Experiencing unusual USPS label price adjustments?

[Darkruler]

Did anyone else encounter this yesterday? I can, on occasion get a couple a month for the odd cents or even a dollar. However, yesterday on the 4th, around 730PM I received over 30 adjustments.

Thing is when you look at the adjustment reason it states that the weight was not correct or the dimensions were not correct. Regarding the weight, it was always overweighed in my favor because I rounded up. For instance, a 6.5oz package I rounded up to 8oz since it honestly does not matter when you're within that 1-4oz, 5-8oz etc so I round up. Quite a few packages came back with the same total weight of (0.16)oz which is less than the weight of an empty box I use. This applied to a 12oz package and yet they STILL charged me an adjustment. That should have resulted in a credit even though the weight they corrected it to is obviously wrong

Then they stated the dimensions were off but only by fractions of an inch which still wouldn't change the postal price of said package. All packages were shipped through USPS first class mail which does not use dimensional weight. Even if they corrected it, the price of postage is still the same. 

An order going from one city in my state to another city in the same state about 40 miles away was adjusted as well. They stated the weight as (0.16)oz when the label said 4oz. The dimensions were listed as being off by fractions of an inch. They charged me $22.00 and thats on top of the original shipping of $4. That's $26 and nothing I have found explains this charge or any of the others like it.

So on all of these packages, every single one was at least a $20 adjustment fee they charged me with at least 25 of them all being the exact same adjustment amount of $22.00USD. That doesn't even make sense as the packages were going all over the United States with different weights and dimensions.

In all they charged $700 in adjustments yesterday and no one can explain why. Shopify tells me to contact the post office. The post office tells me I need to file claims. Because Shopify is the authorized postal merchant they have all the information and adjustment ID numbers I need to file claims. Even if I file the claims and win, the amount goes back to shopify's merchant shipping account. Who knows if it would then go back to me. 

I filed these adjustments on my own shipping account in the past when I had an endicia account. So I know how it works and it is shopify that must dispute it. Yet they throw their hands in the air.

Today when I contacted shopify again, they said that other sellers are experiencing this same issue. Called it a problem with the "order timeline." I have my doubts as he did not provide much detail and offered no timeframe on a refund or anything. I only have 60 days from the date of the adjustment to get my money back. I have read this same issue going back to at least 2020 with no resolution according to the threads I read on here. I asked for the adjustment ID numbers that I need and he ignored the question and didn't offer them. 

[retrogradeco]

Hey there, I have been scavenging information on the internet trying to find other people that are dealing with this. You are not alone. I was charged roughly $5000 in shipping adjustments last night, July 4th, around 7:30pm. I have been on chat with support both last night and today. So far, the only information I have learned is that they can confirm this will not affect future orders. Other than that, there is truly no information as to how this is happening, a timeline for when it will be fixed, or a timeline on when we will be returned our money. I also found 4-5 other people who are dealing with this via twitter. Some have lost a couple hundred dollars some have lost thousands since this began yesterday. Please reach out to me if you need to talk or discuss anything. 

[CommonTraffictm]

WOW, now when I go to purchase a USPS shipping label there are new terms and conditions I need to approve before I can purchase any labels. I wonder if this is an attempt to deny our refunds

[Garagelandlou]

Hi! Im seeing this happening to me on nearly every order that we have sent out for over a year now! We are being hit hard by these “unknown adjustments”. Did you ever hear back from Shopify? Did they ever make things right? Please let me know!

[Pripri]

I do not understand why any of you is using shopify shipping ? We tried once and thought they were unclear. We have a UPS and USPS account but use mostly UPS. We go approx with the scale, thye pick up and we are charged and price adjusted the same or following day. We get billed every week and the package has its adjustment in that same billing cycle. Ups does not ship to POBox though but better for us, need to see these people have a real adress.  All of you complain about troubles with Shopify but noone thinks of simply not using them ? You do not have the obligation. I knwo, we never did

[STG87]

This was a one time glitch affecting many people. Since then and before them 100% fine no issues. 

[fitbody]

Absolutely STILL happening and GETTING WORSE!

[fitbody]

Hundreds of dollars in adjustments. Not just pennies either!

[STG87]

hello,

The same thing has happened to me. 25 shipping label adjustments all for $22 that make 0 sense.

After a shopify support chat they say they will look into it further and email updates. I hope I can get this resolved, it has sent me into quite the financial emergency. 

[retrogradeco]

Hey @STG87 , I'm sorry to hear you are suffering from this too. I just can't wrap my head around how Shopify is comfortable allowing these charges to go through when they are aware they are invalid. My biggest fear right now is that I am going to wake up tomorrow and another round of adjustment charges will be there, slowly dwindling my business' checking account. Absolute madness! I am so disappointed in Shopify's lack of communication and transparency while navigating this issue. 

[Jewele]

Same thing happed to me $22.00 charges because the stated package weight was 0.5 lb and actual weight was 0.31 lb.

Tried to deal with this via chat and was told by Raziel that a copy of the chat would be sent to me but instead I received an email saying "We’ve identified that your shop may have received one or more unexpected USPS shipping label adjustments on July 4. Our technical team is reviewing this issue, and we will follow up with more information as it becomes available". 

