When it comes to making friends the easy way, going online is the greatest idea. This means that there are a lot of websites where people can chat and get to meet people from all over the world. You will get a lot of websites that can give you this advantage, but not all of them are actually safe.
Here are some ways through which you can be assured that you are safely chatting online with strangers:
Verify the general info
Whenever starting chatting with some, try to find some information about that person. You can actually look for this sort of information by searching on the internet. Other ways are actually by searching different directories or databases of the country that that person is located in.
Have a look on his / hers Facebook account
Nowadays everyone has a Facebook account. It is easy to open such an account and it is easy to post on it as well. This means that people who are worth trusting do have a Facebook account. This means that they are opened to the idea of posting their general information online and so they have nothing to hide. Even so, it is good to just verify the person’s wall because some information that that person posts might raise some question marks for you as well.
Ask your other online friends
You can always ask some other people to see what they think about a certain person. They might know them through other people and might give you an idea on whether to avoid them or not. Just make sure that you have all of the information in place.
Always be careful about what information you give
Never talk about your personal information (i.e. address, telephone number, ID details) with someone that you just started talking to online. This is not something very secure, you shouldn’t give this sort of information to anyone mostly to someone who you’ve just met and don’t even know what they look like. They might steal your identity or just stalk you.
Never go out with someone you are not sure of
If something smells fishy, it probably is. Just make sure that before meeting someone new that you have met online, you know a thing or two about that person. Other than asking some questions, you can basically tell if someone is searching for something especially. You do not have to get all paranoid about it, but there is a chance that that person might not be trustworthy.
Always ask for photos
If you are not sure about a certain person, you can always look at that person’s photos. You can get an idea about someone just by taking into consideration how they look like. Finding photos on that person, photos that maybe are of someone else or with someone else or even compromised ones, is not a great idea. You do not want to get involved with someone acting creepy.