Talk to strangers, keep your guard up.

Any service that connects you with strangers carries some risk, and Vooz is no exception. What we can do is set clear rules, give you quick ways to leave or flag a conversation, and act on reports. What you can do is decide how much of yourself to show and keep a few details to yourself. Put together, that makes a Vooz chat a comfortable place for most people on most nights.

Vooz is for adults only. The community rules are written out in full in the Vooz community guidelines, and breaking them gets accounts warned, restricted or removed.

Safety on Vooz rests on a handful of plain mechanics rather than promises.

Most trouble on random chat starts with information handed over too early. Go by a nickname you have never used on any other site. Keep your surname, home address, school, workplace and social media handles out of the conversation, at least until you have got to know someone properly. Nobody on a first match needs them.

Your camera is your call. A text-only Vooz chat never switches it on, and voice mode keeps your face out of it entirely. If you do go on video, glance at what the lens can see behind you: an envelope with your address, a street sign outside, a lanyard with your employer’s logo.

We will not pretend Vooz forgets everything. Accounts, profiles, follows and messages exist so the product can work, and records of calls, purchases and reports are kept for a period so we can handle disputes and keep banned users out. Treat a Vooz chat as private between you and your match, not as something that evaporates afterwards.

The full breakdown of what is stored, for how long and how to request deletion lives in the Vooz privacy policy.

Report first, while the conversation is still on screen, so the moment is attached to the report. Then tap next or leave. If someone has threatened you or you think a person is in danger, contact local emergency services as well; online moderation is not a substitute for that. The practical walkthrough of reporting, blocking and appeals is on our Vooz safety page.

Safety is not only about people. Vooz is free to start, and coins are the only thing you ever pay for, bought through a top-up screen you open yourself. A private call with too small a balance stops at that screen instead of starting, and sending a gift asks you to confirm before anything leaves your account.

Anything promising free or hacked coins, whether a website, a file or a stranger in a chat, is a trick to get your login or your card. Coins only ever come from the official top-up screen or from the Reward Center built into Vooz itself.