Jim
This agency is on your "Black List," but based only on their banner indicating cooperation with City of Brides. Actually, you need to put up the biggest possible red flag you can imagine to warn men to stay away from this site. This agency is owned (or at least managed) by a Ukrainian guy named Mikhail Kovshov who has a reputation as the biggest scammer in Lugansk. He charges a fortune for everything. His published price says it costs $20 to meet a lady from his site. However, he insists upon setting up a fancy dinner at a local restaurant called "Korona" for $200. I went to Korona myself and bought a nice dinner for 3 (lady, interpreter, and me) for about 500 Hr or US$60. But Mikhail insists on reserving a VIP room with lots of food (that no one eats because they are nervous!), and he charges something like $50 to arrange the VIP room.

He never tells the client what they are doing, what are the plans. One Sunday, he told me a girl from his site wanted to meet me who was very pretty and very interested in me. He set up a fishing trip and picnic outside the town of Starobelsk. As it turned out, the girl was not my type at all -- she had a pock-marked face and smoked and drank a lot. It took 2 hours to get there. Mikhail drove like a maniac on bumpy roads and with his stereo blaring so loudly I could hardly talk to the girl. The fishing was rather boring. We had to gather twigs from the woods to start a fire because they don't use charcoal. The food took forever to prepare. After we got home, Mikhail called me into the office and told me I needed to pay $600 for the picnic. If I knew it was going to be so expensive, I never would have agreed to the trip. At that point I "lost it" and walked out of the office.

All of his interpreters were either on vacation or sick at the time I visited, so he had to call his travel agent, who spoke fluent English, for back-up. The travel agent told me he is the most corrupt agency manager in Lugansk.

I also met 2 girls I liked very much, but Mikhail would not call them for another date. After I refused to pay the $600, he told one of the girls that if she met me outside of the agency, he would not pay her $300 that he owed her for typing. Then he wanted her to call me and arrange a date so he could "drop in" and ask for the $600 again, and he told her if she didn't do it, he would not pay her the $300. (She didn't do it.) I think this agency is what you might call a "double scam" because apparently the ladies think that if they join and follow the rules, they can correspond with a man and eventually meet him some day.

So, in summary, any guy who visits Romantic Tours will be charge an arm and a leg and won't get to meet the ladies he wants.