Victoria Brides
Usually, when you start using a dating site, you don’t get much attention from other members. So you need to do a lot of search and write tons of first messages, hoping that some woman out there will answer you.
Therefore, I can’t even begin to describe how awesome it was to get several messages from VictoriaBrides’ hotties in my first hour of being a member. They have set it up that you receive pre-written messages from those women who match your preferences.
As eager as I was, I couldn’t answer them unless I finally made my first payment of $9.99, which gave me my first messages and chats. Without finally taking this step, all you can do is flip through the profiles of beautiful women and wonder to yourself, “What if?”
An owner of a premium account on VictoriaBrides.com can:
- View a member’s statistics, including information about profile visitors, and members who Liked their page or added it to their Favorites
- Read messages from other members and respond to them.
- Use live chat.
- Send virtual gifts to other members.
- Send real flowers and gifts to their virtual date.
To use any of these functions, simply click on the corresponding button that will lead you to a page on which you can buy an initial subscription of 20 credits for $9.99. I spent this money within a mere five minutes, having opened several chats at once with the babes who sent me flirty texts (after they were matched with me).
The page requesting payment reappears when funds run out so it makes things a lot smoother to get a several dozen credits as soon as you sign up. The site accepts VISA, Maestro, and MasterCard. The ease of running up charges can be intimidating, but at the same time it creates another filter on VictoriaBrides members.
If you’re paying to communication with someone, you would be more careful in choosing this person and would not waste your time on those whom you’re not interested in. Indeed I couldn’t find a bond worth sustaining with many women, but I got really positive vibes from others.
Now I regularly interact with three charming women on VictoriaBrides, who offer the rare combination of beauty and intelligence. We can discuss movies, as well as classic literature! None of them have asked me for valuable gifts or money. Soon I will try the verification to ask for their contact details. But I also keep reading my incoming messages and use the search engine to view the profiles of new members every day because I’m still not sure whether I’ve found my one and only.
Pros and cons of VictoriaBrides.com
As I said at the beginning of my review, VictoriaBrides is the first paid dating site I registered on, so I can’t compare it with other premium platforms. Only free ones. Here’s my assessment:
Pros
- A filtered, classy membership with similar values and interested in a serious relationship.
- A high level of security, both socially and financially.
- Verification procedure to guarantee your date’s identity and your access to offline services.
- Online gift shop for VictoriaBrides members.
Cons
- Much fewer members than on free dating sites.
- It’s an international platform, so it’s hard to find someone who lives near you.
- It’s rather expensive.
So far, I don’t see any scam here and I’m about to pursue one beauty offline. They will even help me arrange my trip to Ukraine from U.K. if we get to that point. The common thinking is that sites requiring such investments are vacuum cleaners, yet I understand now that it costs money for the administrators to offer all the services they do, particularly with such an easy-to-use website.
Moreover, premium dating sites like VictoriaBrides are more focused on building a meaningful relationship than on finding a sex partner. It provides you with the search engine and filters to meet a classy woman who shares your lifestyle, hobbies, and values. The fact that she could be living on the opposite edge of the world makes your correspondences all the more meaningful for both of you. I’m looking forward to seeing whether my dream of having a classy, sexy woman by my side will be fulfilled.