How to check a matrimonial profile safely

Confirm the person is real, and is that person

1. 1Have a video call before meeting, and make it a normal one — not thirty seconds. Someone using another person's photographs will avoid this, reschedule it, or keep the camera off.
2. 2Check that the face on the call is the face on the profile. Say so plainly if it is not; there is nothing rude about the question.
3. 3Search their photographs with a reverse image search. Photographs lifted from a stranger's social media are the most common form of this fraud and the easiest to catch.
4. 4Ask for their full name and workplace, and confirm both independently — a professional networking profile, a company directory, a mutual acquaintance.
5. 5Involve family early. The whole point of family-led matchmaking is that more people are looking, and a relative will notice what you talk yourself out of.

Check the details that are checkable

Most of what a matrimonial profile claims can be confirmed by someone willing to spend an afternoon on it. Do that before feelings are involved rather than after.

• Employment — company name, role, city, and how long. Ask for the office landline rather than a mobile.
• Education — institution and year. Degrees are verifiable, and inflated ones are common.
• Marital status — ask directly and ask again of the family. A prior marriage is not a problem in itself; concealing one is.
• Family — parents' names, siblings, home town. These should be consistent every time they are told.
• Address — a real town and a real neighbourhood, not just a state.

Inconsistency across retellings matters more than any single fact. A person describing their own life tells it the same way twice.

What to keep to yourself, and for how long

• Bank details, UPI IDs, card numbers — never, at any stage, for any reason.
• Aadhaar, PAN or passport numbers and scans. A genuine match has no use for these before an engagement.
• Your home address, until you have met in person and your family knows the family.
• Passwords and OTPs. Nobody legitimate ever needs one of yours.
• Intimate photographs. There is no stage of a matrimonial conversation at which sending these is safe.

Use the platform's own chat and calling until you are confident. It is the only part of the conversation that can be reported and reviewed later — once you have moved to a personal number, the record is gone.

The patterns that end a conversation

These are not judgement calls. Each one, on its own, is enough.

• Any request for money — an emergency, a customs fee on a gift, a visa charge, a sick relative, an investment "for our future".
• Refusing a video call while pressing to move to WhatsApp or Telegram immediately.
• Asking you to keep the relationship secret from your family.
• Urgency: a posting abroad, a family deadline, a horoscope window that requires deciding this week.
• Declarations of love within days, particularly alongside any of the above.
• Profile details that change between tellings, or a photograph that appears elsewhere under another name.

Meeting for the first time

1. 1Meet in a public place in daylight — a hotel lobby, a restaurant, a family home with people in it.
2. 2Tell someone where you are going, who with, and when you expect to be back.
3. 3Arrange your own transport, both ways.
4. 4Keep your phone charged and with you.
5. 5Leave whenever you want to. You owe no explanation to a stranger.

For most families the first meeting involves both families anyway, which handles most of this. If it does not, handle it yourself.

If something goes wrong

Report the profile on the platform first — that is what gets the account stopped before it reaches the next person. Keep screenshots of the conversation, the profile and any payment; they are what an investigation runs on.

Financial fraud should be reported to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in, or by calling 1930. Reporting quickly matters more than reporting completely: there is a window in which a transfer can sometimes be frozen, and it is measured in hours.