Frequently asked questions

The things people actually ask, answered without the runaround. If your case isn't here, write to hello@vexxyapp.com.

One of my photos was rejected. Am I banned?

No. A rejected photo doesn't penalise your account, doesn't leave a mark and doesn't count as a warning. You can upload another one right now, as many times as you need.

Every photo goes through automated review before anyone sees it, and the threshold is strict on purpose. That means something perfectly innocent gets caught sometimes: a beach photo, a shirtless torso, a lot of skin in backlight, a nude painting, a cheeky drawing.

What usually works: a photo where your face is visible, ordinary clothes, good light. And if you think the review genuinely got it wrong, tell us and we'll look at it by hand.

It says my account is under review. What does that mean?

That a person is going to look at it, and that's all. It isn't a punishment or a warning shot before one: nothing is restricted. You still appear, you still swipe, and you still write in the meantime.

We tell you rather than keep quiet about it because finding out afterwards would be worse.

The two usual reasons are that several different people reported you in a short window — which doesn't mean you did anything: it also happens when someone organises reports out of spite, which is exactly why a human looks instead of the machine penalising — or that you signed up from a phone that already had an account removed. The second genuinely happens with inherited, second-hand and shared phones, and it's precisely why that opens a review and not a removal.

We won't tell you which of the two it is, so as not to hand anyone the map for dodging the system. If you want to give us your side, write to hello@vexxyapp.com: it counts.

My account has been suspended. What can I do?

You'll see the reason and how long it lasts. Every suspension has an end date and lifts itself when it arrives: nothing to request, no signing up again. The only removals with no date are the irreversible ones — accounts belonging to minors, and the serious cases in the house rules.

You can contest it, and you have the right to have the decision reviewed by a person. Write to hello@vexxyapp.com with your side of it. Even if you don't write, every suspension goes in front of a human anyway: a review opens by itself, without anyone asking.

Don't open another account to get around it. That's a breach on its own and it only complicates whatever you're contesting.

No profiles are showing up. Is the app broken?

Almost never. The deck comes up empty for one of these reasons, and most take a minute to fix:

You didn't grant location permission. The deck is ordered by proximity, and with no location there's nothing to order. It's approximate location permission, not precise.

Your search radius is short. Widen it in your profile. In a small town, or early on, 50 km can be far too little.

Your age range or preferences are very narrow. Matching is mutual: you have to fit what the other person is looking for and they have to fit what you're looking for. Two narrow ranges barely overlap.

You have "verified profiles only" turned on. It's a useful filter, but it cuts down what you see a lot. Turn it off for a while and compare.

You've already seen everyone. If you've swiped every profile in your area, they don't come round again. Come back tomorrow: new people arrive.

Your profile is paused. Check Settings → Discovery. Paused means you don't appear, even though you can still look.

How do I verify, and what's it for?

Settings → Verify my profile. It asks for a selfie, which is compared against your profile photo to check you're the person in it. If it matches, your profile gets the badge.

The selfie is not kept. It's deleted from the server as soon as the comparison finishes, whether it passes or fails. All that's left is a yes or a no.

It's optional. It does two things: it makes people trust your profile more, and it lets you filter your own deck down to people who have also verified.

When it fails, it's usually light: backlight, a shadow across your face, or half your face out of frame. It also fails if your profile photo has no usable face — turned away, too far, sunglasses — and in that case it's the photo that needs changing, not the selfie. There's a limited number of attempts per day so nobody can brute-force their way through faces.

How do I block or report someone?

Tap their name at the top of the chat. Both options are there, together. They're deliberately not buried in a settings menu: someone who needs to block a person needs it right then.

Blocking is immediate and silent. They get no notification. The match and the conversation disappear for both of you, and neither of you shows up in the other's deck again.

Reporting comes to us and we review it. When you report an image, that image is kept as evidence even if the match is undone — precisely so that deleting it can't be a way to cover what happened.

You can do both, and blocking doesn't stop you reporting afterwards.

How do I delete my account?

Settings → Delete account. There's also a public web page for deleting it without opening the app, in case you lost the phone or uninstalled.

Everything goes: your profile, your photos, your swipes, your matches, your messages and any images you sent. There's no undo and no grace period. We don't keep a copy in case you change your mind.

If you only want to disappear for a while, don't delete: use Settings → Pause my profile. You stop appearing in the deck and your conversations are still there when you come back.

If you have Vexxy Plus, cancel it before deleting the account. Deleting destroys your data, but the billing sits with Google and never finds out: you'd keep paying for an account that no longer exists. How to cancel is further down.

Why do you ask for my phone number?

Because it's what makes fake accounts expensive. An email address takes thirty seconds and costs nothing; a mobile number doesn't. It's most of the anti-bot system this app has, which is why signing up by email is deliberately switched off.

Nobody else sees your number. It isn't shown on your profile, it isn't shared with your matches, and it isn't even copied into the profiles table: it lives only in the authentication system. It's used for one thing — sending you your login code.

A blurred image arrived in my chat

That's by design. Chat images always arrive blurred and you decide whether to open them by tapping. Nobody can surprise you with something you didn't want to see.

Before it reaches you it also goes through the same automated review as profile photos. If an image sits there loading for a while, it's still being reviewed.

Who can see my location?

Nobody sees where you are. The app only asks for approximate location permission, and what the other person is shown is a distance in kilometres, worked out on the server. Coordinates never leave for anyone's phone.

Can I find out who liked me?

With Vexxy Plus, yes: the whole list, faces and names. It's one of the four things the subscription includes, along with unlimited undos, likes with no daily cap, and filtering the deck by interests.

Without Plus, no, and that isn't an oversight: that information is never sent to the app in any form — not as a list, not as an exact number, not as a hint. You find out when there's a match, which is to say when the interest goes both ways.

The server decides the difference, not the screen. With no live subscription the list doesn't even leave the database, so there's nothing hidden under the blur.

How do I cancel Vexxy Plus?

In Google Play, not in the app. The path is Google Play → Menu → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions → Vexxy → Cancel. Vexxy has a shortcut in Settings → Vexxy Plus that drops you straight on that screen.

Two warnings that save grief:

Uninstalling the app cancels nothing, and neither does deleting your account. The billing is a contract between you and Google, and only Google can stop it.

Cancelling doesn't refund the current term. What it does is switch off auto-renewal: you keep Plus until the date you'd already paid for and then go back to the free version, without losing your profile, your matches or your conversations.

If you want a refund, Google handles that under the Google Play refund policy; we don't take the payment, so we can't give it back. Write to us anyway if something looks off: we can check what state your subscription is in.

What is "hide from my contacts", and what happens to my address book?

It's in Settings → Safety and privacy, it ships off, and it keeps the people saved on your phone from finding you here. If someone in your address book has a Vexxy account, the two of you disappear for each other everywhere: deck, likes, Activity, Nearby and Featured.

Your address book isn't stored. The numbers go to our server, which turns them into an irreversible code using a secret key and keeps only that code; the original numbers are never written anywhere, not on the server and not on your phone. Only numbers are read: no names, no photos, no emails.

We don't tell you who from your address book is here, and that isn't an oversight. If the app answered that, anyone could upload a single number to find out whether that person has an account on a dating app.

It doesn't touch conversations you already have. If you were already talking to someone from your address book, that chat stays where it is: to cut things off with one specific person there's the normal block, on their profile.

Turning it off deletes everything right then, with no backup and no "in case you come back".