Hey privacy seekers, just wanted to share something I recently went through with the Tea app.
My name is Kaavi James, and I’m from Austin, Texas. I started looking into the Tea app because I wanted to know whether any information about me had been shared there.
I’m married now, but before that I had a few relationships that didn’t end well. There were messy breakups and people I wasn’t on good terms with afterward. When I started hearing about Tea and concerns about personal information being exposed, I wondered if one of my exes had ever posted something about me.
So I started digging. I Googled it. Read whatever I could find. Most of it wasn’t helpful. A lot of websites were just trying to sell me something.
Some of them claimed they could find Tea profiles or show you information if you paid for a subscription. Big promises. But honestly, I didn’t feel comfortable giving my money or personal information to random websites I’d never heard of.
While researching, I came across an Indie Hackers article by Catie Johnson called Before You Buy Tea App Checker: Here’s What You Should Know. It was much more useful than the random Tea checker websites I had found.
The article gave me some useful tips and explained ways to check your online information without immediately paying for one of these services. That helped me understand what I could actually check myself and what I should be careful about.
I didn’t want to use some questionable Tea finder just because it promised quick results. Checking things myself first seemed like the safer option.
So that’s what I did.
And yeah, I found something. My ex-girlfriend had actually rated me on there. One star. Can you imagine? I sat there staring at the screen for a minute. Then the thought hit me. If she rated me, did she also share my photo? My name? What else was on there?
That feeling is hard to describe. It’s not just embarrassment. It’s a weird mix of anger, confusion, and just wanting it gone.
So I contacted Tea app directly. I told them I wanted my information removed. It took some back and forth, but eventually they took it down. I’m not going to pretend it was instant or easy, but it got done.
I’m sharing this because this experience made me take privacy a lot more seriously. Personal information can end up online in places you don’t expect, and I don’t think we should just ignore it.
For me, the biggest takeaway is simple: privacy should be a priority, and we shouldn’t have to compromise on it just because our information is already online.