Global Penfriends Reviews 

this site is comprised of a great deal of fake profiles, and some who respond do so in a weird, robotic, or scripted way. I would say 25-45% of users are fake, generated profiles and some might be legit, hard to determine. I experienced it when some respond, write 1-2 lines then vanish, and then act like we just spoke yesterday. can't even imagine people who use this and pay premium for it, what a grift.

I enjoy using global penfriends, I have never been scammed. Also I met many friends on the platform.
It's a great experience!

Ive been talking with this person for 5,5 years and i send them my phone number and i become suspended! Then it says i should have build trust first. Its a very urgent situation but i have to wait until the email i send it read and replied to. By that time the 24 hours suspension will likely already be over. Very frustrating.

Edit 29 July
Thank you for your reply. Agreed I did get the warning and then as i refreshed the page and it refreshed the warning it registered as me sending the number again -which i did not- and then i got blocked. I think the passive aggressive tone mixed with a touch of gaslighting doesnt suit the platform.

First of all: If you are serious about finding a pen-pal, you are able to accomplish it on this site after trial and error. BUT it definitely requires you to notice scammers/have experience online and with pen-paling. That being said, I wish I took all these bad reviews serious before signing up in July of 25. They're all correct.

Besides that, the last drop in the bucket was, when a complete stranger on the site acquired my private postal address without messaging me, without asking for permission. Not sure how that works, maybe the account paid for the service. You're supposed to write for about a month to each other, before exchanging addresses. (Makes no sense whatsoever - I would encourage you to read other reviews.)

I actually, thankfully, received a letter from said person and wanted to message them back online, making sure they are aware of the extremely long deliver-time from my country to theirs. And I offered to send them my letter via Email, should the waiting-time be too long for them. That's how their absolute shit system blocked my messaging for a couple of days. Because I am not allowed to exchange Emails with a person who already has my PRIVATE POSTAL ADDRESS.

I took this is a sign to finally delete my account myself. Workers approve profiles which, regarding to their own rules, should not get approved, i.e. not using your real name in online-name, or looking for more than platonic friendships in profile texts, etc. Scammers run rampant, during my time on the site it was mostly young men from India. Generally, men often are looking for romance, though rules say that is not allowed. You might also have to block people 70+-years old who talk about sexual experiences, that happened to me twice!

Please just look into any other pen-pal site, should you be interested. No differences, besides the others most likely not employing people with God-complexes who arbitrarily block users.

GPF clearly wants the site to look like morals and standards are higher – and that is not the case at all. I tried and used many.

I feel as if their replies here and also the way they flippantly/half-heartedly reply to your private emails speak volumes. And I should have noticed it earlier.
Avoid!

Edit after answer was given: I sent the Admin an Email directly after deleting my account. You should very well be able to verify that I was a member. Not surprised though, being blatantly accused of lying and wanting to shutting down reviews.
As if I was the first person commenting on the same issues, ridiculous behavior!

After six months of usage, my findings:

- Does not take care of scammers.

- Approves profiles that "look for more" but platonic friendships, thought rules forbid it.

- Approves handles with real names in it, though rules forbid it.

- Will not let you exchange e-mail addresses, though you're looking for e-contacts.

- Wants you to message for at least 20 days until exchanging any sort of address. (Meaningless for scammers, useless for real people.)

- Lets users receive private home addresses without having been in contact with recipient whatsoever. Makes rules obsolete.

- Does not react whatsoever to reporting of scammers.

- Wants you to talk positively only in certain profile-text areas (silly and fake)

- Certain features don't work/are incorrect (i.e stamp album)

I was a loyal member from 2020 and even was a paying one for a little bit. I did have to stop my membership but they still took money after I canceled.

I have meet so many great people here but I did get catfished one time and did report it. SO since then after a few texts I would ask if we could talk on another social media platform to call to make sure this person is real. All is fine for about 5-6 years until the team changed their policy without notifying users and took down my account calling it as fraud. I was very confused as I never breached any Australian online safety laws, spoke to anyone in a crude way so I decided to send a respectful email about perhaps this was a mixup.

The email I got shocked me with their lack of professionalism in which they stated "We understand but your profile has wasted admin time". Excuse me? AS a member for 5 years, met heaps of people during some of the hardest times of my life I was being spoken to like an animal because I wanted to use another platform to see if this person is real to make sure I wasnt getting catfished in which I did in the past. They said this was "determined as not appropriate and rather than ask the user to change their way of communicating".

I have had over 50 penpals from this site in which they all said they have been hit on by people from this site in the first couple of messages and their profile hasnt been banned. I decided to also read a few reviews in which they say they have a high standard of who they accept as a member which is a lie and many other uses on this website can prove that point and instead targeting someone who just wanted to make sure the person they were talking to was real just for their own safety.

