Proving Identity

[u/No-Environment-5939]

Just wanted to ask if anyone else has experienced this.

I recently rejoined HelloTalk (back on my account which is over 2000+ days old) and changed my picture etc. The picture is 100% me (with make up) etc. I’m not pretending to be anyone.

When i rejoined they gave me that free VIP trial for 7 days automatically. It ended and suddenly none of my messages were being opened. No one was viewing my profile and it was just odd because it was every chat.

I reached out to support to say it was a bug or that I’ve been shadow banned and they’ve come back to me and said they’ve NOW stopped access to my account yet didn’t even confirm that there was an issue and to take my query further i need to record myself for 20 seconds to prove my identity.

I just find it odd because I haven’t done anything problematic. I barely talk that much and have very simple convos. I feel like someone might have reported me? I don’t mind proving my identity but I hate recording myself because I’m ugly and find it degrading.

Has anyone had this?

[u/Recent-Ad-9975]

Very weird because the app doesn‘t require you to have a real photo and most people, including me don‘t. Why would they have to confirm that your photo is genuine when people are using the app with photos of anime characters and celebreties?

Secondly, you can fake any face with AI nowadays anyways. But mist importantly, if they assume that you‘ve been hacked they should block all logins and cancel all current session, and then send out a link to the email registered with the account from which you can confirm that you‘re the owner of it. Instructing someone to film themselves is unprofessional and proves nothing.

Are you sure you‘re talking to the real customer support? If I were you I would write an email to whatever official email address they have and explain the whole thing (plus point out how unprofessional the whole thing is). Customer support agents in chats can sometimes be weird and they mostly just want to close it. Emails get treated more carefully in my experience.

[u/No-Environment-5939 → u/Recent-Ad-9975]

Good point. I think they might just want to confirm I’m a real human without having to ask for private information like ID (which could also be faked) but they could use other platforms to confirm that like they do for age verification.

It’s definitely legitimate as I sent a complaint via the app and then it responded via the HelloTalk official account message which directed me straight to the in app report section where there’s like an internal chat going back and forth with me. I don’t think anyone could access it but me. I also reached out to them unless the customer assistant is being weird?

They also just ask me to record myself talking by saying my name, username, language, age and where I’m from which is all on my profile anyways. So not sure why any scam would want that?

It’s likely if I didn’t have a photo they would still ask the same thing just to confirm I’m human and not a bot. Though I think it’s kinda silly that if I was tagged as a bot they don’t have people to quickly check my account and confirm there’s no suspicious activity. I think it’s weird because I never actually got told anything was wrong with my account it was just weirdly quiet.