UPS Fraudulent Charge by Shopify

[royalbloke]

I received a bill from UPS dated 1/21/2023 with the name of my website and Shopify underneath and my address. I thought this peculiar since I ship UPS via Shopify. The 4 transactions were for "Missing PLD fee". None of the customer names match any of my sales transactions. I reviewed every single transaction for the shipping dates UPS alleged I used and no match. I called UPS and after a lengthy conversation UPS removed the charges. Unfortunately, the next day, I received an email from UPS Fraud saying they are suspending my account, all user names and ID's until their fraud team has thoroughly investigated the issue and I have proved proof the account is mine. It should take 8 weeks.

UPS said Shopify arbitrarily assigned the charges to my UPS account. This should not have happened and now with Spring orders arriving I only have USPS for shipping and they are 20% higher than UPS. I have repeatedly asked Shopify to contact UPS with the case # but haven't heard back. I guess they have cut back their staffs as well as other tech companies. Has anyone else had this experience?

[KlippoAmy]

I just experienced the exact same thing!  It started about 2 weeks ago, and I've received a total of 6 bills from UPS so far.  I don't know if I should contact Shopify first or UPS, who is responsible for these charges?  This is definitely fraud because none of those "ship to" addresses match our customer database. 

[georgiak]

I already contacted UPS and Shopify.  Here’s what happened: https://community.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-and/really-weird-activity-with-shopify-associated-...

[KlippoAmy]

I just found another community chat about the same issue and with answers:

https://community.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-and/fraud-through-ups/td-p/1921714

[georgiak]

Yes, same thing happened to me!  The first bill I received was dated in late December.  It sounds like this is a widespread issue.

here’s my story: https://community.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-and/really-weird-activity-with-shopify-associated-...

[ALLY100500]

We received an invoice for about $60 and then a late fee a month later. I honestly thought they were some new phishing by-mail scam. Called UPS today and they apologized, said it was a typo on the account number and reassigned the charges to the correct vendor. Maybe try UPS customer service until you get a helpful rep? I was off the phone in 12 minutes.

[royalbloke]

Thank you!

[Christy_C]

YES!!  I just had this happen to my account too.  I have contacted UPS and Shopify.  UPS was clueless and Shopify told me I needed to deal with UPS.  I just received another one of these annoying invoices from UPS today.  After contacting UPS they sent a report via email showing the recipient of the 2 packages and it is the same scum bag using 2 addresses in 2 different states. So I will call UPS again tomorrow to see if there is a resolution and I will report back.  

[georgiak]

I called UPS yesterday and was more insistent that UPS should cancel these invoices.  The representative I talked to said there's no way these invoices were caused by a flaw in their system, but instead insisted it was a problem with Shopify's system.  The rep finally canceled the charges to my Shopify-associated UPS account, but not before I told her I had checked every single shipment and the names, destinations, and tracking numbers were not in our order history.  I also told her that the weights and destinations of some of the shipments listed on the invoices were unusual for our store and that I would remember them because I ship the orders for my Shopify store personally. 

The rep finished the conversation by telling me I should get in touch with Shopify to resolve this issue, and I repeated that I had spent an hour chatting with Shopify support, I was waiting on further communication from Shopify support, and had connected with several other Shopify merchants with very similar experiences with strange UPS invoices.

[Christy_C]

I wanted to give an update on my post from the other day.  I called UPS again and told them that these were not transactions from my business and I told him that this was happening to multiple Shopify shops.  He said he understood and quickly took the charges off my account.  I didn't get an explanation of how this could happen but he told me to call again if I received any more invoices from UPS.  🙄

[Shay · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone! Thank you for reaching out about this to share your experience with other merchants on this unknown UPS shipping charges. 

Our shipping support team is happy to further investigate any reports of this, and if you have not already we kindly ask that you reach out through our authenticated support channels to have this escalated. Please feel free to share this blurb with your live agent to help them escalate this: 

Hi, I was directed here from the Shopify community forums to report an issue with an unknown UPS bill that was mailed to me. The charges on the bill are not related to any of the orders on my store and I do not know where they came from. I was told this can be escalated to the shipping team for further investigation. Here is a link to the forum post: https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/ups-fraudulent-charge-by-shopify/td-p/1926597.

To access our live support, please follow this link: Shopify Help Center. Next, you will want to follow the on screen prompts to sign in, choose your topic and issue and at the bottom of the help articles provided will be all available live support options. 

I am going to mark this response as the "answer" so that other merchants experiencing this will know to contact our live support. The thread will still be open so feel free to continue sharing your feedback here as well. 

[Sonrose]

Hi Shay, same thing happened to me as well and I don’t even have a store on shopify..I just opened an account to see what’s shopify was all about and I was on trial free version..I never used the account and it was inactive since then (more than 3 months) but today I have to sign back to my account because I got a letter from ups that I was billed for $196.64..it looks like something shipped from Mexico by using my account and they charged me for it..please help me to stop this fraudulent ups bill from Shopify..thank you in advance.

[Shay]

Hi @Sonrose 

Thank you for reaching out about this. If you haven't yet, please follow the steps in my earlier post to access our live support and report this. If you no longer have access to your merchant account used to create your store previously, you can choose to continue without an account when asked to login. 

I would also make sure to contact UPS directly as well to report this incorrect charge. 

[eBeeLuv]

OK - we have had our UPS account for 25 years - have not used Shopify shipping ever. Always ship using shipstation. We have also experienced this - had 2 different shipments shipped from Miami to a delivery address in FL in the past few months.

This is not a Shopify issue - I've spent a few hours speaking with various UPS depts. This is a problem with UPS - ours is a bit unique since the fraudsters are  using our delivery address as our shipment address (they are different within the UPS system).

The bogus shipments NEVER listed an actual person that the package was being shipped to and only a delivery address. Our UPS bill would show just the address being shipped to - with missing PDL issue as well. (fyi = Package Level Detail ).

I'm questioning how UPS is even delivering packages with zero name or business name and only shipment address?

UPS was trying to tell me the labels were pre-generated at an UPS facility. My best guess is it's an internal problem at UPS since the only way for someone to use our delivery address as our billing address would be for someone to have access to an UPS handheld device or they hacked the UPS system. Our delivery address is NEVER used as the bill to address. EVER!

We have the fraud team investigating and one UPS preferred rep. told me UPS is aware of the issue and trying to figure out what the issue is? I was also on them since our bogus shipments originated out of Miami - I'm thinking drugs, etc. Why on Earth would UPS EVER delivery a package to simply an address with no name or business name on it?

Still waiting to hear back from our UPS rep. as we asked for a new UPS account number after having this one for 25 years. So it is NOT a Shopify issue - some group has hacked into UPS or it's an internal crime spree at UPS - you take a guess! 

Where are all these packages that everyone is being charged for originating from? Where are they being shipped to? Also are the packages being charged to your UPS account also have no name and no business name and just the shipment address??? 

Everyone needs to call UPS and demand your money back - UPS knows about this issue! If you get some foreign person simply telling you some story - hang up and call back the preferred team until you get someone you can speak to - also call the billing dept. and your UPD rep. By now, all UPS employees should be aware of this UPS issue - if they are not - send them the link to this forum!