How can I block or blacklist certain customers from placing orders?

[BriBri]

I'm in the process of moving my online store to Shopify. After being in business online for 20+ years I have a list of blacklisted/banned customers. Mostly from fraud, chargebacks, jerks, etc that try to place orders every week.  How do I block their name, shipping/billing address, phone number, email etc. from placing orders? 

[JaviExpress]

We wrote a code solution that may be of help in some cases, it prevents registered customers (with email address) to log in. To read more here

[direct007]

I know this is a very old thread but we seem to have the mentally challenged visit our website during the month of December...Every year.  We have one customer in particular for December 2023 that just likes to place orders.  We offer check or money order as an option for legitimate business customers that prefer to mail in a physical check and this customer has placed 10 orders in a 2 day period using check or money order as the payment type with no intention of following through.  We have the Shopify fraud filter set up to automatically cancel but we are concerned about similar customers doing this with credit card card and then cancelling as we had two years ago.  We had to eat over $100 in credit card fees on that one customer alone. We have found an app called Blocky that can block a visitor by I.P., Country, VPN and Proxy and it also has a geolocation redirector if desired.  All of these functions are optional so you don't need to use any of them or you can pick individually.  

[MiniScenesGB]

Thanks for the info. I still wish there was a way of reporting like I do on other platforms though. EBay has a great mechanism for it, I've done so on there, hopefully others won't then feel the pain from that person on there at least

[Dustbunnymom]

We’ve had the same issue since last week. We believe it’s one customer that has been trying to buy gift cards in the amount of $101 or $10.15 in either Philippines or Australia currency.

there has to have been over 14 transactions within days, possibly more.

All have been flagged as “high” in Shopify’s own system with and lit red with all the reasons why these transactions should be considered fraudulent.

why wouldn’t Shopify then just deny the transaction? The system didn’t allow the fulfillment of the gift cards but captured the payment it flagged!

  We’ve been canceling and refunding for days now, 6 of them on Christmas…lol

if Shopify system savvy enough to flag and not fulfill and order it thinks is fraudulent why can’t it allow for the capture to not happen?

I can’t block a bouncy vpn customer that is using 15 different addresses random names lacking vowels (or one so generically western it’s hilarious)

these fees when Shopify is flagging it as fraud should be refundable 

[Chargeflow]

When moving your store to Shopify and wanting to block blacklisted customers, you can use Shopify's built-in features to flag or cancel orders from specific individuals based on criteria like name, address, phone number, or email. For a more automated approach, consider using Chargeflow. This app not only helps with chargeback disputes but can also assist in managing and preventing orders from fraudulent or problematic customers by leveraging its advanced filtering and identification capabilities. Get started with Chargeflow and enhance your store's security. (https://apps.shopify.com/chargeflow).

[thehauntedhive]

Where is Shopify 's built in feature to block customers based on email address, physical address, name, phone number, etc? Most of us in this thread have been searching for such a way that actually works for years now. A way to just make a blacklist, where they don't have to be registered users, that blocks them from being able to make a purchase in the first place

[Dirk]

Hey, @thehauntedhive 

Shopify's Fraud Filter app allows you to create custom filters to block or flag orders based on specific criteria such as email address, IP address, and more. It's also free to use! Feel free to check it out here. 

If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

[retrogameboyz]

Hi Dirk - this is not what we want - (Fraud Filter does not allow you to BLOCK anyone) we want to BLOCK access to the "jerk" - we don't want them to access our site, add items to carts and checkout and THEN automatically CANCEL the order. THIS IS NOT BLOCKING THE "JERK".  We want whitelisting IPs or somehow to block certain countries - it is OUR STORE and we should have FULL CONTROL on WHO we want to sell to. 

[Emily]

Hi, @retrogameboyz.

Thank you for your reply. The Fraud Filter app should allow you to block certain IP addresses. If that is not working for you, you can check out our app store, that has a ton of different apps that allow you to do this.

[retrogameboyz]

With all due respect people are having a hard time understanding the difference between blocking somebody and setting up a rule that automatically sends a warning or cancels an order that is not blocking somebody that is still allowing them to access your site browser site and place an order. What we are asking for as customers who pay for your service is a app Where we can identify a whitelist or a blacklist of many different parameters to just prevent access to the site. It’s not that difficult to understand

[7RockMarketing]

Hi everyone. I'm adding my input here, since a client asked about this literally yesterday. I hope it helps you.

DL;DR: No, there is no solid and reliable way that I know of to block a person from placing an order just by blocking their customer properties in Shopify. 

Long answer:

Think about the scenarios you're trying to control in this day and age. 

Block someone by their email, name, phone, address or even country IP (which is dumb). They will be able to create a new account regardless. You can protect your business by making sure you're covered for the product in terms of fraud insurance etc, but you still lose out on the processing fee. It's just a cost of doing business...write that off at the end of the year from your business taxes.

Perhaps in the future with NFTs and blockchain technology, we can do better to prevent a sale from even happening. But for now, accept it and stop stressing over this. There's no solid, cost-effective way to do this at this time and I don't think Shopify or any other e-commerce platform can successfully prevent these types of sales 100% of the time and save the merchant their CC processing fees as well. There's too many moving parts to control.

[Mr-Fragrance]

If you set your store to accept manual payments you don't lose out on the processing fee.

[7RockMarketing]

Sure, this can work for low-sales volume stores. You're also adding one more step in your order processing workflow so consider the time spent doing this. For merchants doing dozens or 100+ orders a day, I don't think this is a viable solution. 

[Mr-Fragrance]

Each store is different. I can only speak for myself, I sell items that range between £45 to £600, the items are desirable. For me accepting manual payments work. Other stores may have a different model. If anyone is concerned about fraud, trial manual payment acceptance, that's all I'm saying.

[McSpin]

This is actually a very good solution. I have to wonder why someone from shopify hasn't mentioned that in this thread.  I have to view all orders anyway, and a couple clicks to capture the payment is no big deal.  I could even assign this task to the person who prints the packing slips and checks the fraud analysis before shipping. 

[Mr-Fragrance]

Hi,

Every store has to veiw the order before dispatching, so you are correct, a couple of clicks more ain't a big deal.

I had a incident yesterday, someone purchased an item for £140. It has signs of fraud, different shipping and billing address (that don't always mean fraud). Also, the buyers name is different to what is on the card. This person had two failed credit card attempts, third time order was submitted. I reached out to the customer, requesting a statement for the card he used. In the meantime, I thought I will just cancel the order and repost the item (only one in stock). This person again then placed another order for the same item. Once again two failed card attempts, third time order was placed. I decided to call him, he did answer his phone, I told him we won't release the order until he provides the statement for the card he used. I wanted to block this person, that's how I found this thread. It's a shame, Shopify don't have a block feature built in. It looks like only a third party app enables you to do it.

The plus point with manual payment acceptance, on both of these fraud orders, I have not incurred the credit card fees charges.

I hope this will help you and others.

[apps-developer]

maybe using some IP blocking app would help. Kedra Shield has this IP blocking, VPN/proxy/bot blocking features, with the ability to view blocked IPs. https://apps.shopify.com/kedra-shield-website-security