Safety Policy and Safety Tips

Effective October 7, 2026

BizMeet helps professionals find co-founders, collaborators and people to network with. Most people you meet here want the same thing you do. But BizMeet connects you with people you don't know yet, and a small number of people misuse apps like ours. This page explains how to protect yourself, the tools BizMeet gives you, and how we handle reports.

BizMeet is operated by BizMeet LLC, a Wisconsin limited liability company ("BizMeet", "we", "us").

1. Our approach to safety

We want BizMeet to be a place where people can build professional relationships with confidence. Everyone who uses BizMeet must follow our Community Guidelines and our Terms of Service. When members break those rules, we act on what we find.

BizMeet is meant for lawful work and business. It is not a dating service, it does not offer jobs, and it takes no part in any hire, deal or investment that members arrange with each other. The people you meet here are strangers until you have checked who they are, so take the same care you would with any new business contact.

This page is also BizMeet's safety policy. It lists the conduct we treat as a threat to safety, describes the safety tools in the app, explains how to report, and describes what we do with reports.

We want to be honest about our limits. BizMeet is a small company. A person at BizMeet reviews reports, and we don't have a round-the-clock safety team. We don't use automated tools to scan profiles or messages for harmful content. That means your reports matter, and so do the precautions you take yourself. No app can guarantee that every member is who they say they are or will behave well.

2. Important: what BizMeet does and doesn't check

We don't run criminal background checks, and we don't check criminal records or sex offender registries.

Our Terms of Service require every member to confirm that they are not required to register as a sex offender and have never been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a violent felony or any sexual offense. We rely on members to tell the truth about this. We don't verify it.

We also don't verify a member's identity, name, photos, employer, job title, company, education or professional credentials. What you see on a profile is what the member chose to write. We don't check any job, project, company, investment or deal that a member describes, or whether a business they mention exists.

Age. BizMeet is only for people 18 and older. Age is based on the birth date each member enters. Our servers reject any birth date that makes a person younger than 18, but we don't check ID. If you think a member is under 18, report them (see section 6).

The verified badge. The badge means only that the member confirmed a phone number with a one-time code and connected a LinkedIn account whose first name matches their BizMeet first name. It does not confirm their name, identity, photos, employer or intentions.

What verification can't do. No check can promise that you'll be safe. A profile can be made up, and someone who has stolen another person's identity can use it to sign up. Your own caution is the best protection, both when you message someone new and when you meet them.

3. Protect yourself online

Keep personal details private at first. Don't share your home address, personal phone number, daily routine, or where you'll be at a given time until you have good reason to trust someone. Never share your Social Security number, bank or card details, passwords, or any login or verification code. Your profile can describe your work, but think about whether you need to name your current employer early on. Anything you send can be screenshotted or copied, and the other person keeps that copy even after a chat is deleted.

What profiles can't include. Profiles may not contain phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, web links, QR codes, social media handles, payment handles or financial details, whether in text or in photos.

Stop talking to anyone who pushes. If someone pressures you for personal or financial information, or tries to trick you into revealing it, stop the conversation, then report and block them.

Protect your account. Use a strong password that you don't use anywhere else. If you typed your BizMeet password into a page someone sent you, reset it right away in Settings, or with Forgot password on the sign-in screen if you can't get in. If you get a BizMeet code you didn't ask for, don't share it with anyone. Someone may be trying to get into your account or use your phone number.

Keep conversations in BizMeet at first. Our reporting and blocking tools work inside the app. If something goes wrong in a text, email or another app, it is much harder for us to investigate.

Check what people tell you. If someone says they run a company, look it up in official sources, such as a state business registry or the company's official website. Contact the company through details you find yourself, not details the member gives you. Before you invest time or money, suggest a video call using a video tool you choose, not a link they send you. Search their name and company together with words like "scam" or "complaint", and if you can, talk to people who have worked with them. Before a big decision, run it past someone you trust.

Video calls can be faked. Scammers can use AI to fake a face or a voice. Be cautious if the person's lips don't match their words, the picture blurs or freezes around their face, or they keep their camera off.

Check their photos. A reverse image search (for example, Google Lens or TinEye) can show whether a profile photo appears elsewhere online under a different name.

Watch for red flags. Be cautious if someone:

If you're looking for work, clients or funding. Scammers target people who want work or money, because they know you hope the offer is real. If your networking goal is Job opportunities or Investment / funding, or you're open to freelance work or full-time roles, take extra care. Slow down, check the person and the business on your own, get the terms in writing, and never pay anyone to give you a job, a contract or funding.

