All Payouts in Pending Status for Months

[ymhc_foundation]

Hello Shopify Community,

We urgently need help resolving a critical issue with our Shopify account payouts. Here are the details:

• All payouts have been in pending status for several months since Feb 2024.
• No funds have been transferred to our bank account.
• Bank details are correct and verified.
• No alerts or notifications have been received about this issue.
• The lack of payouts is severely impacting our nonprofit and our ability to support the community.

I have been trying to reach a human using the customer support live chat. I have been waiting for an entire day to chat with a Support Advisor, but have only received automated responses indicating a typical wait time of ~5 minutes. No actual human support has been provided so far.

This prolonged delay in payouts is severely impacting our organization's financial stability. Additionally, the lack of communication from Shopify about this issue is frustrating and concerning.

We believe Shopify may be in violation of its Terms of Service, specifically regarding timely communication and transaction security. 

We reserve the right to take legal action if this matter is not resolved promptly.

We urgently need this issue escalated and resolved.

Any advice or assistance from the community or Shopify support is greatly appreciated.

[Joseph_Ahn1]

Since February? With no explanation? I'm really sorry to hear that, and it worries me because our company is facing the same problem. I've been selling with Shopify for 13 years, and they've been holding our payouts since last week. I have no idea what's going on, and I haven't received any emails about the issue. We haven't changed any information - we've had the same bank account since the beginning. The warning message says they need to verify some information regarding our account. I've opened two tickets and chatted with two different agents, but haven't received any response from their upper management yet. I hope this issue gets resolved soon, and please keep us updated if yours gets sorted out. Thank you.

[ymhc_foundation]

I'm truly sorry to hear that you're facing the same issue.

Since February, we haven't received any communication from Shopify regarding the fund hold or the reasons behind it—no emails, alerts, or notifications on the Shopify interface. There has been zero communication.

After spending 7 hours trying to reach a real person through the chat box, I finally got through to someone who told me the funds were held because 2FA was not enabled. Once I enabled 2FA, the payout dates started appearing.

Our team believes Shopify is intentionally hiding this requirement from customers to hold their funds for as long as possible without transparency. Customer support mentioned that their help center suggests 2FA is recommended and that not enabling it might hold payouts. However, it doesn't state that this is a mandatory requirement to release payouts.

This seems deliberate and potentially illegal. Our attorney will get involved if they continue to hold the payouts. When I asked customer support how and where our attorney can send a letter, they said they didn't have that information.

We are the largest national youth mental health online community and a registered charity in Canada, working on public awareness and community suicide prevention. I can't believe this is happening to us.

I will keep you updated on any progress we make.

[lizettequist]

Same

[Erin · Accepted solution]

Hi, @ymhc_foundation and @Joseph_Ahn1. Thanks for reaching out about this here! While we can't see details about your specific accounts here over the Shopify Community, we can share general information to help you out. That being said, it sounds like you are experiencing slightly different issues based on what you've both described.

@ymhc_foundation, in your situation it sounds like your payouts are in a pending state, but your payouts are not "on hold". In this case you will need to speak with our support team through the Help Center here. We can't see any details about this in the Shopify Community, but we can review this with you in more detail if you contact us through the Help Center. I've just tested it on my end and you shouldn't be having any trouble getting through to support. If you are, please let us know and we can help walk you through it.

@Joseph_Ahn1, in your situation it sounds like you were notified that your payouts are on hold and we need to verify your information. Shopify Payments account holds can happen for a number of reasons, including standard reviews. You can find more information in this guide on account holds. This is also outlined in the Shopify Payments Terms of Service. If anything is required on your end to resolve the hold you will be notified over email, like you mentioned. Going forward you'll need to submit the requested information and wait for the team working on your account to complete their review. They will get back to you as soon as they can.

[ymhc_foundation]

Hi Erin, 

Thank you for your message. Our payouts were indeed in a pending state due to the lack of two-step authentication (2FA), which we were not informed about through any direct communication. After enabling 2FA, the payout dates started to show up.

We have already contacted the support team through the Help Center, but the process took several hours to reach a human representative, and the response was not satisfactory in terms of resolving our concerns about the lack of communication and transparency. Despite the lengthy process, we were unable to receive any compensation or a clear explanation.

This situation raises serious concerns about Shopify's practices. The lack of transparency and proactive communication regarding the 2FA requirement appears to be an unethical and potentially illegal practice. It is crucial for Shopify to ensure more transparency and better communication with customers to avoid similar issues in the future.

We would appreciate if you could help escalate this issue to ensure that it receives the necessary attention.

[Victor]

Hi @ymhc_foundation,

Thank you for your reply and for your feedback. Do you have a ticket number than you can share with us here from when you contacted support? Have you received any email correspondence from Shopify regarding the payout hold?

[Joseph_Ahn1]

Ticket #: 47930205 (May 26), 48072091 (Last Friday)

Haven't received any follow up after I opened a ticket and left few messages.

I have not received any email from Shopify, and the last agent confirmed that nothing was sent to me from Shopify.

What do I do at this point? What is the issue, and why is Shopify keep ignoring me?

Please help ASAP, because it's creating a significant cash flow issue for my store.

[Ollie]

Hey @Joseph_Ahn1.

Thanks for the quick response and providing that context.

We do not have internal access to information from the Community forums due to the sensitive information that needs to be shared. With that being said, if you have been informed of an escalation and received a ticket number. I can assure you that the case is being escalated to the corresponding team that can assist you further. 

If you would like to receive an update on the situation, I would suggest speaking with our live support and providing the ticket numbers to allow the Support Advisor to take a further look. 

Additionally, you can respond to the most recent open email conversation and ask for an update on the situation. This will notify the team that is working on the case to provide you with an update.

Let us know if you have any questions.