Illicit Encounters Reviews: Cost, Fake Profiles, and What It Means If You Found It

It was a payment you didn't recognise, or an email that landed in a shared inbox, or a name a friend dropped into conversation as if you'd already know it. You looked it up and found Illicit Encounters, a British site that is very clear about what it's for.

If your stomach dropped a little, that's a normal reaction. Here's what the site is, plainly, so you can decide what to do with the information.

Short answer: Illicit Encounters is a real UK dating site for married and attached people, running since 2004 and operated by Online Tech Support Ltd in London. Men pay £139.99 for four weeks of Gold, women currently join free, and memberships can auto-renew. Its terms say "a small number of profiles are dummy profiles" used for demonstration and testing, and reviews are mixed to poor. Finding it in a partner's life shows an account may exist, not what was done with it.

We'll cover what the site is, what it really costs, what its terms say about fake profiles, what reviewers report, where those "people in your town" headlines come from, how private it is, and what you can and can't find out if you're here because of a partner.

What Illicit Encounters is

A UK and Ireland affair site. The homepage describes a service for married and attached adults, and singles looking for discreet relationships with people in a similar situation. It serves the UK and Ireland. That answers one common search: we found no American version of the site.

Who runs it. The operator is Online Tech Support Ltd, trading as Illicit Encounters, with a registered office on Paul Street in London. Its privacy policy states that it is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK data regulator, under number Z1614409.

How big it is. Hard to say. The same homepage claims "over 1.8 million members" in one place, "1,863,155 genuine UK members" in another, and 1,892,120 elsewhere. In 2024 the company was quoted at 1.4 million UK users. Live counters move, but nobody outside the company checks them, and as the science writer Michael Marshall noted in The Skeptic, a count of accounts is not a count of unique people.

Is there an app? The help centre doesn't describe one. The site is used in a web browser, on a phone or a computer, which also means there may be no icon to spot on anyone's phone.

It doesn't sell affairs as harmless. The homepage warns that affairs aren't for everyone, aren't a substitute for working on or ending a marriage, and can be very damaging. That's an unusual line for a site in this category, and it doesn't change what the site is for.

What it really costs

Unlike most affair sites, Illicit Encounters publishes its prices in its help centre.

Gold costs £139.99 for four weeks. Gold Plus costs £169.99 for four weeks or £199.99 for eight weeks. Joining and browsing are free, but full messaging requires an upgrade.

Renewals are cheaper, and automatic. Some packages "automatically renew your membership at a discounted rate upon expiry": £79.99 for four weeks of Gold, £99.99 for four weeks of Gold Plus. You can cancel the auto-renewal up to 48 hours before the membership expires.

Women currently join free. The help centre says "Full Gold Membership is FREE for women." Clause 4.7 of the terms explains why: whichever gender has more members pays, and "The gender with fewer members will be entitled to full membership free of charge." The clause adds that this can switch in either direction.

Refunds are contradictory. The help centre says you can email within 7 days of purchase to ask for a refund, adding that "a full refund may not be possible" if you've used the service. Clause 4.6 of the terms says "All monies paid by You to Us are non-refundable." If you're a member, read both before counting on either.

So, say a man pays for four weeks of Gold and forgets the renewal. Over three months, that's £139.99 plus two renewals at £79.99, close to £300. Most complaints about cost start exactly there.

Fake profiles: what the terms actually say

"Illicit Encounters fake profiles" is one of the top searches about the site, so here's what the documents say, side by side.

The terms admit a few. Clause 10.5: "please be aware that a small number of profiles are dummy profiles and are used solely for demonstrating the system and for testing purposes." Clause 10.3 adds that members should carry out "such investigation as You think is necessary" to satisfy themselves that profile information is accurate. In other words, the site doesn't vouch for what members write.

Profiles are moderated. New profiles enter a moderation queue, and the help centre says "all profiles will be approved within an hour". That checks content against the rules, not identity.

Age checks are now serious. The privacy policy says no member information is visible until a user has passed an age-assurance process, using facial age estimation, phone checks and card checks, designed to meet the standard of the Online Safety Act 2023. One inconsistency: the terms require members to be "over 21", while the privacy policy says the service is for adults "aged 18 or over".

The company denies the rest. On Trustpilot, the company replies to most negative reviews by saying it doesn't create fake profiles or send automated messages to push renewals. "A small number" of test profiles is a long way from a site full of bots, and we have no way to measure which description is closer to reality.

What reviewers say

On Trustpilot's UK page, checked on November 9, 2026, Illicit Encounters has a score of 2.1 out of 5 from 346 reviews, 34 of them from the last twelve months. About half are one-star, and 27% are five-star, which is a more divided picture than most affair sites.

The complaints repeat a few themes: auto-renewals that people say they didn't notice, refunds refused, profiles they believe were fake, women who went quiet after the man paid, and few active members outside big cities. Some reviewers point out that the free-for-women model means they're paying to write to people who don't need to reply. A few describe contacts who asked for money or tried to move the conversation off the site. Some of the prices quoted in older reviews, such as £99.99 for three weeks, no longer match the current grid.

The positive reviews describe helpful staff and members who did meet someone. Trustpilot doesn't verify reviews, and the profile notes the company hasn't asked customers for reviews recently, so take both sides as anecdotes. On the smaller US-Reviews site, 61% of 23 reviewers said they would buy again, with the same split between discreet meetings and renewal complaints.

The company answers back. Unlike most affair sites, Illicit Encounters replies to about 80% of its negative reviews. The replies say it does not "encourage or tolerate fake profiles", that reported accounts are investigated, and that renewal terms are "clearly outlined at the point of purchase".

