USDT has arrived, and the screening result raises a flag. The order is still open, a colleague wants to release the goods, and the customer is asking for a quick answer. Your first job is to stop the case becoming harder to explain. Preserve the payment record, keep the relevant business actions on hold and assign someone to review the actual evidence before funds move onward.
Put an internal hold on the case
Mark the payment as pending review in your own records. Tell the staff responsible for order release, treasury allocation and onward payment which actions are paused. This is an internal operational hold on funds your business controls. It is not a claim that A2 Route freezes a wallet, reverses a transfer or instructs an issuer to restrict assets.
Define an owner and a next review time so the hold does not disappear into a chat thread. Record when the flag was noticed and which result prompted it. If your legal obligations are uncertain, escalate to qualified advice. This checklist does not establish a statutory freeze, a reporting deadline or permission to retain someone else's funds indefinitely.
Use the incoming payment guide to compare the received payment with the agreed instructions. Keep release of goods and disposition of the funds as separate decisions. Neither needs to be rushed merely because the transfer is already visible.
Confirm that the result belongs to this payment
Check the network, sender, recipient, asset, amount and transaction reference against your private payment record. Note whether the flagged result checked a wallet or the transaction itself. A wallet result attached to the wrong incoming transfer can send the review in the wrong direction before anyone reads the explanation.
A2 Route supports address checks and USDT/USDC transaction checks on TRON and Ethereum. Stay within that published scope. For training, label a fictional receipt FAKE_RECEIVED_TRANSFER_NOT_A_HASH and its sender FAKE_SENDER_NOT_AN_ADDRESS. These are deliberately invalid synthetic identifiers, not inputs for a live screening request.
Save the original result before running another check. Record the screening time and any coverage warning. The public FAQ describes a partial result as reduced coverage and recommends a re-check. A later result belongs beside the first one, not in place of it, because the first reviewer acted on the evidence then available.
Read why the flag appeared
The report description includes a verdict, score, source shares, top exposure, sanctions lists and a risk-categories appendix. Read the explanation with those fields. The risk-score guide helps prevent a number being treated as a probability of unlawful activity.
Distinguish a direct relationship from a path through intermediaries. The synthetic REVIEW sample can record indirect provider-flagged exposure alongside no-match sanctions-list rows. Do not rewrite that combination as a confirmed direct list match. The exposure guide explains why the distinction belongs in your decision note.
Do not calculate how much of the received USDT is suspicious by multiplying the payment amount by an unrelated address-mode percentage. Read the stated mode and denominator first. If the evidence cannot support a payment-specific amount, record that limitation rather than producing a confident estimate for the treasury team.
Ask the customer a focused question
Contact the customer through the channel already associated with the trade. Explain that the payment is under review and ask about the actual discrepancy: a different sender, an intermediary or the source of the payment. Avoid accusing them of a crime based on a category label. A precise question usually produces a more useful answer than “prove the money is clean.”
Keep the reply, any supporting information and the reviewer's assessment together. Customer-provided information may explain the commercial arrangement, but it does not erase a recorded blockchain finding. If the reply introduces another wallet or another transaction, identify it as a new subject requiring review rather than silently substituting it into the original report.
Document the disposition before acting
Write what raised concern, what remains unknown and who can decide the next step. Possible internal outcomes include continued review, proceeding under your policy or seeking advice about a proposed return. This guide does not decide which outcome is legally available in your case. A return instruction also needs verification; a new destination supplied in an urgent message is not enough.
Do not make an onward transfer simply to remove the flagged funds from the receiving wallet. Keep the original payment evidence, correspondence and decision record even after the case closes. See the PDF walkthrough before filing the report, and the flagged-counterparty checklist for escalation ownership.
For a separate supplier payment, consult the A2vanta business payment blog. Explore A2 Route screening or read the business API documentation. The result is informational, not legal advice, a guarantee of clean funds or a promise that a bank will accept the payment.