There are few things in life that test your patience quite like a failed transaction. You stand at a till or stare at your mobile app, you authorize a payment, you wait for that familiar confirmation message… and then….nothing. No service.
No product. But the money? Gone. Like it sprinted out of your account without even leaving a forwarding address.
And to make things worse, you’re told the most infuriating sentence in modern-day customer service:
Every time I hear that line, I feel like asking, “Why exactly am I the one being punished for something I didn’t cause?” Because let’s be honest… the system didn’t fail them. It failed me. I didn’t wake up and decide to make a phantom transaction just for fun. I did my part. The bank or service provider is the one who dropped the ball. Yet somehow, I’m the one sent into financial limbo.
Imagine this, You’ve budgeted your week down to the last shilingi. Maybe you’re paying for fuel, buying groceries, settling a bill, or picking up a few things on the way home.
The money leaves your account, but the service says, “Oops, transaction failed.” And instead of instant correction, you’re given a digital version of “Go sit in the corner and wait.”
Three days.
Seventy-two hours.
One weekend of stress, depending on the timing.
We’re living in a world where payments happen in seconds. You can send money across continents faster than it takes to toast bread. So why does a reversal need the patience of a monk? Why, in 2025, are we still accepting a timeline that feels like it was approved in the 1980s and never revised?
Now let's talk about that “72 hours.” Because I have questions. Who set it? Is it based on actual processing timelines, or is it just one of those arbitrary customer-service phrases companies learned to throw around because nobody challenges them? “72 hours” sounds official.
It sounds technical. It sounds like someone in a suit once stood up in a meeting and said, “Let’s give ourselves three days, people won’t complain too much.”
Well, we’re complaining now.
The truth is, there’s a power imbalance in how financial systems handle errors. When you delay paying them, there are penalties. Late fees. Interest.
Warnings. Your credit score crying in the corner. But when they delay giving you back your money, you’re expected to be calm, logical, and understanding.
It’s almost impressive how quickly the tone changes when the tables turn.
Think about customer service lines too. You call for help, already annoyed because your money is floating somewhere in the digital universe, and after a few mandatory “We apologize for the inconvenience” statements, the agent drops the 72-hour bomb
on you with the confidence of someone handing out good news. Meanwhile, you’re calculating how many things you can’t do because your money is out there enjoying a 3-day vacation.
And here’s the funniest part: if the money had gone through by mistake like double charging, you would still be told to wait the same 72 hours.
So no matter what direction the system fails in, their answer is always a waiting period long enough for someone to take a weekend trip to Zanzibar and come back refreshed.
At what point do financial institutions take accountability for the speed mismatch between taking money and returning it? Why is there no urgency on their side? Why is the consumer expected to absorb the inconvenience every single time?
This isn’t even about being dramatic; it’s about fairness. We deserve systems that work consistently, and when they don’t, we deserve resolutions that don’t hold our money hostage. Three days may not seem like much to a corporation, but to an actual human being navigating real life, 72 hours is a long time.
Maybe it’s time we start asking harder questions. Because if digital payments can happen in seconds, reversals shouldn’t need a whole mini-marathon.
Until then… here we are. Annoyed, waiting, and wondering why our money seems to travel back slower than a daladala stuck in peak-hour traffic
