Reporting Fraudulent Merchant--Sophie Ellington

[Nunyabiznes]

Hi,

I am attempting to report a fraudulent merchant operating through Shopify. The url is www.sophie-ellington.com, but the reverse DNS of the IP comes up as shops.myshopify.com -- in other words, this is a Shopify store. I ordered a piece of jewelry through them and received cheap plastic junk that did not match the image shown on the website (an image that I now realize was probably AI-generated). Their website promised "hassle-free returns," but when I contacted them to ask for a refund, I was told that return shipping and customs would cost €80-€120, and they could not guarantee that the package would arrive without getting lost. The people running Sophie Ellington are scammers, and Shopify should not be giving them a platform.

If this is not the correct place to post this, please let me know how I should go about reporting this merchant. I am happy to provide documentation supporting my claims. Thank you!  

[Laza_Binaery]

Hi @Nunyabiznes 

Welcome to the community but sorry to hear that there is another scam store out there.  There are more and more each day, and Shopify is easiest to set up.  First, you should report them to

https://www.shopify.com/legal/tools/report-an-issue/report-a-merchant

under Fraud. Shopify is usually quick to close a store after reports are confirmed.

And that store does have a few red flags. First, that domain is just a month old. So, a new store but they are claiming to have a closing sale. Closing sale is a good trick to lower the prices by 80% but still that sounds too good to be true.  But I checked one dragon ring for example: old price $149.99 and with 80% discount it is $29.99. And on AliExpress same ring is just $0.99 🙂  And you saw what quality you can get for a dollar.  Next, for me, it is important to check contact/business information. They have a proper email, but nothing more. In terms of service, which has "LAST UPDATED: 08/11/2024" so copied from somewhere, that is most likely a fake address and business name. And at their location, there are 2 jewelry stores but different names. So looks fake.

And that reply for the return cost to be  €80-€120 is just one more way to get free money.

You can try your bank and try to stop the transaction, but it is hard. So almost no chance to get a refund.

Stay safe.

[Nunyabiznes]

Thank you for your reply! I found the fraud reporting system late last night and submitted a report. It's good that you say Shopify is responsive to complaints of fraud, because what I saw frankly inspired zero confidence; I was only given a few lines to explain the problem, there was no way to attach files (only links, which wasn't really helpful), and the automated message I received indicates that there won't be any follow-up unless they want more information. It seems like there is no way for me to communicate directly with an actual human being who is empowered to do anything, and I am afraid that whatever automated system Shopify uses to screen these reports will simply route mine to the virtual trash. 

Regarding safety, I learned my lesson. I like to think that I am usually less foolish than this, but I will certainly be less foolish going forward. I blew past all the red flags and fell for the high pressure "only three left in stock!" tactic. Unfortunately for any legitimate merchants operating on Shopify, this experience has permanently turned me off the platform. I'm not going to bother playing detective trying to sort out the good actors from the bad actors. From now on, I'm just going to steer clear. Even if I am confident that a particular Shopify seller is a genuine online merchant acting in good faith, I don't want to support a service that enables scammers. Going forward, if I ever attempt to buy something online and see that the transaction is powered through Shopify, I will simply cancel the transaction and go elsewhere.