In any given month Ohmyfin sees thousands of UETR lookups for what turn out to be fabricated MT103 PDFs sent by scammers to victims. The pattern is consistent and the verification is fast — once you know what to look for.
Check 1: format. A real MT103 has colon-prefixed numbered fields (:20:, :32A:, :50K:, :57A:, :59:, :70:, :71A:, :121:). Fake MT103s often invent fields, miss mandatory ones (no :121:!), or mix formats.
Check 2: UETR present and well-formed. Real MT103s since November 2018 have a UETR in field 121 — 36-character UUIDv4 with four hyphens in fixed positions. Missing or malformed = fake.
Check 3: UETR resolvable. Paste the UETR on Ohmyfin or any other public tracker. Real recent UETRs resolve. Persistent "not found" plus a payment that "should" be visible = fake (or out of the 124-day window — but most fakes are dated recently).
Check 4: bank brand consistency. Real bank confirmations match the bank's actual letterhead, colour palette, contact details, footer disclaimer language. Compare against any genuine confirmation you have from that bank.
Check 5: verify via the bank directly. Call the bank shown on the confirmation using a number from their public website (NOT a number on the document). Ask them to confirm whether they sent the MT103 referenced.
Check 6: who is asking for money? If verifying the MT103 involves you paying anyone anything — a "release fee", a "tax", a "clearance certificate" — it is a scam. Legitimate inbound MT103s require zero payment from the recipient to release.
Trust only what is in your bank account. An MT103 PDF is just a piece of paper anyone can fabricate. Wait for the credit to land.
They can pick a real UETR from someone else's legitimate payment, but then the tracker shows that other payment — different amount, different parties — which itself is the giveaway.
Ask your bank for a written statement. That + the absence of credit in your account is conclusive proof.
Yes — to your local police cybercrime unit. In the US: IC3.gov. In the UK: Action Fraud. In the EU: Europol via national contact.