So in conclusion, the team lack the ability to communicate their updated policies with their users (which is illegal in the country of Australia in which they are based). They are taking down profiles who havnt breached any federal online laws and keep profiles that have harassed female users. If you delete a profile, they will still take money from you every month making it hard to cancel a membership.

edit: no idea if the admin team can see if i updated but here but we need to make things clear. I do not hate the website, its been so cool to meet amazing people from around the world. Its just a shame that they claimed I have "all this history" when in reality, i just wanted to make sure who I was talking with was real as i did come across a catfish before. I'm really shocked and unimpressed with the admins team dealing with these situations it was taken out of context and tried to deal with this matter in full respect and willing to work with them. Instead, i get told "i have wasted their time" and have zero comment about the fact I did what I did for my own safety. I understand that accounts get taken down for crude talk with other users. Not annoyed, just very disappointed that I was treated with a lack of respect when we tried to explain the situation as if they didnt read any of the valid reasons. Also admin team if you are reading this, I would love to know when you changed your rules about the 21 day rule and when you sent that info to users. Just re read the terms and conditions as well, no where does it say you must stay on the site for X amount of time before using another platform, what is published on their website is from 2019, nothing has been updated

Can someone please tell me who i can contact to take Global penfriends to court? Or find a company they answer to in regard of what they do and treat their users ?
After only a few days they've just removed me for the 2nd time. Ive only just got it back since last September 2025. I went in and changed 2 photos today . A drawing and the same photo that was there but in colour this time . What the hell . They cant get away with it with genuine people.

They tell lies as you can see from my reply . 3 times I tried . On their advice after my first profile suddenly disappeared and wouldnt let me use it . They said I deleted it which was total lies . Why would I go to this bother if I deleted my own profile. So You !!!told me i had to create a new one and I did and within days it was removed . I paid money on this one too and id like it back . The 3rd one never even got approved . That was silly on my part . But you cut me off from genuine people I was talking to and that's the sad thing youve caused on both parts now as I just disappeared without warning . They might think I didnt want to speak to them anymore and that's hurtful what you do to people . You just delet these things without warning. Your reply was set out to make look like I was mad with all the profile creating and blocking etc . Thats not nice either . Im not mad and I will certainly not use your terrible service again and will never endorse it to my worst enemy . Comment updated 21/01/2026

Es ploppt ständig Werbung auf. die die Bedienung der Seite erschwert.

I had a great experience using this site, until they changed the rules yet again. Honestly, I don’t really understand most people’s complaints about there being tons of “fake profiles.” I never ran into them. Not once. At all. And that’s a plus.

But this site has one massive problem that wipes out all its advantages: moderation.

You can’t share links, for example to YouTube or Twitter posts. Even mentioning the name of any social network gets instantly censored. You can’t even share your email. And if you somehow manage to send a link in a way that slips past the system, they’ll just ban you and delete your profile. Any explanation? Any dialogue with the admins?

No.

They will simply read your private messages even WITHOUT a complaint from the other user. Think about that for a second — what “privacy protection” are we even talking about here?

And it would be one thing if the site were convenient. But it’s so old and so uncomfortable to use that 21 days of “mandatory communication on the platform” turns into pure torture. It didn’t used to be like this, and everything was fine. Now, apparently, sharing your email or Discord to actually talk to someone is treated as some terrible sin.

There’s a line between reasonable safety and overreach. This site has crossed it.

Oh, and one more thing: if you register again, they’ll just wipe your profile and won’t even tell you why. As if you were never registered in the first place.

Seems easy to use at first.
Once you pay, you wait for approval. Nothing can happen until then.
After days of waiting, I asked for a refund and contacted paypal to open up a case.
Only then will you get a response.
After the refund was refused by this scam company and the account was approved instead, I was so disappointed with the limited options I had to do anything. It was difficult to send a message as the website is not set up properly for phone usage. It was like pulling teeth just to type and send one message.
Even after you pay unless you pay premium your options are very limited.
Customer service is so lousy they don’t know what’s going on.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

I'm a long time user, my account was created in 2019 and it's the very end of 2025 at the time of writing this review. This website allowed me to meet lots of interesting people and made some real friends.

Website does have a strict model of no sharing other social media on the early stages of the conversation as well as within the first 21 days of creating an account, but it's honestly quite reasonable and serves to protect you and others from undesirable attemps at spam or god knows what else. Be nice and respectful, a little patient in the beginning and you won't have any problems on there.

So from me, it's 5* and a hearty thanks to the people keeping it running. Best there is.

