Really weird activity with Shopify-associated UPS account

[georgiak]

Hey all,

We have occasionally shipped via UPS through our Shopify store, canopyandunderstory.com, with most of our shipments sent via USPS.  This month, January 2023, we received a couple bills from UPS, both addressed to "Canopy and Understory, Shopify, [our billing address]".  Mind you, we have never received any paper bills before from UPS or Shopify associated with Canopy and Understory.  All our billing is taken care of on our Shopify store platform.  These are the first paper bills I have ever received associated with our Shopify store.

The bills listed several expensive shipping charges to states we don't often ship to.  The most recent of the two bills totals $335.99.  The scary thing is that our accountant could have just paid these charges, seeing that it's a legit UPS bill associated with our Shopify store.  I took a closer look at the shipments because I was surprised by how expensive the charges were and was confused about why we would receive a paper bill in the mail for shipments placed through Shopify.

As it turns out, these shipments are not ours.

I called UPS, who told me I would need to ask Shopify about these charges since the account was created on Canopy and Understory's behalf by Shopify.  When I tried using UPS's username recovery tool, which I did because I have never logged into UPS with our shop's details before, I found that our shop's email was associated with a UPS account, but UPS's username reminder service did not send username reminders to our email address.  I checked junk mail and tried submitting the form multiple times.  I suppose the account username reminders went to some other email address, perhaps one owned by Shopify?  I was not able to verify this bill or gain more information about the charges, but instead had to call their customer service to get information.

I have used Shopify for this and other businesses for the better part of a decade and have never had an experience quite this shady or frustrating.  Aside from sifting through our order history to look for these mystery shipments, then trying to log into UPS, then calling UPS, I have already been in a chat with a Shopify customer support person about this issue for 45 minutes and don't have any answers yet.  I am being passed on to the "Shipping Team" currently...I hope they have answers, because this is annoying and I have real work to do.  On top of that, I now need to review our recent Shopify bills to make sure all our shipping charges are legit.

Update: after over an hour on Shopify's support chat, I was told the Shopify's shipping team would look into this issue and write me an email: "I have received an update from the Shipping Team and been advised to Escalate to them and they will be in touch with you via email once they have reviewed the bills further".  Highly unsatisfying.  No apologies or anything yet after letting Shopify know these bills are for shipments we didn't make.  I'll post an update once I received the promised email.

[georgiak]

This issue has also been reported by @royalbloke, @KlippoAmy, @thelovelycrumb. and @ht_swam.

Here are two more posts relating to this issue by royalbloke and thelovelycrumb:

https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/ups-fraudulent-charge-by-shopify/m-p/1926597/thr...

https://community.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-and/fraud-through-ups/td-p/1921714

[ALLY100500]

I'm sorry you are having such a frustrating experience.

I just called UPS for the exact same issue. The rep I talked to said it was a typo on their end and he removed all the charges and assigned them to the correct account. I was only on the phone for 12 minutes. Maybe try calling UPS again? 

[georgiak]

That's great news!  I will try calling them back.

[georgiak]

Encouraged by your comment, I called UPS and was more insistent that UPS should cancel these invoices.  The representative I talked to said there's no way these invoices were caused by a flaw in their system, but instead insisted it was a problem with Shopify's system.  The rep finally canceled the charges to my account, but not before I told her I had checked every single shipment and the names, destinations, and tracking numbers were not in our order history.  I also told her that the weights and destinations of some of the shipments listed on the invoices were unusual for our store and that I would remember them because I ship the orders for my Shopify store personally. 

The rep finished the conversation by telling me I should get in touch with Shopify to resolve this issue, and I repeated that I had spent an hour chatting with Shopify support, I was waiting on further communication from Shopify support, and had connected with several other Shopify merchants with very similar experiences with strange UPS invoices.

[PRELUXE]

I've had this happen multiple times now. The last time i spent 3 hours with UPS sending me back and forth between departments. They said the closed that account and removed the charges. However, its now 3 months later and UPS is calling again about the same account and even higher charges, $757.19. It seems like no one at UPS knows how to handle it and it also seems like shopify isn't getting anywhere with ups either. None of the shipments even correlate with my sales on shopify 

[Cassandralynne2]

This just happened to me. I suspect someone at Shopify is committing fraud with our information. UPS credited the account but said they could not close the account because it was created by Shopify. Shopify also escalated my call. I have not heard anything in return. I have no record of any of the addresses used in the shipments.

