Transaction Credits on Refunds Fees - After March 1, 2020, Shopify will no longer return this fee?!

Newbie_Seller
Tourist
3 0 28

Dear Shopify Community and Experts,

 

Shopify has always been crediting back transaction fees if a store owner makes a full refund to a customer - same procedure with many or probably all other payment processors including the greedy Paypal!!

 

That said, all of a sudden today January 20th, 2020 - we are receiving a notification from shopify indicating that Shopify will no longer be returning the fees as of March 1st, 2020 (see image at the bottom of this message, i have also put the text version of the email just in case)......my understanding here means if you refund an order to a customer, shopify will still charge you a transaction fee!! 

 

Questions

 

1. Has anyone / everyone received this email notifying that there will be this so called "Update on refund policy"?

 

2. In this shopify email regarding this new upcoming change, Shopify has put a link to its called "Shopify Terms of Service" - https://www.shopify.com/legal/terms?utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=support&utm...

 

no where there is a mention of transaction credit on refunds specific.....everything is general about "transaction fees"

 

3. Isn't this stealing in day light? i mean how would shopify start charging transaction fees to store owners if nothing is sold (fully refunded to a customer)? There are many legitimate reasons why refunds are being made but the most common ones is "high risk transactions" (we have tools to analyze transactions and sometimes you see a bunch of things that do not make sense in a customer order.....history of fraud, billing address does not match credit card address e.t.c)

 

Would appreciate shopify experts and community to provide more insights on this......we do feel this is some kind of an attempt for shopify to get store owners to use their shopify payments processor (which we are not using - we are on paypal), and probably message is sent to specific stores not everyone else!! We do a lot of refunds because we have been attacked by scammers lately very intensively, therefore we are very keen on our orders!!

 

 

 

Shopify-update-on-refund-fees.jpg

 

 

 

Text version of email here:

 

Dear XXXXXX,

We are making changes that will go into effect after March 1, 2020, including a change to our current Shopify Terms of Service that may affect you.

Upcoming changes:

  • We discovered a mistake we made with your account: When you process a refund, we have been paying you back your original transaction fee despite our terms of service saying that this won’t happen. We won’t be asking for any money back and unlike many payment processors, we won’t charge an additional fee to process a refund. After March 1, 2020, we will no longer return this fee. This is consistent with our existing Shopify Terms of Service that you agreed to already.

If you have any questions about these changes, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Thanks,
Shopify Support

 

© Shopify, 150 Elgin Street, Ottawa ON, K2P 1L4

Shopify.MailID:1-1.5e25cf18.6433354.5936ff5ef8b88ec7fd1b41bfe178b0d5

 

Replies 160 (160)

ASUCrystal
Excursionist
13 0 19

I got the same email 😞 I came on the Shopify forums just to see if everyone else got the same email. I totally agree, this is ridiculous.

Newbie_Seller
Tourist
3 0 28

Glad to know other store owners got this notification also....at least part one of my problem is answered (as we felt like our store is being targeted).

 

That said, i do think if all store owners have received this notification ...we need to boycott this!! IT DOES NOT MAKE ANY BUSINESS SENSE, THERE ARE SO MANY LEGITIMATE REASONS STORE OWNERS HAVE TO REFUND ORDERS!! There are ton of high risky transactions daily, we cannot sell to everyone who make purchases on our store!

 

Hopefully someone official from shopify will jump on this thread, otherwise i am hoping it catches enough fire to get this update reverted....otherwise will have to pump this on social media channels until Shopify wakes up!

Superdad
Tourist
7 0 28

I just got off the phone with a Shopify rep.  I sure gave her an earful.  She said she would pass this along to management. This new policy regarding refunds will cost me several thousand dollars per year.

I would move to another CC payment provider, but then Shopify charges 2% on every PayPal purchase.  So they got me either way.

 

The crazy thing is, Stripe is the CC merchant processor that Shopify works through (its right there at the top of the Terms of Service page), yet Stripe does not have this crazy new keep-the-fee policy for refunds.

