Where did my payment go after bank deposit on my new online store?

[Grade2Grad]

I just opened my shopify store. I had my first order on Sept. 19th and my second order yesterday. 

Both orders were paid via bank deposit. I didn't even know that was an option. I have not received any funds from either sale.

Shopify says they can't help me because the payment was made outside of shopify. Cjdropshipping can't help me because they said the payment happens on shopify and not with them.  My bank shows no records and nothing pending.

Where did the money go? Is this fraud?

[Kimi]

Hi, @Grade2Grad.

Bank Deposit is a manual payment method, so if a store has this option available on checkout then customers who select this method will need to pay for their order by manually sending you the funds via their bank account. 

Do you remember setting up an option for bank deposits at all on your store? To check, you can navigate to your Shopify admin > Settings > Payments > Scroll down to the Manual payment methods section. If you see the Bank Deposit option listed here, like on the image below, then this confirms that you or someone working on your store may have added this payment option when setting up your store's payment methods.

 

So if the customers have yet to pay for their orders, you'll need to contact them to arrange for payment to be made. Their respective order page should contain their contact details, which you can use to get in touch with them. If they'd like to make payment via bank transfer, you can simply provide them with your business' bank account number for them to send the funds to. If they prefer to use a card to pay for their order however, you can send them a draft order and invoice directly to their email, and they can use the link provided in their invoice to pay for their order by card on your store's checkout. Follow the instructions in this help guide if you'd like to create a draft order.

So to summarize and to reassure you, if a customer has chosen the Bank Deposit option on checkout, they would essentially only be placing an order on your store without payment. As Bank Deposit is a manual payment method, as explained in this help guide, customers will need to manually pay for their order outside of Shopify, as arranged and discussed by them and you as a seller.

If you'd like to turn off the Bank Deposit option on checkout for your store, you can click Manage as seen on the image above, then select Deactivate Bank Deposit. This would ensure that customers on your store are only paying by card on checkout, saving you from having to follow up with them for payment.

I see you also mentioned that you've just recently opened your Shopify store? How are things going, apart from this bank deposit situation? 

[Grade2Grad]

Thank you for the info. I think the person I hired is running a scam on me. I did not have that option chosen for back deposit but the order showed paid.

My staff person said I needed to go onto Cjdropshipping and pay for
the shipping before funds would be available in my account.

I think I've been taken advantage of.
My business is not going well as the only two sales ive had have turned out
like this.

[Kimi]

@Grade2Grad 

Ah okay, to confirm, the orders both don't have a Pending or Payment Pending status?

If that's the case, you can navigate to each respective Order page and scroll down to the Timeline section, which should look something like the image below.

From there, you should be able to see more information about the order, including if a Staff member on your store has previously and manually marked it as paid. If they have, you can confirm with them to make sure that the customer's payment for the order has been successfully received.

For more context, typically when an order with a manual payment method is received on a store, it will show up as Pending and with the option for you or a Staff member to either:

1. Send an invoice directly to the buyer so that they can pay for their order via a secure link, using their card.
2. Collect payment from the buyer by entering their card details directly in the Order page.
3. Or mark the payment as paid, if you've checked your bank account and can see that the buyer's payment has come through.

 

So if both orders on your end are showing up as Paid, I recommend that you double check the order's timeline, as I explained above, to see if a Staff member has manually collected the order's payment previously.

Because the orders would need to be paid for manually by the buyer, your funds showing up on your business' bank account wouldn't rely on your paying for the shipping costs directly on CJDropshipping. It would rely on the buyer in paying you the funds for their order directly into your bank account, or by using their card via a secure checkout link.

Can you let me know if the Staff member you hired is a Shopify Expert? Were they hired to build and help you work on your store in its initial stages? 

[Grade2Grad]

Yes they said they were a shopify expert and they have helped build my store. 

The order details do not show who marked the order as paid but I did not do that.  

 

[Grade2Grad]

This is the first order.  Looks much the same as the second.  You can see my staff member involved in this one. 

 

[Kimi]

@Grade2Grad 

Appreciate the confirmation.

For context, if you're using a dropshipping service, they will have their own configurations on how they'll ship the products to your customers once an order is placed on your store. So it may be that you'll need to pay for the products upfront to your dropshipping service before they can ship the products to your customers.

In saying this, and as previously explained, if a customer pays for an order manually outside of your Shopify store's checkout via a manual payment method, then you should double check that the payment has come through prior to fulfilling the order with your dropshipping service. It sounds rather odd that the Staff member seemed to have marked both orders as paid, without communicating this with you. Because of this, for your next step I recommend that you contact your Staff member to verify the following:

1. Have both of the customers successfully paid for their order?
2. If so, which bank account were the funds transferred to?

Once you're confident that both customers have paid for their order and the funds have shown up on your nominated bank account, you can proceed to fulfil their orders with your dropshipping service.

From here, if you're concerned about the Staff member's activities on your store, you can limit the permissions they have on your store by following the instructions here, or by removing their access to your store completely by deleting their account from your Staff list.

And if you suspect that the Shopify Expert you're working with has been acting against Shopify's Partner Program Agreement, then you can fill out the Report a Partner violation form here to report the Expert to our internal support team. Our team can investigate and follow up with the Expert in question on your behalf, but keep in mind that we won't be able to share any details about our investigation with you due to privacy reasons.

For further help on the matter, I also encourage you to reach out to our live support team once more so that they can take another look at your situation. Feel free to link them our conversation in the Community Forums here, so that they can catch themselves up on what we've covered and to help them better understand the situation.

[Grade2Grad]

Thank you again.  I'm using cj for products and they won't ship until shipping cost is paid.  In not paying that until i get payment for the order.  

The funds i believe went to another bank.  My feeling is my staff approved bank deposit,  put their info in and after payment changed it back and then notified me. 

I have removed that staff person but i still don't know how to refund and cancel the order as i don't have the funds to issue a refund. 

[Kimi]

@Grade2Grad 

That's understandable, it definitely makes sense to wait to ship the products until you figure out where the funds are.

If you believe the Staff member made changes to the bank account information within the Bank Deposit settings in your admin without your permission, you can contact our internal support team for help. We can attempt to locate your store's history internally to see if we can confirm if the staff member did, in fact, carry out those changes to your store's Bank Deposit information. Keep in mind, however, that our log retention for stores is approximately 14 days, so I recommend reaching out to our support team as soon as possible to ensure that the information we're looking to find is still stored within your store's history. You can contact our team by asking the chat box to contact support in our Help Center here, and follow the prompts given by the virtual chat assistant in order to connect with one of our internal team members.

Ultimately, however, you will still need to directly contact the Staff member as they sound like they would be the only one here that can verify for sure where the funds have been transferred to for those two orders. This will need to be dealt with them directly — even if you've submitted a report for a Partner violation, as I've previously explained, Shopify cannot guarantee a resolution to your specific situation, so you'll need to discuss any potential resolution for your orders' funds with the Staff member directly.