Interpals
Reviews and Complaints

I have been on this site for over 12 years this time around. It has always been a good site for learning and helping with languages. This site went down hill when they added flirting. After that every pervert in the world comes to this site and some try to say they are from countries they are not from to scam people. Most of us are wise to these African scammers and get them shut down real fast only to have them come back again claiming they are someone else. It's more of a game than anything else. There are still good people on here that want to learn languages but it's not the same. Years ago people didn't use age designations for who they wanted to learn from as long as they were learning from a native speaker. Now I think there are other agendas for many people rather than language learning. Oh well, such is life and life goes on.

Yes- Interpals has it?s odd moments.
Yes- Interpals invites people you may can?t stand.
Yes- Interpals isn?t a safe space
Yes- Interpals app doesn?t make it better but worse.
Yes - it?s dynamics will force you to adapt or vanish.

It?s like a community brunch in a youth hostel. Everyone brings to the table what she/he/it can find and wants to offer. The provided cuttlery you better give a second clean and the plates are chipped no matter what. Tea and coffee is free, anything else is BYO (bring your own)
Take a seat, grab a chair or claim your couch.
The host is nowhere to find and guests are mimicing to run around on busy missions.
Some are talking, some are shouting, some are sitting in a corner saying nothing. Some are dumb, some eccentric, some search for world peace via google. Some have a hard plank in their trousers, some just got burned on facebook, some just enjoy their cornflakes while others already dressed up for a flirt. Some are players, some are woke, some seem still sleepy behind shades, some turning their heads for the new arrivals and some are listening music and pop a beer already... uh, right they are sitting over there, in another timezone.
But ring the porter bell and point out a scammer; by the time you grabbed your next coffee the problem will be gone.

Let?s have a look at the stickers at the entry door and have a glimpse on House Rules, Delivery-Service Menues and Questionairs laying on the counter.

You can try to search a partner for language exchange and tandem learning.
You can set age restrictions and block individuals as well as entire nations and continents.
You have to overcome the sensation of being called intolerant.
You are invited to overthink your perception and expectations of others continuosly.
Don?t bring bedbugs, don?t be a bedbug and feel free to report bedbugs.

As it doesn?t matter how thoughtful, odd, fun or silent and most of all sincere your idea of making new friends is... someone will ask you to sit next to you at one point. You can say yes, no and change seat with your "Will just grab another coffee, be back in a sec!".

And here my little comparrison ends.

This review isnt so much about the site, but the people who are reviewing it here, Most of them seem to have little life experience and do not understand how to use the site properly. One is complaining she gets hit on by teenagers. Easy, choose your preferred age group. Similarly choose your countries/ continents/gender etc. This is all down to You, not the site. Yes, there are a lot of scammers. But anyone who gets taken by a scammer is asking for it, quite bluntly. Come on,, if someone has no profile, or one that is clearly fake, you just report it. Similarly if someone makes inappropriate sexual requests Doesn?t happen that much yo me, sadly, (lol) but it has! If someone offends you, report them, Simple. If the site mods think your complaint is valid they will remove the offender. And you will be saving more gullible peole from whingeing like here. How many times do we older ladies get business type god fearing widowers bravely bringing yp kids alone, or American generals in a war zone? None of which can even write in plain English. If someone tells you "Me New York businessman, me busy, busy" There?s a pretty good chance that he isnt! If "he" starts a message "with hello pretty" or I suspect for the younger ones "Babe" its a good bet he is some hairy arsed Nigerian in a cyber caf? somewhere. I have had to educate a few men along the way too, who have been approached by women that look like super models. Never give your email until you trust someone, be sceptical until they have proved their worth, in other words behave exactly as you would in Real Life. Chances are the person on the other end is just who they say they are. Just like people in the street. Some are bright, some aren?t, some are nice, some aren?t, some you start out liking but end up hating, others you are dubious about turn out to be great friends. This has nothing to do with the site or its users, it has to do with YOU. If you cant take that onboard, I am glad you arent using it, but please dont badmouth something for your own issues. There is too much of that in the world right now already. Take responsibility for your own actions. And try to learn from experience..

