PenPal World Reviews 

As a mature female I sincerely feel that this specific website platform positively attracts scammers & crooked dishonest folk of all kinds thus making one feeling deeply uncomfortable not to mention extremely unsafe. I'm pretty vulnerable as it is nowadays having experienced a lot of traumatising experiences throughout the course of my life(survivor story of my life).

It really is disheartening to find you can't reach out to the coordinator / business owner in any way. Luckily I'm on the ball but can see quite clearly how a vulnerable individual could be caught off guard & the owner does nothing to stop it. My only solution would be delete the account as the sheer volume of scammers on here is really disheartening and disturbing. Also like to mention I can't help but notice how both men and women do use it as hook up dating site despite the rule of being strictly platonic friendship.

The scammer conveniently pauses their account presumably to avoid being detected. Far from user friendly.

Recent Updated review today : My specific experience on this so called correspondence platform echoes other reviews & I feel it really confirms what we know about humanity in 2024, it seems all the shady, crooked manipulative abusive types are on here to such an extent I had zero option but to delete existing account(I was recently blocked by 2 fellow UK citizens one male,one female for no valid reason whatsoever other than to read intro profile blurbs - as a sensitive person that deeply affected myself to call it a day with the shifty, shady & quite frankly ***t** characters that seemingly lurks into what essentially would be a conducively good place to connect & correspondent with decent people from across the world only to find rude & arrogant people of my generation or worst older that *don't have the good manners, etiquette and common decency to reply to your nice messages via the private inbox, I was deeply shocked at the disrespectful behaviour of a number of mature age wise not an ounce of EI between them). * They just choose to ignore you, what's deeply disturbing is that they are Generation X generation or older.

Joining an actual physical / activity
club is the ONLY option, please stay safe lovely vulnerable people, we are easy prey to the crooked currupt manipulative user & abuser toxic types. Online correspondence is not your friend 💯

I had my nephew sign up with my help, which we properly made a profile including picture, too. today when he tried to log-in only to find out that he's been banned from the site for no good reason, when he was able to login we notice that men/women are making comments to minors, but minors are not allowed to comment to adults, and also notice that a lot are banned, eventually all users will be ban from this site. I do NOT recommend this site
EDIT/04/14/24: The owner's name is Jakob Herrmmann, jakob at pen pal world dot com

I used this website between July 2018 and November 2023, so I had a wide share of experiences. I did, however, notice the fall of this once great website, starting from 2020 or so. I used it for years (would log in almost every day) and got in touch with no more than 30 people, kept touch with only one long-term (we're still excellent friends). However, scammers are roaming freely and there's something fishy going on there. There's supposed to be millions of users, yet I always would see (at best) a hundred regular users fitting my very wide parameters (age between 18 and 40, both genders), and interestingly, over the years, you often see the same and, even more fascinating, they won't reply if you try to contact them. The few normal apples I found and got in touch with (when I was lucky) tended to be either disinterested, or even arrogant. The last one, in November 2024, was a huge disappointment, and she almost scammed me. Right before her was a Swedish psycho who openly insulted me through PMs for literally no reason whatsoever. Out of 5 years on this website, I made only 6 friends, and I only have one left, like what? As a comparison, I used to go on an international penpal Discord server, and I'd get messages (from decent people) up to 7 times per day! I grew tired of wasting my time on PelPalWorld and am truly disappointed, as this website had such a potential. By the way, let's not get started about moderation's fishy behaviour, which thanksfully didn't affect me but I did see it happen on (how strange) the rare decent users. Good bye!

So the website seems a little basic, sure. But I can't expect much from a site that offers a free service. My biggest complaint was lack of information. Nowhere that I found could you contact anyone who runs the site. There's mention of getting a Hotlist once you go VIP, but nowhere does it mention what that is. Benefit of the doubt its an oversight, but it feels sketchy so I deleted my account minutes after signing up.

I have been using this site for 6 months and i think it is very slow to sent message back and forth. I prefer Multifriendschat, we can chat instantly on there .

I think its a good site to meet actual penpals. Its all in how you use it.
No site can protect you from catfish and scammers.
Its your job to.
Use common sense.
Be clear and specific in your profile.
PPW is a penpal not a dating site, block anyone who gets that confused.
Bock any msg, comment, request etc made by anyone without a name, photo, profile.
Give out no personal info.
Block counties with high scammer numbers (only paid members can)
Personally I see no need to pay for PPW, 3 msg a day are more than enough for me.
Never ever send money, to anyone, in any form, who you meet online.
Report any and everything suspicious to PPW.
Talk initially on PPW before switching to email. Set up an email address other than your primary one for these type of sites.
Personally I suspend my PPW acct when not actively seeking a new penpal. Reinstate it if I am.
If you use common sense and are self protective I believe you can find interesting international penpals on PPW.
I have.

Opened an account with them and the next day was blocked. They said it was being reviewed and check back 24 hrs later. I did that and I am still blocked.

Do not setup an account there. The site is a joke and found out that it is full of scammers.

