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Many scam schemes are based upon sending some money to the victim and make them forward it. Then the first transaction is reverted and the victim has to take the loss. The concept of the reversibility of transaction can be extended on any purchase: if the buyer can roll back the payment, he gets the good for free.

So the question is: is there a way to be sure that the payment is good and cannot be reverted any more? Something like a confirmation code from the credit institute or a period of time after which any authorization is cleared and nothing can be rolled-back.

To push it a little further, if nothing can prevent a transaction to be rolled-back, someone can found his balance suddenly negative, because one year before he sold the car and the buyer now reverted the payment.

If it makes any difference, I'm asking in the European context.

Related but I'm asking about electronic payments (pay-pal, wire-transfer, credit card, etc...) and not about checks

Brythan
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dg3
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2 Answers2

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Well, the obvious answer is that you can use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc. After the recommended block confirmation amount/time you can be sure that the transaction will arrive, and well, you can't reverse crypto transactions.

In the fiat world, I only know of SEPA direct debits apart from the obvious ones like Paypal etc., but those can be reversed too. There may be a time limit on those, but I don't know certainly.

Carsten Hagemann
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Money orders cannot be reverted once cashed, which is why so many scammers themselves insist on victims using Western Union to send them money.

Ivan
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