Ever since I've joined this website it's been nothing but great. Of course, there's always going to be rude people, weirdos, and trolls(come on people it's the internet, what do you expect?). Despite this, I've met many genuine people which led into good friendships. So far I have 6 good friends from this website and still counting. If somebody were to ask me if I knew a website to make friends and exchange languages, I'd recommend interpals 1000%.

I read these reviews before I joined two years ago. Now I'm back, and can share experience.
-Yes, there are strange people.
-Yes, there are people who aren't who they say they are.
-Yes, you can have good conversations with people from other countries, and you CAN have good language exchange.
-DO NOT join expecting to be TAUGHT the language: you wouldn't sit there and teach someone English, I'm guessing, and no one is going to hold your hand through Japanese or French.

Always reach out to people, anyone you think you'd like to talk to; lots of them won't respond, but that's okay, because some will. Usually if you get ignored, it's for the best, and they would have turned out to be shallow or not speak your language.
When you get messaged, talk about what you have in common. Definitely get to know who you're talking to - it's fun! But don't give away information until you are comfortable - the right people will understand and be wary themselves.
If someone wants a relationship and you don't, make your intentions clear. They will either accept it, or they will move on.
No pressure. It isn't primarily a dating site, so don't go asking for significant others - many other members won't appreciate that.
You're just here for the ride, so make the best of it. Celebrate the friendships, but don't beat yourself up over the losses or the weird comments. If you feel threatened, you can always report, or you can leave.
If they publish personal information about you, it likely won't hurt you as much as you think - sure, it's embarrassing, but no one uses the site anyway, so the info won't get far.

Overall, my experience has been great. Just keep an open mind and don't take anything too seriously.

Have fun!

I don't work for Interpals - which I will no doubt be accused of by the end of this review, but as a site user who has used the site for at least 10 years, I need to set anyone straight who has just read the reviews below. This is a GREAT site for meeting others across the world. I have met several people off the site. Of course it didn't work out with all of them - just as through the years you don't hold on to all of your friends offline either. But I'm happy to have met them. The 'warning' that there are a lot of Ukrainian and Russian women on there - well what the hell is that supposed to tell anyone? It just so happens those countries are huge and internet usage is high among the populous there.
Also, to whoever said the site owner has "been accused of hacking into people's accounts" - well whoopee do. "Been accused" is absolutely meaningless, and of course, conveniently no source whatsoever is quoted.
Yes there are a lot of fakes on the site, as there are on all sites like this online. This is not some new phenomenon. Also there are a lot of amorous men - well there's a shocker - have you been down your local nightclub on a Friday night lately?
But that's why they invented a "Block" button - which is very effective. I wonder if the people criticising the site have been using the internet for more than a few weeks, because the simple fact is, if Interpals was a 'scam site' or not legitimate: a) it would not have SO many hundreds and thousands of users from just about every country on Earth and b) instead of being around for at least a decade, it would have been DEAD years ago by now.
How is it a scam site when I am now meeting up with my Polish friend who I met off there and who I now consider a proper friend? Or the American woman who came over to meet me? Or the other friends I have now on WhatsApp, and others still that I've had Christmas cards from. Does all of that sound like a "scam" to you...? Use the site for whatever purposes you like - mostly for friends, and if you're honest about yourself, if you don't hide away, and if you make sure to put photos of yourself up (not putting photos up will cripple your chances of getting friends on there because everyone will just assume you have something to hide), then you will have success - because I certainly have had.

I've read through a lot of the reviews on here and there seem to be a lot of people who don't like the site. While I can understand some of these gripes, here's the rub: Interpals is one of the best sites for penpals, epals, and online friends that you're going to find.

While sometimes the response rate can be less-than-spectacular, you can say that about most sites like this. Of course people are less likely to respond to you if there's no clear, obvious common ground between the two of you, or if half your message and/or profile is lamenting how nobody ever responds to you, or if you send a message that's only a few words long and your profile is basically blank.

