Anatomy of a clawback

A misdirected payment is not lost the moment it lands. It becomes lost when nobody moves for three days.

Our recovery desk works a clawback in three phases: freeze, evidence, negotiate. The freeze is the only phase where minutes matter more than paperwork — most receiving institutions will hold a disputed inbound credit if a settlement agent reaches them before the funds are swept.

Evidence is where most claims die. A screenshot with no timestamp, a reference number that does not match the rail, a counterparty name spelled two different ways: each of these adds days. This is why our refund form asks for photos and an exact transaction date before it lets you submit.

Negotiation is unglamorous. It is a sequence of polite, dated, documented follow-ups. It works far more often than people expect.