PenPal wants me to reach out to them - I will not because there actions were clear. They blocked me and I do not trust them

Quite possibly the worst website I've ever used. Full of lifelong antisocials, weirdos, perverts and scammers. I'm still not sure what many of the people using this website are actually looking for. I used to see the same people online constantly. I could go back in a few hours, days, weeks and they would still be there. It was as if the website itself had become their new 'hobby'. I think I only ever came across one person who was genuinely interested in sharing and they immediately deleted their account which was telling. The final straw for me was when someone whom I'd sent a genuinely polite message to replied using all of their daily credits to tell me why they didn't want to talk to me! What a joke of a website and a complete waste of time and money.

Spend your life wisely, especially if like me, you are no longer that young. I thought I could find some friends so that I could exchange ideas about hobbies and country food and traditions, but only horrible scammers, perverts and also a few racist people got in touch. I would not spend 1p for this site, nor similar ones even if they are free. Real friendship is so hard to find as it is, these fake profiles offer none. Stay well away from these scammers. Oh, I forgot, in case that "lovely" german lady is going to read this: look at yourself in the mirror before pointing the finger at anyone else, you racist scammer!

I have used this site for several years. It is slow but acceptable. It's a great way to meet people. However, over the two weeks, I have not been able to access the site. It tells me that I am not a member. After paying their lifetime member fee, yes, I certainly am a member. I complained, and no action has been taken.

I can only write a few letters a day. It's not friendly to me. I don't like it here

It appears others have had a similar experience with this "site ." Like most people who join PPW, I really wanted to find pen-pals and learn about other countries, customs, foods, language etc. To say this experience (7 months) has been a waste of time, is the understatement of the century! I never found a single friend on this site, and was contacted non stop by scammers. 95% of the profile photos are fake, and nothing more than syndicated pics from the web. As a guy, I would get contacted by desperate gays, and young woman from Eastern Europe, thinking they could scam me. No one legitimate wants to learn from you or be friends. This site is basically full of creeps, desperate sex addicts, scammers and losers, who view PPW as "International Tinder!" After 7 months, I have yet to find a single friend from any country! My advice is stay away, and find another recourse, if you really want pen-pals. This site is a joke!

Awful! My innocent Mother of 82 went online hoping to practice her writing skills and exchange email letters with someone! It’s like walking into a dirty bar on the wrong side of town! She was met with a few dodges… chose one and was writing daily via Google chat and almost scammed by a ‘united nations peace keeper’ who actually had excellent English (not the typical with bad grammar) … luckily I was keeping an eye on the messaging as she had logged in on my tablet and I saw the suspicious messages coming in! Absolutely avoid. Danger especially to the vulnerable.

I viewed this website and decided to sign up hoping to make friends from other areas around the world, firstly it would not let me sign in with the password I signed up with so I then changed my password, signed in, started to search people of my age group and within my own country to see if it maybe worth paying for the vip. I did not have any time to write anything on my profile. I logged out, then tried to log in around 2 hours later only to find my account had been BLOCKED! I had no time to message anybody and no explanation why my account had been blocked. You cannot contact anybody and when looking at whois, the site has no email contact. Be very wary if you are going to pay any subscription to this website. They lost a potential customer in myself, I will take my money elsewhere, very poorly run website, just warning you in advance, not sure if they are using stock photos like many other sites, be careful.

just enough time to sign up, upload a photo, write a few lines in the biography and I found myself banned for no apparent reason and without the possibility of contacting assistance to ask for explanations. Ridiculous.

The Worst
moderators delete accounts without reason and without expalantion
If you contact them to ask an explanation they ignore

You’re only allowed to read the last three messages you received. To get to see the older ones a subscription is needed, and I find this mechanism to be pretty dumb.
Moreover, what made me actually want to delete my account was the impossibility of deactivating mail notifications. I couldn’t find how to do it in the settings nor anywhere else, and this is definitely so unfair, cause you receive a mail for literally everything (new friends, new comments, new messages) that concerns your account. I understand that some might actually appreciate this feature but I got tired pretty soon of being spammed dozens of mails everyday.
If you’re looking for a PenPal website to make friend from all over the world, InterPals is a better option imho.

The site owner and managers don’t do anything about any abuse or inappropriate messages or harassment from other members. In their own rules, it says you can’t use the site to look for hook-ups or ‘romance’ but many male members constantly do this.

When you say you don’t want any messages from men looking for women, and some weirdo harassed you repeatedly for it, the site OWNER won’t do anything. Three reports filed, and no action, no warning sent. ‘We will soon have the capability to temporarily block members’ but nothing done for months.

Upon complaint, they’re happy to refund you membership fees, which is the only reason they get 2 stars and not 1. They’d rather genuine members leave so they hang on to the weirdo who’s being paying them membership since 2014. There’s something wrong with a guy who needs to be on a PenPal meet site for a decade if you ask me.

one word only.....TRASH. stay away .

I have no idea when I created an account on this site, I don't even get a glimpse of recollection when I look at the home page (which I would expect to, given its full of gross creepy men), but I got an alert saying my password has been compromised. I managed to work out the details and log in to delete my account only to find out it had already been deleted but they are keeping my personal data on file to allow it to be reactivated. That is not a deleted account. I've tried finding a way to contact support to have them remove my data entirely but there isn't anywhere I can find.