I joined this site off and on some years ago, and hoped they'd changed. But not to be. They won't post your profile if it does not meet their standards. Even innocent ones. Like a bunch of “behind the scenes” AI dictators. And, they allow married/attached & narcissistic men on there. Those are the types I mostly interacted with.
I sent GPF a concern about one person, via email, and as expected, I never received a reply. They delete profiles for the most trivial reasons, and never do they show fairness. You pretty much have to wait a while, too, before your profile is “approved.” Even then, there's no guarantee. Be careful what you say, because it has to be how “they” want it. I get that, including personal info etc. should not be allowed. But what you write about yourself, should be up to you. NOT them. GPFs guidelines are way too strict. Beyond normal standard, to the point of being intimidating.
So, if you dare. Go ahead, join. But prepare for the uncompromising checklist, these guys have in store.

I bought lifetime access to full inbox a couple years ago, they changed their system and revoked that access. I sent an email and they notified me of the change and when I said I was sold lifetime access they offered a refund. They informed me they will delete my account after issuing a refund and that they have taken my profile offline. I told them the site is supposedly free to register so why are they deleting my profile. It was because their "attention is now focused on current members". I was a member, just no longer a paying one and so I didn't matter. I believe I got less money than I paid for originally so not a full refund but I can't check because they terminated my account. They said they blocked my email. I don't know if that means they blocked me from creating an account with that email on their website or if they blocked further emails from me. I feel scammed. A very unpleasant experience I did not expect.

PSA, stay away from Global Penfriends.

Make no mistake, this is a for-profit website, and You Are The Product. You are not allowed to speak freely.

Extremely petty of the owner to ban long time good faith users. My message was in response to someone reaching out to me, and was as innocent as "I If you don't have luck here, check out X." The ban was via "Manual detection by administrator", so they actually read the context and banned me.

If the owner replies to this, it's very likely going to be an excuse about protecting their users. Read the other reviews and you'll see a pattern. This is the site owner reading your private conversations and judging their content.

The customer service is SO mean and not friendly but the actual people/pen pals are very nice and have made some friends on there

Very Disappointing Experience

My daughter has been enjoying the interaction with friends from all over the world. However, she detected some scammers, who seemed to be faking their identities and genders, or some using bots. The conversations didn't make sense at all. So we made reports, (as the platform encourages to do )then all of a sudden, she got banned from the platform. saying "fraud detected".

We messaged the owner to clarify the status, but we didn't hear from them once through email. My daughter lost all the connections and was never able to come back to the platform

The platform is not managing scammers at all, there are full of adults who are trying to exploit young children, and there are no filters or identity checks. As a result, my daughter lost all her friends whom she had enjoyed their conversations. I am absolutely disappointed by their management, not recommend this platform to any underage children.

Some of the users using the platform are adults, faking their identities. Please be very careful when your children using the platform.

Now after 4 month the owner found my review and gave a reply here, Finally!! But unfortunately, they hadn’t give us any reply to our initial email, that asked for a solution. Please do your work if you wish to create a safe environment for children.

Not even one star. I logged on and then can not with no email saying so.
Look elsewhere as this site is a complete scam and I'm sure the people running it know it or they are always asleep. My pet dog could run it so much better.

This website changed my life. It’s enabled me to make lots of new friends some of which I write to multiple times a day. After I lost my partner and my mother I was kind of isolated and turned to this in hope of meeting new people and making friends of them. It worked a treat.
There is a subscription model of course but you can also have success without paying a penny, but it does take longer. I paid a reasonable amount until I had a solid base of regular contacts then cancelled my subscription, I now have a host of good friends and we even exchange cards and phone calls.

Full of AI-generated profiles. They even contact you first - with AI-generated messages. Their goal is to make you believe there is a lively community and get you to pay for the premium version (without which you can't do much). One of the sad examples of what the Internet has become. This platform has so much potential, but it obviously pays much better to run it as a scam site.

Edit: as you can tell from their reply to my review, even that was written by an AI.

Scammers using this site to exploit especially the elder group. Lots of attractive profiles - unfortunately they are FAKE! You will receive "smiles" and then start writing back and forth. The individuals will ask the same questions over and over - almost robotic. Some will fast give out their phone numbers and resume conversations through peoples cell phone numbers. One profile on here is a guy called JOHN using the handle meeknmild. He is a scammer 100 % sure! My son in law called his number pretending he wanted to make a payment over the phone and invented a fake business. This person named John was too eager to receive credit card info and even called back when the number given did not go through. LOL. My son in law gave him fake number. BE CAREFUL PEOPLE!!!!!!! I would leave this Globalpenfriend site QUICKLY!