Verify M-PESA transaction receipts
Paste a M-PESA Ethiopia receipt link or transaction reference. links.et fetches the receipt from m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et and shows you what the wallet actually recorded: amount, sender, receiver, reference and time.
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What you can paste for M-PESA
- The receipt link from the SMS
- https://m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et/receipt/FAKE0FAKE0
- The confirmation code
- XAB0FAKE00
Where to find it. The M-PESA confirmation SMS opens with the code. It is also in the app under Statement.
The thing that catches people out
M-PESA labels the sender and receiver by phone number rather than by account name, so a verified M-PESA receipt confirms the amount and the number but will not match a bank account name. Check the number against the one the customer gave you.
How to check a M-PESA payment before you hand over goods
- 1.Get the reference, not a screenshotAsk for the the receipt link from the SMS. The M-PESA confirmation SMS opens with the code. It is also in the app under Statement. A screenshot is a picture of a claim; the reference is the thing M-PESA Ethiopia can confirm.
- 2.Look it upPaste it in, or send it to the API from your own system. links.et fetches the receipt from m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et, which is M-PESA Ethiopia's own receipt service.
- 3.Check the amount and the receiverCompare both against your own record. M-PESA identifies the parties the way the wallet does, so check that the receiver is you and not somebody with a similar name or number.
- 4.Check it is not a repeatConfirm the reference is not one you have already accepted. A genuine M-PESA receipt shown to two sellers verifies for both of them, and nothing on the receipt itself says it has been spent.
Questions about M-PESA
How do I verify a M-PESA transaction?
Take the the receipt link from the SMS from the M-PESA receipt and paste it into links.et. It fetches the receipt from m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et, which is M-PESA Ethiopia's own receipt service, and returns the amount, sender, receiver, reference and timestamp exactly as the wallet recorded them. The M-PESA confirmation SMS opens with the code. It is also in the app under Statement.
What does a M-PESA transaction reference look like?
M-PESA accepts 2 kinds of input: the receipt link from the SMS, the confirmation code. An example of the first shape is https://m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et/receipt/FAKE0FAKE0, which is invented rather than a real reference.
Can a M-PESA payment screenshot be faked?
Yes. Any screenshot can be edited, and edited M-PESA screenshots are common enough that a picture should never be treated as proof on its own. What cannot be edited is the receipt M-PESA Ethiopia publishes at m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et. links.et goes and reads that, so the amount you see is the wallet's, not the image's.
Why did my M-PESA lookup come back empty?
M-PESA labels the sender and receiver by phone number rather than by account name, so a verified M-PESA receipt confirms the amount and the number but will not match a bank account name. Check the number against the one the customer gave you.
Is M-PESA verification down?
links.et probes m-pesabusiness.safaricom.et every few minutes from inside Ethiopia and publishes the result at https://links.et/status/mpesa, with the history behind it. If that page shows an outage, the wallet's receipt service is unreachable and no verification tool can read it, including this one. Payments made during an outage still verify normally once it clears.