Safe payments
Protect your business from fake bank alerts
A buyer shows a transfer screenshot and asks the driver to leave quickly. The important question is whether your business has received the payment, not how convincing the screenshot looks.
Open your own bank channel
Check your business account through the app, website or other channel you normally use. Do not open a payment-verification link supplied by the buyer. Find the incoming transaction and compare the amount and reference with the order.
The account balance by itself may not identify the payment. Another customer may have paid the same amount, or the balance may have changed for an unrelated reason. Look at the transaction entry.
Keep a reported payment separate
If the receipt is not visible, record that the buyer reported a transfer and ask for the reference, time, amount and destination account. Explain that you are checking it. Do not mark the sale as paid merely to move the queue along.
A delayed transfer is not automatically fraud. The buyer may need to raise a trace with their bank. Use the bank’s current support process and retain the details of the report.
Give staff one release rule
Agree who can confirm a payment and who can release the goods. If a staff member is unsure, they should have someone to call before dispatch. A driver should not have to make the financial decision from a message forwarded through several people.
Never ask the customer for a PIN or one-time code to prove payment. The receiving business does not need the payer’s private login credentials to check its own account.
If the evidence later changes
A payment may be reversed or reported as sent to the wrong account. Keep the original receipt and investigate through the bank and your correction process. Do not hide the earlier entry or count a replacement transfer twice.
If goods have already left, preserve the order, messages, delivery details and transaction evidence. Separate the facts you have confirmed from suspicions about what happened.
Questions people ask
Frequently asked questions
Is a transfer reference enough to mark the sale paid?
It helps locate the transaction, but confirm the corresponding receipt in your own account or approved payment system.
Should I ask the buyer to transfer again immediately?
First investigate the reported payment. A second transfer may create an overpayment if the first one is delayed rather than failed.
Further reading
- NIBSS: transaction validationNIBSS describes its transfer-validation service. Confirm availability and charges through your bank; this guide does not require a particular channel.