What is the most important rule?
Keep personal details and money out of it. No address, no surname, no other apps, no payments. And end any call the moment it feels wrong.
01Habits 1–3 · before
What should you check before the camera goes on?
The room, for about twenty seconds. The camera shows more than your face, and the things that identify you are usually behind you, not on you.
1. Look at your own preview first
Sit where you plan to sit and look at the small picture of yourself before a match starts. That preview is exactly what the other person will get. Family photos, certificates, a window with a recognizable view, a uniform on a hanger: move them or move yourself. A plain wall is perfect.
2. Clear anything with your name or address
Mail, parcels with shipping labels, ID cards, work badges, a prescription bottle. People forget these are readable on a sharp phone camera. Put them in a drawer.
3. Allow the camera and microphone, and nothing else
A video call here needs two permissions from your browser: camera and microphone. It does not need your location. If your browser or phone asks to share your location, decline. Close map and delivery apps that might pop a notification with your street on it.
Habits 4–5 · during
What should you never share on cam?
Anything that lets a stranger find you away from the screen or reach you somewhere else. A first name and a country are plenty for a good conversation.
4. Keep identity details back
No surname, no home address, no employer or school, no daily routine. "I'm in Texas" is fine. "I'm at 14 Oak Street and I leave for work at eight" is not. The same goes for what you type beside the video: text can be copied as easily as it can be read.
5. Keep your other accounts separate
Do not hand out your phone number, email or social media handles to someone you met five minutes ago. A social profile usually contains your full name, your friends and your photos, which is everything the first tip was protecting.
Habits 6–7 · money
What do you do when someone asks for money?
Say no and end the call. There is no version of this that is legitimate. People you meet on a video chat do not need you to pay a phone bill, a hospital fee, a ticket or a "verification" charge.
6. Never send money or codes
Not cash, not gift cards, not crypto, not a bank transfer, and never a one-time code that arrives on your phone. Requests often come with a sad story or a deadline. The story is the tool.
7. Start a coin purchase only from your own account
A coin purchase starts from your own account on CamSkip, by you, for yourself, never from a link someone sends you. Nobody you meet needs you to buy coins "for" her. If a request for money comes with a payment link, do not open it; report the person instead. What coins are actually for is on Is CamSkip free?
Habit 8 · staying put
What if someone asks you to move to another app?
Stay where you are. "Add me on another app" in the first few minutes is one of the most reliable warning signs there is, because the tools that protect you here do not follow you there.
8. Keep the chat on the site
On CamSkip you can end, block and report. On a private messenger you have given away a contact detail and lost all three. If someone is worth talking to again, follow her here; her profile is then the place to message or call her from, and your phone number never enters into it.
Habits 9–11 · leaving
How do you leave a call that has gone wrong?
In this order: leave, block, report, write it down. You never need a reason to go and you never need permission. Which signs mean trouble is covered on Is CamSkip safe?; this is what to do once you have seen one.
9. Leave first, think later
When something feels wrong, end the call. You do not owe the moment a replacement, and you do not need to go on to another match: to stop completely, leave the match screen or close the page. You can work out whether you overreacted afterwards. You almost never did.
10. Assume the other screen can capture you
Any video call, on any service, can be screenshotted or filmed by the person watching, using their own device. Only show what you would be comfortable with someone keeping.
11. Do not negotiate with threats
If someone threatens you, do not pay and do not plead. End the call, block, report, and write down what happened while you still remember it: the name on the profile, the time, the words used. If it continues elsewhere, contact your local authorities.
Habit 12 · tools
What do you put in a report?
A reason and a short description. Report asks you to pick the reason that fits and then say what happened; plain words are best. "Asked me to send gift card codes after two minutes" is more useful than "scammer". Block is separate from report, and you can do both.
12. Find report and block before you need them
On your first call, while nothing is wrong, look for where report and block are. It takes a moment and means you will not be hunting for them when you are rattled. If the camera or the controls themselves are confusing, how to video chat covers getting a call running.
If something happened and you could not report it in the moment, write to [email protected] with what you noted down. The contact page lists what to include.
Shared devices
What should you do on a computer that is not only yours?
Take the camera permission back when you finish. A browser remembers that you allowed this site to use the camera and microphone, which is convenient on your own phone and less so on a family laptop. Open the site settings beside the address bar and set both back to "ask".
Close the tab as well. A guest session lives in the browser it was started in, so anyone who opens that browser later arrives as the same guest. On a shared machine, clearing the site data for camskip.live when you are done removes it. If you have signed in, sign out before you walk away.
