Building trust with your penpals

To keep everyone safe, Global Penfriends asks you to build a little trust before sharing personal contact details. Here is how that works — and why a message is sometimes filtered.

What is the Trust Progress bar?

When you open a conversation, a bar at the top shows where trust stands — for example “🔒 Building trust · 2 items left”. Tap it to open the Trust Progress box, which shows how close you are to safely sharing contact details — such as an email address, phone number or social media handle — with that penpal. Tap More info to see exactly what is left to do.

The 6 things that build trust

Trust is established for a conversation once all six of these are complete:

  • Your profiles are 21+ days old Both your profile and your penpal’s profile need to have been on the site for at least 21 days. This helps keep out spammers and short-lived accounts.
  • You have sent 14+ messages You need to have sent at least 14 messages across the site — a simple sign that you are a genuine, active member.
  • You have 3 real two-way conversations Across the whole site, you need at least 3 different penpals where you and they have each sent 3 or more messages.
  • This conversation is two-way In this particular chat, you and your penpal each need to have sent at least 3 messages, so it is a genuine exchange.
  • You have been writing for over a week Your first message in this conversation needs to be more than a week old. Photo sharing opens at the same time.
  • Your penpal is active Your penpal needs to have replied within the last 28 days. If your account is more than 6 months old, this one is met automatically.
When all six are complete, the bar at the top turns green and says “Trust established”, and the message box shows “Trust established for this conversation”. From that point you may share contact details and photos in that chat if you wish.

Why a message is sometimes removed

Before trust is established, our system filters out email addresses, phone numbers, links and social media handles — even if they are spelled out or disguised. If you try to share or request contact details too early, that message is removed after sending and you may see a warning.

Nothing to worry about. If this happens, you have not done anything wrong — simply keep chatting here on the site. As your conversation grows, trust builds naturally and the filter lifts on its own. The safest friendships are the ones that take a little time.
Why we do this. Keeping early conversations on the site protects every member — especially our more vulnerable ones — from scams and unwanted contact. Trust takes a few weeks to build, and that is exactly the point.