 

I do not think posting here in the forum is going to be enough. I think a lot of people should call Shopify Support and voice their displeasure with the policy. That stands a (small) chance of getting them to reconsider.

Newbie_Seller
Tourist
3 0 28

Definitely....posting here is not going to do much, my hope was to first verify if a lot of people have got this notification. Additionally i just wanted to know what their view is (so far it seems no one is definitely receiving this update positively as it is going to kill everyone's business).

 

From here, a ton of emails and calls to shopify support.....PLUS splashing this misconduct on social media channels will be the route to take, until Shopify gets a pain from their sales revenue, then they will realize the important of being fair.

 

This is just illegal - purely, not matter how they can put it that we have accepted their terms of service (THERE IS NOTHING IN THE TERMS OF SERVICE THAT SPEAKS SPECIFICALLY TO THE REFUND FEES / CREDITS OR THIS SO CALLED UPDATE STARTING MARCH 1ST)

 

I really hope all existing store front owners we will unite on this matter!! we love shopify platform for so many reasons but this update is definitely not something that we can live with!

Devinir
New Member
6 0 0

Sounds like an easy lawsuit. Let’s do it 

Katchen_Gerig
Tourist
5 0 1
Actually, this is a change from stripe that Shopify is passing through. I work with stripe directly and they sent an email that says any refunds going forward, will not receive the 3 % processing fee refunded.
DrNorm
Visitor
2 0 2

We offer tours of our animal sanctuary. We were having an unreasonable # of "no shows" so began requiring people to pay in advance and the largest % of our Shopify transactions are for visitors to pre-pay their tour reservations. We do occasionally have to cancel tours (our decision: weather, animal emergency)  but we also have people pre-pay before checking that we have a tour they can join (their fault because they don't read the instructions) and they also must be refunded.

However, IF, as Shopify claims, they need to "keep" the transactions fees to cover THEIR cost, then why would it not be a FIXED charge, since it is the SAME amount of work to issue a refund regardless of the amount? As others have pointed out, Shopify is not incurring any actual expense from their credit gateway but are justifying the charge to "cover the cost of issuing the refund" (despite the fact that I am certain it is completely automated). Regardless, whether the charge is $50 or $5,000, the "work" is exactly the same so why should the "charge" be based on a % of the transaction cost? If they feel they still need to make money on these transactions (above the subscriptions fees we already pay and the transaction charges), it should be a FIXED amount, or perhaps a tiered-amount. (like $1 for charge <$100, $5 for charges <$1,000, etc.) There is absolutely no reason that a merchant selling high-priced items should be "penalized" for that by charging a % of the total amount refunded.

I recently had PayPal make an error on THEIR end and then try to charge us the transaction fees when it was reversed and I contacted customer support and was able to get the fees refunded. My argument was that I did not ask for or initiate the payment, (which we did not- it was made when FOUR of PayPal's customers claimed they were "hacked") why should I be held liable? I also pointed out that if "they" are not responsible when "their system" is hacked, then that means that I have liability for an "unlimited" amount of money. What if we received an unsolicited  $10,000 donation, but then someone claimed they were hacked and ask for a refund? Why should we be liable for that? If fact, there would be NO WAY for us to protect ourselves from such a risk. I temporarily removed PayPal as a payment option in our store. Granted, we generate minimal amounts of fees for PayPal (so our leaving would hardly be a big loss) but they still agreed with my logic and refunded the fees (which were over $500 because it included currency exchange fees WAY above market rate!).

Perhaps we can't convince Shopify to allow no-penalty refunds but the amount should be nominal, not obscene. 

Yaada
Shopify Partner
6 0 3

So this is my first store and I did all the testing in test mode for the purchasing of products and running credit cards through.

 

However, I wanted to actually do it under real circumstances.  So I went to my store and placed an order, purchased the product with my own personal credit card.  I saw that everything went through.  I then placed a refund.

 

And low and behold I see that I get charged for a transaction fee.  This is my first store and it hasnt earned anything yet.  And Im getting charged a fee for a refund?!?!?!

 

So now every time I refund an order, doing the right thing for my customers, I get charged. 

