Why would BTC payments fail to arrive in a wallet?

[uBTCforYourThoughts]

Forgive me if this has already been covered elsewhere, but the material on Bitcoin is already massive - and often massively technical.  And since I'm neither a tech professional nor highly versed in Bitcoin, the best I can do is ask someone. 

I use BTC faucets for fun, picking up tiny increments here and there on free sites.  Payments have always shown up on time and accurately, exactly as the sites list them in their blockchains.  That stopped a few days ago, across the board.  Everything stopped. 

The same sites listed the same kinds of payments as before to me, but they just never appeared in my wallet.  None of them.  The last one that did come through was comically small even by faucet standards, as if it was a tiny trickle that had escaped someone's tightening stranglehold.  And now, nothing.

At first I thought they must be delaying payments more than usual because the value keeps skyrocketing, but the sites all show payments being made.  So where are they?

I checked my system for viruses and malware, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong on this end.  So...what's going on?  That last teency payment makes me think there's nothing wrong with my wallet, that something weird is going on in the chains.

But how could anyone be so unbelievably greedy as to steal a few cents?  The only way that would make any sense is if they were stealing *everything* in the chains, which could only happen if they already had a dominant position over the mining.  So is anyone else experiencing this? 

If I'm the only one, then that's actually a relief.  Not because I'm dealing in any significant amount of money, but some day I might want to get serious about Bitcoin, and this kind of experience isn't encouraging.  But if others are having this problem, maybe someone could fill me in and maybe knows how to get around it?

Or if I am the only one, maybe someone has some guesses about what I could do?

Thanks.   

[odolvlobo]

There are two possible reasons why the transactions are not showing up in your wallet:
1. The wallet is not updating correctly or it has not finished loading the block chain.
2. The BTC was never sent.

You can check if the BTC was actually sent by viewing the block chain using something other than your wallet. Try looking at your public address using block chain.info or blockexplorer.com. If the transactions are not showing up there, then they are not in the block chain and the BTC was never sent. If they do show up there but are not in your wallet, then something is wrong with your wallet.

[RW02]

there is a 3rd option the websites might be using "inputs" the online wallet run by trade fortress. also more famous for being one of the biggest hack in recent bitcoin history. or so he claims. faucets dont often make much money so if they loose fund its hard for them to recovery quickly.

most operators just do IOU until the faucets are back on there feet

[BawsyBoss]

As the person before me said, they might have been Inputs.io faucets, which don't work anymore since they were hacked.

[mvidetto]

It seems to me as though the transaction fee sent wasn't high enough to give it high priority in the blockchain.  Hopefully, you will see your money eventually it just might take another few hours.  If it takes more than one day you might not ever see it.