Your Shopify Payments account is on hold

[Glee93]

The day payouts were supposed to be dispersed I woke up to my Shopify dashboard saying your Shopify payments account is on hold we need a little more information to verify your account. Documents requested Photo ID - Front, Photo ID - Back, Government Photo ID 2 - Front, Government Photo ID 2 - Back, Proof of address, Proof of business association, Proof of Inventory, Shipping information, Social media links (related to your business). The icing on the cake was the closing remarks of “During this time your payouts will be temporarily paused — but not to worry, your Shopify account will continue to operate as normal and customers will still be able to purchase products from your store.“ which more or less translates to feel free to spend more money on ads, and get sales but we won’t give you a set date you will receive your funds. At which point I sent the documents expecting the problem to be resolved.

Day 2, message requesting proof of address, and proof of inventory.

At what point does a payment processor/web hosting service hold payments for lack of proof of inventory?

After providing, proof of address and notifying them I wouldn’t be providing invoices/proof of inventory. I expected the payment hold to be lifted.

Day 3, my proof of address is not accepted and a different proof of address is requested. After providing a new proof of address, and a proof of address that is the type they requested (a utility bill) surely the payment hold will be lifted.

Day 4, “Previous proof of address isn't passing verification and cannot be accepted.” They request another proof of address, end the message with “We note none of your orders have been shipped yet - when do you intent to ship? Please provide answer below - we can only lift the hold once orders are shipped and with valid tracking.”

Granted my orders have been packaged and tracking numbers sent to customers they have been sitting on pre-shipment, while I worked out the payment issue. I have not seen anyone else experience a payment hold for this reason, nor does it seem rational to ship orders while a Shopify is holding my money, and put myself at risk of losing products, money while they add stipulations at their free will.

My favorite part of this all is, I set up my account, spent money on apps to compliment my site, purchased a url from Shopify, ran ads to my store, made sales was notified my payout was on the way, and the morning that the payout was supposed to reach my account this “standard review was initiated”

[Code402]

Hey Glee,

Disclaimer: I'm not a Shopify employee, just another member of the ecosystem.

I understand it's frustrating to have a hold on your account. If I was in your place, I'd no doubt feel the same way.

But if you put yourself in Shopify's shoes, you can see their concerns, I hope. They're a publicly traded company with a $56-billion market cap. They've been in business for 15 years. Customers know their brand and trust them. Part of the value of being a Shopify merchant is knowing that customers will trust you by association.

In exchange for them extending that trust to you, Shopify needs to protect that trust by vetting its merchants. It may be frustrating to have to ship orders without having yet received payment for them, but this is something that all merchants face -- there is a cost of operating a business that involves things like carrying a float for the cash register, buying and storing inventory before it sells, etc.

Hopefully, you can be comforted by knowing that while this vetting is frustrating now, ultimately it vetting protects you, too. Other, future Shopify merchants are also vetted to ensure that the Shopify brand (and thus, your brand) stays strong, meaning customers keep feeling safe to return and spend more money.

[Glee93]

I’ve run multiple Shopify stores, over the past 3-4 years, I can without hesitation say my experience with Shopify has progressively been getting worse.

To say customers know the brand and trust them is a far stretch, any branding indication of running a store on Shopify lowers conversion rates and results in customers asking for discount simply for the shopify brand being associated with drop-shipping regardless of if you’re dropshipping or not.

My problem comes from the vetting process being initiated, once Shopify and their apps have received $100+ in payments, as well as the time of the review. On top of that this would have been my first store being cash fellow positive during the trial period.
Put yourself in the shoes of the average consumer, most of which being small business owners or running a store as a side hustle for them losing that much time and resources is more than just a inconvenience.

As a company with a 56billion market cap, they should have the resources to be getting better not progressively getting worse.

[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.

[MetsJetsVA]

I am new to Shopify and after 3 weeks and while our account has a healthy balance they have put our payments account on hold.  They could have verified our account when opened or at any time over the last 3 weeks when balances were low.  They waited until balance is high and then put the account on hold.  We are right now in the midst of a difficult time given the state of our economic shutdown and every penny we can use toward supporting our employees is valuable. Shopify has taken a good chunk of this weeks payroll and they are using it for their own purposes while my employees will get laid off.  I called to discuss as well as provided them with all the supporting documents they asked for.  Best response I could get was that review would be completed within 72 hours.  We are a responsible company that manufacturers a brand of products for many years. We sell wholesale to every large platform on the web and to many brick and mortar retailers.  Shopify is out of line with what they have done.   We are all interested in stopping fraud but why wouldn't they verify when we set up. Why wait until the account has a significant amount of money to verify.  Sounds like what they are committing is fraudulent.  Terrible company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[FlashyDesignCo]

Same, just had same banner on my dash board no email or anything asking for any verifications.  Also my account has been fine for over 4 years never any problems.  Says due to a standard review to contact customer service.  I just seen that you can go in and manage how you take your payments maybe go through paypal only or amazon pay.

