Staying safe while looking for a match

Guidance that holds on any platform

None of the following depends on Match & Wed. It is the advice we would give a relative using any matrimonial service, and it is worth reading even if you never use ours.

Share in the order that protects you

• A first conversation does not need your home address, your workplace address, or your daily routine. Those are the details that let someone find you before you have decided you want to be found.
• Keep conversation on the platform until you are confident. Moving to a personal messaging app early is the most common first step in a matrimonial fraud, because it removes any record and any ability to report.
• Photographs of your home, your vehicle with its number plate, or your children are worth holding back longer than you think.

Confirm independently before you commit anything

• Verify employment and education through the institution or employer, not through documents the person sends you. A convincing offer letter costs nothing to fabricate.
• Ask for and actually contact references within the community. In an arranged match this is normal and expected, and someone who resists it is telling you something.
• Meet in a public place, tell someone in your family where you are going, and go with someone the first time.
• Be more careful, not less, when the person is abroad or says they cannot meet. Distance is the standard cover for a person who is not who they claim.

Money is the line

No legitimate match asks you for money. Not for a visa, not for a medical emergency, not for a customs fee on a gift, not as a temporary loan, not to prove seriousness. This is the single most reliable signal there is, and it does not have exceptions.

Related: never share a one-time password, a bank account number, a UPI PIN, or photographs of identity documents with someone you have met through any matrimonial service. If money has already been sent, report it to your bank immediately and to the national cybercrime helpline on 1930, or at cybercrime.gov.in. Speed matters more than anything else in recovering a transfer.

Patterns worth stopping for

• Pressure to decide quickly, or to keep the conversation secret from your family.
• A story that changes, or details that do not survive being asked about twice.
• Refusal to video call, repeatedly, with a new reason each time.
• Anger or guilt when you ask an ordinary verifying question.
• A profile that matches you unusually perfectly on every single point. That is a constructed profile more often than it is luck.

A match that is genuine survives being checked. If checking causes offence, you have learned something useful.

What Match & Wed commits to

Stated as commitments, not as a feature list, because no community platform has opened yet. When one does, these are the standards it will hold, and this page will be rewritten to describe what is actually running rather than what is intended.

• Profiles are reviewed before they are visible. Not an automated filter alone — a person approves a profile before anyone can find it.
• Nobody can message you without your agreement. Interest first, acceptance second, conversation only after that. An unanswered interest does not open a conversation.
• Reporting reaches a person. A report is read by someone with the authority to remove an account, and the same route exists on every community platform.
• Blocking is complete. A blocked account cannot see you, find you in search, or reach you by any other route on the platform.
• Verification claims stay narrow. A verified mark will state exactly which check passed and will never be presented as a character reference. See what verification means.

If something has already gone wrong

Financial fraud: your bank, immediately, then 1930 or cybercrime.gov.in. Threats, harassment or intimate images shared without consent: these are criminal matters, and the same cybercrime portal takes those reports. Do not delete the messages — they are the evidence.

Anything that happens on a Match & Wed community platform should also be reported inside that platform, so the account can be removed for everyone else as well.