Job offers. BizMeet doesn't offer jobs, and no one offers them on our behalf. Be very careful with any job or paid task from someone you met here, especially one that:

Real employers don't ask you to receive their money in your personal account and pass it on to vendors, other workers or anyone else, and they don't ask you to open new accounts or form a company to receive money for them. A check can show as available in your account and still bounce weeks later, and then you owe the bank the full amount. Moving money or goods for someone else can make you part of a crime, even if you didn't know. Stop, report the member, and report the scam to the FTC at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov.

Don't lend your identity. Never let anyone use your name, ID, Social Security number, address or bank account to get a job, and don't agree to receive a work laptop for someone else or let them connect to your computer remotely. Schemes like these use real people's identities to get remote jobs under false names, and the person who lends their identity can be drawn into a crime.

Investment pitches. Be very wary of anyone you met here who coaches you on trading or steers you to an investment app or website. Fake trading platforms show profits that don't exist, then ask for more money before you can withdraw. Never send money to a platform or app a contact introduced you to. If someone offers to sell you an investment or manage your money, check that they are registered, for example with FINRA BrokerCheck at https://brokercheck.finra.org, and get the terms in writing.

Never send money. Don't send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency or wire transfers to someone you met on BizMeet, even if they describe an emergency. BizMeet support never writes to you in a chat, so everyone in your chats is another member, and BizMeet will never ask for your password or a verification code there. We contact you only by email from an address ending in bizmeetapp.org, in the app and its notifications, or by a text message with a code you asked for in Get verified. We never ask you to pay anywhere other than Google Play. Be wary of addresses that only look similar.

Sextortion. Some scammers get intimate images or video and then threaten to share them unless you pay. If this happens, don't pay and don't send more. Stop responding, keep screenshots of the messages and the profile, and report the member to us. You can also report it to the FBI at https://tips.fbi.gov or https://www.ic3.gov. If the person in the images was under 18 when they were made, report it to the NCMEC CyberTipline (see section 12). Section 9 explains how to ask for intimate images to be removed.

If you lost money or shared personal information

4. Meeting in person

Meet in public. For a first meeting, choose a busy public place such as a café, a coworking space or a hotel lobby, during business hours. Don't meet at your home, their home, or a private office you don't know.

Tell someone. Tell a friend, family member or colleague who you're meeting, where and when, and when you expect to be back. Check in with them afterward.

Get there and back on your own. Plan your own way to the meeting and home again, whether you drive, take transit or book a ride. Keep your home address to yourself, and don't let a new contact collect you from where you live.

Stay clear-headed. Limit alcohol. Keep your drink and your belongings with you, and don't accept a drink you didn't watch being made. If you feel unusually drowsy or unwell, get help from staff or call 911.

Trust your instincts. You can leave at any time, for any reason. You don't owe anyone an explanation. If you feel unsafe, go to staff or another public place and call 911 if needed.

Protect confidential information. Be careful about sharing unreleased business plans, source code, customer data or other confidential material with someone you've just met. Consider a non-disclosure agreement before you share anything sensitive, and talk to a lawyer if the stakes are high.

Don't sign or hand over anything at a first meeting. Don't sign contracts or hand over money, original documents, devices or confidential files at a first meeting. Take any agreement away to read, and get advice before you sign. If you want a non-disclosure agreement, send it ahead of time so both of you can read it, and sign it if you agree, before you meet.

Events. BizMeet doesn't host, sponsor or check meetups, pitch nights or other events that members organize. Look up the organizer and the venue yourself, and be cautious about events held in private places, events with high upfront fees, and "networking" events that turn into a sales pitch.

Traveling to meet someone. If you travel to meet a contact, book your own transport and accommodation, share your plans with someone you trust, and check local laws and conditions where you're going. Don't accept travel paid for by someone you haven't checked, and never carry a package or bag for someone else.

Consent. Sexual contact without consent is a crime. It also violates BizMeet's rules. BizMeet is for professional connections, and romantic or sexual advances toward other members are not allowed. If someone touches you without consent, it is not your fault. You can report it to the police and to us.

5. Safety tools in BizMeet

Block. Blocking someone ends contact in both directions. They can't find you, request you or message you, and you won't see them. Only you can see whom you have blocked. Paid features such as Priority messages, boosts and unblurs can't be used to reach someone who has blocked you. The chat between you is deleted for both of you, so take screenshots first if you want to keep a record. You can unblock someone in Settings under Blocked profiles, but only 24 hours or more after you blocked them.

Report. Reporting tells us about a problem so we can review it. Section 6 explains how.

Safety note in every chat. The top of every chat shows the same short reminder: BizMeet never offers jobs or writes to you in chats, and you should never send money, codes or bank details to someone you met here. It is the same for everyone and is never based on what anyone writes.

