Safety education

Four short sections of practical guidance — the habits that keep dating fun and drama-free. Read them through; at the end, signed-in members can mark the guide complete to earn the Safety Aware profile milestone.

1. Before you meet

• Video chat before the first date. A five-minute call is the fastest way to confirm someone matches their photos and that the conversation feels the same face-to-face. Anyone with endless excuses for never getting on camera is a red flag (more on that in section 2).
• Tell a friend the plan.Who you’re meeting, where, and when you expect to be home — then actually message them during the date. Signed-in members can do this in one step with Date check-in: record the plan, optionally share it with a friend by email, and check in safe afterwards. (It records and shares your plan at your request; it does not monitor your date or dispatch help.)
• Pick a public place you choose.A café, restaurant, or hotel bar with people around — not a private home, yours or theirs, and not a venue only they know. If they push hard against a public first meeting, that’s your answer.
• Control your own arrival and exit. Drive yourself or book your own ride both ways, keep your phone charged, and keep your drink with you. You can leave at any moment without explaining — safety first, politeness second.

2. Spotting romance & financial scams

• Never send money to someone you haven’t met in person. Not by bank transfer, wire, payment app, gift cards, prepaid cards, or cryptocurrency — and never “just temporarily.” Gift cards and crypto are scammers’ favorites because they can’t be reversed.
• Treat every financial ask as a report, not a request.A match who asks for money, card details, account access, or help moving funds is running a script — report the profile right away (section 3) so they can’t work on the next person.
• Know the patterns.Weeks of warm attention, then a sudden emergency — medical bills, customs fees, a frozen account, a stranded relative. Or the “helpful” match steering you to a crypto or trading platform with guaranteed returns. Both end the same way: with your money gone.
• Watch for the can’t-ever-meet profile. Deployed overseas, on an oil rig, traveling indefinitely, camera always broken — combined with pressure to move off-platform quickly, away from screening and reporting tools.
• If money already left your account: stop all further payments, contact your bank or payment provider immediately, report the profile to us, and consider filing with your local police or national fraud-reporting service.

3. Blocking & reporting

• Block from their profile.Open the member’s profile and use the Block option — they can no longer contact you or interact with your profile, and you don’t have to explain anything to anyone.
• Report where it happened. Use Report on their profile, or the safety menu inside any message thread to report a conversation without leaving it. Pick the closest reason and add what happened — specifics help our team act.
• What happens next: reports go to a review queue and are looked at by our team, who can act on the reported account. Reporting is confidential — we never tell members who reported them.
• Report even after you block. Blocking protects you; the report protects the next member they message.

4. Account security

• Turn on two-factor authentication. In Settingsyou can enable 2FA with an authenticator app plus backup codes — a stolen password alone then isn’t enough to get into your account.
• Use a strong password that’s unique to this site. If you reuse passwords, a breach anywhere becomes a breach here — change yours via password resetif it’s shared with other accounts, and consider a password manager.
• We will never ask for your password. Not in a message, not by email. Anyone asking for your password, verification codes, or a login link is phishing — report them.
• Practice discretion. Sign out on shared devices, keep your home and work addresses out of early conversations, and remember your profile shows only the city you choose to enter — keep your written profile just as vague about where to find you.