Safety Guidelines

Read this once. It is short, and it is the most useful page on this website.

Most people you meet here are exactly who they say they are. A small number are not. This page tells you what we do to keep them out, what we cannot do, and what you must do for yourself.

These Guidelines form part of our Terms of Use. Breaking them is a breach of the Terms.

1. What we do

• We verify every Member. Mobile number by one time password. A government identity document. A live selfie compared against that document by a person on our team.
• We check education and employment where a Member has chosen to display that badge.
• We delete document images as soon as the review is finished. We keep the result, not the document.
• We block contact details in Community posts automatically.
• We act on reports. Every profile, message and post carries a report option. We acknowledge within 24 hours.
• We remove people. Fake profiles, money requests, harassment, sexual content, dowry demands and forged documents result in permanent closure, without refund.
• We do not sell placement. No one appears in your introductions because they paid to.
• We never call you to sell you anything. If someone claiming to be from My Humdum asks you for money, a password or a one time password, it is not us.

2. What we do not do, and cannot do

Please read this part carefully, because the rest of the page depends on it.

• We do not run criminal record checks. Absence of a warning on a profile does not mean the person has been screened for criminal history.
• We do not verify character, intentions, honesty, health, finances or family circumstances. No platform can.
• We cannot confirm that what a Member writes about themselves is true, beyond the specific categories we have badged. A verification badge confirms that a named document was checked. That is all it confirms.
• We are not present at your meetings, on your calls, or in your conversations off the Platform. Once you move to another app or to a phone call, we can neither see nor protect that conversation.
• We cannot un share something you have shared. A photograph, a phone number or a detail you have shown to someone is in their memory and possibly on their device. We can remove it from our Platform. We cannot remove it from them.

You must still use your own judgement, ask your own questions and make your own enquiries. Verification is a filter. It is not a guarantee, and it is not a substitute for your own care.

3. The one rule that matters most

No genuine Member will ever ask you for money.

Not for a medical emergency. Not for a flight. Not for a visa. Not for customs clearance on a gift. Not for a business that is about to take off. Not as a loan you will get back next week. Not as an investment in cryptocurrency, trading, or a scheme with guaranteed returns.

If money comes up, the conversation is a fraud. Stop. Do not send anything. Report it.

Never share a one time password, a bank account number, a card number, a card PIN, your UPI PIN, your Aadhaar number, your PAN or any password with another Member. We will never ask you for these either.

4. Patterns to recognise

These are the frauds we see most often on Indian matrimony platforms.

• Moves fast, moves off. Wants to shift to WhatsApp or another app almost immediately, declares strong feelings within days, and finds a reason not to video call.
• The sudden emergency. A hospital, an accident, a visa problem, a stranded relative, always urgent, always needing a transfer today.
• The parcel. A gift, jewellery or foreign currency has been sent to you and is held by “customs”, and a fee is needed to release it. This is always a fraud. Customs does not work this way.
• The investment friend. A match who introduces you to a trading app, a crypto platform or a “guaranteed return” scheme, often after weeks of ordinary conversation.
• Unreachable by design. Posted abroad, in the armed forces, on a ship or on an oil rig, and therefore unable to meet or video call. Ever.
• The recorded call. A video call is recorded, and the recording is then used to demand money, with threats to send it to your family.
• The fake staff member. Someone claiming to be from My Humdum asks for payment outside the Platform, or for your password or one time password.
• The pressure to marry quickly. Urgency about an engagement date, before families have met, is a warning sign, not a compliment.

5. Before you connect

• Look at the badges and note what each one actually says, and what it does not say.
• Read the profile properly. Vague profiles, no employer, no city, a single photograph, and a story that does not sit together are all reasons to slow down.
• If a photograph looks like a stock image or a model shot, it may be. Say so, and ask for a different one.
• Do a video call before you invest much time. A person who will not video call after a reasonable period is telling you something.
• Ask ordinary questions. Where do you work, which team, which city, what did you study, who is at home. Genuine answers come easily.