 

Shopify - wheres the customer service for your customers on this one?  Why arent you guys doing the right thing for your customers?  Customers being myself and all the others that posted here on this forum.

 

Please contact me on what you are doing to rectify this absurd issue.

ASUCrystal
Excursionist
13 0 19

With the pandemic happening right now, you would think that Shopify would temporarily waive the return fees - guess not. I'm fine with them keeping the $.30 transaction fee, but that's it. It's rich how they write blog articles about how online stores should have a flexible return policy, and then they do this. 

Yaada
Shopify Partner
6 0 3
Very good point!

I had just emailed customer support and they respond with - heres the terms
and conditions, and then said "please understand." And then said that was
all they could do.

Thats not all they can do, they can do a lot more.

How about forwarding this to management? How about providing different
solutions? Like making the fee a flat very small fee, how about reducing
the percentage. How about waiving the fee altogether?!! And do the right
thing! How about realizing we are your customers providing Shopify's
income which is already a multi billion dollar company BEFORE this
transaction fee on refunds was even implemented? How about looking at this
from our point of view? How about how would "you" (Shopify) feel if we
nickeled and dimed you for every little thing?
dpd1
Explorer
63 0 41
They couldn’t care less, because their business model is built on failure now, not success. They don’t need businesses to succeed. They make more money by having a constant flow of failures, who pay for a year or so, give up, then get replaced by three more. Same with the banks. Why do you think the whole system turns a blind eye to blatantly fraudulent chargebacks? Because the card holders are in debt to them and keep paying them. They make billions from them.
charovetchy
Excursionist
11 0 4

That is CRAZY!!!! feel super disappointed about this. 


@Superdad wrote:

I just got off the phone with a Shopify rep.  I sure gave her an earful.  She said she would pass this along to management. This new policy regarding refunds will cost me several thousand dollars per year.

I would move to another CC payment provider, but then Shopify charges 2% on every PayPal purchase.  So they got me either way.

 

The crazy thing is, Stripe is the CC merchant processor that Shopify works through (its right there at the top of the Terms of Service page), yet Stripe does not have this crazy new keep-the-fee policy for refunds.

 

I do not think posting here in the forum is going to be enough. I think a lot of people should call Shopify Support and voice their displeasure with the policy. That stands a (small) chance of getting them to reconsider.



 

Yaada
Shopify Partner
6 0 3

@charovetchy wrote:

That is CRAZY!!!! feel super disappointed about this. 


@Superdad wrote:

I just got off the phone with a Shopify rep.  I sure gave her an earful.  She said she would pass this along to management. This new policy regarding refunds will cost me several thousand dollars per year.

I would move to another CC payment provider, but then Shopify charges 2% on every PayPal purchase.  So they got me either way.

 

The crazy thing is, Stripe is the CC merchant processor that Shopify works through (its right there at the top of the Terms of Service page), yet Stripe does not have this crazy new keep-the-fee policy for refunds.

 

I do not think posting here in the forum is going to be enough. I think a lot of people should call Shopify Support and voice their displeasure with the policy. That stands a (small) chance of getting them to reconsider.



 


I think the only way to combat this is through social media and having it go viral.  I still cant believe there are very few of us complaining about this when there are thousands upon thousands of Shopify stores that all should at least have encountered this despicable issue.

 

Having mentioned social media and going viral - since Im new to this who new thing with Shopify and getting traffic, etc... I really am not sure how I (or we) could get something to go viral.

 

I cant believe with this even being posted here on their very own website, that no moderator or admin from shopify has even responded to this, and acted upon it to look into finding a solution.

Katchen_Gerig
Tourist
5 0 1
Stripe recently announced that they are keeping the 2.9 percent charge on refunds. Paypal also announced they are doing the same last year. So I think Shopify is doing this because of stripe.
You can find the announcement on the stripe website
aj007
Excursionist
33 0 71

Shopify's Gross Payments Volume (the amount of Gross Merchandise Volume processed through Shopify Payments) grew to $25.7 billion in fiscal 2019 - see:

https://investors.shopify.com/Investor-News-Details/2020/Shopify-Announces-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Y...

