Safety guidelines
Read this before you accept your first request. It takes five minutes, and most of it is about what to check yourself — because we cannot check it for you.
A request is a question, not an obligation.
Nothing of yours moves until you press accept. That one press is where your whole privacy sits, so take the two minutes before it seriously.
- Read the profile, all of itNot the request alone. Education, work, income, family, area, what they say they are looking for. You are looking for whether the pieces fit each other: a stated profession that matches the stated income, a city that matches the stated residency, an age that matches the marital history.
- Do not read our email check as a person checkA confirmed email proves an inbox was opened and a link was clicked. It proves nothing about a name, a job, a degree or a marriage. We say this on the quality page too, in the same words.
- Declining costs you nothingNo notice goes to them, no reason is asked, and the token stays with the person who sent it. If a profile reads as vague, evasive or rehearsed, decline it and move on. There is no penalty anywhere in this service for being careful.
After you have exchanged numbers
- Keep the early conversation between the families, not between the couple alone.
- Meet in a public place or at a family home with elders present, never alone the first time.
- Verify independently: the employer, the qualification, the address, the family. A genuine family will not object to this.
- For overseas matches, ask to see the actual immigration document, not a photograph of a card held at an angle. Claimed status is the single most common lie in overseas matchmaking.
- Video call before you travel anywhere, and do it on a number you dialled, not a link you were sent.
- Keep every message. If it goes wrong, the conversation is the evidence, and screenshots are what an investigator will ask you for first.
The three claims worth checking hardest
Every field on a profile is typed by the member, and nobody at ByahMe has ever seen a document belonging to one. A rishta consultant reads each profile after it is published and takes down what contradicts itself — but reading is not verifying, and it is no guarantee that anybody’s background is as described. These three are the claims that cost Pakistani families the most when they turn out to be false. All three can be checked by a family in an afternoon, and all three remain yours to check.
- Immigration status. “Citizen”, “permanent resident” and “on a work visa” are three very different futures for your daughter or son. Ask for the document and read the expiry date on it. A real resident will show it without being offended.
- An existing marriage. It is the hardest thing to find out and the most damaging to discover afterwards. Ask the family directly, in front of elders, and verify through someone in their home city rather than through them.
- Income and property. Not because money is the point, but because a figure invented to impress is a person willing to invent. A salary slip, a business address you can visit, a property in a name you can check — any one of them settles it.
Warning signs
- Any request for money, however it is framed — a visa fee, a medical emergency, a business opportunity, an investment.
- Pressure to move the conversation off WhatsApp immediately, or to a different platform entirely.
- Refusal to involve family, or refusal of a video call.
- Refusal to show a document that they themselves claimed on their profile.
- Photographs that look like stock images or a model shoot.
- Urgency — a nikah being pushed within days or weeks with no family involvement.
- Requests for your intimate photographs. Report immediately; no genuine rishta involves this.
- A story that changes. Note the first version of the job, the city and the family. People who are telling the truth tell it the same way twice.
If something goes wrong
Press Report this profile on the profile itself, or email complaints@byahme.com with the profile ID and your screenshots. A person reads it, usually within 24 hours. The member you report is never told who reported them.
If you have lost money or been threatened, report it to the authorities as well as to us, and do it quickly — money moves faster than paperwork. In Pakistan cybercrime is no longer handled by the FIA. It moved to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA), whose round-the-clock helpline is 1799 and whose complaints are filed at complaint.nccia.gov.pk. If you are overseas, report it to your local police. Have your screenshots, the profile ID, your CNIC and any transaction references ready before you start. We will cooperate fully with any lawful investigation, and we keep the account records an investigator will ask us for.
Protecting your own privacy
These are the four controls that actually exist in your account, named exactly as you will see them on screen. None of them cost anything and all four can be changed at any time.
- Remove access — on your Requests page, on any request you accepted. It takes back the photographs or the number you released. Use it the moment a conversation ends rather than leaving an old access open behind you.
- Show my profile in search results — the checkbox at the foot of My profile. Clear it once you are in serious discussion with one family. Your profile and your history stay exactly as they are; they simply stop appearing to anybody else.
- Guardian name and mobile — on My profile, under contact. Fill these in and a member who you accept sees your guardian’s name and number alongside yours, so the first conversation can go through your father or brother. It is added to your number, not swapped for it, so give the number you are willing to be reached on.
- Your About text — keep phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles out of it. Nothing removes them for you. Whatever you type there can be read by any member who is logged in, with no request sent and no token spent, which undoes the protection the rest of this page is about. If you have already put a number in there, open My profile and take it out now.
Begin the search with your family beside you
Free to publish a profile during launch. Photographs and contact numbers stay yours until you decide otherwise.