Has anyone else had a similar experience with a new Shopify store?
I came over from Etsy where I have a little over 1,000 sales and decided it was time to build my own brand website. I signed up for Shopify and spent about 2 days setting everything up when my account was suddenly suspended for “suspicious activity.”
After about 3 weeks, Shopify reinstated the account, but now there is an account hold that prevents customers from checking out. The store is live and accessible, but nobody can actually place an order.
I’ve already submitted a ticket and followed up multiple times. It’s now been over a month and Shopify Support keeps telling me they can’t do anything because the issue is being handled by another team.
Is this a common issue with new stores? Is there anything I can do to help move the process along or get the hold reviewed faster? I’ve provided all the information they’ve requested and I’m just stuck waiting at this point.
I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through something similar and how long it took to get resolved.
Hi @ChilledNerd. Yes, this happens and it’s not uncommon with new stores.
What you’re facing is almost certainly a compliance or risk review tied to Shopify Payments/Account Verification, and regular support cannot access or speed up that process.
Your store being live but blocking checkout is a typical sign that the account is under review, not a technical issue. New accounts get flagged more often, especially if there are mismatches in billing, bank, or identity details, or if the store setup looks incomplete or inconsistent.
From what we’ve seen, many of our clients go through the same process and it often takes around 2–4 weeks (up to 1–3 months for harder cases) to resolve. Over a month is slow, but still within the normal range if additional verification is required.
At this point, opening new tickets will not help and can actually delay things. The only useful actions are to keep all communication in one thread and ensure all documents are submitted and fully match your account details.
Hope this helps 
Hi @ChilledNerd,
Welcome to Shopify, and I am so sorry you are dealing with this. Moving your successful Etsy brand over should be an exciting milestone, not a stressful month-long lockdown.
Unfortunately, this checkout freeze has become very common for new merchants. Shopify uses highly aggressive automated bots to flag fraud, and once your checkout is locked, regular support agents cannot fix it. Your file is sitting with a specialized “Risk Operations” team that works entirely in isolation and manually reviews accounts very slowly.
To help move things along, do not open new support tickets, as duplicate chats will accidentally push your file to the back of the queue. Instead, reply directly to the original security email you received to keep your ticket active on their dashboard. You can also take your Ticket ID to X (formerly Twitter) and tag @ShopifySupport for a public nudge. As long as you have submitted your ID and business information, they will eventually clear the hold and let you open for business.
Hope this helps,
Hey @ChilledNerd . I hope you are having a good day!
This issue is more common than wouyld you think for merchants.
Shopify anti fraud system mostly catch fast acc setups .
The best thinhg to do is to ask them to escalate your ticket to the Merchant Trust Team & also mention @Shopify on the forums !
If this was helpful, then don’t forget to like it and Mark as Solution.
Hello @ChilledNerd
This is typical for when the risk review or Shopify Payments onboarding hasn’t fully been cleared. In my experienc, here are a couple things that help avoid long checkout holds.
Be sure you have completed your Shopify Payments setup with the same legal name, address, and bank info. Disconnect any VPN or proxy you’re using when setting up, and don’t make too many changes to products, themes or apps while you’re waiting for review. Maintain the store full compliance with policies pages in place. Also, try temporarily turning off any third party payment apps and re-verify payment settings. In some instances, a fresh, stable setup speeds review along more quickly.
i’ve had a similar issue. I created and completed the store within 2 days and launched it. Got around 18 orders and in the morning got an email on restriction. I spent almost a year building the email list for marketing and finally made the email campaign for launch yesterday and got orders on the launch. I have very well managed social profile for our company. I’m a bit scared as to what to expect from shopify as this one ban might put doubts in the people’s mind that were waiting for our launch and now the email campaign have been sent out but no one can purchase as it says this store is unavailable and as my store is new there is no past proof of fulfillment but only the purchase orders from suppliers.
Instead of restricting the stores after the launch, i highly suggest shopify to please verify account’s beforehand as alot of people risk all of their money and assests to launch their businesses and then end up having some restrictions that ruin they’ve built and risked their savings on. It’s years of work getting wasted so people verify the businesses before hand through some automated system maybe or whatever that would work but restricting businesses when they’re on the growth process is extremely wrong i believe.