I would like the email copy of the chat like I was told!

[STG87]

for me the chat was logged in my suport inbox at help.shopify.com

[Jewele]

Thank you and found the chat. Previously (2020) the chat logs were emailed to our store email address.

[starchaser888]

"we will follow up with more information as it becomes available". 

But in the meantime we will be charged for these. This is fraudulent charges and we have no way to get rid of them. My packages are all very small so if I have an adjustment it should only be a few cents not 20 something dollars for tons of them.

I shouldn't have any at all since I go up several ounces over the real weight to avoid them

[Tonton]

Hi, I expect to be refunded for these errors, we will pursue this further.

[starchaser888]

The sad thing is no post offices ever answer their phones and would claim they don't know anything about this. So calling them won't get us anywhere. If I'm not refunded for these scam charges I will be leaving shopify. It's shopify's responsibility to ensure we aren't scammed like this on their platform when buying shipping through them.

[Tonton]

The Bill is coming from shopify, they are responsible for their bills not
USPS.
They have to take care of it. I will contact them again tomorrow.

[retrogradeco]

From what I understand, even if you were able to file claims with USPS, the money would simply go back to Shopify's shipping fund as they are the actual purchasers of the label from USPS. Trying to fix this through USPS could potentially complicate an already delicate situation. However, it's not like Shopify has provided with any alternatives or even answers to basic questions. 

[retrogradeco]

Same for me! About 99% of my orders are under 5oz. It's absolutely awful how uncommunicative Shopify has been especially when loss of money is the issue. I have always admired Shopify for the way they run their business but this experience has really shaken up my trust in them. How are you supposed to feel confident in a company who has taken your money unexpectedly and said the absolute minimum after nearly 24 hours of no answers?

[rubyal]

And waiting for the refund.....I've been credited back but I dont' want a credit...I need that cash to run my business!

[blingzbyadi]

I find myself in the same boat. It's like USPS woke up on July 4th and decided this is the day to get all the small business owners. I will stick to using pirateship for now since it seems shopify is unable or unwilling to proffer a solution. I had one package i shipped from pirateship claim the same bogus claim of dimension being off and weight being off, but at least they only charged me $1.40 compared to shopify charging $22 per package!! These are 4-5 oz packages for crying out loud. I didnt even make $100 in profit on these packages that they want me to pay $100 approximately on.

[retrogradeco]

Sorry this is happening to you too! You should be able to find copies of your chats if you are logged into shopify and go to: https://help.shopify.com/en/messages

[Tonton]

Yes, I have the same issue and after discussing with support, I received an email that they are working on it. I did not get my refund yet.
Thank you

[retrogradeco]

I got the email as well. I have a feeling its going to be a while before any of us see our money again. Such a shame. I am struggling to imagine what so many business' are going through right now.

[starchaser888]

Same here and we are just supposed to let them bill us for these and then maybe we will get a credit. unbelievable!

[retrogradeco]

Absolutely not. We must demand that we get a refund. We have bills to pay! 

[Chondrite]

Same Problem.  Fortunately only one order for me...

I round up all my dimensions, all were fine every time I've sent this package out before. 

[blingzbyadi]

I had 5 of the similar ones as yours, the dimension was literally the same, difference just due to rounding up and the weight on mine said I

claimed 4 oz but USPS weighed it to be 3.86, if it wasn't painful because of my money involved, it would have been laughable.

[blackcat3]

This happened to me too! I have 19 of these bogus $22 or $21.67 charges, and over half of them are for packages that I've overstated the weight on. I was refused to be given an immediate refund, which is completely unacceptable since it's obviously some sort of horrible glitch. We need to spam their Twitter Support page, and that's exactly what I'm doing now on their most recent tweet. Their own chat support told me that there could be as many as 50,000 of these bogus charges to people - which is over a million dollars worth of outright theft! I understand that mistakes happen, but take responsibility for them and give people back their money immediately. I saw a comment here where someone had lost $5000 - charges like that can absolutely ruin a business's bank account and that is simply criminal. I couldn't believe I was being told no, that I wasn't going to get back the over $400 that they stole from me, and that I had to wait until it was reviewed by their technical team. No timeline given for a refund whatsoever. Are you kidding me?!

[rosuraie]

I’ve been having this issue too the last two days and I’m in the hole about $600 now with over 27 packages affected. When talking to support I just get a lot of “it’s a known issue that’s being worked on” but no estimate of when it will be solved, or when/if I will get refunded. 😭 I’m really surprised this hasn’t been resolved yet, this is a lot of money that merchants are losing from this weird glitch. It not getting immediately resolved is honestly making me lose trust in shopify tho.

[KateW]

This happened to me! I had 9 charges of $22 each on July 4, all for packages that I overstated the weight on. (Like I said it was 8oz and it was actually 7.04oz.) What the heck! I contacted Shopify support and they’re disputing the charges, but it sounds like there’s a bigger issue here. 

