Shopify is holding my $12,661.24 for no reason!

[AHarlem]

Hi Shopify,

I have a very serious and important message to share with shopify payments.

3 days ago i received two orders from which both are $6,500, So in total $13,000. Everything went fine, the transactions were both successful, in fact my pay out was scheduled for August 19th 2019. 

Now all of a sudden i received a message from shopify payments asking me to provide additional information while my account payouts remains on hold. I then immediately sent out all the information that was asked from me, including government documentation. 

This Morning, August 20th 2019 i wake up to a very absurd message from shopify payments informing me that i can no longer use the shopify payment service and that my available balance of $12,661.24 will be held for 120 days in case there are any charge backs.  Now, i know for a fact that i have done nothing wrong, there are zero fraudulent activities going on and there are no charge backs at all. In this case i'm completely innocent and my income is being held against my will and power.

I'm not scaring or making any threats against shopify payments but i am well connected with some of the most powerful and well known state attorneys as well as other people in high positions. I have solved many problems this way whether it was online or not and i promise that this might hurt shopify payments and stripe as a company and as a whole.

Now, i don't want to bring it that far to include my states attorneys yet so in stead of doing that i'm kindly asking shopify payments to pay me my non-fraudulent available balance. I don't want to use shopify payment anymore as i'm not interested at all, but all i'm asking is to get paid my hard earned money. 

I know for a fact that every merchant account and business in general has their policies and terms of service and they have the right to hold on any account or payments if there is prove of suspicious or fraudulent activities going on. 

I also know for a fact that it is against the law to hold on to someone's money for 120 days or longer  if there is no prove of fraudulent activities, no prove of charge backs, no prove of breaking any laws while that person is completely powerless in that situation. In this case that person has the right to step to legal advise/assistance if the payments aren't being released. 

Like i said i don't want to use shopify service anymore and all i'm asking is to be paid my $12,661.24. I have done everything that was asked from me and i have already fulfilled the orders. If i don't get a proper response from shopify payments in regards of releasing my funds within 48 hours i will have to involve my state attorneys in this. 

Thank You.

[Jared407]

I’ve been in the same exact boat as you are in and it is a nightmare!! Not only has Shopify payments been doing this to their customers, but Stripe and PayPal as well. I’ve had well over $24,000 held before(PayPal) and about $4,000 on hold with stripe. I can without a doubt say I will never use PayPal/stripe/Shopify payments ever again in my entire life.

[shopif1sucks]

This just happened to me, they are holding on to money for 90 days. Ruining my business operations of course. In my opinion I'm sure there is grounds for lawsuits for this if someone would be willing to take the effort. They state that Stripe/Shopify Payments can put your account at risk at anytime, and that's fine. It's their business, HOWEVER; this should not include any money that is to be paid out; that means Shopify is affecting my business but if I can't afford to purchase my customer's products and ship it to them, that affects the customer's money and products. That is in my opinion ILLEGAL. This money is not Shopify's, it is either mine as a store or the customers. I was unable to refund this money to the customer EITHER. This is insane, they do this with thousands of stores and MILLIONS of $ that Shopify holds for 6 Months+ that means that can use and invest in their business, as I'm sure no one regulates this money to be held in a safe account and not be used. This means unless customers chargeback, this money is held/ "kidinapped" for 6 months by Shopify. 

Lastly, Shopify says you can use other payment providers who would take this risk: HOWEVER, Shopify collects fees for Stores using any other payment providers as well. So these FRAUDSTERS collect your annual/monthly store fee, tell you to use other providers (who collect their own fees as well) and collect fees ON TOP OF THAT, and collect your domain fees. Do not use these guys, no money you make is worth allowing them to make money off of you and control your Store like they own it.

PLUS They have the AUDACITY to tell you to sell your store when you try and close it, so they can make some sort of fee on that.

[bigboss]

What payment provider for your eCommerce did you end up switching to?

[bigboss]

What did you end up doing for your solution?

[lorry]

I’m in the same boat now there’s no one to talk to at Shopify all scripted responses was marked and upgraded as urgent I have to spend hours on the live chat to here that my money is now on hold until Dec 10th 4 months away no reason no fraud just that’s what Shopify does meanwhile my buisness is crippled and it’s making me ill thinking about it they are liars and thieves they have stolen my money there’s not a single person to talk to there’s no one to contact it’s the worst by far platform stay right away 

[twsbiinc]

We are in the same boat with payments being on hold for no reason at all. 