 

When you're that big, you can push back on Stripe/etc. and defend your million+ merchants... who in the end are why Shopify exists at all.

Ray_Rolando
Tourist
6 0 7

As of April 2020, Stripe DOES keep the fee.

Christine80202
Tourist
3 0 2
I call them twice already.
Nancy_Neville
New Member
4 0 0
I spoke with a guru yesterday and it’s correct. ☹ I asked him to create a message and send it up to the managers on how unfair this is to us, what happen to their ethics!
Devinir
New Member
6 0 0

File a lawsuit would be reasonable 

tangstamps
New Member
4 0 0

Paypal has already started doing the same thing. Very annoying and unfair.

gunner
Visitor
1 0 0

Does anyone know if you switch to a different payment processor (not shopify payments), does this fix the problem?

Blueibear
Tourist
8 0 1
It would depend on each individual providers policies. The only problem with not using Shopify Payments, is that Shopify then slaps a 2% fee on each transaction for not using them.
bigmonster
Visitor
2 0 1

@gunner it does fix the issue of refunds, but when you use a 3rd party mechant processor, shopify charges a % from .5-2.5% depending on your plan...and you won't get that back in the case of a refund.

Devinir
New Member
6 0 0
Click to expand...
Cancel your Shopify account and switch to wiz
Devinir
New Member
6 0 0

Cancel your Shopify account and switch to wiz

NJR
Visitor
1 0 16

Most online businesses that sell products have a return rate of between 25% and 35%.  I see absolutely no reason why Shopify should keep the commission on sales that turn into refunds.  Refunds are just part of the online retail landscape.  Why should the individual merchants foot the bill for the these refunds?  Merchants already bear the cost of the outward / return / 2nd outward shipping on returned items.  To have to pay Shopify commission more than once on a the sale of a product that's returned is ludicrous.  It's greedy and will inevitably put more online merchants out of business.  

Shopify, it's hard enough out there without you guys double dipping.  You need to rethink this as it's going to have a catastrophic effect on your community of merchants and then ultimately your own bottom line.  

 

This action is unjustifiable.  Please reconsider. 

 

 

Superdad
Tourist
7 0 28

I agree that this is outrageous!

People place orders on my store and sometimes decide to cancel before the item is shipped. My average product price is $600, so the lost fees when someone cancels under this new policy will be considerable.

 

The other thing that they are doing which sucks is adding another 1% to all international transactions.  Half of my large business is international. Since PayPal has been at 4.4% for several years, I have been pushing clients to pay with credit card via Shopify Payments. Now the delta (3.9% vs. 4.4%) for international is much smaller.

Jann_Mestel
Excursionist
22 0 13

When it says, “we have been paying you back your original Shopify Payments fee” I assume that is referring to the 2.9% and NOT the .30 cents per transaction. So does this mean when I have refunded someone fully, I got back the 2.9%? 

 

So after March 1st, if someone spends $3,000 and then cancels the order, will I be out the 2.9%? 

 

What if I haven’t captured the order, if it’s just authorized?  And then it gets cancelled before capture?  So then there’s no actual refund involved-it’s just cancelling an authorization?  Is there still a fee involved there?

 

I recently had a customer order $6,200 worth of items in two orders.  Days later (after she received the items) she called and explained she had a "mental problem" brought on by a new medication and wanted to return the items.  In this case, would I be out the 2.9% of the $6,200?  ($179.80)  

 

I wonder if the credit card companies will allow us to charge a 3% fee on all cancelled orders (so as to cover that fee)....  

 

Thanks, 

Jann 

mgarland
Tourist
5 0 20

Yeah, so I just clarified this with Shopify. This means that you will be losing BOTH the 2.9% transaction fee AND the .30 cents per transaction. This will cover any/all transactions where the credit card has actually been charged. Their excuse is that these fees cover the costs of processing refunds.

