Chat Room FAQ

Every chat room on this site is completely free to use. The site is for general audiences, but you must be 13 or over to take part in the chat rooms.

The rooms are staffed by volunteer moderators, who may or may not be present at the time you are chatting. #1 Chat Avenue does its best to provide its users with a safe environment for chatters of all ages, and the site is extremely safe when you follow the rules set out on our Chat Safety page.

You must be 13 or over to use the chat rooms or any other area of this website. Some rooms set their own minimum or maximum age and say so clearly — the adult rooms are 18 and over. When you enter a chat room you are agreeing to the age disclaimer shown for that room.

Generally they are not. A few rooms are aimed at a particular gender — the girls chat rooms are for girls only and the boys chat rooms are for boys only. Apart from those, there is no gender restriction.

Yes. Aside from IP addresses, which are logged so that we can investigate users who break the rules, and the email addresses of registered users, the chat rooms do not collect personal information, and we do not share information with third parties. For the full details, please read our Privacy Policy.

Verifying someone's real age is very difficult, but we take these reports extremely seriously. Report the user to a moderator or to an admin straight away.

Please include the user's name, the room they were in, and the time of the incident, so that we can check our logs. Our Chat Safety page has further guidance.

No. Anyone caught advertising will be kicked, or permanently banned from the room.

This also covers posting your social media accounts — LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Snapchat and the rest — whether in the public room, in a private message or on your profile. They will be removed, and you risk being kicked or banned.

No. There are measures in place to stop it. It is still possible to repeat yourself at a much slower pace, but anyone caught doing so will be kicked or banned, and repeat offenders are banned permanently.

An icon beside someone's name shows that they hold a rank in that room. There are three you will come across:

The exact icon can differ from room to room. A coloured, gradient or neon username is not a sign of staff either — those are VIP features that any VIP member can turn on. If you are ever unsure whether someone is really staff, ask a moderator.

Becoming a moderator or admin takes a good deal of hard work and dedication. If you feel you have what it takes, contact the admin of the room you would like to apply for.

The list of administrators is kept in our forums, so that is the place to look up who runs the room you are interested in.

A kick lasts a minimum of 5 minutes and a maximum of 2 hours. Bans range far wider, up to a permanent ban for serious violations. If you have been banned rather than kicked, a rule was broken in a serious way.

Yes. Every chat room on the site is mobile friendly and works on Android, iOS and Windows phones and tablets.

Most rooms now take you straight to the login page. Enter a nickname there and you are in — there is nothing else to tap.

A few rooms still show a CHAT NOW button on phones and tablets instead: Adult Chat, Teen Chat, Gay Chat and Lesbian Chat. Tapping it connects you to the room.

That button only appears on screens between 320px and 980px wide, which covers most phones and tablets. You will not see it on a desktop or laptop — there you use the nickname field and the Chat Now button on the page itself.

Only a small number of rooms permit nudity, and every one of them is strictly 18 and over. They also allow webcam use.

Nudity is not permitted in any other room on this site, and never in a room open to under-18s. Breaking that rule will get you banned.

Yes. We cooperate fully with any accredited law enforcement agency pursuing users who exploit others in our chat rooms, and we have worked with agencies around the world, including Interpol, the FBI and Homeland Security. We will not hesitate to do so again.

If you have urges that you feel may cause harm to others, please seek professional help to deal with them. The last thing you want is to end up in prison. We also ask every user to follow the safety advice and the rules of the site — our rooms are meant to be somewhere everyone can enjoy safely and comfortably.

No. You can join most rooms as a guest by typing a nickname and clicking Chat Now.

Registering is free, and it does give you more: your nickname is reserved so nobody else can use it, you keep a profile, and only registered members can hold VIP or receive it as a gift. Guests cannot become VIP.

Usually not. Connections coming through VPNs and proxies are disconnected automatically, because they are so often used to evade bans.

VIP members are the exception — VIP allows you to connect through a VPN without being kicked off automatically. See the VIP page for the full list of what VIP includes.

They are two separate optional extras, and you can have either one on its own.

VIP is a paid membership that unlocks additional features in the chat rooms, such as your own room, invisibility and no text ads. Gold is the virtual currency used inside the rooms to buy virtual gifts, change your username, unlock photo slots and play the games.

Full details are on the VIP page and the Gold page.

Both are VIP features. VIP members can change their username, paying for the change with Gold, and can create and administer a room of their own.

Not every feature is available in every chat room, so check inside the room you use. The VIP page lists everything included.