Is the Plenty of Fish app safe? Everything you need to know

What is Plenty of Fish?

Plenty of Fish is an online dating site founded by Markus Frind in 2003 in Vancouver, Canada, and is currently owned by Match Group. This Texas-based company owns and operates some of the most popular dating sites and apps. Plenty of Fish is headquartered in Vancouver. The app has a large user base concentrated mainly in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and Brazil.

Plenty of Fish, often referred to simply as POF, is one of the most popular and successful dating sites in these parts of the world. It acts as a matchmaker, allowing users to reveal their dating preferences and search for like-minded individuals to get to know and potentially start a romantic relationship with.

You may have tried this or another dating app in the past, and even if you haven’t, you certainly know someone who has. Online dating is extremely popular these days, and there are thousands of success stories of couples who have found each other on similar websites. However, it’s important to remember that the internet is full of both well-intentioned people and threats. If you plan to try your luck at online dating, learn about the dangers you may encounter and how to avoid them.

Key features of the Plenty of Fish app

It seems that the Plenty of Fish team does its best to differentiate the POF website from other dating sites. Plenty of Fish has many features that other sites don’t, which may be the reason why the app gained a large user base in the first place.

POF tries to make online dating meaningful and fun. The service relies more on conversations and interactions than photos, which is apparent through some unique mechanics, such as:

• “Live!”: A feature that allows users to broadcast themselves live to encourage interaction and community building.
• “Cue’d Up”: A multiplayer mini-game in which users are given sentences with blank spaces to fill in. If another player’s answer catches their attention, they can swipe right on their profile and potentially interact

Plenty of Fish still uses the "good old" swiping system. Here, it’s called “Meet Me,” and it’s similar to the features you probably know from other online dating apps. You swipe left on a profile if you’re not interested and swipe right if you want to interact. Interestingly, POF doesn’t allow face filters, to keep the dating experience as authentic as possible.

How much does Plenty of Fish cost?

The core features of the Plenty of Fish app are free. In theory, you can download it, register, and maybe even find your special someone without spending a penny if you’re lucky. However, the free version of the service is limited. You can search for compatible singles, but not indefinitely – the daily number of first contacts is limited, as is the number of photos you can upload. However, you can still swipe, view a limited number of profiles each day, and message people.

Plenty of Fish uses a subscription-based business model in which users can purchase 3-, 6- and 12-month premium plans that cost respectively: $20.94, $15.70, and $10.47 per month. The premium version allows you, for example, to see if a person has read your message, view who has liked your profile, search for specific usernames, upload up to 16 photos to your profile, and use the “Live!” feature.

Plenty of Fish also allows users to purchase tokens, which are used as virtual currency in the app. The tokens allow you to enjoy additional features, such as "superliking" a profile to let a person know you really like them, or prioritize messages so they appear first in the recipient’s inbox.

How does Plenty of Fish work?

The Plenty of Fish dating app is available for Apple and Android devices. It’s also a website, so you can use it on a desktop computer. Registration requires answering several questions: Some are generic, like your age and gender, and others are more specific, like whether you drive a car. The questionnaire is designed to determine your dating preferences and find compatible matches.

Plenty of Fish encourages conversations rather than shallow appearance-based relationships, so the app allows you to send messages to people even before they "like" you back, as is standard on similar platforms. You can talk to someone and then decide to swipe left or right. The company’s emphasis on communication is also evident in the features. For example, profiles listed as "Will reply" include active users who are more likely to respond to your message rather than ghost you.

Potential risks and safety concerns of the Plenty of Fish app

Because many features of Plenty of Fish are free, and the internet generally makes it easy for people to hide their identity, you may encounter online dating scams and fake profiles. Plenty of Fish scams are not a rare occurrence. All dating sites face this problem, and POF isn’t an exception.

Scams on POF and other dating sites include:

• Catfishing. Catfishing is a dating scam in which the perpetrator creates a fake profile using stolen or fabricated photos and information. Catfishers pretend to be attractive people and may have different motives: Sometimes they do it for fun, sometimes because they’re too self-conscious to be themselves, and sometimes to find lonely people, build relationships with them, and convince them to give them money, reveal personal information, or take other risky actions.
• Sextortion. In this case, the scammer pretends to be someone else and gets the victim to send them intimate photos. They can also obtain the photos using malware. In all cases, sextortion is a way of blackmailing the victim by threatening to publish the photos to force them to comply with the perpetrator’s demands.
• Financial scams. Financial fraudsters on dating apps look for single people who can be persuaded to send them money directly (usually using cryptocurrency) or "invest" in their shady businesses.
• Harassment. Messaging apps, especially dating apps, always attract harassers. In this case, you may receive weird messages of a sexual nature or even unsolicited intimate photos of other people.

Tips for staying safe on Plenty of Fish

Whether you want to look for a potential soulmate on Plenty of Fish or any other online dating site, put your safety first. Follow our tips on how to stay safe when using dating sites and apps:

Don’t overshare

You may be enamored with a newly met person, but it’s better to wait a while before sharing personal information. Don’t give them your home or work address, full name, and other information that can be used against you. Realistically, you never know who you’re talking to online.

This also applies to social media. Publishing too much personal information on your profiles elsewhere on the internet can give scammers valuable data that they can use to target you as their next victim. Learn how to keep your social media profiles safe and keep your private information private.

Strengthen your online security

When creating online profiles, make sure you use strong passwords. You can check out our blog post with tips on creating a strong password. A strong password will protect your account, and if it’s unique, no one can use it to hack into other profiles even if it leaks. Also, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever possible.

Remembering dozens of unique passwords is difficult, so store them in an encrypted password manager to keep them safe.

Delete old accounts if possible

If you have an account somewhere, it stores information even if you don’t use it. Your old posts, photos, and data you provided during registration – the company that owns the website has all this information and could potentially lose it to hackers if they decided to launch a cyberattack.

Moreover, publicly accessible accounts can be viewed by others and provide information about you to scammers. If you can, delete all unused accounts – doing so can reduce your digital footprint, which is the information about you that can be found online. On some sites, accounts can be deleted in the settings, and in other cases, you can request deletion via email.

For more detailed instructions on removing as much of your data from the web as possible, see our tips on how to delete yourself from the internet.

Meet in public

The golden rule of online dating is never to meet someone for the first time in private. Always go to a public place you know will be fairly busy, such as a coffee shop or a park. Other recommendations are:

• Be aware of your surroundings and never agree to meet in a remote location without ensuring that you’ll be able to go back to a safe place on your own.
• Don’t leave your drinks and food unattended and only accept them directly from bartenders and waiters to protect yourself from getting drugged.
• Choose places full of people so you can ask for help if you need it.
• Charge your phone, don’t turn it off, and avoid locations without mobile coverage.
• Tell someone you’re going out with someone you don’t know yet. Share your live location with them and ask them to keep an eye on it.

Online dating can be an amazing experience, as evidenced by the countless happy couples who have met on Plenty of Fish and similar apps. However, don’t let your emotions cloud your common sense. Always put your safety first.

If you’re done with Plenty of Fish for any reason, delete your profile. Doing so can reduce your profile’s exposure to scammers scouring the platform for accounts they can impersonate. It will also protect your data in the future in case of a breach. Find out how to delete a Plenty of Fish account.