While this might seem like I (and a lot of people who use Interpals) are basically raging narcissists who get off on being rude to people, you have to understand that the internet isn't always like places in the physical world. A lot more people will be trying to talk to you, so sometimes you just have to be a lot more selective about who you respond to, and you have to put a little bit of effort into making yourself stand out.

I mean, it's not too uncommon for me to get four or five messages from people I haven't spoken to before on a day when I've been on Interpals all day. This isn't a huge amount compared to the numbers other people get, but it's enough that you do have to make some decisions regarding who you respond to and who you don't. In my case, the people who just say "Hi, how are you?" and show no indication that they've read more than two or three words of my profile are the people who aren't getting a response.

I think there's a good chance that a lot of the people who want to complain about how Interpals is a haven for narcissists just aren't thinking about that aspect of things. Sometimes the case just is that you're going to have to decide between two people, and a lot of people are going to err on the side of responding to the person who sends a message that asks them a couple of questions about themselves and their interests rather than the person who just says hello.

I don't think that's indicative of people on the site generally being stuck up; it's indicative that people appreciate it when others put a bit of effort into getting to know them. It's not like people on the site are expecting a 2,000 word essay straight off the bat; most will be satisfied with a couple of lines about you and a couple of questions that you wanted to ask them based on their profile.

I think that's what a lot of the people here who are complaining about the bad response rate are failing to realise. You don't have to be writing long messages to people straight off the bat or resort to only saying hello--there a lot of middle ground between these two extremes, and that's what most people are hoping for.

Really, I think most people who complain about a bad response rate tend to be people who can't handle the fact that they're not always the kind of person people want to talk to, or they're people who don't realise that people online don't owe you their time.

There are some good, interesting people on Interpals who I've enjoyed talking to a great deal. While some of these conversations haven't lasted as long as I would have hoped, neither do some conversations I've had in real life; and neither do some of the friendships I've had in real life.

While as I said, the response rate may not always be as good as you hoped, that's true of a lot of places on the internet. Generally speaking, I've found that as long as you're willing to put some effort into your introductory message, you'll be able to find at least a few people who would like to be friends with you.

Interpals is an easy-to-use site that has a great mod team. While there have been obviously fake profiles that have been up for a surprisingly long time, the mod team will generally crack down on them fairly quickly once they've been reported. Usually the case is more that nobody's reported a problem rather than the mods are intentionally ignoring it.

Plus the mod team is just great in general, and rarely have I ever seen a mod team that's more even handed. Sometimes there have been cases where I've seen them make decisions I've disagreed with, but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule and I can usually at least see where they're coming from with the decision.

In terms of overall usability, Interpals is probably the easiest-to-use epal/pen pal website you're going to find, especially if you're like me and you don't want to pay to sign up. The site design is about as intuitive as you'd hope for. Plus, for the most part, Interpals doesn't really have the glaring on-site cultural issues that a lot of other sites of this nature tend to have.

Interpals is just overall a good site, and as I said, as long as you're okay with putting the effort into giving yourself a good introduction, you'll find some people who'll have a good conversation with you.

