Staying safe while chatting online

Never share these

• Your home address, school or workplace.
• Your phone number, even to 'move to another app'.
• One-time codes, passwords or account recovery details — no exceptions.
• Photos you would not want to exist permanently.
• Bank details, UPI IDs or payment links from anyone you met online.

Recognising a scam

Scams follow a predictable shape: unusual warmth very quickly, a move to a private channel, then a crisis requiring money or an investment opportunity that cannot wait. Any request for money from someone you met online is a scam until proven otherwise, and it never gets proven otherwise.

Pressure is the signal

Urgency, secrecy and guilt are the three levers every manipulator pulls. A genuine friend can wait a day. Anyone who cannot is telling you what they are.

If something has already gone wrong

Stop responding, block the account, report it to us, and preserve what happened. If money or images are involved, or the person involved is a minor, contact your local police as well — this is not an overreaction.