[georgiak]

Hi @Cassandralynne2, welcome to the club.  Sorry this happened to you, too.

[georgiak]

I had two recent communications with Shopify since I last posted on this thread.

Friday, February 3rd: I shared an update about my most recent phone call with UPS, getting my four fraudulent invoices canceled, but being told by the UPS rep that this was a problem with Shopify's system.  Here's the correspondence I had with a Shopify Support Advisor after providing the update:

Me: Given that several other merchants have posted about this, I think Shopify needs to escalate this further to see how many merchants are affected and reach out to them to prevent them from paying these fraudulent invoices.

Me: I almost paid it myself, simply assuming some of our packages were heavier than calculated or something.

Support Advisor: But will definitely update the ticket and request an update as soon as possible since you mentioned that a lot of merchant are experiencing this, my guesses is that our shipping team is also working with this indeed,

Support Advisor: We are conducting mostly an incident report and if there's an update hopefully there is within 24 hours we will help out the merchant who are affected by this.

Sunday, February 6th: I got a message from a Shopify Shipping Support Specialist

Hello Georgia,

Jamie here with Shopify Shipping Support. I hope you've had a good weekend!

I've reached out to UPS to inquire about the charges you're seeing on these invoices. I don't have a specific timeline on when I'll hear back from them but as soon as I do I'll let you know.

If you have any other questions or concerns please don't hesitate to let me know. I remain available to help!

Best regards,

Jamie
Shopify Support Specialist - Shipping

[shopdulynoted]

This has been an issue for us over the past few weeks. Luckily UPS has been fairly easy to work with to get the charges removed. I'm in Virginia and all of the fraudulent charges were from California or Texas, and when I check the tracking information they were all dropped off to a UPS facility. So they were understanding that I couldn't have dropped off in another state. 

I called again today with another charge and the billing representative suggested that I ask for it to be escalated to an account manager and get my account number changed. However, with so many Shopify users experiencing this, I doubt it will help.  

[Shay · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone! Thank you for reaching out about this to share your experience with other merchants on this unknown UPS shipping charges. 

Our shipping support team is happy to further investigate any reports of this, and if you have not already we kindly ask that you reach out through our authenticated support channels to have this escalated. Please feel free to share this blurb with your live agent to help them escalate this: 

Hi, I was directed here from the Shopify community forums to report an issue with an unknown UPS bill that was mailed to me. The charges on the bill are not related to any of the orders on my store and I do not know where they came from. I was told this can be escalated to the shipping team for further investigation. Here is a link to the forum post: https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/ups-fraudulent-charge-by-shopify/td-p/1926597.

To access our live support, please follow this link: Shopify Help Center. Next, you will want to follow the on screen prompts to sign in, choose your topic and issue and at the bottom of the help articles provided will be all available live support options. 

I am going to mark this response as the "answer" so that other merchants experiencing this will know to contact our live support. The thread will still be open so feel free to continue sharing your feedback here as well. 

[georgiak]

Hi Shay, thanks for your message.  Your guidance, while helpful and appreciated, is not a solution.  We either received these incorrect invoices via fraud or a failure of Shopify's system.  We merchants deserve to know what happened, why it happened, and how Shopify plans to fix the problem.  I got fraudulent/incorrect charges reversed myself by talking to UPS.  The Shopify team has been slow to provide assistance and has given us insufficient information about this issue.

I look forward to hearing more from you.

Thanks,
Georgia

[PRELUXE]

This keeps happening over and over again. How can we fix this permanently?

[Rayshuggs]

Hello there pal, just checking here. Did you eventually receive some feedback or maybe even a calming conclusion to the issue? 

[georgiak]

Hi Rayshuggs, thanks for checking in.  I got the following response today from a shipping support specialist.  I also received a fifth UPS invoice in the mail today.  None of the Shopify support team have offered any answers about why these invoices are occurring.

Heidi S

7:02 am

Hi Georgia,

Heidi here from the Shipping Support team at Shopify. Thanks for getting back to us here - I am following up for Jamie today.

I want to thank you for your concern. I totally understand why this situation might cause some stress for you and your business.

I can confirm that your data and security is not affected in this process, and has not been compromised. Often, we find these invoices are billed in error to your account, which is why none of the tracking numbers are associated with your shipment history.

