This article is originally published for Etherscan but applies to BscScan, PolygonScan, HooScan, HecoInfo, and FTMScan as well.
Some of the most common cases where a refund request is usually submitted are:
- Sent ETH/tokens to the wrong address
- Sent the wrong amount of ETH/tokens
- The transaction took too long
- The transaction is dropped by the network
Due to the irreversible nature of digital currency protocols, successful transactions cannot be cancelled and are irreversible. As such, when cases such as the above happen, you are most likely to never be able to recover the lost fund.
The only person able to issue a refund is the person holding the coins – the owner of the address. If you do not know the owner of the address, there is no other way to retrieve the funds.
There is also no guarantee that anyone has the private key to a certain address, especially if the address has no outgoing transactions. Therefore, it is essential to exercise caution whenever you are sending funds. Always double-check that the address you are sending to matches the address of the recipient exactly. It is best practice to double-check the address before confirm or executing the transaction.
Funds sent wrongly to exchanges may be recovered at the exchange’s discretion. Exchanges may be able to help you if you open a support ticket and give them the details they need,i.e., the address you meant to send to, and the transaction hash that went to the wrong address.
Additionally, Etherscan is a block explorer for the Ethereum blockchain just as Google is to the internet and as a free block explorer service, we can only provide and display information on transactions that occur within the Ethereum blockchain.
Please take note that Etherscan is not a wallet or exchange service.
- We are not a wallet service provider
- We do not store your private keys
- We do not process transactions and we do not have control over your transactions
- We cannot troubleshoot transaction failures
- We cannot refund your transactions
It is important to always double-check and confirm that all details of a transaction are correctly inserted before proceeding with it.
