International trade is fueled by cross-border payments. However not always SWIFT is being used for legit purposes. We hear from our users about attempts of scam and we want to minimize them by introducing tracking counters.
When someone told you that he sent you a SWIFT payment, you can track it here at TrackMySwift. Normally you can see something like that:
It doesn't look scary. Probably the sender tried to track it, he was requested to sign in / sign up in order to see the status, so there is 1 registered user and 1 unregistered user, both represent the sender of the SWIFT. The second registered user was you as a beneficiary. The same with the reference #, we can assume that the sender made a tracking by UETR only, so you were the only who tracked it.
But what if you see such picture?
That doesn't sound okay. It means that your UETR code has at least 54 people. Is it normal? We don't think so.
Theoretically speaking, it is possible for a reference number to be non-unique. They are assigned by each bank, so it's possible the same reference # is assigned to 2 absolutely different payments. But still counters should not be too high even in this case.
Please be careful when doing cross-border business. Be aware that SWIFT payment can be recalled any time before it was credited to your account. You can be certain that you have received your funds only when they are fully credited and your see them in your account balance.