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Global Penfriends

How would you rate Global Penfriends?
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North Carolina
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Kara M.
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If I could give them "0" stars, I would. I had an account for about a year, no problem, made some nice friends that I chatted with online. For no reason, they shut my account down. They asked for verification with a utility bill, which I sent; a picture of me holding a sign that said "GPF" which I sent and then suspended my account anyway and still took money out of my account for the monthly membership. They grilled me about my use of a second email (which was an updated email for the account), but apparently still didn't believe I was who I said I was even after I jumped through all their hoops to verify my identity. I wouldn't care except I lost all my messages from my online friends that I had been chatting with for months. I should have downloaded them, but I never thought they would just pull them off like that. They were quite nasty to me and I would never use their site again. Awful business and awful customer service.

Date of experience: September 11, 2024
Cote D'ivoire
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Racist admin and staff. RUN!
February 17, 2023

I recently tried to subscribe as a black man originally from Europe, but currently residing in Africa, filled a profile (photos included), was able to login to the site, then later in the day when I tried to login: "The email or password is incorrect. Note we have updated the site. All users login with their email now."
Tells you everything to know. They didn't sent me any notice they deleted my profile. This is disgusting to the highest degree. To treat people like dirt like that just because of their skin color. What they did in secret to me and many other black people for sure, everybody in the world should know about this and boycott them!

Date of experience: February 17, 2023
Maryland
1 review
5 helpful votes
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They make it hard to be a free member and enjoy any services. They find ways to pressure you into paying which doesn't feel worth it. You'll find someone's profile that looks interesting, you'll go to write them and it'll say "20% of profiles are randomly blocked, please upgrade for unlimited access." But it seems like far more than 20% of profiles are blocked. Their interest isn't really in facilitating penpal friendships but just in getting paying subscribers. They should be more upfront about that and not tease users with the idea of a free site.

Date of experience: August 21, 2022
Georgia
1 review
4 helpful votes
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I wish I had seen the reviews of this site earlier. I am a medical professional and was interested in making a Spanish speaking pen pal to improve my rusty Spanish. They ask you to set an age range of people you're open to communicating with, so since it's supposed to be for making friends in other countries and not fir dating or hookups, I set the range for 21 and older. (I am in my 40s.) Next thing I know, they are writing me back implying that it is "unsafe" to set the age limit to over 21. Say what? I dont know if they are trying to present it as a penpal/friends site but actually running a dating site, or what, but along with the other comments who said this site was racist, they seem to be shady and dishonest about the kind of site they are running. Very odd.

Date of experience: July 5, 2023
Australia
3 reviews
0 helpful votes
Follow Tailor K.
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It was nice to find this beautiful penpal service. It was simple to register and create a profile. Although the profile was a tad on the long side.

I searched and found an amazing amount of penpals that matched my criteria - then i sent a few messages and before i knew it - i had penpals. Soooo easy.

The site appears very safe. It has its own messaging system. I was looking for traditional penpals, so after a few weeks i just checked with my penpals if they would be interested swapping postal addresses. Its been fantastic. I just bought a bunch of penpal stationery - so now i can't wait to send off some more beautiful letters by post.

Date of experience: January 31, 2023
Missouri
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Global Pen Friends has been an amazing website. Registering is super easy, you just insert a few questions about yourself (Interests, What You're Looking for in a Pen Pal, etc). I joined in 2020 during Covid, and met so many people. When life got back to "Normal," I stopped using it. Fast forward to 2023, I joined again, and have so many pen pals (About 8-10), and I'm still pen pals with one I met in 2020! Overall, I could say so many nice things about this website, but it would take too long! I definitely recommend joining, as it's a safe website with many amazing people! :)

Date of experience: July 10, 2023
Colorado
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Good Site, it works
November 13, 2022

A good example of a site that does one thing really well. If you want penpals for international friendship, its perfect. Its funny but it seems the only negative reviews for this club are from men that probably tried to use the site for dating :) Good work Global Penfriends for providing a family friendly and safe place to meet penpals.

Date of experience: November 13, 2022
Washington
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Not worth your time.
October 2, 2022

I have been a member for over 7 months, and have yet to make a single friend. This site only allows you to send one message a day without paying. If you find someone you are interested in messaging, they will be randomly blocked, and then they will say "consider upgrading." GPF may not be as bad as Penpalworld, but its still pretty bad. No one wants to be your friend or learn a foreign language. The site is full of young women in their early 20's hoping to find a foreign prince charming, and full of dirty old perverts and scam artists. What a waste of time!

Date of experience: October 2, 2022
Canada
3 reviews
6 helpful votes
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Fantastic penpal site
November 2, 2022

I have been penpalling for my whole life and was happy to discover Global Penfriends about a decade ago.
The site was recently refreshed and its made my favourite site, even better!

I am usually a basic member but occasionally i will upgrade when i need to find new penpals. The basic offering is pretty good, you get to make a new contact every 12 hours and once you have made a contact - you can converse with them as much as you like.

The site is safe and i don't receive spam or middle aged men looking for a partner - i have set up my profile to ensure only females contact me - so perhaps this helps!

I have encouraged my grand children to check it out also - they love it also and have started sending real letters by post! It is so fantastic to see. With all the distractions of todays world - there is hope for our younger generation to find some quality communications.

Anyhow - i just love having penpals and was happy to share this wonderful site with others.

Date of experience: November 2, 2022
Canada
1 review
6 helpful votes
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Global Penfriend rejected my membership because I included the following in part of my profile "I just joined the site and currently do not have credits for sending mail but once I do I plan to mail frequently. For now I can only send a smile."