Safety center guides. Settings > Safety center has short guides on spotting scammers, meeting safely, and job offers and money.

Disconnect. Disconnecting ends a connection and deletes the chat for both of you. You may see each other in Discover again later. If you never want to hear from someone again, block them instead.

Incognito (Premium and VIP). With Incognito on, you don't appear in Discover and your profile visits aren't recorded. People you are already connected with can still see you. People you send a request to can see you once they reveal or accept your request. Incognito stops working if your paid plan ends.

Hide age, location or online status. In Settings you can hide your age, your city and distance, or your online status. When you hide your online status, other members don't see when you were last active or when you read their messages.

Approximate location only. BizMeet uses approximate location. Your phone rounds your position to about 2 km before anything is saved, and our servers round it again. Other members never see your coordinates. They see only your city and a distance in whole miles or kilometers, and they see neither if you hide your location. Distance can still hint at your general area. If that concerns you, hide your location. You can also delete your saved location and city with Remove my location in Edit profile.

Mute notifications. You can mute all notifications or individual types, such as messages, connection requests, accepted requests and profile visits. When you mute visits, or all notifications, profile visits to you aren't recorded at all. Message notifications never include the message text.

Blurred requests and visitors. Most incoming requests and profile visitors stay blurred until you reveal them with an unblur. Unblurs are included with Premium and VIP, and anyone can buy them in packs. Until you reveal a request, the app doesn't receive the sender's identity, photo or note. It shows only whether a note is attached and whether the request is a Priority message, and VIP members also see whether you share interests. Priority messages are different: the sender chose to show who they are, so you see their first name and profile right away. If you decline a request, the sender is not told.

6. How to report

You can report a member in the app, or by email. You don't need to be a BizMeet member to report by email. Reporting also helps protect other members, because it lets us act against people who may target someone else next.

In the app

You can't report a request while it is still blurred, because the app doesn't receive who sent it until you reveal it. Once you reveal it, open the sender's profile to report them.

In-app reports send only the reason you pick. You can't add details in the app. For threats, violence, sexual misconduct or anything that happened outside BizMeet, choose Harassment or Other, then email contact@bizmeetapp.org with what happened so we can prioritize it. If you want to point us to a specific message or photo, email us too.

For a job offer that asks you to pay or to move money or goods, off-the-books work, an investment pitch or a request for money, choose Fake job, money or investment offer. For a profile that uses someone else's name or photos, or that pretends to be a recruiter, a company or BizMeet, choose Fake profile. A thin profile alone doesn't prove someone is fake, so if you email us, tell us what made you concerned, such as a money request or a story that changed.

Reporting on its own does not block the member. If you don't want to hear from them again, choose to block them too.

When you report someone you have chatted with, we keep a copy of the most recent 100 messages in that chat so we can review what happened. The same applies when you block or disconnect: before the chat is deleted, we keep a copy of up to 500 messages. Each copy keeps up to the first 1,000 characters of a message. We keep copies from a report for about 180 days. Copies from a block or disconnect are deleted after 30 days, unless you or the other member report within that time; then they are kept with the report. We keep them longer only when the law requires it, for example when we report child exploitation to NCMEC or when law enforcement asks us to preserve records. These copies are kept for that period even if you or the other member delete your account. Our Privacy Policy explains this in more detail.

If the other member deletes their account, or we delete it, your chat with them is deleted for you too. Report early and take screenshots of anything you may need later, because we keep message copies only when someone reports, blocks or disconnects.

In the app you can report the same member once a day, and up to 10 members a day. If you have more to tell us, email us.

By email

Email contact@bizmeetapp.org. The more you include, the faster we can act. Please include:

You can report by email at any time, including about something that happened a while ago or outside BizMeet, or about a member you have already blocked or disconnected from. If someone made a BizMeet profile with your name or photos, or those of someone you know, email us. If you would rather we didn't contact you about your report, tell us.

Emergencies. If you are in danger, or someone else is, call 911 first. Then report to us.

False reports. Knowingly false or malicious reports, or reports made to harass someone, violate our Terms of Service.

7. What happens after you report

Review. A person at BizMeet reviews reports. We look at the report, the profiles involved, and any message copies kept for safety review. We aim to review every report and to act promptly. Reports about child safety, intimate images, threats or violence, sexual misconduct and scams come first.

Possible outcomes. Depending on what we find, we may:

If we delete a member's account, your chat with them is deleted too. Blocking or disconnecting also deletes the chat for both of you. If you may want your own record, for example to give to the police, take screenshots of the profile and messages before you block, disconnect or report.