I'm going to preface this review by saying that IP was never perfect to begin with. However, there's an obvious decline in both the activity on the site and the quality of its members.
I've been on and off IP for probably ten years. In the earlier days when I was on there were still scammers and pervs, but I could find a pen pal very easily. I would always have several people that I could carry on conversations with, nothing deep or long term, but satisfying none the less. I would have so many offers that I had to decline a few just because I was already busy with other pen pals.
Flash forward to today and my age (I'm in my 30's), coupled with the decreased number of *realIP users, and a month of waiting, I didn't get so much as a single message. Mind you I was quick to lock in my filters, these filters allow you to block individual countries and select age and gender restrictions. It would perhaps be easier to select the countries you do want to hear from because sadly so many of them are flooded with fake users. That being said, I wasn't so restrictive that I blocked everyone, just the men.
This site, I believe, favors the young. The older you get, the fewer members you have to choose from. There are plenty of young users here. Many users are actually fake, they're fairly easy to spot, they often choose English speaking countries for their profiles but they speak in broken English about generalized topics. They like to steal photos from iStock or off of social media, a quick image search usually reveals whose faking.
There are many scammers looking for sex/nude photos, money or to give you a virus (the forums are apparently crawling with them). There are also weird people who want to marry you, push their religion on you, and one elderly woman even claimed that people were asking her to adopt them! Damn.
There are easily 20 profiles faked every hour, that adds up to a lot of users, so don't be fooled by the numbers when it comes to how many are "online". There are twice the number of men on the site compared to women, perhaps this is why so women feel hounded on IP? Do men no longer talk to other men? The majority of people pefer to speak to Americans, the British, or the Japanese (apparently no one gives a damn about Canada lol). A lot of countries aren't considered desirable or popular, which I'm sure is a drag and might feel a touch isolating.
Sadly Interpals has become more of a dating site with most *realusers looking for love and marriage. Others use the site explicitly to boost their social media followers by linking to every imaginable platform including Etsy.
Aside from all of the above, the site is glitchy, my profile would disappear from search engines and then reappear for no rhyme or reason, which didn't help for being found by anybody. I also had very few people visiting my profile, and only ever when I was logged on. I never had offline views, and maybe averaged about 2 profile views a day (whenever I was online which was fairly frequent).
If you're interested in using Interpals make sure your pen pal requests are clear, set your restrictions, speak fluent English (enough to converse) or simply speak in your own language. Set boundaries and do not share your personal information! And I guess most importantly... Cultivate patience because it may take awhile.

I joined interpals in november 2022. I met a man here and he asked me my telegram username, although I denied before, I shared with him later. Now in september 2023 he scammed me. Please help me find information about him. His supposed name is [Redacted]. I talked to him somewhere around 8 to 13 november. He joined interpals approximately at the end of october 2022. I joined later. please find the details of the person. Also he claimed to be [Redacted] with current location being [Redacted] and 26 was his age at that time. Please find details of this person

They scrammers. Hackers bad people trying steal identity am always disbaled my account suspended all the damn time. Am not mad at you guys it was the interpals fault very bad site cannot put your picture private when you sign up your account get disabled for no [censored]ing reason am guys was upset at interpal they shut down all my accoybts6 then bad people lied about you so I get suspended ban forever reccomed anybody don't used this site. Of interpal. face book and instragram is much better safer site

I am not aware of what is the illegal activities that was picked up by your automated detectors.

I already raised this complain ,but nothing happened. I wonder if you can stipulated in particular the violations that I have committed. I was just surprised that I immediately could not log in to my account for unknown reasons to my knowledge. I believe its unjustly executed, without verifying to whatever that it maybe. Also, moderators did you check your system that my account must probably been hacked by these people with ill intentions to others.

To my knowledge I only know that I don't want to chat outside interpals to chatters since most of them are perverts.

I don't have any intentions to force the issue of allowing me to chat in your platform, but justice must be prevailed. kindly look into this case because I know myself and I am a decent person who does not want to deal with bad people who scam around and asking for money to others and selling bit coins.

For your necessary actions and give justice to descent chatters like me.

Funny! you are deactivating a descent person account, but ignoring all the scammers in there.

I believe you better check how you manage your site.

Thank you anyways for showing how poor is your judgment in screening between real chatters and those who just scam and fool other people.

Notjealous44 this member sent me a message yesterday he said Merry Christmas! This morning l replied back and said Merry Christmas to you too! Then he sent few messages while l was responded to other members, on his last message he said why don't you reply to me n*****, [censored]. This is unacceptable, this man cannot be on this site l told him that l was going to report him. He lives in Sweden, apparently work as an Economist according to him he speaks Arabic, Sweden and English.

5th November 2021

My account was deactivated for absolutely no reason. When I tried to recreate another account it was deactivated immediately again. This happens anything you try to create an account on interpals.