[fitnessloco]

Hi all! Well i have similar problem! Actually my case is different but i made my site just a few days ago. Just wanted to lunch my shop today but there is a message now that payments are on hold, so the best would be not to open it right? I have left just a few more products to change/add from local suppliers because till now i've imported all the products just from Oberlo. I've clearly wrote down the informations about shipping times in every place possible on the site so there are no surprise for anybody later. Everything is very clear visible, added Order tracking page and so on.. and my plan is to offer a good and transparent service even if it's Ali dropshipping as the most at the beginning while i will not change all the products step by step with national supplier products, as i'm in Europe/Spain..   I don't have any intention to "Get rich fast with fake store" just opposite, with optimized prices keep offering the products with clear message to all customers that shipping will be even up to one month and more but yes.. That was my top priority after opening the shop, to start to look for just a suppliers around Europe who can deliver more or less the same products just much more faster.. Could Shopify holded payouts because i have many oberlo items added? What can i do so they take of the hold or what about other payment providers in Spain could be as an alternativ? Thanks everyone in advance! 🙂

[AGHB123]

This happened to me on the 4th of April 2020.
We manufacture and retail our own line of personal care products.
I migrated from Magento to Shopify in 2016 then for the first time in 4 years of being with Shopify I receive this:

"Your payouts from Shopify Payments are on hold while we review your account. Contact Support for next steps on this standard review. This hold does not prevent your customers from checking out."

With a "Contact Support" button to the side.

My first thoughts were that they required further information as we've just moved offices twice.
...but my partner thinks that Shopify are and I quote "in trouble!"

Why would a multi-million dollar company put a hold on a small business account, not just mine, but others from around the world?

It would have made more sense to at least give shop owners some sort of warning before putting payments on hold.

Nevertheless, I contacted Shopify Support:

On Apr 04 10:26 EDT, wrote:

Hello
Why, especially at this unprecedented time, would Shopify do this to me?
What have I done?
Please let me know what you require from me?

Shopify replied with, what seemed to me to be a scripted email:

Ally Casela (Shopify)

Apr 4, 02:08 EDT

Hi there,

This is Ally from Shopify.

I truly appreciate you for taking the initiative to bring this concern to our attention and it would be my pleasure to provide you my utmost assistance. I understand the importance of this matter for you since it's your hard-earned money we're talking about so no worries because I'm on your side and I can be someone you can count on.

Please know that you haven't done anything wrong, Shopify-Customer. First up, I definitely understand where you're coming from and I know personally that it's an urgent matter for you to know what's happening with your account and when will your payouts be released to you so I'll make sure to address things properly.

The main reason why your Shopify Payments Gateway is on hold is because of the general underwriting or review that our Business Operations Team performs to make sure that you won't encounter unwanted issues in the future using the payment gateway.

Normally hold is released within 24 to 72 hours but if it gets passed that it means that our Business Ops will require additional documents and they will be sending you an email requesting for you to send it to them. No worries though, as soon as they're done reviewing your account, it will automatically return to its normal state!

The sole thing that this hold does is to prevent you from receiving your payouts until our Business Operations team is done with the review process.

As for your customers, they will still be able to complete their orders and you will still be able to fulfill them so no need to worry! You still can process orders and do your workloads as usual! 🙂

Other than that, if you have further questions, please feel free to reply back to this thread and I'll be sure to lend you a helping hand, Shopify-Customer.

Cheers,
Ally | Shopify Guru

To add salt to the ever opening wound just 7 days prior Shopify sent an email where the first paragraph states:

"We're all doing our part to curtail the impact of COVID-19. Teams across Shopify are immediately rolling out resources to help small businesses during these difficult times."

What is going on at Shopify?
Why are they hurting small businesses like this at a time when small businesses need the most help?
I'm getting orders and have to pay to ship them but Shopify are withholding payment?
Can anyone at Shopify give me a genuine answer and not what reads like a scripted reply, please?

I'm in the process of moving my logistics to a fulfilment centre as of today this process will take about 12-14 days to complete.
I've just read this on Reddit about how this Shopify hold almost financially ruined this small busin...
This has made me re-think.. should I continue with Shopify or should I look elsewhere? 
I planned to open more Shopify shops to cover wholesale but after this I must ask myself, is Shopify the best for my business?,
Previously, absolutely, but after this... I'm not so sure..