Absolute BS and a money grab. Really disappointing to see Shopify follow PayPal's footsteps on this.

happyerica
Tourist
4 0 0

I already reported to WA State, FTC. outrage about Shopify

ebm
Excursionist
11 0 8

AWEFUL!!!!!!!!!!!

lintriago
Excursionist
17 0 9

Shopify is a limited platform.  Everything is "get a Shopify expert" or "install this app" (which slows down the site and impacts performance metrics).  This issue with the transaction fees not being refunded is pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back for me.  I am going to be migrating off Shopify and onto WooCommerce with Square as payment processor who absolutely does refund transaction fees.

aj007
Excursionist
33 0 71

@lintriago wrote:

...with Square as payment processor who absolutely does refund transaction fees.


Hi - I was looking on their site and didn't spot that in their terms. Where did you find it?

In any case, thank you *SO* much for suggesting to check out Square. They have some very economical plans for basic (and not-so-basic) hosted eCommerce sites... complete with image hovers, URL redirects, SSL certificates, basic inventory management, gift cards, Instagram integration, support for multiple discounts... pretty much everything a small site needs all in the base package. Their theme layout choices are pretty limited, and I'd have to lose some of my fancy Liquid custom programming, but I'm totally sold!

lintriago
Excursionist
17 0 9

Here you go:  https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/213653237-Transaction-fees#toc-refunds

I am not moving to Square for ecomm, only for payment processing. I am moving to woocommerce.  

aj007
Excursionist
33 0 71

Ah, I was looking on Square (the payment processor's) site. Not Squarespace's overview of various payment processors.

So it's by accident that I discovered Square (the payment processor) has its own eCommerce hosting for very reasonable prices, with many 'extras' included.

lintriago
Excursionist
17 0 9

square does not keep transaction fees either.  I actually thought they were somehow associated but they aren’t. 

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5615-refunds-faqs

Point being this is unethical....  and gladly not everyone does this.  I am going to drop Paypal from my site once i migrate.  They do it too.  

Christine80202
Tourist
3 0 2
That’s correct! I had an order for $520, due to the pandemic, the shipment date was too late for the costumer. I cancel the order within 24hours and still was charge $19.80,

mgarland
Tourist
5 0 20

This is a HUGE issue that Shopify is trying to spin as an insignificant change. They are referencing their Terms of Service (Article 13 Section 9 of the Shopify Terms of Service) where is says that Shopify issues no refunds for fees. In the past, this was really a reference to subscription fees, app fees, chargeback fees etc. Now they are expanding that broad statement and saying it covers transaction fees for refunds now. They are trying to spin it like they've always had this policy and are only now choosing to enforce it. And furthermore, trying to say, "you should thank us- we won't retroactively charge you for any of the fees we refunded you in the past". Uh... thanks?

 

This is going to cost my business (and many others) thousands of dollars each year. We all know it doesn't cost much money to return funds back to a customer's credit card, so shopify will be majorly profiting on this move. Almost 3% of the full transaction, just to move digitally move the money back onto the original payment method? For larger orders in the thousands of dollars, Shopify will be keeping hundreds of dollars to cover the costs of this simple task.

 

I asked the customer service rep what I can do as a small business owner. He was vague, but claimed that these fees are charged by the issuing bank of the customer. He said some of these banks will issue refunds of transaction fees and others won't. I asked if Shopify would automatically refund me in the cases where the issuing bank did refund the transaction fee. He said he wasn't sure, but that as the business owner I would need to contact the customer  issuing bank on every single refund. This would require contacting the customer, having them provide the contact info for the bank handling their credit card, and then me calling their bank and asking if they would kindly refund the transaction fee. Are you kidding me? We have hundreds if not thousands of refunds throughout the year, I would have to hire a new employee to handle these phone calls....

 

I think this is a clear greedy move by Shopify and they are hoping no one will notice. We need to protest quickly and loudly to try and get this decision reversed.

 

I am currently looking at other options for payment processors as I truly feel this is an unethical position by Shopify.

Superdad
Tourist
7 0 28

And the 1% bump for all international transactions is not welcome either!

Had an overseas customer cancel a $3K order last week (decided to buy from our Hong Kong dealer who had stock). Under the new Shopify policy such a cancellation would cost me $117.