No one who picks up the phone can solve the problem; still waiting for someone from their "accounting team" to reply back to give a reason why payment is on hold. 

We are having legal look at this and starting the process to sue. 

[NorthernDlights]

This has just happened with me as well. I haven't even received an email from Shopify about anything. So I can't even provide them with documents, because I have no requests for anything.
 I wonder....if Shopify is holding large funds like this for up to 6 months, what do they do with the interest they are collecting on these funds?
 AHarlem, were y ou ever able to access your funds? I am curious to know, as I have seen many people make posts like yours, but they never come back to say what happened for them to get to their funds released.

[Jungelcell]

This just happened to me,  my store was determined to be at a higher risk for customer disputes after a payment was already made by a regular customer.  This was my first sale on Shopify since I have been building my business up to move away from Ebay.  So now they say I can't use the Shopify payment gateway and have I over 4k on hold for 120 days or I can refund and use a different gateway.. but Shopify was sure to take their fees first.  If they take their fees they should need to pay my payment out.  It's not right that they have access to my money but I don't.  Anyway,  I made a complaint to the BBB, I doubt it will do any good.  I also told Shopify that I would send them any documents that is needed to release my funds but no response.

New business always have risk and I thought Shopify was a place to start and supported new businesses but it's not.   I should have read some of the pros and cons of doing business with Shopify

Cons of Shopify Payments
Not available in every country: if you’re outside of the listed locations, tough luck.
Must comply with products T&Cs: that means no nudity, etc. And Shopify has been known to suddenly change their mind about certain stores with little notice.
Chargeback fees: according to Shopify, they get billed $15 every time a chargeback occurs. But guess who has to pay for it? Yup, it’s you.
Funds can be suddenly frozen: while they investigate chargeback errors or suspicious account activity. Many users complain about it on the Shopify forums.

[qbcdef]

Can you please help me. 
my money went to someone else. Different checking not my bank nog my account. $55000

[parrotCath]

So can anyone say what payment provider is safe to use..what about google pay..

[qbcdef]

careful! 

my payments went to 2 different account I didnt change or authorize. 

$55,000 gone

[qbcdef]

I need to speak with you !!!! thy took $55,000 of my money and paid someone else and they won't give it back. They told me I needed to hire a lawyer to get my money and they won't let me speak w anyone in management.

Please get in touch w me 

[qbcdef]

I am also missing $55,000. They paid someone else , a different bank account and they are saying that my checking account was switched, I never switched it !

[Kmatt]

They know there facing many lawsuits so there too scared to Write back.... 

[Tbender33]

 This message was just placed on my admin page about 30 minutes ago. I have been using the Shopify platform for multiple e-commerce stores for about 2.5 years now and have NEVER had to deal with this. The reason stated in the email was that the orders "weren't fulfilled fast enough." Keep in mind this store was created on April 1st, not only that but my supplier was with his family from Friday-Today. I have done what I was asked and fulfilled the orders in the order menu, AND I updated the tracking but that still wasn't sufficient enough for the Shopify Payments mafia. If I don't receive the payouts how do you expect me to keep my business afloat? I have been waiting for this payout for 7 days which was supposed to be over $21,300. Funding that is detrimental to my business. I am incredibly disappointed with the way this was handled, the lack of professionalism is unbelievable as well as the fact that my payout was blocked outside of your working hours! If this punitive abuse of power isn't resolved to my satisfaction by Monday, Morning April 12, 2021 I will be filing complaints with the following agencies:

The Florida Office of the Attorney General

http://www.myfloridalegal.com/pages.nsf/Main/E3EB45228E9229DD85257B05006E32EC

The Washington State Office of the Attorney General

https://www.atg.wa.gov/file-complaint

The California Office of the Attorney General

https://oag.ca.gov/consumers

[qbcdef]

I am still trying to get mine.
Email ndailey@insider.com
She wrote an article on business insider and shes looking for more people .