The moderatos are predators, they befriend users and then when they have personal problems with you, they deactivate your account and tell their friends on there not to reactivate you if you complain about it.

This is happened a number of times already and I want this incident to be throughly addressed.

Look at their ratings on google or check other complaints by users and you will see I am not the only one who has fell victim to their moderators.

I refuse to accept this .

Ok, here it goes: who cares who people are on interpals and why I should take them seriously.
Who are they and what do they want.
It's illogical.
Why should i even talk to profiles from an interpals site.
It's like a devil in disguise.
Can you trust anybody..
Could be saying one thing and doing another.
Passing time..bored people,
I also get trapped into conversations I'm not interested in.. what a big, foolish game this is..
I d rather waste my time on better things..
No privacy.. profiles just want to further contact you and for what reason?!
And the disadvantaged get the worst out of it.
The blocking feature is simply horrendous, why if you fancied someone on there and they just blocked you. That's not the way to treat people. You could kindly let them know, you are not interested but not block them.. it's no good..not at all!

I found InterPals website and thought that it was a great way to find language exchange partners and maybe friends from around the world. But instead of that I received tons of messages with dating offers! I replied that I was only interested in language practice but they kept sending me nasty messages! In my opinion InterPals is just another terrible dating site and it's full of nasty people! I even reported those users to InterPals support service but they did not seem to care, I didn't receive a reply back. I'm very disappointed with this site, I had great expectations for InterPals.

I've been on InterPals twice, both times I've been damn near conned out of money. Quite a few of them refer to that site as a dating site, so I get asked about that a lot. It gets old as hell. If anybody does decide to join that site, mention in your profile that it ain't a dating site and you're just there for friends, no more no less. Another word of advice on that site: get to know people better before you give them your contact info, like social media, Skype, and texting apps.

I'm studying Korean language and decided to find some Korean friends to improve my language skills. I joined www.interpals.net and started to invite people. I had a really nice time and my Korean now is much better, but recently I deleted my account because of one guy. At first I thought he was a nice person but then he started sending me horrible perverted pictures of him! He told me all those dirty things and asked me to send him some of my private photos! Totally disgusting! There are many fakes and pervs on Interpals, be very very careful!

I have registered on the website www.interpals.net. I was shocked, when I started to get emails and messages from other users. They were using swear words and unseemly words. It was so unpleasant to get and read these messages. I was sick of these dirty and rude men, so after 2 weeks I deleted my account from this website. I really hate this website and decided to share my experience. So, please be careful.

OMG. I have registered on the website www.interpals.net couple of months ago. I wanted to find new friends and start to improve my English. I was shocked what users wrote each other. I received such dirty and inappropriate messages that I complained the moderators. But these guys weren’t interested in the complaints and ignored all of them. I simply deleted my account and wanted to share this news.

Interpals.net is full of liars and perverts who try to take advantage of women online. These guys are sending nasty and rude messages, treating female users of the site like a product on the shelf. It's disgusting and unacceptable behaviour. I thought it was a site where one can learn and improve his skills in foreign languages, but now I see its real aim is nothing near to that. There aren't any normal people on Interpals, or are they? Why posting an ordinary, non-provocative picture of oneself triggers an avalanche of lewd sexual comments? These people are deeply sick. And there are folks who try to get money and nude pictures too. It's a pure cesspit and nothing more.

I and my fried recently joined the website www.interpals.net. At the beginning, it was good, but later we started to get different, unpleasant and dirty emails and messages from male users from this website. We tried to block them, but nothing worked. We tried to complain about it to the moderators, but they didn’t care about it. I wonder if there are other people, who had the same experience. Can you provide any good piece of advice?

I registered on the website www.interpals.net in order to find new friends in other countries. At the beginning it was good, but later I started to receive angry and unpleasant emails from men. They offered me a lot of things and some of the emails contained swear words and straight-talk expressions. I hoped that moderators would help me to stop these scammers, but they did nothing and they ignored my complaints. Share your views about this website. It can help other people as well.