[periwinkleplush]

Yep! They got me too. I reached out for an update this morning and received no new information. We all need to keep on them about this

[Tonton]

Hi
Yes, we need to pursue until it is resolved, I bet there are a lot of other
Shopify customers that do not know about this error.

Thank you

[KateW]

I asked in some small shop owner group chats I'm in, and at least half a
dozen people have said they have these charges too. And these are small
groups with only 20-40 people. So a good percentage were impacted.

[starchaser888]

Chat person said they wouldn't take these charges (My billing cycle is due today) but they did. They should have froze these amounts while they investigate and fix this. Very unprofessional to treat your customers this way and not remove these charges asap! Why should I have to wait for a CREDIT to get my money back? uggh really going to look at other options.

[STG87]

My bank account was -400something this morning 😄 though the charges still say "pending" 

This is really messing up people's lives and businesses. Just crediting back shipping label money to a shopify account would still put people like myself in a financial hole. I hope that is not what happens. 

[blackcat3]

I'm so sorry that happened to you. We really have to make some noise to get them to address this fast. From what I can tell today, I haven't received any new charges, so hopefully this is over (for now), but we can't stop putting pressure on them to give us our money back. I consider myself lucky I only had 19 of these charges. Personally, I'm never going to buy another shipping label through them again. I'm going to use Pirate Ship exclusively now; their customer service is great.

[retrogradeco]

We have to make noise. I have been considering creating a group discord for everyone to share, in case we have to go worst case scenario, and file a class-action lawsuit. 

[blackcat3]

Yes, this! Whatever we have to do to protect ourselves. If they don't refund us or at least give us some sort of timeline for when we'll get our money back, we need to do something, and a class action is looking really good right now. There is no basis for these charges, they've said that themselves. If you take someone's money for no reason, then it's theft. So where's our money Shopify?? They need to pony up and give it back to us (plus whatever overdraft fees people have received as a result), or they'll have a way worse headache down the road. 

[KeepItSimpleIAM]

Happened to our store too over $1,280 in bogus fees and no word on when they'll be refunded. Next step for us is to let our business credit card company deal with them. You can't sit on people's money while you figure out your issues and offer ZERO transparency about when we'll get our money back.

[blackcat3]

Absolutely agreed. I'll give them a few days to explain and/or refund, then I'll dispute these charges on our business credit card as well. Hopefully that will work. 

[BSchultz]

Absolutely disgusted with Shopify over this mess. We deserve ANSWERS!!!!

[CommonTraffictm]

I’m sorry everybody’s dealing with this, but I am so glad to have found this thread and know I’m not alone. In my opinion, even the fact that so many of us have been affected is enough to know that Shopify must make this right. Absolutely ridiculous. 

[retrogradeco]

Welcome to the club! It's a sad and angry club but nonetheless a club. Sorry you're dealing with this as well! I'm glad this post has taken off because when this happened July 4th I could barely find anything on what was happening to others. 

[blingzbyadi]

I didn't even know this was a thing. I usually never check my billing but I know I just paid $200 (the threshold for my shipping labels) literally July 2nd, that's what made me go why am I being billed again when I haven't really mailed much since then except for the few packages on July 4th, only to find out adjustment charges of $22 each for 4 oz packages. Unbelievable!! They have to refund us our money back.

[retrogradeco]

I noticed that as well! I read the document and couldn't find anything fishy about it though. I'm wondering if they had to reset the shipping system and it defaulted to having everyone accept T&C's again. There terms of service hasn't been updated since September 23, 2022. 

https://www.shopify.com/legal/terms-shipping-us

[CommonTraffictm]

Good to know, I read this part and got skeptical. I guess worst case scenario though, even if something was changed, it wouldn’t apply to any issues that occurred before today. *shrug*

[retrogradeco]

Keyword there is "unauthorized use". I doubt that this will have any affect on our predicament because even if this was a glitch on USPS' end there is no valid reason for every adjustment to be $22. 

[blingzbyadi]

In all fairness, I had one that was only 98c but then 4 others were $22. Just trying to lighten the mood 😁

[Chondrite]

Here is the reply I got from support.  Apparently we need to have photos of all of the packages with weight and measurements.

I am sending this email as a follow up regarding your concern with the shipping label adjustment email you received.
As promised, I have check with one of our support team and as per what they have checked, when the shipping carrier determines that you've provided inaccurate information that results in an incorrect shipping label price, a shipping label price adjustment occurs. When these adjustment charges are incurred they appear on the order the label was purchased for and are charged to merchants through Shopify’s billing system. 
 
In this order, USPS was the one who was able to sort this one out and bill you on your Shopify account. Carriers have scanners that scan the shipment’s size and weight in transit. Carriers will often round off measurements to the nearest whole inch. For example, 1.00” to 1.49” will be considered 1”, and 1.50” to 1.99” will be considered 2”. This may be the reason why you are charge of the shipping label adjustment on the said order.
 
No, if you wanted us to proceed with the dispute, we will be needing a photo evidence, a proof showing the weight or sizes of your shipment. Once receive, we can refer the dispute over to our designated Business Operations team.
 
I appreciate your time and care in this.