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.

[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

[eroomsplus]

I am in the same situation right now. I actually barley selling anything online. I have used Shopify payments to charge my customers in my physical shops. Which mean the customers presented their cards face to face. 
suddenly I received a message from Shopify that my account is on hold and it is something related to JCB bank requirements (JCB is a Japanese bank that offer credit cards to his customers) however, the parts use from customers used JCB card is only ¥4,000 (about $26) but Shopify is holding the total amount of my payments ¥255,000

The support is useless. They are using scripts. We have provided everything the requested, No one get back to me.

I can't trust the financial institutions anymore.  No wonder everyone moving to crypto. I instructed my shops to go back to accept only cash.

We may decide to use local merchants (we are in japan) which at least charge lower fees. 

[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 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. 

[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.

[jk2323]

Hello! Did you ever get your money? 

[jk2323]

Hello! Did you end up filing a lawsuit? Was the issue resolved?

[EandGLLC]

No. I still haven't been paid however the 120 days they said they will hold
my money for ends on June 5th. I did receive a response from Shopify saying
that i will be getting my payout on the 5th but that it might take 10 days
for my bank to process the payment.

[EandGLLC]

This is the email message they sent to me

Dodd (Shopify)

May 13, 2022, 11:55 EDT

Hi,

Dodd here from the Shopify Risk Operations Team.

Thanks for reaching out.

The remaining payout on the account is due to be sent on 2022-06-05 (22 days).

This reserve period was initially advised in the mail from my colleague Diego on Feb 11.

This decision is made inline with the Shopify Payments Terms of Service.

The funds will be sent to the bank account on file once the above reserve has elapsed.

Please note it may take up to 10 days for this to reflect on your end due to bank processing times.

Kind Regards,

Dodd

[qbcdef]

Was this money held for
No reason ?or they paid someone else

[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.... 

[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!  

[jk2323]

Hi!! Was this issue resolved??? 😮

[Nefetari]

This the one !!!

[bigboss]

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

[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.

[jk2323]

Hey!! Was this ever resolved?? Did you eventually get access to your funds?

[qbcdef]

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

[EandGLLC]

Shoot I bet that's what they did with mine too. I can not find any bank accounts that I have that end with the numbers Shopify had showing next to my payout history!! And they won't give me the full account number!

[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 

[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

[jk2323]

Hello! Did you end up filing the complaints? Was this issue resolved? 

[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 .

[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.

[jk2323]

Hello! Was this issue ever resolved? Did you get paid finally? 

[Streamlinebikes]

I also have had all of my incoming payments held after one “high risk” transaction in June - they were worried about someone potentially stealing another persons details to purchase the item and then a chargeback resulting from the person themselves saying they never placed the order. I verified the person - got them to send a photo I.D selfie to prove it was them making the purchase. Everything checked out, no problems and customer happy. Since that time every order (including those which weren’t relating to the “high risk” transaction) has been withheld. This has amounted to around £8500 being held by shopify. Not been able to reach anyone to resolve the problem. Of course this is a devastating cash flow problem for the business and it may struggle to survive at this point. I was offered £1200 shopify loan though! ... thanks 

[qbcdef]

Im sorry. They took $60000 from me. Very hard to deal w that

[kbikkannavar]

I know the feeling and sympathize with all here. I have been charged for months even when they 'flagged' me for high risk orders, etc and blocked my account and turned down saying they cannot support the business. It is a shame how they cannot support simple business and loot you when you are making money. They will take their share, charge you monthly and leave you hanging. The customer support took 2-3 months just to verify my own account despite providing all the info. Actions need to be taken against spotify for these nasty service.

[Nefetari]

Did you get your funds ? Or figure out what lawyers to use ? 

[Dcabrera]

Shopify Payments is literally trying to rob me of $12k+ of my OWN Money! So after my payments being held for 120 days and I managed to make this whole thing work while facing cashflow issues they are still holding a portion of my money. After the full term I contacted them to finally give me my money. So they sent half of it which was around $16k of funds, I found this odd because my total amount on hold was $29k and I contacted them again about the missing $12k that still shows on my account that is owed to me. Their reply is that they don't have that money they already sent me the full amount that was on hold and that the $12k in balance that they OWE me is a glitch on my end. These guys are literal crooks. I have been trying to get in contact with the payment department for a resolution to this and no one seems to be able to help. This is ridiculous and after reading all these replies it might just be the time to lawyer up.

[julz777]

Shopify regularly withholds payments from me also, this is the 3rd time they withholding funds for no apparent reason, last time it was a struggle to get $14 000 paid out to me which was eventually paid out after 7 days with NO REASON as to why this happened. No Im facing another battle with my account balance saying $6,448.24 and shopifies first response is everything looks up to date on their end. LOL Heads up you need to keep an eye on your balance owed to you.

[classicwatch]

Glad you got paid. Im at 3 weeks now and still nobody has reached out or asked for any info. 

[classicwatch]

I too am having my payments held. The numbers being held are enough to put me out of business. I have had no direct communication explanation or communication from Shopify. I can only communicate through a Chatbot who says it will be escalated. 2 days later the chat gets closed and nothing happens. I am going to have no recourse but to close my shop and seek legal redress. 8 years of business thrown away by Shopify without any explanation or relevant communication. I would love to think they will read this and decide to help but I know that they dont care.

[qbcdef]

I’m sorry to tell you but they will not

[batten10001]

This is happening to us. Will follow up with responses.