Meeting someone from an app safely in India

Most people you meet on an app are exactly who they say they are. The precautions below cost almost nothing and remove the small number of situations that go badly.

Before you meet

• Video-call. Five minutes. It defeats stolen photos, catches people using an old picture, and tells you more about whether you want to meet than fifty messages will.
• Reverse-image search their photos. Save one and search it. If it belongs to a model or an actor, you have saved yourself an evening.
• Keep it on the app until you have met. Someone who insists on moving to WhatsApp on day one usually has a reason, and once you are off the platform there is no record and no report button.
• Prefer verified profiles. Where a platform verifies government ID against a live selfie, that is a much stronger signal than a blue tick that only proves an email address.

What not to share yet

Your home address, your exact office and desk, your financial details, your family's details, and intimate photographs. None of this is needed to have coffee, and all of it is used in the small number of cases that turn into harassment or extortion.

The first meeting

Daytime, a public place, somewhere you can leave easily. Get there yourself and leave yourself rather than being collected. Keep your drink with you. Tell one friend where you are going and when you expect to be back, and share your live location with them for the evening.

If you feel wrong about it at any point, leave. You never owe anyone the rest of the evening, and no reasonable person will hold it against you.

Money, always

Nobody you have met once needs a loan, an investment tip, an emergency transfer, or a fee to release a parcel. Requests for money after a fast, intense start are the single most common fraud on Indian dating and matrimonial platforms, and the amounts start small deliberately.

If it goes wrong

Block and report inside the app first, because that removes the profile before it reaches the next person. Keep screenshots. For threats, extortion, or intimate images shared without consent, report to cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930 in India; 112 is the emergency number, and 181 is the women's helpline. Sharing intimate images without consent is a criminal offence, and the person doing it is counting on your embarrassment.

On TrueSaath Dating, location is shown at the precision you choose, colleagues can be hidden specifically, crossed paths never reveals where or when, and every conversation is watched for the language these scams use.