DATING SCAMMER Evgenia Lezhnina

Evgeniya Lezhnina contacted me initially, through a public online matchmaking site that I subscribed to telling me she wished to communicate with me. After about a month of photo exchanges and daily letter writing of some personal nature she accepted my offer to come to USA to stay with me one month while she had her vacation time from work. She stated that she liked me a lot and thought that we would make a very happy couple.
Being very excited about this I told my family and was warned to be careful. I read about the scams on line that were taking place and became suspicious. Evgeniya said her travel agency would take care of all necessary documents in 10-15 days but accepted "cash only" for payment so therefore I had to wire money totalling $1248.12 using "Western Union". I knew this couldn't be true. I never heard of a travel agent that accepted cash only. Also after further research I learned that a nonimmigrant visa to the USA for a Russian, once applied for will take 6-8 weeks to recieve. Also that to get the visa the Russian guest must go to a U.S. consulate in their country for an interview and it is vital that they have a letter of invitation from the host in the U.S. None of these vital steps were ever addressed by her in her letters to me. She simply said that the travel agent would take care of all documents including the VISA. After she phoned me from Russia stating that she wanted to come to meet me I told her that I fell in love with her too fast and that I thought I had to slow down she suddenly" to my surprise admitted that it will take too long for her to get the VISA. I think I shocked her by starting to back out of agreeing to send money to her and telling her that I was falling in love too fast and not liking the rejection stated an about face on the VISA issue. I wrote her previously that VISA's can't be had in just 10-15 days and that I had some doubts about the travel agency she was dealing with. I told her that they were idiots because what travel agency would not accept a perfectly good credit card. I agreed to pay for her trip but I wrote to her that I would pay for it on my Visa credit card. Actually, I just couldn't bring myself to flat out accuse her of scamming because I hurt. I really wanted to believe she was true to me but I knew inside that she was trying to scam me. That is why I played along with it for a few weeks pretending that she was for real. In one letter she actually said that I could come to visit her - I wrote her back explaining that that would be the best option and that I will look into the arrangements and will do it and I would have done it. Then it was all over. Her next letter took her 4 days to write and it was a letter asking me what was wrong? She wrote that she was hurt and worried very much because I quit writing. She suffers terribly. Please write soon, signed, Your sad Evgeniya. She pretended that my emails no longer reach her. I knew that she elected to stop recieving them. She doesn't read them anymore. I sent her an e-card that when opened sends the sender confirmation of when the card was opened. it never was. I decided one day to type her name in to my web browser and bingo!!! She was attached to an online matchmaking site so i joined the site - sent her a letter that said I was glad that I found her and please write me back. Again, no response. I really thought she was developing strong feelings for me through the letters we were writing back and forth for a month. She wrote that she was. She wrote that she dreams of me and that in her dream I was in a black tuxedo. That I am her prince on a white horse... on and on. I know now that she only wanted to set me up for a rip off, I still hurt from it. I fantasized of a life with her. For real.

First contacted me in August 2004, by the end of October was trying to arrange a trip to visit me and asked for some money to pay for visa application, flights etc. Stupidly, I sent some, but then became suspicious. I checked with the British Embassy in Moscow and she hadn't applied for a visa, and the scan she sent me was a fake (from a French one!). Did some further investigation and found she isn't registered in Sanchursk, the emails sent from Yoshkar Ola. Also found her pictures under different names on other websites.