Getting-paid guides · 08

The client says they paid, but nothing has arrivedCommon reasons a payment is delayed or bounced, plus how to trace it step by step and who to ask.

The client sends a quick "already paid," you refresh your account, and the balance hasn't budged. The doubt creeps in: did they never really pay, did it bounce, or is it just slow? Don't rush to have the client pay again; that can easily create a double payment that's harder to claw back later. Money that hasn't arrived is in one of three places: still in transit, on its way back to the client, or never sent at all, and each is checked in a different order, with different people.

01First: don't have the client re-send yet

When the money hasn't arrived, the worst move is to hurriedly ask the client to "pay it again." If that first payment is actually in transit, paying twice creates a double payment, and then you're in for another round of refund hassle. The right order is: first work out what actually happened to the first payment, then decide whether to redo it.

02Common reasons for a delay or a bounce

Separate the two cases first, because they call for opposite responses. A delay means the money is still in transit, just slower than you expected, and most of the time it lands. A bounce means it never entered your account at all: it was rejected and returned to the sender, so waiting changes nothing and the client has to send it again with corrected details. Telling them apart is easy: have the client open their own payment record and read the status on that transfer. "Processing" or "pending" is usually a delay; "returned" or "failed" means it bounced.

• The platform is running a compliance or risk review, and the funds are on hold.
• The payee name, account number or currency doesn't match what you gave, so it bounced.
• A cross-border bank transfer went through an intermediary bank and took a few extra days.
• USDT was sent on the wrong chain or to the wrong address (the trickiest case, see guide 4).
• It hit a per-transaction or daily limit and got blocked.

If it turns out the client never paid and the due date has passed, you are now chasing an overdue invoice; that guide covers the order and the wording.

03A step-by-step trace

• Ask the client for proof of payment: a transaction ID, a screenshot, the time it was debited, not just a "paid it."
• Check that the account details the client paid into match what you gave them.
• Confirm the channel and currency; for USDT, confirm the chain too.
• Look up the normal arrival time for that channel, so you can tell a real delay from "it's just not due yet."

For a bank wire, proof means the transfer confirmation the bank itself produces, often called the SWIFT copy or MT103. It shows the amount and value date, the sender's and beneficiary's names and accounts, who carries the charges (field 71A: OUR, SHA or BEN), and on newer transfers a 36-character tracking reference called the UETR. A screenshot of an online-banking screen shows none of that, so ask for the document itself.

04Check the status, channel by channel

05Bank wires: what happens while a correspondent bank has your money

A bank transfer that crosses currencies usually travels over the SWIFT network. If the client's bank and yours have no direct account relationship, the money passes through one or two correspondent banks (also called intermediary banks) on the way, and each hop can add a day and take a fee. Wise's help centre puts that correspondent fee at roughly 15 to 50 USD or equivalent per payment, and more with some banks.

Who pays depends on the charge option the client picked when sending, and field 71A on the confirmation spells it out:

• OUR: the sender pays all charges, so in principle the full amount arrives, though the odd correspondent bank still takes a little.
• SHA: shared. The sender pays their own bank's fee, and correspondent fees come out of the amount. Most online banking defaults to this.
• BEN: the beneficiary pays everything, including the sending bank's fee, all deducted from the amount.

Put a number on it. The client wires 2,000 USD with SHA, one correspondent bank takes 25 USD, your bank charges an incoming-wire fee, and what lands is somewhere in the 1,900s. Nobody underpaid and nothing bounced; each bank in the chain took a slice. On the next invoice to a US or European client you can ask for OUR in writing ("please send with charges OUR"), or build the expected loss into the price, as in the pricing guide.

The slow end usually has one of a few causes: the transfer went in after a bank's daily cut-off or on a public holiday at either end; the time zones mean their afternoon is already your next morning; or a correspondent bank pulled the payment aside for a compliance check. Two or three business days in transit is common. If five business days pass with nothing, take the confirmation to your receiving bank and ask them to trace the UETR; most banks can see which stop the money is sitting at.

06Where a returned payment goes, how long it takes, who loses what

A rejected wire does not vanish. It retraces its route: your bank sends it back to the correspondent, which sends it back to the client's bank. Every stop on the way back can take a fee too, and if the money changed currency on the way in, it gets converted back at that day's rate. So the refund the client finally sees is often smaller than what they sent, and a week or two, or longer, for the round trip is not unusual.

The reasons for a rejection are much more specific than the reasons for a delay:

• The beneficiary name does not match: given name and surname swapped, a missing space, or a company account paid under your personal name.
• A digit off in the account number, IBAN or SWIFT code, or an account at your bank that does not take foreign currency.
• The account itself is the problem: dormant and frozen, closed, or unable to receive that currency.
• Your bank asked what the payment was for and wanted a contract or invoice, and the request went unanswered. In some countries, India among them, the receiving bank also needs a purpose code before it will credit a foreign payment.

Once it has bounced, go in this order. Have the client get the return notice from their bank, which states the reason. Fix your payment details against that reason, send them again, and check them yourself before you do (guide 7 has the checks). Only when the refund is back in the client's account should they send the payment again. Agree at the time who absorbs the lost fees: if your details were wrong, that is usually on you; if the client mistyped them, it is on them.

07What a platform means by "processing"

When money has reached Wise, Payoneer, PayPal or a similar platform and still is not usable, a slow system is rarely the cause. The platform is usually waiting for something. Look in three places: the inbox of your sign-up email (spam folder included), the notifications or to-do list in the app, and any banner across the top of your account page on the web. The usual requests are:

• Where the payment came from: who the client is and what the project was, with a contract, invoice or email thread attached. A new account's first large payment, or an amount well above your normal, draws this most often.
• Finishing identity or address verification. An unverified account can often receive money but not send it anywhere.
• A tax form, when the payer is a US platform or client. Without a W-8BEN on file the first payment can sit at pending indefinitely; the W-8BEN guide walks through it.
• A PayPal hold or account limitation, which works differently from all of the above and has its own guide.

Send everything they ask for in one go, then wait for the reply instead of submitting the same thing again the same day.

08Who to contact, and in what order

The order matters: first check it yourself (transaction record, block explorer), then ask the client for proof, and only then reach the platform's official entry / official support channel. When you do reach out, always go in through the platform's official entry, with the transaction ID, time and amount ready, so you can explain it once and clearly. Don't go hunting for "support" on social media first; that's exactly where scammers like to lie in wait.

09Beware of "support" that reaches out to you first

10When the money's late, don't trust these

11FAQ

12What to read next