[cleanair]

They are holding $14k of my funds as we speak.  It sounds like a class action lawsuit would be the best way to deal with this now that I have read all of those affected by this unscrupulous company.

[EandGLLC]

I am having the exact same problem! To me this feels like sabotage. 

1st of all these are things Shopify should have required when we first started to create our stores NOT AFTER customers have paid for items leaving us stuck with the cost out of our pockets to pay for the customers orders in order to process their items to get them shipped out.

This is absolutely poor management and software setup. This only leads to unhappy customers because they paid for their items and do not receive them for a very long time if we can't afford pay out of our own pockets. I was under the impression that the best thing about e-commerce is that we don't have to purchase our inventory in order to sell items. We are basically suppose to be a middleman. A promoter if you will. We add products that other companies are selling and we get a commission based on how much we increase the price to. This was the reason I chose to go with e-com.

This whole issue is 100% avoidable too. 

The software should automatically pay the distributor when a customer pays for their items and the distributor should instantly be notified by Shopify so that they can quickly process the orders and get them shipped out asap. Then we should receive a payout at least once a month with our cut from every order processed through our website. NOT FORCE US TO PAY THE DISTRIBUTOR OUT OF OUR OWN POCKETS AND NOTIFY THE DISTRIBUTORS SO THEY CAN PROCESS THE ORDERS.

2nd the information that Shopify is requesting is non of their damn business. Accept proof that we are the owners. A phot of our drivers license or other photo ID and business papers to verify we own the store, such as proof of incorporation.

Where we live is non of their business but it's most likely on our drivers license/ID. 

Proof of inventory!? Why should we need to prove our inventory when it's been bought from our store? The bought items are proof we have them listed on our stores website. The distributors should be the ones responsible for proving they truly have these items not us. We just offer a way to get the products in front of buyers. We don't generally actually have them in out possession. We simply add them from the distributors website on Oberlo. 

Also the same goes for the tracking numbers!!! Why on earth do we need to create and add tracking numbers when we r not the ones who r shopping the items? That's is the responsibility of whomever is in charge of processing the shipments. 

Placing our customers money on hold so we can not process their orders and get them shipped is ludacris! All it does is make us look like we are a scummy scammer website that takes peoples money and doesn't send the customer their items. So who does that leave for the customers to go to the better business bureau to report as being a shady company? Us, the people who have spent s lot of time and in my case, quite a bit of money to create a store i was proud of. 

What happens when a bunch of angry people who paid money and didn't get what they bought complaining online to public scamm warning sites and posting legitimate complaints but pointed at the wrong people? We get less and less people buying from our stores and s bad reputation and we basically have to shut down our store and start over with some other e-com site if we dare to even risk signing up with another horrible company like Shopify who screws their customers, us business owners, out of our rightfully earned income and our customers out of their paid for items! Some of us may even have to deal with lawsuits from customers who got screwed and we get stuck with charge back fees of $25 or more from our bank when customers report their items as never received so our bank refunds them their money and charges ur a penalty for not doing business properly!!

I literally have anxiety over this bullsh*t. 

On top of all this they r horrible at responding to my emails and my customer support messages telling them all of this stuff. It's wrong! Oh and yeah, like this post states, we also get banned from using Shopify's payment system! As if we did something wrong and can't be trusted anymore to be allowed to use it!!! 

I think we all need to go in on a class action lawsuit here!!! Had anyone else out there experienced this crap as well? Please reply yes if u have so lawyers know who to contact when it's time to suit!!

Go on all your social media sites and post this story for everyone to read so we can warn others considering using Shopify for their own stores and customers who buy items and don't receive them or don't receive what they ordered.

[EandGLLC]

90 days for u!? They are holding mine for 140 days! That's almost 5 months!

Plus the account they claim they sent a payout to already is an account I can not find anywhere. I've looked up every single bank account and debit and credit card account I have and none of them end with the numbers shown in my payouts section of my Shopify admin area. I've asked them for that information and i emailed them using my business email address and stayed my name and phone number and they responded saying they need more information to verify I am the true owner!! Like what the f!

We all used our names and our tax id numbers and our business name and address etc when we first created the store!! Why do we have to give them anything more to prove we are who we are!!??

Total scam. Shopify is nothing less than scammers and they r preying on us innocent small business owners!