Troubleshooting: Refund not received by customer

This article explains why a customer may not have received their refund and what to do about it.

For: Prommt users with refund permissions and account administrators.

Open the payment in View Payments and confirm the status shows as Refunded or Partially Refunded. If it does, the refund instruction was sent successfully to your payment gateway — Prommt has done its part.

If the status doesn't show a refund, the refund may not have been processed yet. See How to issue a Refund for steps to process it.

Refunds take time to reach the customer This is the most common reason. Once Prommt sends the refund instruction to your payment gateway, the funds have to travel back through the card scheme or banking network to the customer's account. This typically takes:

The customer's bank controls the final step — once the funds leave your gateway, Prommt has no visibility into when they land.

If the refund shows as processed in Prommt and the standard timeframe hasn't elapsed yet:

"The refund has been processed from our side and is on its way back to you. Refunds typically take 3 to 5 working days to appear depending on your bank. If you haven't received it by [date], please contact your bank directly with the refund reference and they'll be able to trace it."

Replace [date] with 5 working days from the refund processing date shown in View Payments.

Step 1 — Confirm the refund details in Prommt Open the payment in View Payments and note:

Step 2 — Ask the customer to contact their bank The customer's bank is the next point of contact. Ask them to contact their card issuer or bank with the refund amount and approximate processing date — the bank can trace the funds on their end.

Step 3 — Contact your payment gateway if needed If the customer's bank can't locate the refund, your next step is to raise it with your payment gateway (Adyen, FreedomPay, etc.) using the gateway reference from the payment record. They can confirm whether the refund was dispatched from their side and provide a trace reference for the customer's bank.

Step 4 — Contact Prommt Support If you've worked through the steps above and the refund still can't be located, contact Prommt Support via the chat button in your dashboard with the payment reference. We can liaise with your gateway to investigate further.

The customer confirms the refund has appeared in their account. The payment record in View Payments continues to show Refunded or Partially Refunded — no further action is needed in Prommt.

The customer says their bank has no record of the refund. Ask the customer to confirm the card or account the original payment was made from — refunds always return to the original payment method. If the card has since been cancelled or replaced, the bank may need to redirect the funds — the customer should raise this directly with their bank.

The refund was processed weeks ago and still hasn't arrived. This is unusual and needs to be escalated. Contact your payment gateway directly with the gateway reference and request a trace. Copy Prommt Support in if you need assistance retrieving the reference.

The customer used a Pay by Bank payment — does the process differ? The same steps apply. Pay by Bank refunds return to the customer's bank account rather than a card. Timeframes are generally shorter but the customer's bank is still the final step — if funds haven't arrived within 3 working days, ask the customer to contact their bank.

We processed a partial refund — the customer says they received nothing. Confirm the partial refund amount and date in View Payments. If the amount was small, the customer may have missed it in their statement. Ask them to check their transaction history carefully for the exact amount on or around the processing date.