Block very unreasonable / unfair customer from buying? Or, any advice on how to deal with them..?!

[JE1]

I'd very much appreciate some advice on dealing with a very difficult customer. 

We have a customer who will buy from us every few months or so and then complain very aggressively with threats, saying that our products are faulty and have sent her to hospital etc, so she wants us to send her all new products. The first time this happened was a year ago. We decided to cave in and just send replacements in the hope the persistent threatening emails would stop, despite our refund policy being very clear that all faulty products must be reported within 30 days. It did stop for a month or so until it started again. Giving her a full refund, letting her keep the products and sending new ones simply wasn't good enough because she also claims to be an expert in customer services and feel we're handling it wrong. She also cites a long list of personal reasons which she feels are relevant to howo our company has also impacted her greatly. 

Anyway, after much fuss she went away. But now, much to my delight, she's back and doing the same, carrying the same threats of going to UK trading standards etc. Our refund policy remains the same, and her complaints come after 30 days of purchasing the products. As a side note, we've never had anyone else complain from 6000+ orders. We'also remained professional and empathetic with every single correspondence. 

My main questions are:

• Are we allowed to refuse to sell any items to this customers? We're a UK company.
• Does our refund policy protect us enough to not have to keep on sending her free items?
• Can we block the customer through spotify in some way? We would much rather she stopped buying from us!
• Does anyone have some advice on what to do in this situation? Our usual customer service practice is to minimize interaction (we’re a small team) and just make sure every customer is left happy; apart from this person, it’s worked very well for us to date.

Thanks so much in advance!

[Cameron8]

The store I help run has run into 1-2 customers like this, with an 8,000 customer base, and we've had to take measures similar to yourself.

You can use Shopify's Fraud Filter application to effectively block the customer from purchasing from your web store. You can create a filter to automatically cancel an order from a specific email, browser IP, name, address, CC #, etc. They have quite an extensive list for their filters.

You can also have the customer emailed upon order cancellation, letting the customer know why their order was immediately canceled.

Take a look here. Best of all, it's free.

[jhanlauf]

Canceling an already made order is not a solution. There needs to be a way to actually block an IP address and email address from even purchasing in the first place. When you cancel an order after it goes through the customer gets confused and thinks they are placing the order causing further arguments. We NEED an ability to block people completely 

[Matt_gilbert]

Shopify is about as dumb as it comes to simple features like this. Then you have idiots like the one who mentioned the Shopify app that cancels it AFTER the order is placed costing the seller money since they don't get the fees back. How fkn stupid is this???? If you can't figure it out on your own.......real stupid!! Just block the damn order BEFORE it gets placed.
So fed up with Shopify.

[alarmguy]

Totally agree. Had a rep just tell me they don't have the info until the order is placed so they can't reject it prior to that. Nonsesnse, you get the details at calculate shipping point. The lack of this simple feature has cost us at least a grand in credit card fees over the years... Almost everytime we've had a rule that cancels the order the person resubmits the order. It also creates an issue where reviews are legitimized at places like Reseller Ratings because the customer actually gets an order number.

[SissyBoutique]

I agree...even a feature that could be enabled that would prevent a customer from even purchasing an item after three failed credit card attempts.  I have fraudsters that use five or more credit cards and finally when one works, it goes through as an order on my end.  The same customer, same address, same phone number -  that I have cancelled several times after the order is made is to the point of taunting me.  I'm a former computer programmer (21 years) and know that this is something that can be simplified with some system development.   This is very frustrating as this happens to me one to several times a week.

[shop36478]

Shopify - this is completely absurd that you don't have a solution for this. Its starting to become clear to me that you dont care about your customers at all. Get your act together and provide a real solution for this. The whole point of blocking a customer is to AVOID fees/expenses. Obviously canceling an order after the fact is not a solution. Stop being tone deaf to the needs of your customers!!

[domino]

Shopify stopped caring about its customers a long time ago. It's yet another corporation that cares about growing the user base and making money for their shareholders only.

[GabyACS]

I was reading everyone's response. 

BY any chance do you all know if a customer can be blocked via Paypal? Thanks 

[EddyChung]

There are several alternatives to Shopify's app that allow you to block or blacklist customers: 

• Easy Country Blocker by ZendApps
• FraudLabs Pro Fraud Prevention
• Traffic Guard

Some of these have free options as well. 

You can check out my full review and comparison of these apps here.