Keeping Your Personal Details Safe When You’re Online Dating

As well as priding ourselves on helping thousands of country lovers meet and find their muddy ever after, here at Muddy Matches we are proud to offer a safe and supportive space to chat.

We’re more safety-conscious than ever and it’s doubly important to keep your contact details safe when you’re online dating. Muddy Matches lets you safely contact people through private messaging online but there may come a point when you want to take things further and meet in person. Take note of these tips to help you protect yourself when you’re looking for love in the countryside. It’s important to let you know that all of our profile requests are reviewed by a real life team of people in the Muddy Matches office, bit if you ever come across any profiles which raise a ‘red flag’ in your mind, you can hit the ‘report’ button so we can take a closer look.

Choose your username with care

When you sign up to our online dating website, create a username that doesn’t let everyone know who you are. We strongly advise against including your full name, surname or year of birth as it makes it easier for potential scammers to find out more about you online.

Review your personal profile

Although we advise that you do paint a picture of yourself by giving detail of who you are and what you do in your personal profile text, try not to give everything away. Make sure that you don’t include exact details of your place of work or where you live in your profile text or in your profile photos. You can chat further with other rural singles and share details like this bit by bit.

Don’t give out your contact details in your first message

If you’re clicked with someone and share similar passions and love for the countryside, then it may seem like a good idea to share your email address and phone number straight away. Stop right there! Our experience shows that scammers often ask for details within the first message that they send so that the dating website will not have evidence of their conversation if any illegal activity occurs. We do all that we can to prevent scamming on Muddy Matches but if you’re alerted by anyone requesting your details straight away or insisting that you take the conversation away from our online dating site then trust your instincts and let us know.

Consider using a new email account for online dating

It’s a good idea to set up a new email account for all of your online dating communications. Give it a a unique name and make sure that the email account has no personal information about you in the address.

Never give out financial information online

If you come across any other supposedly ‘rural singles’ asking for your financial information in a private message, alarm bells should ring. We urge you to report them to us so we can take further action if necessary.