6. Before you meet

• Meet in a public place the first time, and the second. A cafe, a restaurant, a mall.
• Tell someone. A family member or a friend. Tell them who you are meeting, where, and when you expect to be back.
• Arrange your own transport, both ways. Do not be dependent on the other person to get home.
• Do not go to a home, a hotel room or a private address for a first meeting, and do not invite someone to yours.
• Keep your own phone charged and with you.
• Do not leave your drink or your belongings unattended.
• If you feel uncomfortable, leave. You do not owe anyone an explanation, and politeness is not worth your safety.

7. Your privacy is a safety tool

• You control who sees your photographs. Use that control.
• Your number is never shared automatically. Your own setting says who may reveal it, and you can tighten that setting at any time.
• Do not put your phone number, email, social handle or workplace address into your profile text, a note or a Community post. Our system blocks most of this, and a Member who tries to get around it is a Member to report.
• Do not send your home address, your office location, your children’s school or your daily routine to someone you have not met.
• Blocking is one way. The person you block is not told, and will never see you again. We will never build a feature that tells someone who blocked them.
• Do not screenshot, download, copy or republish another Member’s photographs, details or messages. It is a breach of our Terms and it can be an offence.
• Do not record a call, voice or video, without the other person’s knowledge and consent.

8. Dowry

Dowry is prohibited on this Platform, in every form, without exception.

Cash, gold, jewellery, property, a vehicle, household goods, “gifts”, or an expectation that one family will fund the wedding. Whether it is raised by a Member or by a Member’s family. Whether it is called dowry or something politely else.

Giving, taking or demanding dowry is an offence under the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.

No field on this Platform asks about dowry. If a demand is made to you, report it to safety@myhumdum.com. Where we find credible evidence, we close the account permanently, without refund, and we may report the matter to the police and to the Dowry Prohibition Officer of the relevant State. We keep your report confidential to the extent the law allows.

9. Families

Most Members here involve their families, and that is a good thing. A few points still apply.

• Verify before families meet. A meeting between families creates social pressure that is hard to undo. Do your checking first.
• Do not share family photographs, home addresses or details of elderly relatives with someone you have not met.
• A Managed Profile must be honest about itself. If you are a parent or sibling running a profile, the Platform shows that it is managed, and you must not write as though you were the Member.
• The Member decides. A Profile Manager operates the profile. They do not own the decision.

10. If something goes wrong

Report to us first. Use the report option on the profile, the message or the post, or write to safety@myhumdum.com. Tell us the profile, the dates, and what happened. Attach anything you have. We acknowledge within 24 hours.

We may warn, remove content, restrict a feature, suspend, or close an account permanently. We will confirm to you that we reviewed and acted, though we will not tell you what we did to another person’s account.

If money has been taken from you, act immediately. Speed matters.

• Call the National Cyber Crime Helpline on 1930. Within the first few hours a transfer can often be frozen.
• Report at cybercrime.gov.in.
• File a complaint at your local police station or cyber cell.
• Tell your bank at once and ask them to freeze the transaction.

If you are being blackmailed with images or a recording, do not pay. Paying does not end it. Report at cybercrime.gov.in, call 1930, go to the police, and tell us. Nothing that has happened to you is your fault, and there are people whose job is to help.

If a child is involved in any way, tell us at safety@myhumdum.com and contact the Childline helpline on 1098, cybercrime.gov.in, or your local police station immediately.

If you are in immediate danger, call 112.

11. Where our responsibility ends

We say this plainly, because it matters and because you should know it before you rely on us.

My Humdum introduces verified people to each other. What happens after the introduction is between you and the other person. We are not a party to any conversation, meeting, relationship, engagement or marriage that begins here, and we do not accept responsibility for the conduct, honesty, intentions or character of any Member, on the Platform or off it.

We take the precautions described on this page and in our Terms. We do not accept legal responsibility or risk arising from information that is wrong, inaccurate, incomplete or misleading and that has been presented by a Member, or from any decision you take on the basis of it.

Our full disclaimers and the limits on our liability are set out in clauses 26 and 27 of our Terms of Use.

None of this reduces our commitment to act, quickly and seriously, on anything you report to us.

12. Contact

National helplines. Cyber financial fraud: 1930. Cyber crime reporting: cybercrime.gov.in. Child helpline: 1098. Women’s helpline: 181. Emergency: 112.