Safety
Money, strangers, and what the app does about it
Last updated September 10, 2026
The most common way somebody gets hurt on a service like this one is money. Somebody asks for it. The asking comes late, after weeks of something that felt real.
If you are not safe right now, call 911. Anything here can wait until afterwards.
How it actually runs
The weeks are the product. A person who is going to ask for money spends a long time not asking for it, because the asking only works on somebody who has already decided this is real. Attention is the investment, and it is cheap to give at scale.
Then the story arrives. A medical bill, a customs fee on a shipment, a trading platform with a return that sounds plausible if you have not looked at one before. The amount is small first.
Two things move it off the service almost every time. A push to another messaging app early on, and a reason the video call can never happen.
What the app does about it, on your phone
Three checks run on the device. No message is sent anywhere to be classified, and no result is written against anybody's account.
- A note when the conversation moves off Porchkeep
- A short line naming what turned up. Carry on if you want to. Plenty of real people prefer another app. Dismissing it ends it for that conversation.
- A note when money or investing comes up
- Trading platforms, crypto, a fund somebody's relative runs. Once, in a conversation with somebody you have not met.
- A confirmation you have to type
- Deliberately annoying, and deliberately last. It is the final moment anything can be stopped.
None of this decides anything about a person. A pause is a pause.
Blocking does not cost you the report
Blocking hides somebody from you and destroys nothing. The conversation stays in your own archive with its timestamps, their profile stays as it looked, and the report control stays on it.
In much of this category, removing somebody removes the conversation and the evidence with it. That was a named defect in a lawsuit filed against a competitor in December 2025.
Meeting somebody
A Table is six seats at a public place at a stated time, arranged by the people going to it. PlainSpan LLC does not host or supervise any of it, has no relationship with anywhere named in the app, and takes no commission from one.
Use the judgement you would use meeting any stranger. Tell somebody where you are going. Arrange your own way there and back.
Declaring an age is a self-report typed once, not a check on it. It says nothing about who somebody is or what they have done, and it should not be read as though it did.
Where to report it outside Porchkeep
Both are free and neither needs an account here. Report even if money has already moved. Especially then.
- reportfraud.ftc.gov, the Federal Trade Commission. A few minutes, no account needed.
- ic3.gov, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center. Use this one if money moved.
People who lose money this way are usually careful, and usually alone with it afterwards. Neither of those is a reason to keep it to yourself.
Reporting it here
Once the app exists, the report control sits on the thing itself and carries the context with it. Until then, write to safety@plainspan.com.
An intimate image of you has a page of its own at the takedown page, and anything involving somebody under 18 belongs on the child safety page. Neither needs an account.
Published by PlainSpan LLC.