Staying safe on Gyftup

If you need support

Some things need a person rather than a platform. These are free, independent of us, and staffed by people trained for it.

• Samaritans, 116 123, free, any time, if you are struggling to cope.
• Victim Support, 0808 16 89 111, free, if you have been a victim of crime, whether or not you reported it.
• Action Fraud, 0300 123 2040, or actionfraud.police.uk, for fraud and cybercrime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101.
• NSPCC, 0808 800 5000, if you are worried about a child.

These are UK services. If you are elsewhere, your local equivalents will be better placed to help than we are.

Keep the evidence before you report

If something has gone wrong, what you keep in the first hour often decides what can be done about it later.

• Screenshot the messages, the profile and the order, including dates and times.
• Do not delete the conversation. Blocking someone does not delete it, so block freely.
• Note the order reference. It is the fastest way for us to find everything connected to it.
• If money is involved, do not close the dispute with your bank while you wait for us.

We keep records for a limited time, set out in our Privacy Notice. If you have told the police and they need something preserved, tell us the crime reference and we will hold the relevant records while their enquiry is open.

Meeting someone in person

Gyftup connects people. Most gifting happens at a venue or through a link, and you never need to give anyone your address. If you do decide to meet someone you found here, that happens away from the platform, where we cannot see it or step in.

Your account

We protect your account with encrypted connections, hashed passwords and sessions that end when you sign out. What we cannot do is protect an account whose password has been handed over.

• Never share your password, with anyone, for any reason. We will never ask for it.
• Sign out on shared or public devices.
• Use a password you do not use anywhere else.
• Treat any message asking you to "confirm your details" with suspicion. Come to the site yourself rather than following a link.

If you think someone else has got into your account, tell us straight away. Changing your password signs out every other session immediately.

Reporting something

If someone is behaving badly, tell us. You can block a person from inside a chat, report a comment from the business page it appears on, and contact us about anything else. We read every report.

Scams to know about

Every one of these starts by trying to move you somewhere we cannot help.

• "Pay me directly instead." Bank transfer, a payment app, gift card codes, cryptocurrency. Once money leaves Gyftup there is no order, no record and nothing we can reverse. There is never a good reason for it.
• Overpayment and refund scams. Someone sends more than expected and asks for the difference back, or claims a payment failed and asks you to refund it manually. The original payment is then reversed and you are out of pocket twice.
• Impersonation. Someone claiming to be us, a venue, or a person you know. We will never ask for your password, a verification code, or a payment outside the platform.
• Advance fees. A payment requested to release a gift, a payout, or a prize. We never ask for money to give you money.
• Pressure and urgency. A deadline, a sob story, a reason it must be now. Anything genuine survives you taking a day to think about it.

If you have already paid someone outside Gyftup, contact your bank straight away and report it to Action Fraud. Tell us too, so we can act on the account.

What a verified badge does and does not mean

A badge means our payment provider completed its identity or business checks on that account. It confirms somebody proved who they are to a regulated company.

It is not a character reference, a background check, a criminal record check, or a promise about how that person or business will behave. Treat it as one small fact among many, not as permission to stop paying attention.

Age, minors and vulnerable adults

Gyftup is for adults. You must be 18, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher, to hold an account. We remove accounts we believe belong to under-18s, and we report material that sexualises or endangers a child to the authorities without waiting to be asked.

Some things bought through a venue are age restricted, including alcohol. Age is checked by the venue at the point it is handed over, in person, as it would be if you walked in yourself. A venue can refuse to serve an age-restricted item and does not have to give a reason.

If you are worried that someone is being pressured into accepting or sending gifts, or that an account is being used to exploit someone, report it and say why. We treat coercion and financial exploitation as seriously as anything else on this page.

Allergies, dietary needs and what is in your order

We pass on what a venue publishes. We do not prepare food, check ingredients, or verify allergen information, and a menu description is not a guarantee.

If you have an allergy or intolerance, tell the venue directly before anything is prepared. Do not rely on a note attached to an order, and do not rely on this platform to carry that message for you.

What you can report, and what happens next

You can report harassment and threats, scams and fraud, impersonation, content that is illegal or sexual or violent, anything involving a child, and anything else that makes you feel unsafe. You can block a person from inside a chat, report a comment from the business page it appears on, and contact us about everything else.

We look at reports of immediate risk to someone's safety, and anything involving a child, before anything else. We are a small team, so we will not promise you a response time we cannot keep, and we will not pretend to be watching around the clock. What we will do is read every report and tell you the outcome.

If we act on your account, we will tell you what we did and why, unless telling you would break the law or interfere with an investigation. If you think we got it wrong, reply and say so. A different person reviews appeals wherever we can manage it, and we will look again either way. Nothing here affects your right to complain to a regulator or take your own legal action.

Requests from the police and other authorities

We give personal data to law enforcement where we are legally required to, or where there is a real risk to someone's life or safety and there is no time to wait. We check that requests are genuine and we do not hand over more than is asked for.

If you are an officer, contact us with the force, the crime reference, the legal basis, and exactly what you need. Say so explicitly if you need records preserved while you obtain the authority to compel them.

What we are not responsible for

We would rather set this out in plain words than bury it.

Things that happen off the platform

We facilitate an introduction and a payment. We are not present for anything that happens afterwards in person, over another app, or by any other route, and we are not responsible for it.

Your account security

If your login details are shared, guessed or given away to a phishing message, we may not be able to undo what follows. We will still help you as far as we can.

Platform availability

We cannot accept liability for downtime outside our control, data lost through an action you took, decisions you make based on something another user told you, or what other users do elsewhere.

Your side of it

• Keep your login details to yourself.
• Sign out of devices you share.
• Be careful what personal information you give out, and to whom.
• Report anything that looks wrong, early.
• Take sensible precautions if you meet anyone in person.

By using Gyftup you accept that your safety and your security, on the platform and away from it, are ultimately your own.

See also our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. To report something urgent, contact us.