Internations.org Expat Network Review: Is It Any Good?

In this article, I’m going to review one of the leading online expat communities in the world, Internations.org.

It’s a great place for expat and travelers to connect with people, find meetup groups, and gain insider knowledge about international towns and cities.

My Review of Internations.org

I first discovered InterNations.org when a beautiful Brazilian girl from Brasilia encouraged me to join. It’s free to sign up and create an account.

Once you create an account, you can fill out your profile with several details about you like:

  • Name
  • Occupation
  • Date of Birth
  • Nationality
  • Places Visited
  • Where you are currently located

It’s similar to Facebook, but more geared towards the professional expat who wants to make important personal and business connections.

Connecting with People

Finding people to connect with is super easy. Head over to the Members page and search for people based on their nationality and current location.

I’ve used Internations.org to connect with friends before I arrive in a foreign country. You’ll get better responses from women as well because they aren’t being flooded with thirsty messages (I’m talking to you Facebook!).

Find Jobs and Housing in the Forums

Another cool feature is the Internations.org forums where you can connect with other members. You can find a job, housing, or meet up with local friends for a night out on the town.

There’s also a marketplace where people buy/sell things like cars, TVs and furniture.

Browse Hundreds of Expat Guides

If you are looking to relocate overseas, then you should take a look at their Expat Guides. They have comprehensive guides on a wide range of cities like Rio de Janeiro and Thailand. The only downside is you have to pay for an Albatross membership to access some of the guides. The membership starts at $4.95 per month and gives you full access to groups, expat guides and live events.

Join Expat Groups

For Albatross members only, you gain access to all of the groups on the website. Most groups focus on activities like dining out, fitness, and language exchanges.

Find Live Events to Attend

Every week, Internations hosts live events at local hotspots to encourage in-person interaction. If you are new to the city, this is a great way to make quick friends and practice your foreign language skills

Internations.org Ratings (Pros and Cons)

I’m going to list things I like about the site and things I wish they would change.

Things I Like (Pros)

  • Free to Join
  • Tons of active members
  • Easy to track your past trips and current location
  • Easy to search for people in your current city
  • Women are much more response to messages than on Facebook
  • Hosts live events every week
  • Groups are a good way to make friends and find business contacts

Things I Don’t Like (Cons)

  • Expat Guides don’t offer enough links or personal contacts
  • Requires a paid membership to access groups
  • Many profiles are inactive (no way to tell if the person has logged in recently)
  • Uses twinkles to indicate interest (sounds silly to me)
  • Albatross membership bills every 3 months (this should be done monthly to give members more control)

Conclusion

It’s really easy to make friends in foreign countries because non-anglo cultures are way more friendly and inclusive. I don’t use InternNations.org to meet many people in person, but I do find it convenient to do research and message people before I arrive in a foreign city.

It’s a good overall service, although I think they could make a lot of changes to improve their website.

What do you think? Have you joined InternNations? Tell me what you think in the comments.

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52 Comments

  1. Ditto to all the comments below.

    This organization is a scam. I signed up to the paid membership by mistake and I asked them to canceled it immediately and send me a refund. They simply ignored my request.

    So I went to one event and like people below said, I didn’t enjoy it much. It had lots of older guys after young girls, stuck up people who wouldn’t talk to me (asian),weird older people who hijacked the conversation and talked only about themselves.

    I never went to any other event and took off my credit card from the account since I couldn’t cancel.

    Then a year later, they started sending me emails that the membership renewed automatically and I owe them the second year membership!!! When I asked them to cancel the membership now that I had their email address, I got an email from their “legal department “ and they threatened to send my bill to a collection agency!!

    Seriously, do not sign up to this service. It’s a scam.

  2. The consuls and organizers of InterNations are mostly very uneducated and unintelligent people. They are addicted to augmenting their Zoom online event attendees by simply sharing random crap YouTube videos about various countries, and then invite the attendees to discuss about the country while they don’t have any knowledge about the countries and they have never even been to the countries at all. Not only that, such rude, unethical, and unprofessional organizers/consuls already have their own fans/regular attendees who admire their uneducated and unethical crap online events based on crap random YouTube videos. Those organizers have zero knowledge and understanding of ethics. The fact that those uneducated organizers have so many fans and regular attendees clearly indicates the type of people who join interNations. Remember the proverb “Birds of same feather flock together”. There are a very few organizers/consuls who are respectful and considerate, but their events don’t have as many attendees as those uneducated rude ones. Then there are bunch of Turkish and Middle Eastern guys looking for their dates in a very nasty and rude way. Just avoid InterNations at all costs. The company does not know how to upgrade its application and how to make their business more sophisticated. Those crap events hosted by uneducated and unprofessional organizers have over 200 or 300 attendees. When those attendees post redundant useless comments on the event wall, a notification email is sent out to all attendees who registered the event. The InterNations members keep receiving hundreds of emails every day with useless information. But the company apparently does not know how to upgrade its application. Because their only source of income is membership fee, they just simply accept anyone who pays the albatross membership fee. This company is owned and managed by people who are not innovative and competent. That is why they cheer up mostly those uneducated consuls who host crap events.

