InterPals.netReviews 142

I decided to create a new account, and give it a try again. I hoped I could find a few penpals this time, with a bit of luck. Well, after a few days, I already deleted the account. So so many scammers, one in particular. Exactly the same messages I received when I first joined the penpal club a few years ago. At first, this Indian scammer from the same profile again, using several ones. From India at first, pretending to be a woman, in a sari, no face in the photo, somebody posted the word "scammer" on his wall. A few years ago he made up a story about having severe family problems, and he... Urgently needed my e-mail address. I recognized the picture immediately. I couldn't post on his wall, as he wouldn't allow anyone... Obviously. Then he tried and contact me from several other fake profiles, same style, blocked wall, fake photos, from Afghanistan, USA, and also as an inactive user. He could easily post any messages he liked this way, as he couldn't be blocked. I had to block my message section from penpals members and wall. Not to mention about the disgusting, cowards scammers posting insulting and racist messages on the wall as inactive users, cowardly hiding away... Lions behind the keyboard, but cowards in real life. I joined again and I regret it. I wanted to find the only decent Italian lady pal I had, but she was no longer there, and who can blame her... And then, perverts, jealous women (you can be sure if you are a woman, they will never contact you), rude and ignorant messages. Such a "great" place! If someone decent is trying to contact you, you won't believe him. And won't believe it! Nobody can be trusted

It used to be a really good website until 2016, then the indian scammer was registering on there. He creates tons of fake accounts to attack ppl and mods. Often he's holding discussions between his different accounts, you can see it in the Indian thread and in the general threads. He pretended to be a brazilian, polish girls, dutch men, a dutch girl, afgani, indonesians, singaporean girl and filipina. He used to discuss such issues as threesomes and all. Also his favourite issues are skin colour, racism and cannibalism. During 1.5 years he lies that he met celebrities face to face and has a very beautiful GF from the USA, who calls him every day to India and loves him. It isn't a regular troll, but hideous and very harrassing psychopath. The big reason many people stop loving the site.

I've used Interpals for over seven years and I can pretty much tell you this website used to be a good website to chat, talk and creat lifelong friendships and maybe meet a girlfriend, believe it or not.
Back in 2011, I met tons of people who I still talk to, few of them should I say, and back then it was nice and it seemed that people genuinely wanted to talk to you, get to know you and even learn your language, but here's when things kind of changed, from 2014 on I couldn't meet a single person, things got bored and it didn't have the sparkle anymore, you just would scroll up and down all day long and not a single soul would get back to you, which was very annoying, by the way.
All in all, it's worth trying and good to do some language exchance, but nothing more than that now, although you might be the lucky one and go past "hi, how are you?"

Sorry but interpals is full of idiots.
You can forgot about learning languages because most time you will writing in english. Most people are rude and arogant. Many people have miliard words in their profile page and telling you that they dont answer to only hi, hello etc. then how to start conversation woth people who have answers on everything in their page... site is need to fix because sometimes you getting messages but messages page is clean.

My experience with Interpals left me feeling highly disappointed.
Sure, I didn't expect a lot from a free chat website, but I have to admit that I expected slightly better than this.
There was issues uploading photos, issues viewing photos, no response from admin regarding these issues, 419 scammers not limited to any particular country, annoying messages from people who apparently find it too 'time consuming' to bother reading the request section of a person's profile, but on the same token, insist that they 'want to get to know you better'.
Most of the messages I received were of the same boring generic nature, strangers wanting my Skype, whatsapp, facebook and so forth within five minutes of having introduced themselves.
This same style of time-wasting, frustrating messaging was noted with such frequency that I am now of the belief that Interpals must be crawling with spambots.

I wonder how many genuine profiles there actually are?

Honestly, I have had better quality conversations on mIRC chat and yahoo forums. That's really saying something.

I have been on and off this website for a few years now. I have met some nice people. Then I have had to deal with some rude, ignorant, uneducated people. It's a hit or miss, but I wouldn't say it is a good place to make longer term friends or to learn a language. Sometimes people answer sometimes they don't. All I get are people from the Middle East or Africa messaging me and they don't always know how to write in English and no I am not being mean they write something and it makes no sense what so ever can' even read it. No one really reads your profile so I don't bother putting a lot on it. The website just looks outdated and needs a face lift. I know in your profile you can put an age range of people who can contact you and select counties or continents you don't want people to message you from, well it doesn't work. I have it set for ages 26 to 36 and don't accept messages from Africa and certain other countries but I still get messages from people, so don't bother. As for searching for people. I will sometimes narrow down the search to say Europe only but it will still give me people from around the world. I wouldn't recommend.