Does it work? That's the question behind "is Illicit Encounters any good". The honest answer from the reviews is that it depends on where you live and who you are: men pay, women don't, and activity is thinner outside large cities. No review site has data beyond what the company and its users report.

Beware of lookalikes. Sites with similar names, such as Illicit Match, have their own Trustpilot pages with scam complaints. They aren't the same company.

Our reading. It's a real, long-running business with published prices and a UK regulator registration, more transparency than most sites like it. It's also expensive for men, sells renewals by default, and admits some profiles aren't real people. Compare it with Victoria Milan, whose terms go further and describe computer-generated profiles, and with Heated Affairs, owned by the AdultFriendFinder group.

Those "people in your town" headlines

Search for Illicit Encounters from the UK and you'll find dozens of local news stories: thousands of people in Inverness, Coventry or Belfast "signed up to a cheating website", a town named the "infidelity capital", a celebrity voted "sexiest man" by the site's members. If one of those stories is how you first heard of the site, here's what they are.

They come from the site itself. The 2017 Inverness Courier story, for example, rests on an "infidelity index" drawn from the site's data and comments from its spokesman, who added that the figures "only show the people using our website". The papers don't verify them.

They're marketing. In a 2024 article for The Skeptic, Michael Marshall called the site's annual "sexiest man" poll "a thinly disguised advert", and said he had previously traced several of its surveys to OnePoll, a firm paid to produce survey-based press stories.

A sign-up isn't an affair. A town figure counts accounts, some inactive, some duplicated. It tells you nothing about anyone you know. If the worry is your own partner, start from what you've actually seen, as our guide to am I paranoid or is he cheating explains.

How private is it?

Minimal personal data, by design. The privacy policy says: "We never ask for your real name or address, and we recommend you use a unique email address and a username that cannot be traced back to you." It also notes that some of what members share counts as special category data under UK GDPR.

Discreet billing. The help centre says card payments appear on a statement under a discreet name rather than the site's, and that card details aren't stored on its servers. It also accepts cheques and postal orders.

Retention. Account data is deleted when you close your account, unless needed for a dispute, "normally no longer than three months". Financial records are kept for six years. Under clause 7.1.6 of the terms, an account inactive for six months or more is deleted.

Who else gets data. The policy lists an advertising affiliate network (AdTraction), a live chat provider (Olark) and analytics from Google and Bing.

Breaches. We found no reported breach of Illicit Encounters in the press or in the Have I Been Pwned database, and no enforcement action by the ICO. The privacy risk in this category is real, though: the 2015 Ashley Madison hack is the reason many people now search these sites at all, as we explain in our guide to finding someone on Ashley Madison.

If you're here because of your partner

The site is built to leave few traces. No real names, a username that "cannot be traced back", discreet billing, and a help section on covering your tracks. That's worth knowing before you search an inbox for proof that may not be there. It also means a trace that does turn up deserves attention, without being treated as the full story.

You can't look someone up from outside. Profiles aren't visible until a user has an account and has passed age assurance. Joining to search for your partner means handing over your own face scan or card details to an affair site, and it rarely makes the eventual conversation easier. Reading their messages with monitoring software is illegal without consent in many places, as our page on spyware and the law explains.

Reading a charge or an email. A payment shows a membership was bought, and a repeat shows it renewed. An email shows an address was used to sign up, which can happen with very little intent behind it. We cover that in why your husband is getting emails from dating sites, and how to read card charges in what Ashley Madison shows up as on a bank statement.

What CheatEye can and can't add

To be clear: CheatEye doesn't search Illicit Encounters or any other affair site, so it can't tell you whether your partner has a profile there.

It can check the next question many people have: is the same person on the mainstream apps too? Affair sites and Tinder aren't either-or. CheatEye searches Tinder from a first name, an age, a gender and a city, with a photo as an option, and extends to Bumble, Hinge, Happn and OkCupid with the other-apps option. If a profile matches, the report shows the bio, photos, last activity, Tinder subscription and last used location. Your partner isn't told, and you don't need their phone. A search costs $17.90.

It won't show messages, won't search by phone number or email, and won't give a live location. A profile found tells you a profile exists and when it was last active; what it means is for the two of you to talk about. Our guide on how to find out if your wife is on dating sites covers the other routes.

Search the dating apps with CheatEye

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Illicit Encounters cost? Gold is £139.99 for four weeks; Gold Plus is £169.99 for four weeks or £199.99 for eight. Discounted auto-renewals are £79.99 and £99.99 for four weeks.

Is Illicit Encounters free for women? Yes, currently. The terms say the gender with fewer members gets full membership free, and that this can change.

Does Illicit Encounters have fake profiles? Its terms say "a small number of profiles are dummy profiles" used for demonstration and testing. The company denies creating fake profiles beyond that, while many Trustpilot reviewers say otherwise.

Is Illicit Encounters legit? It's a real UK company, operating since 2004 and registered with the ICO. Its Trustpilot score is 2.1 out of 5, mostly over renewals and profile quality.

Does Illicit Encounters work? Reviews are split: some members report meeting people, others report fake profiles, quiet inboxes after paying and few active members outside big cities. There's no independent data.

How many members does Illicit Encounters have? The homepage claims over 1.8 million, with three different counts on the same page. These are the company's figures, they count accounts rather than people, and nobody audits them.

Is there an Illicit Encounters USA? The site says it serves the UK and Ireland. We found no separate US version.

How does Illicit Encounters show on a bank statement? The help centre says payments appear under a discreet name, not the site's. It doesn't publish that name on the page we read.

Can I find out if my husband is on Illicit Encounters? Not from outside, since profiles are only visible to verified members. A charge or email suggests an account; a direct conversation is the clearest next step, and our page on what to do once you've caught a spouse cheating can help you prepare.