  3. Do NOT sign up with InterNations! Do NOT give them your credit card details. A very unethical company.

    I have downgraded and cancelled the annual renewal services for Albatross membership through the InterNations App, but I have still been charged for renewal without my knowledge, my consent and totoally against my will. I explained the situations repeatedly to their Customer Support team and request for refund as it is the issue with InterNations App and I do not wish to continue with the membership. InterNations App is bad and often crashes and do not record cancellation and downgrading correctly.

    The Customer Support team wouldn’t listen to me, refused to refund me and blamed me for not sending them the error messages about App issue earlier. Unpleasant, unhelpful and unreasonable customer services. Total waste of my time and effort. Would not recommend this to anyone.

  4. Worst headquarter management team that is ridiculously greedy and inhumane. I, along with many other members, got automatically charged a ridiculous amount without any prior warning in the middle of a pandemic. This happened to members who lost their jobs during the pandemic. When I vocalized my views, InterNations resorted to censorship by removing my post in the local forum. When you have tens of thousands of people around the world boycotting you online, it tells you something. The management team simply refuses to listen to members and local organizers (who by the way don’t get paid but organize local events for InterNations as free labor). Terrible for-profit company that pretends to be non-profit. Be aware!

  5. To my opinion this internations network is in many city more or less dead. Not many activities/events happening like many years before.
    And yes; like other commenters already wrote: many persons there are not even expats. And the yes again…many of these persons really behave weird/creepy.

  6. #Internations #UAE #Internations.org #LegalizedFraud #Beware #DubaiExpatsBeware #UAEExpatsBeware
    This is a very unethical and dishonest organization that feeds off unsuspecting professionals who have experienced their sleazy operations and dont want to continue any longer. This is legalized fraud. They automatically without consent renew the membership and then throw the rulebook. They just charged me AED 468 which is like Euros 125 without my consent. I wrote to them within an hour but they refuse to refund the charges. If someone knows of a fair-practice organization or watch-dog body in Germany or the EU, please let me know. I want everyone in Dubai to know that these guys are cheats and we must stay as far away as possible. They are getting away with this dishonest practice and hope some governmental organization clamps down on them. Go to http://www.trustpilot.comn for more reviews on their dishonest ways.

  7. I have the same problem as many here. They are also threatening me to take legal actions if I don’t pay. I tried contacting them explaining my situation but they are not being helpful… I do not want to give them any money, can they really take any actions against me if I don’t pay?

  8. I signed up a few years back when i moved to another european city. I moved back to my country and during the last year completely forgot about it. I get the same messages as all of you (in the meantime i lost my credit card, so they cannot bill me automatically) about legal action. Can they really do something in the long term or should i just ignore them?

  9. InterNations GmbH (interNationsorg) has adopted series of marketing strategies that has managed to successfully lure unsuspecting victims to their platform. As per so many reviews all over the internet, it is evident that, the moment they get their hands on your credit/debit card information you are DOOMED. It is best to err on the side of caution and stay away from their platform or IMMEDIATELY DELETE your account.

    Ambassadors and Consuls are lured into sponsoring events with their own pocket monies with the promise of catering for purported expats and working professionals whilst InterNations continue to bill unsuspecting members and pocket almost 84 euros a year at all cost. The only way for these unsuspecting ambassadors and or consuls to recover their own money back is to charge entrance fees for the events they host on the interNations platform as purported VOLUNTEERS. The funny and ironic part is that, these events are hardly attended by their members as attendants stand at 6-15%. Members would signup and even confirm their attendance but would NEVER attend or show up for the event. Thus, you would get sign ups of over 300 attendees and only 6-40 people would show up. This leaves unsuspecting ambassadors and consuls who mean well with losses and frustration.

    InterNations have successfully labelled and deemed their purported ambassadors and consuls as volunteers in a cunning attempt to make profit on their backs as they put in the hours and days to plan, organize and execute events with their own money, time, skills and reputation. Since InterNations have cleverly deemed them as a volunteers they are convinced that, they are shielded from any liabilities that may or may not befall their ambassadors and consuls; they on their own whilst they continue to reap profits from their sweat.

