How can I handle customer fraud on custom orders in the UK?

[Stanleyboy]

Hoping for some advice pls. A customer cancelled a custom order, non-refundable. I met them half way and issued a part refund. Customer then opened a chargeback for the full amount of the original order. I informed support the chargeback raised was too much, but was told the bank would hopefully notice.

Contacted support again after my response had been submitted as the chargeback was not reduced. Was told it would be escalated. I heard nothing.

Yesterday the customers bank issued the chargeback in the customers favour, on top of the already received part refund. They now have the refunded amount AND the original full amount.

I have received no support/feedback or even acknowledgement from Financial Support that they have even looked at this. Three times I have raised this, twice been told it has been escalated, still received no contact.

Is there an organisation I can contact as I believe this amounts to a fraudulent transaction? I’m in the UK. 
Many thanks for any advice. 

[Shay]

Hi @Stanleyboy 

Thank you for reaching out and sharing those details. I definitely understand your concern in this matter. While our community support is not able to review merchant accounts or tickets directly, I can flag a ticket for review and ensure that it is with the correct team. Can you please share your most recent ticket related to this incident?

Our escalated teams do have an average 2-7 business day turnaround time for responding to tickets, so if you haven't heard back from them within that time period that is to be expected. Most likely our payments team was unable to take any action on the refund originally provided to the customer until the chargeback was resolved by the bank. Now that the bank has made a decision in this matter our team should be able to take the next steps to reverse the initial refund provided to the customer. 

[Stanleyboy]

Hi, thanks for your reply. 

It’s been 2 weeks since I was told this had been escalated. 

I don’t want the original refund cancelled as this was raised in good faith on our part.

I want the chargeback adjusted to the correct amount.

Then an investigation into how a customer can claim a full charge back AFTER a part refund had been issued, how the full chargeback request was allowed to proceed and how the bank did not adjust the chargeback when it had clearly been pointed out to them a part refund had already been issued. The customer currently has   money falsely claimed from our Shopify Payments account. 

I have 3 tickets as none of my replies were acknowledged so I had to contact support on at least 3 occasions. The latest ticket is 36522011

[Shay]

These are all great questions, and I should be able to clarify most of them for you while you are waiting on a reply back from our Shopify Payments team.

How can a customer claim a full chargeback when the order has been partially refunded?

The policies around this are set by the banking institutes that review and process the chargeback. Depending on the type of chargeback opened, a bank may choose to provide a partial refund to either the merchant or the customer or the full amount.

It sounds like even though there was a partial refund provided the bank chose to reverse the initial payment entirely instead of partially. This is standard practice and generally the payment gateway (Shopify Payments in this case) will review and reverse the original partial refund that was provided. Please note that I cannot guarantee the outcome of the review by our escalated team.

How was the full chargeback request allowed to proceed?

The chargeback process is managed entirely by the customer's bank and Shopify has no direct involvement in it. If you are using Shopify Payments then Shopify's only role is to communicate the chargeback and provide you an avenue to submit your evidence to the bank for review. The results of that review do not include us in any way. These policies are standard practice and are set by the banking institutes themselves. 

If you haven't yet, I recommend reviewing our details about chargebacks and the type of chargeback claims here: Chargebacks and inquiries · Shopify Help Center.

I also recommend connecting with your own personal bank to find out more about how a bank handles disputes on the customer behalf. 

[Stanleyboy]

Thanks for reply Shay.

So are you confirming that although I issued a part refund on an order, Shopify has kept hold of this refund instead of processing it?

The refund was not returned to our account, we were deducted both the refund and the full value of the chargeback. 

[Stanleyboy]

I notice you also said there is no guarantee of this being successfully reviewed. Potentially the customer has claimed a full chargeback after a part refund has been issued and we have no guarantee it will be resolved.

I return to my original question. If anyone can advise of an external organisation that we can report a fraudulent transaction to it would be much appreciated. 

[Shay]

Since I work in our community support team and don't have direct access to merchant accounts or tickets I am not able to guarantee what our escalated team will decide in regards to this issue. I can say that generally a partial refund on an order with a chargeback decided in the customer's favor is usually returned to the merchant, I just can't guarantee that as it is a decision made by a team separate from my own. 

At this time the customer does have both the partial refund you provided as well as the refund provided to them by their bank. Your ticket has been escalated and I can confirm that our Shopify Payments team is handling a backlog of requests, so it is taking a bit longer than normal to follow up. I was also able to ensure that your ticket was escalated correctly and with the correct priority. The best thing to do now is to wait for your assigned advisor to follow up with you about your ticket. 

[Stanleyboy]

I have found the information I need. 

[computizer]

Hi,

What was the outcome? Did they return your refund? I have same situation, I don't know what to do

[Stanleyboy]

Sorry to say if we had to rate Shopify Support we would give it 1/10 at this stage. We received no apology, no assurance the money would be returned and they refused to acknowledge any accountability. It took a month to simply get a reply from their finance department let alone any kind of assistance. 

We have since paused are Shopify website as Shopify have confirmed customers are able to claim a chargeback on top of a refund if they raise is quickly enough after a refund has been raised and Shopify have no mechanism in place to prevent it happening. It’s an open goal if you seek to defraud businesses.