You sent the payment. The order still says it is waiting. Nothing has arrived in your email.
Almost every time, this is the blockchain taking its time rather than anything being wrong — and the single worst thing you can do while it happens is send the payment again. This guide is the order to check things in, and the point at which it is worth writing to us.
First: do not send it twice
A pending transaction is not a failed one. If you send a second payment, you have paid twice, and the second payment is a separate order that will need its own code and its own refund conversation.
Wait. Read the rest of this page while you do.
Second: find your transaction
Your wallet or exchange gave you a transaction ID (also called a hash or TXID) when you sent. That string is the whole story, and it is public.
Paste it into a block explorer for the coin you sent — every major chain has one, and searching the coin name plus "block explorer" finds it. What comes back tells you which situation you are in:
| What the explorer shows | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not found at all | The transaction never left your wallet or exchange. Check your wallet's own history — it may still be queued on their side. |
| Found, 0 confirmations, pending | It is in the queue. This is normal and it is the most common case. Nothing to do but wait. |
| Found, confirmed, but our order still says waiting | The chain has it. Now it is worth contacting us — see below. |
| Confirmed, but the destination address is not the one on the payment page | The payment went somewhere else. This is the serious case. |
The five things that actually cause a delay
1. The network is busy. Bitcoin especially. When there is a backlog, transactions with lower fees wait longer — sometimes hours. Your wallet chose that fee, usually automatically, and it cannot be changed after sending on most wallets.
2. You sent from an exchange that batches withdrawals. Many exchanges do not broadcast your withdrawal immediately; they group withdrawals and send them on a schedule, and some hold new withdrawals for a security review. The exchange shows "completed" while the chain has not seen it yet. Check the exchange's own withdrawal status, not just its balance.
3. The amount was short. Crypto sent from an exchange usually has the network fee deducted from the amount, so sending "exactly" the quoted figure can arrive slightly under it. An underpaid order does not release a code. If your exchange offers to deduct the fee from the balance rather than the transfer, use that.
4. The quote expired. Crypto amounts are quoted against a short-lived rate. If the payment page sat open a long time before you sent, the order may have expired before the funds arrived.
5. It went on the wrong network. This is the one that does not resolve with patience. The same asset exists on several chains, and funds sent on a chain the receiving address does not use are generally not recoverable — not by us, not by you, not by the exchange. It is why the network is printed on the payment page rather than assumed. If the explorer shows your transaction confirmed on a different chain than the order expected, that is what happened.
When to write to us, and what to include
Contact us once either of these is true:
- the explorer shows the transaction confirmed and your order still has not released a code after a few minutes, or
- the explorer shows it went somewhere other than the address on the payment page.
Include all three of these, because they are what lets anyone actually look:
- Your order number
- The transaction ID
- The coin and network you sent on
Without the transaction ID there is nothing to trace, and the first thing we will do is ask for it. Send it here and we will look.
What we cannot fix
Being straight about this is more useful than being reassuring:
- Wrong network. The funds are outside anyone's reach. We cannot recover them and neither can the exchange you sent from.
- Wrong address entirely. Same answer. Crypto has no chargeback and no reversal.
- A slow network. We do not control confirmation times, and there is no button on our side that speeds up a pending transaction.
What we can fix is anything on our side of the line: a confirmed payment that did not release a code, an underpayment that needs reconciling, an expired quote. Those are ours and we deal with them.
How to avoid the whole situation next time
- Pay with a stablecoin on a cheap network when you have the choice. Fewer moving parts, faster confirmation, and the price does not drift while you wait.
- Send promptly after the payment page appears, while the quote is live.
- Copy the address, never retype it, and check the network your wallet is set to before confirming.
- Send the exact quoted amount, with the network fee taken from your balance rather than from the transfer.
The full mechanics are in how to pay with crypto.
Frequently asked questions
How long should I wait before worrying?
Look at the explorer rather than the clock. If it shows the transaction pending with zero confirmations, waiting is the correct action however long it has been. If it shows confirmed and nothing has arrived, that is the moment to write to us.
My exchange says the withdrawal is complete, but the explorer has never heard of it.
The exchange has marked its internal record complete without broadcasting yet — batching or a security hold. That is on their side; their support can tell you when it goes out.
Can I cancel a payment I just sent?
No. Once broadcast, a crypto transaction cannot be recalled by anyone. This is the trade-off that comes with no chargebacks in the other direction.
The order expired but my payment arrived anyway. What now?
Write to us with the order number and transaction ID. Funds that arrived against an expired quote are a reconciliation, not a loss.
Will you refund an unconfirmed payment?
There is nothing to refund until the payment actually arrives. Once it does, see the refund policy — and note that a revealed code cannot be un-sold.