    If you are new to any city or country, the hotels and restaurants have championed event organization and it is much more fun. You don’t need any platform that promises you heaven and earth in order to get their hands on your credit/debit card information! BEWARE OF INTERNATIONS.

    The purpose of every business is profit albeit interNations draconian methods call for serious concerns and immediate regulation. Members in Europe ought to be applying and seeking redress through the ECHR against InterNations.

  10. Absolute SCAM! Thankfully they could not charge my credit card automatically for a renewal, however are now sending me invoices and threatening debt collectors. I just emailed InterNations.scam@gmail.com to join the lawsuit.

    I filed numerous times a request to stop my membership, however they are requesting me to pay first for one year and only then I can cancel. This is illegal according to the German Civil Code 314 according to which any party may terminate the agreement by a written notice. Furthermore their lack of transparency of their Terms and Conditions as well as the unfairness of the Terms and Conditions to the customer are against the EU law (council directive 93/13) which sets that unfair contract terms are not binding.

    I also contacted the center for Consumer Protection in Europe – German Office.

    Stay away if you can. If you are a victim we must unite – we have rights!! Such companies cannot continue doing this and should not exist.

  11. I wish I had seen all of these negative reviews before I joined. I would not have made the same mistake.

    I was a member for a year. I only went to a couple of events, and while it certainly wasn’t bad, it wasn’t enough that I wanted to remain a member. This certainly isn’t the most important thing going on in my life and so I kind of forgot about it until a few days ago when I saw on my credit card statement that my membership had auto-renewed. I immediately contacted “customer support” and asked to cancel the membership and refund the charge from one day prior. They have taken the very rigid and unsupportive position of “you should have known it was going to auto-renew” and we absolutely will not refund your money. This just isn’t the way a customer-friendly organization does business, and anyone thinking of joining should be aware of it.

  12. This is a dangerously disguised dating site used primarily by men targeting naive, helpless, disenfranchised immigrant women. Too, it scams members financially.

    Please be vigilant and highly aware. Do NOT post photos or a sad story. Do NOT agree to meet. Though I erred my complaints to the Ambassador and lead organizer of our Calgary, Alberta Canada chapter…she did NOTHING to remove the serial predator. They are all in it for promiscuity. Please be aware.

  13. Hi Everybody,

    Stay absolutely away from this fishing group! They kept sending me the email to my inbox advertising it is a free activity group and non-profitable sort of group in Finland. Alert to everyone here, this is their way of “fishing” to hook you up getting your money! I was hooked up by this.

    Let me tell you what I have experienced with this group. One day they post a stand-up comedy show information held in Helsinki, when I click for detailed information then they asked me to register as a member. I then registered for a one month trial-membership. I then found out I still need to buy the stand-up tickets online myself like normally everyone we do -Hello, what the internations need for here then?! Even I tried to order the tickets myself, I was told the tickets was sold-out! So i was completely hooked up for nothing! After I was hooked up for a memebership, one month later, they secretly charged me 84e for a year! The 1st time they charged me 84e in 2018, I thought lets wait and see what they can offer me. It turned out the event they organized are terrible! I did not get any service from the internations! The activities they organized are mostly paid by each members. If I pay 84 e I would get a very decent treat in a restaurant. But in internations, I need to pay my own drinks, food etc each time in addition to the 84 e memebership fees.. There was no quality activities organized by organizers for entertaining. The time was completely wasted and I felt totally not worth of it!

    The worst thing is that after I registered their membership, there is no clear indication where I can cancel mine membership! Neither in their mails sending to me no indication where you can cancel or quit the membership. I have no way to know how to stop the junk mails they sending me all the time and how to quit the membership. It should included in their mail the last line! Internations hid the way to cancel membershtip, it existed in a very unnoticeable corner, one cannot figured it by themselves. And internations has never indicated this to members in their mails! Hence, I demand internations to refund my 84e back! I am now no-longer a membership of internations. If internations do not refund my money, I will contact EU customer office and association for making a case for them!

  14. I should have read these reviews before signing up for Internations. All the comments about their horrific renewal policy is true. they charge you for a service not yet availed and refuse to refund the amount thats charged for the subsequent year. All this in the name of convenience for the customer who may forget to renew the subscriptiuon. If the customer is not using the service and has forgotten to renew the service, the message is loud and clear.. They have illogical representatives who give canned responses which are no good as well..No phone number to call and no escalation process. Only a bunch of impossible customer service representatives who keep sending the same responses over and over again. Never ever sign up for Internations.. Its an organization with unethical practices and not professional enough to sign up for in the first place.

