How to verify payment proofs online

A screenshot of a payment is not the same as a payment. Banks confirm transfers in your account, not in someone else's image. The first rule, before any analysis, is to wait for the funds to clear in your own account.

Real bank apps follow strict templates. Fake screenshots often have small layout anomalies: spacing that's a few pixels off, fonts that are close-but-not-right, a decimal mark in the wrong locale. Open your own banking app and compare side by side.

Real transfers come with a transaction reference that the recipient bank can verify. Ask for the reference number. If the buyer can't or won't provide one — or provides a number that doesn't decode to a real transaction format — the proof is fake.

Real transfers have realistic processing times. A claim of 'just sent, here's the proof' should not show a completed-and-cleared status; bank transfers don't clear instantly except on specific instant-payment networks. Match the screenshot status against the actual rails involved.

Run the screenshot through a fake-receipt detector. The combination of compression analysis, UI-template comparison, and amount/timestamp consistency catches most forgeries. Even with a clean detector result, do not release goods until the funds actually clear your bank.