 

To my knowledge, no other credit card processor has such a policy with regards to non-return of "discount fees."  It is time to rise up and publicly shame Shopify until they relent.  My store is $600K~$800K per year--with about half PayPal and half through Shopify cc payments, so I pay $9K~$12K/year in CC fees to Shopify. That is not small change!

ampman
Excursionist
13 0 17

We had been planning to try to move more transactions off of PayPal to Shopify Payments, but now there's no reason to try. Unfortunately it looks like this is the new normal, and you have a few things to consider.

 

1) Raise your prices.

2) Charge a restocking fee, and deduct shipping costs from returns. We had to go this route. 

3) If you have free 2-day or free overnight shipping, give people the option to choose free ground shipping instead. Make sure they know they'll be on the hook for your shipping costs if they do make a return.

4) Renegotiate your shipping rates.

5) Wait as long as you can before capturing payments.

6) Get a time machine and buy SHOP stock.

7) Cut your wages and benefits. Ever wonder why retail and warehouse workers at the bottom never catch a break?

 

RDR
Tourist
10 0 3

Has anyone looked into alternate processors?  Part of the draw of Shopify Plus was the processing.  Now that they are stealing the commissions when we give 100% refund to the customer, we will be forced to leave.  With AOV at $500, we can't lose that money for absolutely nothing. 

dpd1
Explorer
63 0 41

I suggest everyone complain to the Federal Trade Commission. That's what I did. The fact that PayPal and Shopify both tried to do this at the same time, is ridiculous. I've heard a rumor that Stripe will start as well. Also... Their excuse of claiming that they themselves have to still incur fees on refunds, is false. Go look at the documentation that Visa and Mastercard provide. It states that interchange fees are in fact returned to processors on refunds. Even if their WAS a fee (there isn't), a company valued at over 50 billion dollars telling their customers they should suck it up and cover this, is a joke. I haven't called yet, but I told a "guru" that if this goes through, I will be changing hosts. Of course, all I got in return is placating nonsense, and a sales pitch for an app. What a shock. Hilariously it was an app for creating refund disclaimers. That was her big support she offered. Obviously the people they get to do support know nothing, otherwise they'd realize a disclaimer is meaningless, because the person will just do a charge-back and win it (like they almost always do no matter what). Apparently they've decided they'd rather have a constant rotation of failures to milk money from, then actually support successful businesses.

Superdad
Tourist
7 0 28

@dpd1: Where did you read that PayPal was also going to stop refunding fees when refunds are made?!  That would be earth-shattering and really f-ed-up!

 

Also, does anyone know if Shopify's new policy--set to begin March 1--applies to refunds on orders placed before March 1? Or is it only with regards to orders that get PLACED on or after March 1st?

I just finished shipping a several waves of orders of a new product ($640 per and we shipped almost 500 in the last 40 days) with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so I'd like to have some idea of our exposure to this new policy. I suppose I'll find out soon enough if someone who bought in February asks for a refund in March. 

 

I can't believe that this new robbery policy has not gotten any publicity on web sites which discuss e-commerce providers/engines.  I sent notice of it to a couple of sites a month ago, but crickets... 😞 

mgarland
Tourist
5 0 20

@Superdad wrote:

@dpd1: Where did you read that PayPal was also going to stop refunding fees when refunds are made?!  That would be earth-shattering and really f-ed-up!

@Superdad PayPal stopped refunding transaction fees in March 2019. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear Shopify is going to budge on this. After I wade through all the BS, they admit that this is basically the industry trend for payment processors and they want their piece of the pie.

 

Shopify continues to claim that some customer banks will refund the transaction fees. But Shopify will not automatically refund them. They said that we have to call each customer and obtain the issuing bank's contact information. Then we have to contact the bank and request a refund of the transactions fees. Only then will Shopify refund those fees.

 

I told the customer rep that I would have to hire a whole new office of people to deal with that type of (ridiculous) work. This is what it is folks. Shopify saw that PayPal kept these fees and didn't suffer for it, so they are going for it as well. The problem is, there isn't very many good options to switch over to- and Shopify knows it.

 

It's a shame and a huge knock on Shopify's image of being the business that empowers small business. Not the case anymore.