  15. InterNations is a SCAM. Please stop endorsing them.

    I paid for a full-year, was refused a refund after canceling (after 2 weeks) and then they de-activated my account for posting criticism. I’ve paid for something that they are refusing to deliver. I can only sue them if I go to Munich. Think about how screwed up that is.

    The founders, Philipp von Plato and Malte Zeeck are greedy, unethical and misleading. I hope that karma comes around to bite them in the arses.

  16. This is not a “free” site. In order to access anything you pay! And once they have your credit card then they automatically charge you without notifying you saying it’s in the “fine print!” There are no events and just trolls who will harass you to meet for drinks etc! It’s a dark, evil, scam!!! Stay away!!!!!!

  17. SCAM!!!!
    Company continued to illegally re-bill credit card for 1 year period without permission for membership. When credit card thankfully expired, company threatened legal collections and legal action in attempt to continue to bill without granted permission.

  18. As with everyone, I tried to cancel my membership, but the process was confusing. So it got automatically renewed I tried to get a refund but not only they refuse to do it, they are very rude about it. I feel that this organization survives by scamming people out of their money!

  19. Internations seems like a good organization at first, but BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT PAID MEMBERSHIP.

    Long ago, I paid for an Albatross membership, and did not realize they will bill your credit card every year, without sending you a notice that they will do so prior to billing.

    I had not been using the organization, for two year and was billed without realizing. Okay, my bad. However, when my credit card number changed, they issued a membership again, without asking me first.

    I immediately asked them to cancel my membership, but they refused and said I could only cancel, after first paying (no refund of course). They refused to have any person that i could speak to on the phone, and said they would call collections.

    Don’t be scammed like this. If you join then do not give them your credit card information. Stick with a free membership is best.

  20. The idea would be great, the reality is not. The so-called parties are only visited by men preying on foreign women and internations doesn’t care about the quality of members. Recommendation only? Please! There are scammers, which have been arrested in the country I live and they went to every party. Men which looked for marriage and to exploit women (and tell you with a smirk and are proud of it!) Women so drunk, they hit on men that are there with their wife, others so wasted, trowing up in pubic. Men talking disgustingly about women. Prostitutes telling me about the “massage” they offer for a few bucks. Men groping women on those parties. Internations got all these complains from many of my friends and they only say “we will see, but we will not tell you the outcome” aka they don’t care. We are not going to the parties anymore, as the members are disgusting. It is a hook-up party only. Parties are visited by a very high number of non expat men and some prostitutes. (Well, they admit it..) The so called “consuls” are locals that figured out if they “organize” trips they can make money and they charge you way above the fees that you would pay going without a group! (Um… group discount??)

    And again, the reply from internations is: “we look into it, but we will not tell you any details”. It is obvious that the only number they want is a high number of memberships and of course albatross, that they can milk with the yearly fees for nothing. It is for sure that they just want to show a high number of members to sell (haven’t they sold it to Xing already?) and to have a few statistics from living as an expat, that some magazines will print. But in general they don’t care or help the communities to solve the problems as I have talked with many ambassadors and they all said the same: they talked many times about it, but the management in Germany doesn’t care, they just pretend to listen, every now and then they send a survey, which no one answers honest. Because there were many worldwide who wanted to discuss problems in the community on a platform and they were all shut down, kicked out and deleted. So they know of course about the problems, but they are not interested to help or solve big issues.

  21. I wish i had read this review before i signed up with internations. the reviewer here are ABSOLUTELY correct. This is the WORST customer service crap i have ever seen. They are now threatening legal actions for not paying this renewal fee that i asked to CANCEL! how did anyone get this to stop. I do not like to be basically robbed of my money like this

  22. I would definitely not recommend to use Internations. As they try to make money of its users and don’t provide any support when you are needed. Definitely a bad idea. I am really dissatisfied with by being a member.

  23. They create a dark pattern where it is really easy to accidentally pay for a full membership after your free trial is complete. They will charge you even if you are a day late canceling and have zero interest in helping you out. It is impossible to get any kind of refund since they charge you everything upfront and not month to month like most subscription services. While what they are doing is completely legal, it is clearly done purposely and dishonestly to scam you out of your money since you can read all over the internet of people bringing up the exact same complaint. I have learned my very expensive lesson and am posting my story anywhere I can so that other do not fall into the same trap.

  24. I checked their website. Not much information on what you wanted to know. I’m a US citizen for last 16 years & travel around the world a lot. For no reason at all I applied for their membership. After about a couple of months they turned down my application. Now I regret that I applied for the membership of a Club that operates in a shady ground.