Members whose accounts we delete are not allowed to create a new account. We don't have an automatic way to detect or stop someone who signs up again, so if you think a removed member is back on BizMeet, please report them.

Confidentiality. We don't tell the reported member who reported them. We share a reporter's identity only with your permission, when the law requires it, or with law enforcement in an emergency or when we refer a matter to them. The reported member may still notice changes, for example if you also blocked them.

Updates to reporters. We don't send reporters a notice about the outcome of a report. We may contact you by email if we need more information.

Appeals. If we removed your content or deleted your account and you think we made a mistake, email contact@bizmeetapp.org within 6 months of our decision and explain why. If your account still exists, write from the email address on it. A person will review the decision and reply by email. A deleted account and its data can't be restored. If we agree we made a mistake, you may create a new account.

Other members. BizMeet does not notify other members who were in contact with a member we removed.

Evidence. Message copies kept for safety review are normally deleted 180 days after we save them, or after 30 days for a block or disconnect that no report followed. If you plan to go to the police, contact us early. When law enforcement sends us a valid preservation request, we copy the records we still hold out of the automatic deletion cycle and keep them for as long as the law requires. We share evidence with law enforcement when we receive valid legal process (see section 11).

8. Conduct that threatens safety

The following conduct is prohibited on BizMeet and toward anyone you meet through BizMeet, whether it happens in the app, online elsewhere, or in person:

This conduct can lead to account deletion and a referral to law enforcement. It may also expose the person responsible to civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution. Our Community Guidelines list the other conduct we don't allow.

10. Child safety

BizMeet is only for adults. We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material and for any sexualization, grooming or exploitation of minors.

If you think a member is under 18, report them with the Underage user reason, or email contact@bizmeetapp.org. If you realize that a member you are talking with is under 18, stop the conversation and report them. Do not post photos of anyone under 18, including your own children. We delete accounts that belong to minors. We report apparent child sexual abuse material and child exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). When we report to NCMEC, we preserve the reported material as the law requires before removing it.

Our Child Safety Standards explain our approach in more detail.

11. Working with law enforcement

We cooperate with law enforcement when we receive valid legal process, such as a subpoena, court order or warrant. In an emergency that involves a risk of death or serious physical injury, we may share information without legal process where the law allows it. Law enforcement agencies can find details in our Law Enforcement Guide.

If you are the victim of a crime involving someone you met on BizMeet, you can report it to your local police. You can also report it to us, and we'll review the member's account. Reporting to one doesn't stop you from reporting to the other.

12. Help and resources

If you are in immediate danger, call 911.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or chat at https://chat.988lifeline.org. Free, confidential and available 24/7. https://988lifeline.org

National Domestic Violence Hotline. Call 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. https://www.thehotline.org

RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline. Call 1-800-656-4673. https://www.rainn.org

NCMEC CyberTipline. Report the sexual exploitation of a child at https://report.cybertip.org or call 1-800-843-5678.

Take It Down (NCMEC). Help removing intimate images taken when you were under 18. https://takeitdown.ncmec.org

StopNCII. Help stopping intimate images of adults from being shared. https://stopncii.org

Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. Free, confidential help if intimate images of you were shared without consent. Call 1-844-878-2274. https://cybercivilrights.org

FTC ReportFraud. Report scams and fraud to the Federal Trade Commission. https://reportfraud.ftc.gov

FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Report online fraud, investment and cryptocurrency scams, and extortion. https://www.ic3.gov

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Report fraud involving crypto, forex or commodity trading. https://www.cftc.gov/complaint

IdentityTheft.gov. Report identity theft and get a recovery plan. https://www.identitytheft.gov

National Human Trafficking Hotline. Confidential help with sex and labor trafficking, 24/7. Call 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733. https://humantraffickinghotline.org

US Postal Inspection Service. Report mail fraud and scams that use the mail, such as reshipping jobs and fake checks. Call 1-877-876-2455. https://www.uspis.gov/report

SEC tips and complaints. Report investment fraud, such as Ponzi schemes and fake offerings, to the Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/tcr

FINRA BrokerCheck. Check whether someone selling investments is a registered broker or investment adviser. https://brokercheck.finra.org

US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Help if someone you worked for didn't pay the wages the law requires. Call 1-866-487-9243. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Report discrimination in hiring or at work. Call 1-800-669-4000. https://www.eeoc.gov

VictimConnect Resource Center. Call or text 1-855-484-2846 for help after any crime, including stalking. https://victimconnect.org

13. Contact

For safety questions or reports, email contact@bizmeetapp.org.

Mailing address: BizMeet LLC, 2809 E Hamilton Ave, Unit #2177, Eau Claire, WI 54701