Why is Shopify holding my payout for more than 90 days?

bloomylush
Tourist
6 0 3

I am expecting to receive my payouts today. However, Shopify is holding the sales I got from my operations for 90 days. In fact, the next payout even exceeds the 90 days imposed to me as the date indicates November 17 and today is only July 22.  Who conducts business like that? Ship out your order to customers and only to receive the payments 120 days after? Parcels right now considering the pandemic delay can even be delivered in less than 20 days! I checked their Policy and Terms of Agreement and it is nowhere indicated that they can issue this specific action wherein they will hold the money of my customers at this very extent. I believe you cannot just conduct decisions and inform your customers through email. In this case, Shopify is just implementing rules right out of the box just because they had a very general policy that can result to anything they wish to be. Everything must be aligned to the policy and the terms and agreements that we signed up for. Meaning, the money hasn't been delivered to me at any point while they hold my customer's money for 120 days and expect me to conduct my business without generating any income or sales for the next 4 months just because they decided to do so. This situation is very odd for me. Shopify expects me to conduct a business with my customers while they hold the sales/income for 120 days, free! Clearly, there is something wrong about how they handle the money of their customers and especially of my customers where in they don’t have any reason to be holding their payments for that long. So, right now they posses the money without even my customers being aware of it and expects me to do business as usual. Again, these restrictions aren't even clear and not even mentioned in their policy. The company said the funds will be sent back to me on the said payout date only if there is no chargebacks. This as well is very unclear to me. Does this mean that I'm not getting my sales if there's even a single cashback? I'll be shipping the products to my customers with the risk of not getting the payments for instance that there's a single cashback to occur. I am very much familiar with how Facebook Ads work since I have a previous experience working with it and I was able to implement it to my previous store which became a success. I even provided them the store link to check the ownership and activites conducted in the store to match my current store that they've restricted. I am frustrated because I spent all my investments on advertising knowing I was confident enough to make sales and right now I won't even be receiving it in a timely manner to sustain my business due to the restrictions of Shopify. This case is not only between me and Shopify, but alsto to the company and my customers as well since Shopify holds their money without even my customers’ knowledge and consent. Thinking that they have already fully paid for the product and expecting to receive the items soon. How can someone conduct Drop Shipping operations when your income/payout is only available after 120 days? Ridiculous and unjustifiable! Implement your restrictions beforehand and be very clear about it rather than taking advantage of our money after we have conducted business already plus investments have already been spent. 

Replies 5 (5)

slssims
Visitor
1 0 1

Yes! this happened to me as well. 

i uploaded all my documents. however, my business license was just renewed & hasn’t came in the mail yet. so i uploaded my old business license, don’t know if that’s why i was rejected to continue to use shopify payouts. however, do you guys know if i can resubmit my documents? i emailed them back asking but no response yet. This website is my only income at the money as i got laid off from my 9-5 job due to covid.. so now all my funds i had are on hold for 120 days??? how am i supposed to pay my bills, or even purchase & ship my merchandise to customers if there holding my money? i don’t understand. 

i really need to resubmit my documents but not sure how i can do that without speaking to customer service. Even thru customer service but get same day response. how do they not have a customer service number? emailing them is not time efficient for people like me who’s only income is their website and needs a response fast. someone please help. 

bloomylush
Tourist
6 0 3

That is absurd! 120 days is unreasonable in any way. They just freely hold our customers’ money for that very long period of time and the company wouldn’t even be accountable. We don’t even know what they are doing with the money. Investments? Who knows? No one seems to investigate these practices of theirs. They can just tell us anything they want because we have no access of it. We are screwed. This is robbery and Shopify can get away with it just as usual. 

Again, 120 days is very unreasonable and they can’t even justify how this can be sustainable for us, their customers. Try reporting Shopify to Better Business Bureau. I’m in the process of getting help from them without any assurance because Shopify insist on their practices but it’s worth the shot since it’s our money and what they are doing shouldn’t be tolerated anymore.

Jungelcell
Visitor
2 0 2

I'm dealing with this now and did make a report the BBB.  I encourage others to do the same even though an outcome has not been reached.

Shawn_F
New Member
4 0 0

I am having the same issue and the responses I got from Shopify were pretty horrible and politician answers. They do not care. I am transferring 2 of my online stores from Shopify to BigCommerce as well as a few others I run for people. I highly recommend leaving Shopify and going to another platform ASAP. They are holding OUR money! Do not even attempt to use a 3rd party payment gateway such as Swipe because Swipe will do the same thing (this is who Shopify uses). I suspect someone will eventually attempt to file a lawsuit against this but doubt it will ever go anywhere. 

If they do this to an already established business now, what makes you think it wont happen again? Shame on you Shopify! I will spread the word like wild fire about this issue. I already have talked multiple people into leaving Shopify and going WooCommerce or Big Commerce. Good luck on resolving your issue! 

WWH
Tourist
3 0 3

The only solution to this is we either come together and file a class action suit against them thats when they will stop this to be honest. I don't see this being stopped until a class action suit is brought to their door step.