When a match is arranged with a woman who registered through a scout, does the scout receive a referral fee? Is there any way to tell whether someone registered through a scout before applying to meet her?

> Is there any way to tell whether a woman was referred by a scout before applying? The staff know, but there’s no way to tell from the member page. If you ask a staff member, they might tell you—but only if there’s some benefit to them in doing so. If there’s nothing but disadvantages to telling you, I doubt they would. In this case, whether she came through a scout isn’t really the issue. If the problem is that some women are changing their dating type because a scout told them to, then Universe Club needs to take steps to prevent that. It’s not directly related to whether she was referred by a scout. That said, if you actually come across women like this, please keep reporting them. If they notice that only women referred by a particular scout have unusual dating types, they may choose to stop doing business with that scout. > There’s an extremely strong bias when women decide on their dating type. If it’s true that scouts are telling them that, then I agree. However, dating-type fraud can also be grounds for forced expulsion. If multiple men report the same thing about a woman, she may be expelled even if the scout denies doing it and the woman denies it herself. That said, when they investigate women who have been reported, they sometimes find that those women went to a hotel with other men. Since it’s hard to imagine men making up reports like that, some women may simply be saying it to avoid hurting the other person when turning them down. Either way, though, I’d like people to report it. Scouts used to be heavily involved in women’s dating types in the past... > If there were no scouts, Universe wouldn’t be able to attract female members. There were no scout referrals until a year ago, so women were joining even without scouts. However, apparently almost every scout was telling women things like, “You should quit Universe,” or “I can introduce you to somewhere better.” So instead of things balancing out, the scouts kept spreading negative rumors. Initially, Universe did receive referrals from scouts, but about eight years ago they stopped doing business with all of them. The scouts were simply retaliating. My concern is that now that Universe has started working with them again, the same thing could happen in the future. > Are the scouts I’m thinking of different from the ones Maezawa is talking about? They’re the same. When Universe stopped doing business with scouts, they offered to continue working with them if they became affiliates. So although they were effectively still scouts, their arrangement was technically no different from an affiliate’s, and officially they were no longer considered scouts. Naturally, their compensation then became affiliate commissions, which were completely different from their previous scout fees. I imagine the amount they could earn dropped considerably. At that time, many scouts said they couldn’t continue if their compensation was going to be reduced, and that the affiliate terms wouldn’t work for them. They felt Universe had betrayed them, and began aggressively telling people that Universe was no good and that they could introduce them to better places. Since last year, however, Universe has offered scout compensation with better terms than before, and has resumed working with them.

> Is the system set up so that the scouts receive a referral fee? Yes, that’s right. > Is there any way to tell whether someone was referred by a scout before applying? I don’t think so. I personally have a direct relationship with one scout and hear all kinds of stories from him. There are different kinds of scouts, and there may well be some bad ones like the woman the questioner encountered described. But it’s also possible that the woman was lying and blaming the scout as an excuse to turn down an adult relationship (intimate). All I can say is that the questioner was unlucky and happened to pick a bad one. That said, you can provide feedback to the club. Contacting Maezawa-san directly by email would probably be even more effective. Whether the problem was caused by the scout or the girl, it should help eliminate these kinds of issues. Without scouts, Universe wouldn’t be able to attract female members. You’ll understand if you try the apps, but there really aren’t many appealing women out there. Since scouts recruit women who seem promising from that pool, I think we male members shouldn’t forget to be grateful, even though we’re the ones paying. > There were no scout referrals until a year ago. Maybe the scouts I have in mind are different from the ones Maezawa-san is referring to. To me, a scout is someone who participates in a system where, after introducing a woman to Universe, they receive a certain percentage of the offer fee every time a man makes an offer to her. There were—and still are—quite a few scouts among the active female members too, right? Some long-time female members who were good at social media used to post photos holding fans of cash, saying things like, “I made this much at Universe.” Is Maezawa-san referring to the kind of scouts who approach women on the street and recruit them? In the broadest sense, the scouts the questioner is concerned about might even include friends who are doing papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan). Basically, I think they mean people who put strange ideas into women’s heads.

Fuu only makes offers to women with a C type. But whether it’s through a scout or the woman’s own choice, some women who are really only interested in dinner dates (actually B or A types) inevitably slip through. It’s just bad luck—you can’t help it. Give up and move on to the next offer. In any case, if a dinner-only girl registers as C, her rating will gradually drop and she’ll receive fewer offers. So it isn’t really beneficial for her, and she’ll eventually be weeded out. If she simply registered as A or B from the start, built up her rating, and received more offers, she’d ultimately earn more overall. So when you think about it, there’s not much point in deceiving people. Either way, from Fuu’s perspective as someone who’s been with the club for seven years, Universe Club is actually a pretty honest company. I’ve never felt that there was a culture of deceiving members to make money, so I hope you can feel reassured. If you occasionally end up meeting someone who misrepresented her dating type, just chalk it up to bad luck and move on… Let’s go for the next offer!

Of course the scout gets a cut. I don’t know the exact system or percentage, but from what women I’ve gotten close to and continued seeing have told me, offers through scouts seem to come with higher fees. There’s really no way to tell. If you worry about that, wouldn’t it be hard to make any offers? Don’t overthink it—just make offers to the girls you’d like to meet. Everyone answering here is enjoying themselves without fussing over how the system works! Even a nobody like me is having fun with my Universe activities, so take that for what it’s worth.

When a woman is introduced through a scout at a dating club, it’s fair to assume that the scout receives a kickback for each setup offer. And, naturally, especially at clubs like Universe where ratings are displayed with star marks, professional scouts should think that improving their ratings and consistently receiving offers is important if they want to increase the number of offers they get. That being the case, it seems unlikely that scouts would deliberately aim for a short-lived spike in interest by misrepresenting a woman’s appearance when registering her. I’ve met several women outside of Universe who were clearly introduced through scouts—their photos also looked like they had been taken by the scout—and although they were listed as C, they felt more like D. I remember being a little disappointed. I imagine Universe probably has the same tendency.