If you were to receive another invoice in error in the future, please know that we are happy to help with rectifying the invoice directly with UPS. As for the invoice that you initially chatted in about, UPS has confirmed this invoice has been cleared. You may disregard this bill.

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to let me know and I'll be happy to assist further.

All the best,

Heidi

Support Specialist | Shipping

[georgiak]

Updates!

2/10/2023

Me to Shopify Support:

Hi Heidi,

Thanks for your message. I have both questions and concerns.

"often, we find these invoices are billed in error to your account" - indeed, this does seem to be happening frequently, as evidenced by the multiple Shopify merchants this is happening to, which makes me think it is fraud or a systemic failure of Shopify's and/or UPS's invoicing system. If this problem happens "often", why would you not alert Shopify merchants about the problem to prevent them from paying invoices for shipments that are not theirs?

"we find these invoices are billed in error" - please provide details on how this happened and how your team plans to fix the problem.

This issue has been experienced by at least 9 other Shopify merchants in the past month:

[I listed all the Shopify Community URLs for posts about strange UPS charges I have found]

"UPS has confirmed this invoice has been cleared. You may disregard this bill" - correct. As I mentioned yesterday, I called UPS on February 3rd and convinced them to cancel this and all other invoices associated with my Shopify account.Thanks,
Georgia

Also 2/10/2023, I received a new UPS invoice for a late charge for the illegitimate shipments charged to my Shopify-associated UPS account.  I snapped photos and sent them to Shopify Support as well.  "Here's a new invoice from UPS."

2/13/2023

Shopify Support to me:

Hi Georgia,

Heidi here from the Shipping Support team at Shopify. I hope you had a great weekend.

I'm sorry to hear you've received another invoice here, it's totally not ideal.

I can confirm these charges are being added to your account on UPS' side, which we reached out to UPS to confirm the invoice was cleared for your peace of mind.

We are currently working with our UPS Business Partner to ensure these invoices don't occur further. As of now, I have reported your account to have been receiving unknown invoices, and you should stop receiving them after this latest one has been cleared (February 4th).

You may receive an additional invoice within the next week, as it's possible a new invoice has been generated before the charges were cleared from this invoice. If you happen to receive an additional invoice, please share it here.

We will let you know once the charges have been cleared from the February 4th invoice. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to let me know and I'll be happy to assist further.

All the best,

Heidi

Support Specialist | Shipping

Also 2/13/2023

Me to Shopify Support:

Thanks for checking on this.

I would also appreciate a response to the earlier message I sent, copied below.

[I copied my 2/10/2023 message]

Today, 2/14/2023

Shopify Support to me:

Heidi S
9:48 am
Hi Georgia,

Heidi here from the Shipping Support team at Shopify. Thank you for following up!

Regarding this issue happening with merchant UPS invoices, it is situational - Sometimes invoices are generated by UPS directly to merchants that are valid, and some are billed by error on UPS' side. I can confirm that each invoice needs to be reviewed, and if not recognized on your account, it can be cleared by UPS if brought to our team. Sometimes these types of invoices are the result of a billing error where your store’s UPS account was billed instead of Shopify’s master UPS account.

I understand you are looking for details on how this happened, although I am only able to confirm that this is an issue on UPS' side, and we are working diligently with our UPS business partner to ensure that it is resolved.

Although we don't have any more information at the moment, I would be happy to share any updates if received.

All the best,

Heidi

Support Specialist | Shipping

[Risolve1]

Hi Georgiak 

Thank you for this thread and information. I just found you because we have had an invoice sent with an unknown UPS account with our business and shopify's name on it. This shippers account starts with A2.  I am currently working with Shopify online customer service. Total amount outstanding on this account is $368.43 (6 charges from Dec 31 to Feb 4)  None of these are our shipments.

Besides being upsetting and a time suck to correct, I was trying to figure out why and how this might happen. Who benefits from this? Overcharging by UPS? 

[georgiak]

Hi Risolve1.  Did Shopify help you take care of those charges?  My understanding is that this was a defect in UPS's system.  UPS charged Shopify customers instead of charging Shopify's master account.  I don't see this as an intentional move by Shopify, but Shopify would benefit from having their customers pay for UPS charges if Shopify customers pay the UPS bills without catching the errors.