  25. I agree completely with Catrin – I didn’t find the service useful at all and got completely stung with the charges. I guess they find it a good business model but hopefully if enough of us voice the terrible (and, frankly threatening) customer service we had maybe they will either change it or – even better – go out of business.

  26. As someone greatly interested in finding new horizons to explore, I thought that I should give internations a try- after all, they *appeared* to be one of the only search results that were more than click-bait, mindless “list” sites which offer nothing of value (except pennies in ad revenue to whoever runs those sites).
    My first attempt to sign up was roughly a year ago, when I was already becoming frustrated with the lack of available information online. My membership was never “approved”, but I had forgotten about it altogether, and was frankly too busy to notice the rejection (disappointment from so many other dead-ends sort of has the effect of drowning out individual failures).
    Today, I came across them again, and decided to try once more. As I said above, I had forgotten that I was rejected about a year ago, which is the only reason that I even attempted it this time.
    Really, what an elitist, pretentious concept! They are NOT a resource for anyone but those with excessive cash, privilege, and/or travel experience… which means that their usefulness in the format they choose is questionable at best. It reeks of a scam, a way to charge gullible people with funds for recurring membership fees. I am perhaps a bit glad that my lack of “travel pedigree” automatically places me in their philistine-peasant category, unworthy of membership in their “exclusive community” (which is an asinine concept that I find to be diametrically opposed to the concept of traveling fellowship!), because I doubt that there are any “perks” to being part of such a clannish little club.
    Really, do yourselves a favor if you are looking for a community of travelers and ex-pats to seek advice from, and seek it elsewhere. Given that so many women have had experiences of harrassment, and the way in which you must be “approved of” in order to even ask questions (the supposed reason for even joining is to seek advice from other, more experienced travelers?!), that whole site is just fishy. I would also be wary of the intent of anyone trying to give them a good review, just take a look at these comments.
    I am off to find that rare gem, a web page that isn’t deceptive fluff written by a lying wannabe blogger. Good luck to you, as well!

  27. Like the other commenters. The site is full of creeps (not all but most), and businesses. In the end you feel as safe as on a street in a strange country, with many vendors trying to scam you and rude people acting as betters. A lot of people on the site are not even expats. The ambassadors and counsels are quite rude, and often colour biased (cause it’s a better to say than the R word). As far as being helpful for “research” is concerned, there’s nothing you’d find here that you won’t in a Google search.

    It’s cheap in my experience but not an experience I’d want to spend any money on.

    • You may want to come clean and say in which country and city you had these experiences. I have my own issues with Internations New York but one thing that I am 100% comfortable saying is that people (both members and consuls) are extremely nice, professional and courteous.

      • Agreed. Horrible, detestable organization. This is a dangerously disguised dating site used primarily by men targeting naive, helpless, disenfranchised immigrant women.

        Please he vigilant and highly aware. Do NOT post photos or a sad story. Do NOT agree to meet. Though I erred my complaints to the Ambassador and lead organizer of our Calgary, Alberta, Canada area…she did NOTHING to remove the serial predator. They are all in it for promiscuity. Please be aware.

  28. This place is full of CREEPS and people who don’t even have the most basic of social skills. If you are a woman, you will get harassed the moment your profile goes live. Guys messaging you and sending you pics, asking for your phone number.

    I went to a few of the events and I must say that they were the WORST events I have been to anywhere in the world. London NY, LA, Berlin, Munich. The people were so stuck up it is un believable. The men are the most Creepiest men I have met any where. They have bad breath and BO. I mean, guys have you not heard of basic dental care or personal hygiene?

    I set up a basic account and within minutes I had guys messaging me asking to meet me for drink and wanting to have my phone number. Germany was THE worst place for these people. It was not the German but everyone else who lived in Germany.
    The same happened to friends of mine. We were told that this is the place to meet intelligent, sophisticated people. Internations could not be further from the truth. I must say that these were the saddest people on the planet. It’s good that there is a place for them. Certainly not the place for anyone with any self respect, self esteem or class.

    If you can’t meet people and don’t know how to interact with basic social skills then this is the place for you. you will find loads of people just like you. Everyone else, don’t waste your money or more importantly, your time.

  29. I signed up for what I thought was a one year membership to Internations Albatross but please be aware that this is a major scam as it’s an automatic subscription model and on the day I got charged again I complained that I wasn’t aware that this would happen and the answer I got was that I should have read the terms and conditions….NOT impressed! They do not care about happy clients, they just hope you will not read the fine print.
    All I get on this site is sleazy men trying to contact me…
    So WARNING if you do buy the membership make sure you read the fine print.