Date of experience: December 24, 2021
Georgia
2 reviews
8 helpful votes
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The facade here: real people, real connectivity
60% or more are fake profiles or dead accounts
Contacted say 30 potential hopefuls, maybe 1 response. You can see some people actually visited your profile but said nothing? Either they're treating this like it's a dating website or they're simply fake profiles giving you fake visits to your actual profile, which is pretty damned weird.
Their ultimate goal is to monetize but they try to religiously ensure you and others like you don't actually hook up unless you pay $$. I get it, but they don't actually know how to w/o being stupid or doing it all wrong (which feels like a scam ultimately and it pretty much is).
All the incentives to pay for a VIP account aren't actually any incentive at all.

Date of experience: January 7, 2022
New York
1 review
3 helpful votes
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Scam
January 29, 2022

I sent in an application for my daughter in August 2021 and we have yet to hear anything. So much for my daughter having a pen pal from this site. Do not waste your money.

Date of experience: January 29, 2022
GB
1 review
9 helpful votes
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It's a really good website! However, some people don't reply back when I say that I want to be pen pals/friends, maybe they're Internet bots. Other than that, I have made some long lasting friends, thank you global penfriends!
Angel

Date of experience: June 7, 2021
Australia
1 review
1 helpful vote
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I have tried many different penpal sites in the past - now I stick to just this one.
I like that the club is focussed solely on International friendship rather than dating.

Date of experience: February 22, 2023
Washington
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Not a lot of free access
November 19, 2023

I was logged in as a free member because I am a student but it wasn't a school-led program, so I didn't have the funding to pay for the Premium subscription. I'd say it's a good website only if you pay for the Premium, which in my opinion is overpriced for this website. If you don't pay for Premium and you message one member, you have to wait 12 HOURS before you can message another. There are also these virtual smiles things you can send to kinda "wave hello" at the person you would potentially message, and you have to wait 12 hours in between sending THOSE as well. It's a good site but the free version is not good. I feel like I can't ever actually message any of my PenPals because of the wait time which defeats the whole purpose of me using the site. NOT GOOD.

Date of experience: November 19, 2023
New Jersey
2 reviews
8 helpful votes
Follow J p.
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First of all, I saw an article somewhere that said perhaps you could find a potential date on a penpal site. The first time I was signed up with this site, I tried doing just that. I had no problem with any administrator telling me otherwise. I was looking for a "potential" date but I wanted to make some friends. I know it's not a dating site but I didn't think I was doing any harm by putting the word "date" in my profile. What I came across was several, and I mean SEVERAL fake profiles of people that I had seen on other dating apps, so I knew they were all fake. I believe I complained to the company about this and of course, they did nothing. ----- Now, the second time I signed up, I guess I must have put the word date again because this time, they just went ahead and removed my entire profile without even telling me. Unbelievable. It would have been nice to inform me first before doing so, so that I could have just removed the word date. They didn't have to remove my profile like that but oh well, guess what? They're not hurting me by doing so. They just did me a FAVOR because I just read other reviews about how other people have also come across several fake scammers on that site as well. ---- Very very nasty behavior of the site administrators. ---- Oh, and the only reason I went back on this site in the first place was because I thought that maybe it would be different this time. I guess I was wrong. Never again would I even want to use this site; even if they asked me to come back on it. Obviously, they were not professional. Period.

Date of experience: June 13, 2022
Australia
1 review
28 helpful votes
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I usually don't submit reviews but felt that in this day and age with all the uncensored websites around, its great to finally find a family. Content friendly site. I have never seen or met any unsavoury characters on Global Penfriends. Everyone I have met over the last few years have been so friendly and some have become what i hope will be lifelong friends! I joined as a free member for the first 2 years and eventually bought a membership to help sponsor the site and support their effort to keep a clean and safe website. You won't be disappointed with this club, their platform is obviously a labour of love.

Date of experience: June 16, 2020
Oregon
1 review
24 helpful votes
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I can't believe how bad this group discriminates against their members. The people you DO find aren't even real and their 5 Star reviews aren't authentic either. Save your private information and go somewhere else!

Date of experience: April 23, 2020
India
1 review
10 helpful votes
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Well, the first thing is that I only got the two credits they gave in the beginning and both of them got spent sending a message to one person, so I think that it is a bug. And you don't know on what basis it gives out credits and so it sucks if you don't have premium.

Date of experience: June 10, 2020
New York
2 reviews
7 helpful votes
Follow Marcy L.
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I have been using Global Penfriends for 12 years and thought I would submit a review to ensure others could benefit from the platform as I have over the years.

Firstly let me say that this club runs a tight ship - by that I mean that they do not tolerate scammers and fraudsters. I like that! I like that they go to the trouble to ensure that they have a clean platform for all to use. Along with the tight ship, comes some rules and regulations - I happen to like that also, but could understand that some people may find this. Difficult - especially those middle age men looking for a date instead of a penpal. Remember this club is strictly for international friendship!

The site offers a free membership, but you also have the option to upgrade. The free option is very good but as i said prior - it is regulated. I have tried both options and found the upgraded membership to be very reasonable also.

The site offer cultural keepsakes and information about countries as you scroll through profiles. Its a great way to learn and has made me quite a wealth of information over the years. People think I am well travelled - Don't tell them that the secret was being on Global Penfriends.

Go forth and try it out. A genuine club dedicated to providing a safe platform.

Date of experience: March 23, 2022

Overview

Global Penfriends has a rating of 2 stars from 41 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Global Penfriends ranks 457th among Social Network sites.

service
20
value
19