[ban60k]

They do not care. Same happened to me 04/02. I submitted all my legal business documents and IDs, it's more than 96 hours still not heard from anyone. Now i'm stuck in a puddle with no access to funds, can't pay supplier to fulfill, this leaves a trail of unhappy customers, next is chargebacks and disputes then Shopify will step in to shut you down - a problem they caused. Scummy move!

[FlashyDesignCo]

Maybe refund customers and let them know the situation send invoice via PayPal. If they will even refund during the hold idk. But I’m yet to get a logical response from Shopify. I do not drop ship but I do have the drop ship app installed in the apps section of my store from checking out what was offered. So possible they are holding payment for any account that could be drop shipping due to borders being closed and etc... I deactivated Shopify payment service only using PayPal express option right now.

[AGHB123]

Thanks for your reply @FlashyDesignCo 
Questions:
How are sales with just using PayPal?
Did you ever use Shopify Payments?
If so, did this ever happen to you?

I want our customers to receive their orders.
Offering a refund is not an option for my business as it would be an additional cost in the end.
I did think about disabling Shopify Payments from my settings but Shopify charge a 1% fee for *not* using Shopify Payments.

We manufacture, label, pick & pack all of our orders.
Our business is not a drop ship so I don't know why Shopify are doing this.

I have to decide whether to continue using Shopify, switch to BigCommerce or just disable Shopify Payments.. I just don't know at the moment!

I did receive an email from Shopify this morning which just left a bad taste... 

Hi,

I'm John, a Shopify Guru, and I will be assisting you today. How are you? I hope you're doing great. Thank you so much for reaching out to us today, we truly appreciate it.

I know that it's very important for you to have your issue regarding Shopify Payments on hold be resolved as soon as possible. Let me help on figuring this one out.

I see that Ally answered your ticket have done a follow up to speed up the process of the review. I understand that it has been more than 72 hours now but we've been working very hard on getting all accounts reviewed and answered. Kindly extend your patience as we work on this. If you have any follow up questions and inquiries, please reply directly to that email.

When the Shopify Payments account is on hold, it's only the payouts that are on hold. Your store can still receive and handle orders, it's just the transfer of funds to your bank account that is on hold. Once the review is complete, we will be able to complete the necessary steps to get everything fixed up for you.

I want to let you know as well that, this is only a standard account review, and all accounts are subject to at various stages during their lifetime using the service.

I assure you a specialists from our Business operations team will reach out to you soon. I've also changed the priority of your ticket to Urgent to be reviewed asap. Your patience and understanding would be immensely appreciated.

I hope that all of this information helps and that you are taking good care of yourself and your loved ones. As mentioned earlier this is a very tough situation, but we are going to get through it together. Shopify Gurus like myself are here to help as best as we can, so if there's anything else I can assist with, please do not hesitate to reply to this email. Your response will come straight back to me and I'll do my best to help out. 🙂

Sincerely,
John | Shopify Guru

to which I replied

Hello Janrey/John
Thank you for your email below.
Yes, we are in trying times especially when Shopify Payments are being held.
This is causing me additional stress as I need to pay my suppliers and employees, let alone myself.

My concern is that this may happen again which is something my business can not sustain.
In the interim, I have reduced all 100+ products, that we manufacture by hand, to have an inventory count of '0' until Shopify Payments have been restored.
I'm doing this as a damage limitation exercise.

Financially, I can not justify:

• receiving and handling orders from customers, that:
• my company must ship, and;
• for Shopify to continue withholding payment, whilst; 
• Shopify earns interest on "payouts" that are being held.

We're currently in the process of:

• outsourcing our logistics to an external fulfilment service, as of this week.
• moving our wholesale payment processes (which accounts for 80% of our business) from manual invoicing to Shopify Payments, but this will now be under review.

As a small business owner I will have to see what action to take to mitigate this from occurring again.

You mentioned below:
"it's only the payouts that are on hold. Your store can still receive and handle orders, it's just the transfer of funds to your bank account that is on hold"
and
"this is only a standard account review and all accounts are subject to at various stages during their lifetime using the service." 

You are a Shopify employee, so if your salary were on hold and you were told by the Shopify Payroll department:
"Janrey/John, do carry on working as this is a standard Payroll review that all employees are subject to at various stages during their lifetime of employment," followed by "you're a priority and we'll get back to you asap".

You too would have to review your options, wouldn't you?

The mere fact that Shopify have other accounts on payment hold at a time where small businesses are struggling is less than ideal.
Whilst I await contact with your Business Operations team I will review my business' options and ensure that all my other small business colleagues, using or even thinking about using Shopify, are aware of my current situation.

