They sent one number. A different number arrived.
International payments for remote workers
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Six steps from instruction to arrival. One step carries no figure: the hatching marks where the money leaves and is not drawn to scale, because there is no figure to draw. Nothing here adds them up, since an amount you cannot see is not an amount you can subtract. The unit changes part-way down: the figures below the break are in another currency, the bars below it are drawn against the published rate, and the first figure and the last are not the same kind of number. One person's own payment, reconstructed from the two ends.
Fifty notes for people who are paid from another country. Not a comparison of transfer services — a working account of what happens to money between the moment somebody instructs a payment and the moment it appears in your account, which of it you can see from where you stand, and which of it you cannot see at all.
The payment record in “They sent one number. A different number arrived.” becomes more useful when the work behind it is equally clear. A distributed team considering employee monitoring software for employee monitoring software can connect approved time and projects with invoices or payroll inputs, while keeping exchange rates, fees and accounting decisions in the responsible financial system.
Nobody here is told what their payment should have been, or which service to use. Every example is an illustration of what one person recorded about their own payments, labelled as such. Nothing in this collection is legal, tax or financial advice: what a bank must disclose, what a payment service must refund, how long a transfer may be held, what rights attach to a payment and who decides any of it all differ by country, by the route the money takes and by the facts, and they change.
The questions in “They sent one number. A different number arrived.” can also be checked against World Bank remittance resources. Use the outside resource to identify what evidence to request rather than assuming one provider sees the whole payment chain.
One payment, followed from the payer's instruction to the line on a statement
The figure agreed in the contract, in the currency the contract names
Charged by the payer's provider and visible to the payer, though not to you
Known to have happened because the arithmetic does not close, and never itemised to either end
The single largest deduction in most transfers and the one nobody calls a deduction
The one line in the whole descent that your own statement will actually explain
At the published rate that is 94.9 per cent of what was sent, and the stated fees account for less than one point of the missing five
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Six steps · Two without a figure · no total of what is not stated
Six steps, and the two largest are the two with no figure against them. Nothing here is added up: an amount you cannot see is not an amount you can subtract, and the first figure and the last are in different currencies. One person's own payment, reconstructed from the two ends; what any route deducts differs by route, by bank and by country.
Questions about a payment, and who is in a position to answer each one
Where is the money at this moment?
Who can answer it
The sending bank, which holds the reference the chain is tracked by
What you actually get
A status, sometimes a location in the chain, rarely a date
Usually will, if askedTakes: A day or two, if the payer asks on your behalf
What rate was applied to the conversion?
Who can answer it
Whoever performed the conversion, which may be none of the three banks you can name
What you actually get
A rate, which you cannot check against anything
Only on a formal requestTakes: Weeks, and the answer is often a figure without a timestamp
Why is the amount short of what was sent?
Who can answer it
Nobody in the chain holds the whole arithmetic, because each party sees only its own leg
What you actually get
Partial answers from each end that do not reconcile
Under no obligationTakes: Indefinite
Who took the deduction in the middle?
Who can answer it
The correspondent bank, which has no relationship with you at all
What you actually get
Usually nothing
Under no obligationTakes: Indefinite
Can the payment be recalled?
Who can answer it
The sender's bank, on the sender's instruction and not yours
What you actually get
A recall attempt, which may fail after the money has moved on
Obliged to answerTakes: Days, and recall is not the same as refund
Why was it held for review?
Who can answer it
Your own bank, which may be prohibited from telling you
What you actually get
A date when it will be released, or no answer at all
Under no obligationTakes: Indefinite
Six questions, and only one has a party obliged to answer it. The obligation to answer and the willingness to answer are different things, and the first exists in far fewer places than people assume. One person's own experience, not a statement of anybody's rights; what any institution must disclose differs by country and by the service used.
Choices made in the arrangement, and who carries the cost of each
The contract names the payer's currency, not yours
YouLands as: Every movement in the rate between invoice and arrival lands on your side, in both directions
Ask for instead: Denomination in your own currency, or a stated rate fixed on the invoice date
Charges are split, so each side pays its own bank
Both, unevenlyLands as: You pay the receiving fee and the unnamed deduction in the middle, which is the larger of the two
Ask for instead: Charges borne entirely by the sender, which is a term that exists and is rarely offered
The payment is sent by the cheapest available route
YouLands as: A longer chain, more hands, and a deduction at each one that nobody is obliged to itemise
Ask for instead: A named route, or a service that quotes the landed amount rather than the sent amount
The amount is agreed as a gross figure
YouLands as: Whatever arrives is the agreed figure minus whatever the route took, and the shortfall is yours
Ask for instead: An agreement on the amount that must LAND, which shifts the whole descent to the payer
Payment is made on the last working day of the month
YouLands as: A weekend, a local holiday at either end and a cut-off can turn one day into five
Ask for instead: A date early in the week, agreed once, with the cut-off written down
Nobody agreed who absorbs a failed or returned payment
Nobody, which means youLands as: The fee for the failure, the fee for the resend, and the delay, all falling where they happen to land
Ask for instead: A line in the agreement naming who pays when a transfer is returned
Six terms, and five of them were never negotiated at all. Each was simply the default of whatever system the payer already used. One person's own arrangement, renegotiated afterwards; what any payer or service will agree to differs by both.
01 / 06Instructed
What was actually sent
The figure, the currency it is named in, and the difference between an amount sent and an amount that must land.
02 / 06Not stated
What the middle takes
Correspondent banks, the conversion spread, and the deductions that appear on nobody's statement.
- The Spread Is the Fee
- The Mid-Market Rate, and Why You Do Not Get It
- Correspondent Banks
- The Deduction Nobody Itemises
- Fixed Fees Against Small Payments
- The Route Was Chosen for the Sender
- Payment Services, and What They Are Underneath
- Local Rails and Why They Cost Less
- Receiving in a Currency You Do Not Hold
03 / 06Landed
What you can actually see
Your own statement, the fields it has, the fields it does not, and what can be reconstructed from two ends.
04 / 06Unit changes
When it is late
Cut-offs, weekends, holidays at either end, and the difference between sent and settled.
05 / 06Not stated
When it does not arrive
Held, returned, misdirected or simply missing, and who is in a position to do anything about each.
Product comparisons
Remote work and payment tool guides
Three different formats based on hands-on review, official product information and practical implementation checks.
06 / 06Stated
What you can change from here
Denomination, landed amounts, who bears the charges, the payment date, and what is genuinely negotiable.
The short version
You can see the two ends, and the middle is where the money goes
The figure that was sent and the figure that landed are both checkable. Everything between them happens inside institutions that have no relationship with you and no obligation to tell you anything. What can be changed is not the middle, which is not yours to change, but the terms at your own end: which currency the amount is named in, whether it is a sent figure or a landed figure, who bears the charges, and what date it goes.