All things Shopify and commerce
Been with Shopify for a while now and we were blessed with this message on our account last week:
"We need more information about one of your products to determine whether it’s eligible for Shopify Payments. An email with more details about this payout hold was sent to the account owner. This hold does not prevent your customers from checking out."
I have reached out to them over the past 5 days trying to get any feedback as to what they need since they have confirmed that in fact NO EMAIL has been sent. Regardless they have been holding our deposits from 5 days of sales now and the customer support team has no idea what to tell me except to keep on waiting but to continue to ship products to customers with no timeline on when these issues will be resolved is extremely stressful on me and the company.
My question is if anyone else has gone through this? How has the communication been and how long has it taken. I was told that if they don't reach out in three business days, the hold will remove itself but just add that to the list of lies since we are on day 5 with absolutely no communication even though I have a support ticket for each day of the saga. They keep saying they create tickets with the accounts team and the business operations team and they mark it as priority but here we still are
Hi, @Daniel337
This is definitely frustrating and I want to apologize that no one has taken the time to make sure this will be resolved.
Due to our strict authentication policy, I'm not able to access your specific account to assist you. However, I can provide a bit more information that can assist you when speaking to our support advisors.
First, it is not true that the hold will remove itself. The hold will remain until this is resolved. I'm not sure why an advisor told you that was the case. When reaching out to our live advisors, I recommend you request that the ticket be reviewed by our Merchant Advocacy team, as I don't want other merchants to be told that false information.
In regards to the information being sent to your Account Owner email; did our team confirm that it was not sent? Or, were you not able to locate it yourself? Make sure to check your spam folder, if it is not there, please demand it be resent, as this needs to be sent by a specific team, and without this email, the situation will not be resolved. They should be able to have our escalated team resend the mail while you are in the chat or phone call with the advisor. This way, you can ensure it is sent and received before hanging up the call. Once the email is received, you will need to work with our escalated team via the email thread to resolve the matter.
If you receive any pushback whatsoever from the next live advisor, please provide the advisor with a link to this forum. This should force the next advisor to take some ownership of the situation.
Best of luck, and please let me know if you run into any more issues.
This comment right here:
"Due to our strict authentication policy, I'm not able to access your specific account to assist you." has been the tagline of all Shopify support. The support agents are literally chatting with another department that spits out generic responses. The problem is that in the end no one is able to assist me.
I will welcome you not only to review all the interactions I've had every day but also share them and review them of how not to handle these situations. Let's break down the information your support staff has been providing which may lead to the frustration. Thursday 1/5/2023 I was told that this was "Routine" and that if I was not contacted within 24 to 72 hours that would indicate they didn't need me to clarify anything and the hold would come off. It didn't sit well with me that a company was withholding the funds as "Routine" so I requested a call back the second time. At that point I realized I was getting conflicting information which is why every interaction since then has been via chat so that I had chat transcripts for situations where I could be questioned about the information I received.
As towards this mysterious email, Thursday they informed me that they needed more time to compose the email since the accounts team was just so backed up. On Friday the representative informed me that the email had been sent and that the business operations team would resend it and also CC my personal gmail.com email to ensure I received it. On Saturday I reached out again to let them know I still haven't received anything but Saturday was pointless since all the business operations and account teams were not working. That leads up to today's chat since it has been 72 business hours (5 regular days) since this hold was placed and I found it unacceptable that the hold was still there with no information as to what is going on. Today they clarified the lack in email by I quote:
"If you haven't found the ticket ID provided Daniel it means no email has been sent yet because the banking partners are still on the review process. Once it is done it will be visible to your email because they will use that ticket ID to reach you. Please wait for their email using that ticket ID because all information you needed will be sent there and once you receive it you can respond to them directly on that thread."
My interpretation of that is that when they have some information they need me to clarify they will reach out. I have reached out every single day since the banner appeared on the website since it falsely stated that I was emailed and as any diligent business owner would do, we work to resolve these issues, especially issues that threaten the financial stability of a company. I just wish the vendors we trust (Shopify) would have better business ethics and understand that these "Routine" reviews with no information and expectations could have profound impacts on a business.
As to waiting to receive the email. If you look at our ticket history, you will see that I attempted that each and every day. The issue is that no one can seem to figure it out. Once again I invite you to review all the chats. There is at least 5 to 10 hours of my life on those chats going back and forth just trying to figure out what is going on. If Shopify truly does have a merchant advocacy team, I think they should look at what I've been put through these 5 days and see how unacceptable that is.
If there is anyone reading this post in the same situation. My recommendation is jump ship ASAP. Use a different third-party processor right away to minimize financial interruption to your company. Shopify will make everything sound routine and remind you that your processing is unaffected by the review. The only problem... you are still expected to ship products and continue to run your company with no support or funds from Shopify and no one can tell you how long this process will take. they tell you it should be cleared within 72 hours... up until it goes beyond 72 hours then you just get a bunch of promises of the issue being escalated or moved to priority. I've never seen a company allowed to freeze company's funds like this for a review in my life. We sell protein bars and shakes, have great customer base. They will freeze funds and treat you like you are selling illegal products.
Hi, @Daniel337
Your frustration with the way this has been handled is absolutely warranted.
It sounds like you have potentially reached out over social media. Is that correct? If so, I do want to reiterate that our public-facing teams do not have access to your account, as well as your tickets. I sincerely wish I had access to this information so I could step up to assist you. However, any public-facing team does not have access to this information for the safety of your account. That being said, our live advisors do have access. This is why I directed you to them, and requested you provide them with a link to my response here.
In regards to your hold, I was under the impression this was regarding a specific product. If it is instead a hold put on by our banking partners, then yes, this is routine. This is to ensure that each user of Shopify Payments identity is verified.
While I understand your trust in the live advisors has been breached, it is the best way to have this resolved. Please reach out again, preferably over the phone, to ensure the email needed is sent before the end of your interaction. Additionally, request this be reviewed by our Merchant Advocacy team. While I would love to have access to do this for you, as a forum moderator, my hands are tied.
Again, if you receive any push-back, please provide the advisor a link to my response here.
Thanks for this detailed outline and unfortunate situation you’ve experienced. I just got though this same exact issue last week with Shopify. By the grace of God didn’t have to endure this longer than 2-3 days and had my payout released today. I will be looking into another processor as this was very much an eye opener and I will not risk losing business because of these random acts done by Shopify. I understand they have to protect themselves but when you have customers like myself who’s been doing business with Shopify for over 7 years it leaves one feeling like they’re being punished or targeted. I don’t want to feel like that after have been loyal for as long as I have!
Learn how to expand your operations internationally with Shopify Academy’s learning path...
By Shopify Feb 4, 2025Hey Community, happy February! Looking back to January, we kicked off the year with 8....
By JasonH Feb 3, 2025Expand into selling wholesale with Shopify Academy’s learning path, B2B on Shopify: Lau...
By Shopify Jan 28, 2025