Kind Regards

[Ashleyg]

Same issue. Payment account on hold. Shopify Capital emails me wanting me to pay more a month. Basically they put my account on hold until I came to a new agreement with them. Even though I had done nothing wrong. So I agree to new terms and my account is still on hold! I have emailed 3 times now asking when the hold will be taken off and no response. It’s been a week and we have no cash flow. I’m using whatever reserves we have to make and ship products.

[dfritzler]

We're in exactly the same boat. We don't have cash reserves and need the revenue from sales one week in order to purchase products to sell the next and pay bills the next. Shopify may effectively cause this small business to fail by restricting cash flow. Our business in no way fits any of the prohibited or high-risk criteria described anywhere in Shopify materials or small print of the contract. 

[Pazzlefrazz]

Hi there.

I found this thread after discovering the old red band of doom, "your shopify payments are on hold blah blah blah" and was reading the responses and was surprised to see this all is very current.  So thanks for everyone contributing.

Today is April 24 for me and it happened just moments ago.  I sent in a feedback request and will await Shopify's response.  My store is in good standing, as far as I know, and have been doing business for over 2 years. I use multiple channels like Amazon and Ebay and recently added Walmart Integration.  I was thinking maybe that was why I was flagged, but after seeing this thread I'm thinking it may be a more widespread "new initiative" that everyone gets caught in at some point.

I took some advice I found previously and decided to just turn off shopify payments until this is fixed.  A good portion of my sales come through paypal, and I've seen some questions about how being a 'paypal only' payment shop could affect you.  I think it has a lot to do with your customer culture. I am not worried in the least about suspending credit card payments for the time being.  I put a banner on the top of my store stating "Credit card payments are temporarily unavailable - Please use paypal, Amazon Pay, or Bitcoin for the time being."  Honestly, I just don't think my customers will care but your mileage may vary.

Anyway, let's hope this is just a routine thing and everyone is back to business as normal. Stay safe friends!

[Pazzlefrazz]

Wanted to give a quick update.

I reached out to shopify via their support, since the alarm dialogue clearly states "Contact support for next steps on this standard review."

So I contacted them, was told there will be longer wait times than usual, because gee, we're in the middle of a pandemic, surprise!  Within 48 hours I had a worthless response from a Shopify associate, no offense to the individual.  This is most of the correspondance:

"Before we go further, I just want to let you know that the reason why your payouts are on hold is for us to review your account-- and that is being done in all Shopify stores as completing this review strengthens your account's security by us knowing that you're the rightful owner for your hard-earned payouts.

This being said, I reached out to our Business Operations team and they have confirmed that they they will be reaching out to you within 24 to 72 business hours if there should be any information they will be needing for this review.

Rest assured that this hold will not keep your buyers from checking out and that your payouts are securely held until the review is done 🙂

Please keep an eye out on their email!"

Now I'm pissed. What ever in this company's right mind made them think doing this account review for "ALL STORES" during a pandemic when everyone is stretched as far as can be would be a wise course of action? They're withholding actual payments from probably 10's of 1000's of stores at this point, and it appears they will be over the course of the rest of the year.  Yep, no more Shopify Payments for me. I'm jumping ship to process my payments via alternatives and I'd suggest everyone else at least looks to see what competitors are out there. I can't wait to have this review and make sure I tell them to GF by the end of it.
Yeah great, my customers can still give you money, but I can't touch it.  Great business model and really weakens my faith in this platform.

[Myzzkim]

I've been impacted today too. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves!!! I've had my store for over a year and now they randomly want to do a review. They just offered me a 2nd working loan before this too. It makes NO sense.

[sharonbrit]

What is happening to shopify ! customer service are so bad. Now no one can ship in their interface using UPS, its been five days with no help, they don't care. Clearly holding payments and now UPS on hold, maybe time to bail look at bigcommerce if they are not paying bills.

[wearhouse]

Me too guys.  They are holding my $500 for 90 days.  Bullshit is right.

This needs to be addressed by law enforcement.  Shopify is headquartered in Canada and reported $1.3 BILLION in revenue for 2019.

Our small businesses are being held hostage by this company.  Any lawyers out there??

[captainhaze]

Stripe (Shopify Payments is powered by Stripe) did the same thing to me. It's holding a lot of my money for 120 days. Shopify support as well as Stripe's support is absolutely worthless at the moment.. 

[drey00]

Let's all communicate and file a complaint against this Holds. This is very unacceptable 
We are even a registered LLC but this company don't give a damn they are just holding those funds so that they can make money to it . 
$1500 Hold for 120 days . Shopify sucks