I have been a member of Interpals for 7 months now. I do think it is possible to make genuine people, as I have made 5 real people on the site since joining. One tip is to be quite specific in your profile message on your home page what you are and are not looking for e.g. you are looking for friends to engage in real conversation, and not looking for romance. I think the more things you put about yourself such as your interest, hobbies, etc, more people tend to show interest. I do agree however that there are a lot of time wasting people on the site, particularly men, who are looking to flirt, and use the site as a dating website! However there is a facility on the website to block unwanted messages and contact from particular people or countries if they are reoccurring. The thought of potentially meeting and making lots of friends from around the world, is exciting, however the reality is, that out of every 20 you contact, you probably will make one or two real friends. So it better to put your time and effort into developing friendships with a handful of people, than lots and waste your time, looking for new people every time you log on to build your circles it is tempting especially when you see different faces all the time!. The reality also, is that a lot of people have already established friendships or contact with a number of people on the site, and no matter how attractive your photo is, they just don't have the time to take on any more friends, so they wont respond. Don't take it personal, just understand. It might be an idea to search for new members, who are just starting out on Interpals, as they will be a lot more enthusiastic, and likely to respond. Also when contacting some one directly, say more than 'hi' or 'how are you' introduce yourself, give a reason why you are on interpals, and state a few of your interest and a couple of lines about yourself. You will come across as more serious, and stand out from those one word one liner messagers. If you manage to establish good trusting connection with others, rather than loose their friendship, it might be an idea to exchange email, Skype, or Whats app, once you become comfortable with each other, as this way you can maintain contact even if they stop using interpals for a while, and it also helps to sustain the friendship.

Well I hope this helps, and good luck!

Well, I have used other similar websites and apps and I have experienced the same things on all of them.

People to whom you send a message and do not answer.

People that answer just one or two messages and then disappear.

People with whom you were having a good conversation and, all of a sudden, they stop messaging for no reason.

Among other things. It not only happens on Interpals, this happens everywhere else. I guess that knowing this beforehand will save you a lot of trouble. Still, I was able to make some friends like that. It may be luck, but it is possible. You may also not make any friends, but at least this site allows you to have some good conversations with people, even if you don't continue talking with them in the long run. Just like in real life, you don't continue talking with many people even if you considered them friends.

Overall, I think the site is good if you know how to use it, despite its flaws.

When I joined 8 years ago, this site did have some claim to be a "proper" penpal site. I've written for lengthy periods of time to quite a lot of interesting and friendly people (and even met a couple, just as friends). So far so good. However hardly any of those friendships lasted and some of my penpals have written for years, long and friendly emails and messages, only to cease for no reason that I could see. This is very disheartening, as another reviewer said, you start to wonder whether you've done or said something wrong, or that they've just gone off you because you've somehow ceased to be interesting. I went back to the site recently to see if I could find new penpals but it seems now to consist of men looking for hook ups and people who stop writing after a few messages or don't reply at all. I recently had one man ask why I was pretending to want a penpal... that's after I told him it wasn't a dating site and he should try OK Cupid..

Joined this website to make friends in a few countries that I want to visit. I contacted those who had long term accounts and had a few pictures. Some of them profiles stated that they want to chat. So, when I contacted these people, with a nice detailed intro message, I either got a profile view and my message was never clicked into, you can see this bcoz the message is highlighted in pink if not read and then others read my message but didnt view my profile.
It is a joke of a website with sooo sooooo many fake, impolite, unfriendly and lying people, I think, because its a website to chat on and meet new people, not to get picture comments and just ignore people and block people for sending a decent message. They complain about getting 'how r u' messages but when u send a good 1, it gets ignored too. Also, the customer service part of interpals is terrible and the website is buggy. Finally, another comment said, you just need to know to use the website, that is fkn bullsh*** talk from probably a scammer too, who knows. People, if your reading this, think, long and hard about joining this site, it will not meet your expectations and it will make you feel worthless, maybe you should try another site, if there is 1 that is actually full of people that actually, want to chat.
Overall, the people using it and the customer service....I warrant this website a 1 star, id give half a star if possible but ok, I am not bitter but I am experienced on that site to know all this and i wont be keeping on using interpals, that is for sure.

Interpals is not what it claims to be; a pen-pal site. Had an account there for a while but got really disppointed when I saw it's full of weirdos, scammers & boring narcissistic people. Most are quite ugly & far too lazy or arrogant to even write a profile. They certainly don't reply to anyone. So if you wish to waste your time trying to connect with morons who continually make ugly selfies because they're so dumb & have no real personality, please carry on. Your life will soon become as nondescript & meaningless as theirs. Good luck with that.

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!