When a supplier has your money and no goods are moving, the first job is to establish whether this is a delay or a default, then document everything and keep every exchange in writing. Escalation runs through the sourcing agent, the marketplace, and the bank recall window, but a telegraphic transfer that has settled is almost impossible to claw back, and litigation abroad rarely pays for itself on a single order. The reason the loss is total is that the whole sum was paid before any proof of shipment. Structuring payment so each part releases only against agreed evidence removes that exposure.
You paid, and nothing shipped. The supplier is either giving you new dates every week or has gone quiet. Before you decide what this is, slow down for an hour and work the problem in order, because the actions that help are the ones you take in the first few days, and most of them are unglamorous.
First, decide whether it is a delay or a default
A late shipment and a vanished supplier need different responses, and the two look identical in the first week. Production runs late for ordinary reasons: a raw material shortage, a factory holiday, a quality reject that forced a re-run, a port backlog. None of those are theft, and a supplier who is behind but honest will usually give you something specific when pressed: a photo of the line, a container booking number, a revised ex-works date with a reason attached.
Ask for exactly those things. A supplier who is merely late tends to over-explain. One who is stalling gives you sentiment instead of evidence: reassurance without a date, a date without a document, a document that never quite arrives. Silence for more than a few days after a direct, written question is the clearest bad sign.
Document everything, in writing
From this point on, treat the file as though someone else will read it later, because they might. Move the whole conversation into writing, and keep it there. If your supplier prefers WeChat or WhatsApp or a call, send a short written summary after each exchange ("confirming our call just now: you said the goods ship by the 14th"), so there is a record they did not dispute.
Collect and keep, in one place:
- The signed purchase order and pro forma invoice, with the agreed specification and ship date.
- The full payment record: the telegraphic transfer receipt, the beneficiary account details, the date it settled.
- Every message about timing, in date order.
- Any inspection reports, photos, or booking documents they have sent.
This file is what a bank, a marketplace, a payment provider, or a lawyer will ask for first. Assembling it also forces the timeline into focus, and sometimes shows you the exact day the story changed.
Escalate through every channel that still has leverage
Leverage comes from anyone who is not the supplier but has a relationship with them. Work the list quickly, because most of these windows are measured in days.
Your sourcing agent, if you used one. They have an ongoing relationship with the factory and a reputation to protect, and they can often get a straight answer where you cannot. If the agent introduced the supplier, they also carry some responsibility for the outcome.
The marketplace, if the order came through one. Trade Assurance on Alibaba and the equivalent programmes exist for exactly this, but they only cover you if the order and the payment were made inside the platform. A wire sent to a bank account off-platform, even to a supplier you found on one, is usually outside any protection. File the dispute before the window closes; it is short.
Your bank, immediately. If the transfer is very recent, ask your bank to attempt a recall or a SWIFT recall on the telegraphic transfer. Be realistic about what this is: a request to the receiving bank to return funds that have not yet been withdrawn, which depends entirely on the money still sitting in the beneficiary account and on the other bank's cooperation. It works occasionally when you move within a day or two. It rarely works once the funds have been moved on.
The recall and chargeback reality for a wire
This is the part that surprises people, so it is worth being blunt. A telegraphic transfer is a push payment. You instructed your bank to send money, and once it settles in the recipient's account it is theirs to move. There is no chargeback mechanism the way there is on a card, no central authority that can reverse it, and no protection scheme standing behind it. The recall window is narrow and depends on goodwill from a bank in another country that has no obligation to help you.
If you paid by credit card through a payment processor, you have a genuine chargeback right and should use it before the deadline. If you paid by a card-funded service that offers buyer protection, open that claim. But most cross-border manufacturing deposits go out as wires, and for a wire that has cleared, the honest position is that the money is gone unless the supplier chooses to return it or a court compels them.
When litigation abroad is and is not worth it
Suing a supplier in their own jurisdiction is possible and occasionally correct, but the arithmetic is unforgiving. You will need local counsel, a translated contract, and the patience for a foreign court, and at the end you hold a judgment you still have to enforce against a company that may have few attachable assets. On a single order of a few tens of thousands of dollars, the legal cost and the years involved usually exceed what you could recover.
It changes when the numbers are large, when you have a clean written contract with a jurisdiction or arbitration clause, when the supplier is a substantial company with assets worth pursuing, or when the same factory has done this to others and a joint action becomes viable. Below that threshold, a demand letter from a local lawyer is sometimes worth the modest cost, because it signals you are serious and occasionally shakes loose a partial refund, but treat it as a nudge rather than a plan.
Report it, and warn the next buyer
Even where recovery fails, reporting has value. File a report with the marketplace so the supplier's account carries a record. If the sum is significant and fraud is plain, report it to your own country's economic-crime channel and, where one exists, to the authorities in the supplier's country. Post an honest, factual account on the sourcing forums other buyers read. None of this brings your money back, but it raises the cost of the next fraud, and patterns reported by several buyers are what occasionally trigger a real investigation. For the wider set of warning signs, see how to avoid supplier fraud.
Why this hurts so much, and what removes it
Sit with the mechanism for a moment, because it explains both the pain and the fix. The loss is total because the whole sum, or at least a large deposit, moved before any proof that the goods existed. An unconditional wire hands over both the money and all of the leverage in the same instant. Once it settles, you are asking for a favour, and every channel above is a way of asking more loudly.
The way to not be here again is to stop paying in one irreversible motion against a promise. Pay against evidence instead. Split the order into milestones, and release each part only when a specific document proves the step it is paying for: the signed PO, a pre-shipment inspection report from a third party, the bill of lading. A supplier who has your deposit but has produced nothing never reaches the tranche that pays for production, because the inspection report that would release it does not exist.
This is what Tranchio is built to do. You commit the full order value up front, so the supplier can see the whole amount is real before they start, which is a stronger assurance than a 30% deposit gives them. Tranchio then gates each release against the agreed evidence and your approval, and records every step in a tamper-evident file. Tranchio does not hold or move your money; a licensed payment provider executes the transfers at launch, releasing each tranche only when the gate opens. The supplier pays nothing and receives every tranche in full. What changes is the trigger: money moves against a document about the goods, not against a promise about them.
That does not help the order you are chasing today, and this guide is honest that the odds on a cleared wire are poor. It is meant to make sure the next one cannot end the same way. You can read how the gating and record work on the security page, and request an invite through request access while it is still invite-only.