Network issues affecting some third-party payments

[Shopify]

Update 10/15/20; We’ve been monitoring this closely and haven’t seen any additional issues with payments after October 8th

Shopify is currently impacted by a network issue which has caused some orders placed through third-party payment providers to fail to appear in the Shopify admin, despite the payment processing successfully. In these cases, your buyer’s attempted purchase would have appeared to time out and they would not have received an order confirmation from Shopify. Refunds or captures performed for third-party payments may have returned an error in the Shopify admin, but processed successfully through the payment provider.

If you’ve been identified as potentially impacted by this issue, you’ll see a banner in the Orders page of your admin:

How do I know which payments are impacted?

We recommend reviewing payments you’ve received through third-party payment providers (e.g. PayPal, AmazonPay) on or after October 2 and cross-checking whether they have appeared in your Shopify admin, based on the customer information (email, customer name, etc.) It’s also possible that a buyer may have successfully placed an order through another payment method after their initial attempt timed out, resulting in duplicate payments. If you processed a large volume of orders through these providers and need assistance identifying impacted payments, please reach out to Shopify Support.

I’ve identified an impacted payment, what steps should I take?

Depending on your order volume and fulfillment system, there are a couple different ways you can choose to proceed:

Identify and refund the payments through the provider

If you’ve identified a payment that doesn’t have a corresponding order in your Shopify admin, or is a duplicate payment for an existing order, you can refund the payment that doesn’t have a corresponding order through the third-party payment provider. This may be the most efficient solution, especially if you process a larger volume of orders.

Check your abandoned checkouts

Payments which were successfully captured via the payment provider, but did not generate an order in your Shopify admin, may appear as an abandoned checkout. If you identify a third-party payment that does not have a corresponding order in Shopify, you can search the buyer’s name in your abandoned carts. If you locate an abandoned checkout which matches the customer information and sale price of the payment, you can recreate it as a draft order in your Shopify admin, mark it as paid, and proceed with your usual fulfilment process.

Contact the buyer and place a draft order on their behalf

If you are unable to locate a corresponding abandoned checkout for a payment, you may also choose to contact the buyer and confirm the products they intended to purchase. You can then create a draft order in your Shopify admin, mark it as paid, and proceed with your usual fulfilment process.

Refunding or capturing authorized payments

You may have experienced issues with capturing or refunding payments for orders placed using third-party payment providers. If you received an error in your Shopify admin, you can confirm the status of the order in the dashboard of the third-party payment provider. To reconcile the payment, you can manually mark the order as refunded or captured in your Shopify admin.

Our goal is to be as transparent as possible and get you the information you need, when you need it, to run your business. We’re making every effort to mitigate the impact of these network issues, and working with the affected payment providers to identify the best solutions possible. We haven’t yet found a successful way to connect these payments to Shopify without the need for manual review and order creation.

If you’ve been impacted by this issue and lost time or money as a result, we are sincerely sorry. If you need assistance with the recommended steps we’ve provided here, our 24/7 Support team is ready to help.

- Shopify