Superdad
Tourist
7 0 28

@mgarland :  I just checked our account, and PayPal was refunding fees to us on customer refunds right up to October 10th, 2019. Then on October 11th we did a refund an no fee was returned to us--and it has been that way ever since.  Really sucks. Guess I did not realize how much money we have been loosing (about $20 per for our typical product).

dpd1
Explorer
63 0 41
You can at least avoid the fee on orders that haven’t gone out, by doing manual capture. The fee will not be taken if you cancel before it has been captured. But for actual returns where you’ve taken the money, there’s nothing that can be done really. What I love are the people who are defending this and saying… 'Well, you just have to explain to customers and then take the fee from them’. Think the people saying that would be fine with somebody not returning all their money on a return or cancel? I just think it’s ridiculous that multi billion dollar banks and processors act like they just can’t possibly take the hit for this… but people just making a living should be able to. I’m lucky that I don’t have a lot of returns, but it’s the principle. Plus, just one thing after another with this stuff. They brag about how they don’t charge an extra fee on returns like some orgs do. But watch, that will be next. Then you also have to factor in the insane chargeback issues, where banks basically just help card holders steal stuff. On and on.

Sarah808
Tourist
3 0 2

I hadn't written before because I didn' t know about this change. I didn't receive a notification. I just happened to notice the change while dooing my bookkeeping.

I just did live chat with support and this is what she wrote:

Girlie T: 

So here's some information we'd like to share about this.

Girlie T: 

According to our team, Shopify Payments incurs costs to process refunds. As part of our terms of service, Shopify is actually not obliged to refund these fees.

Girlie T: 

You can learn more information about this in sections C.5 and D.6 of the Shopify Payments Terms of Service.

Girlie T: 

I understand that credit card fees were refunded by Shopify before, however, due to the rising payment network costs, Shopify Payments will no longer reimburse credit card fees on Shopify Payments transactions when a merchant issues a return to a buyer. This also aligns with our existing Shopify Payments Terms of Service.

Girlie T: 

We won’t charge you an additional fee to process the refund like many payment processors, though. 🙂

 

This is what I responded:

 

Sarah Richardson: 

As other people have mentioned on your community forum, this is a BS canned response. How disappointing! First of all, I didn't receive notification of this change. Second, this is wrong on so many levels even if your policy states it. In particular in this climate of uncertainty with the pandemic. We had to close down our martial arts school. It's been a full month already and will probably be many more before we can reopen. We rely on our online sale to keep income coming in. We had to cancel the seminar in Seattle because of the Pandemic. So now, this cost us over $65 in fees for a seminar we didn't get paid for.


The other order is the same: The customer placed an order for a luxury item. The manufacturer informs us they no longer make the item. We issue a refund to customer but still pay close to $20 to Shopify!


What a scam!


It is wrong. wrong. wrong. and management knows it. Making a quick buck will not serve the company in the long run. Look at how much airlines are suffering because they started nickel and diming their customers and simply forgot to do the decent thing.


I've always liked Shopify but if I have an opportunity to leave, I will.

I realize you don't make the rules, so please forward this to management. It used to be. We make money = Shopify makes money. Win-Win. I can't believe you are now offering a business model that is Lose-Win. Shopify makes money even when I don't. Whoa! Rant over.

So there you have it folks. Whenever I find something better I'll move my store. It's just not right timing right now. Yikes.

dpd1
Explorer
63 0 41
You’re wasting your time. Those people are drones, put there for the sole purpose of handing out meaningless robot responses. They don’t care. File a complaint with the FTC in regards to anti trust. All of the processors are doing this at about the same time. Knowing full well that people will be stuck with it then, and have nowhere else to go. And I’ve yet to see proof they are actually incurring these fees like they claim. In fact, the Visa and MC site documents state the opposite… That the interchange fees are in fact given back to processors on returns and cancels.
aj007
Excursionist
33 0 71

@dpd1 wrote:
...the Visa and MC site documents state the opposite… That the interchange fees are in fact given back to processors on returns and cancels.

Interesting. Could you please share some links to these docs?

_thanks!