We get this question a lot: "What stops them from just clicking 'I arrived' while still at home?"
Good question. Here's the honest answer.
The 500m rule
When you set up a payment on TumaFare, you pin the agreed meeting point on a map. The recipient can only confirm arrival when their device GPS places them within 500 metres of that pin. Tapping "I've Arrived" from a sofa across town doesn't work. The system checks and rejects it.
What 500m looks like in practice
500 metres is roughly a 6-minute walk. If the meeting point is your gate, they need to be at your gate (or very close). If it's a specific building, they need to be at or near that building. You can't fake GPS proximity without physical presence.
OTP verification on top
On arrival, the recipient receives a one-time code via SMS. They enter it to confirm their identity. This means even if someone else tried to use the link, they'd need access to the recipient's phone number too.
"But what about VPNs or GPS spoofing apps?"
GPS spoofing exists — we're not going to pretend it doesn't. But it requires technical effort that the vast majority of real-world recipients won't bother with, especially for a small fare amount. And if someone went through that effort to fake a UGX 15,000 arrival... honestly, they earned it 😂.
For high-value transactions, you can also ask for a photo confirmation — recipient sends a photo at the agreed location. That's harder to fake.
The bigger picture
No system is 100% fraud-proof. But TumaFare raises the bar significantly above "just trust them and hope for the best." GPS + OTP + your manual approval = three layers of protection. That's enough for 99% of real-world situations.
tumafare.com — built with accountability in mind.