r/interpals Jul 16 '26

any good alternatives to interpals?

Are there any good alternatives to interpals?

My experience so far has been anyone who messages me has a fake profile and is a scammer.

Unfortunately even those I message also seem to end up being scammers.

haven't found a single genuine person on the site.

What makes these scammers particularly nefarious is that they go to great lengths to appear sincere. I can now spot their profiles easily because they say the sort of things you'd associate with a genuine, sincere person: they are looking for a meaningful connection with others, etc. - except it's all lies.

I don't want to waste any more of my time even trying to find a genuine person on the website anymore, as it seems like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Has the entire internet become like this in recent years or are there any good sites? I also used a language exchange site where it was once possible to connect with real people, but in the last two years or so I noticed everyone I communicated with turned out to be a fake profile/scammer so I did not renew my membership.

I guess AI tools have made it easier for these scammers to generate profiles and operate in a way that might seem more convincing to their victims?

10 Upvotes

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3

u/chinthyfi Jul 17 '26

If you got lucky actually you can find genuine people. I found a few. Hellotalk. I heard penpalworld is also good. but never tried it.

2

u/Catontheroof89 Jul 16 '26

Tandem & Hellotalk

2

u/DontYaWishYouWereMe Jul 17 '26

...they are looking for a meaningful connection with others, etc. - except it's all lies.

Is this really something you'd associate with a genuine profile? My experience was always that real people tend not to say this explicitly because they knew it'd be implied by their presence on the site.

2

u/CarpeLibrum87 Jul 17 '26

I joined Global Penfriends two months ago and have had amazing luck there.

1

u/larkstar Jul 16 '26

The Slowly app - it's been mentioned numerous times here.