Action required: Shopify is requesting a document from you

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
1

Hello,

Our company is on the way to launch online sales. We are packaging our products right now to deliver them to the US market. We have developed our own online store using Shopify API and payment/checkout system.

After making several transactions by ourselves we’ve received an email suspending payouts and requesting information to confirm we are a safe business, which we appreciate and ready to provide. I just want to clarify some points, to provide the correct information to the Shopify team, so any support would be appreciated.

Photo ID - Front> > Government-issued ID (e.g. passport or driver’s license)> > Photo ID - Back> > Back of Government-issued ID (e.g. passport or driver’s license)> > Government Photo ID 2 - Front> > A second piece of government issued identification, such as a driver’s license> > Government Photo ID 2 - Back> > A second piece of government issued identification, such as a driver’s license

Our company is based in the US, but the shareholder of the company does not live in the US and is not a US citizen. Is it ok to provide his information?

Proof of address> > Utility bill (e.g. water, electricity, or gas bill from the past 3 months), lease agreement (dated) or property insurance (dated)

Should it be proof of address he is living in, like the house he is renting? Or company’s bill/lease/insurance to prove the company has a real address of operations?

Proof of business association> > Business license, business registration documents (with company number) or business tax filing record

Would EIN from IRS work?

Would Certificate of Incorporation work?

Any other options?

Proof of Inventory> > Dated invoices from supplier outlining quantities or dated manufacturing agreement

This is clear.

Shipping information> > Examples of 10 verifiable tracking numbers (include courier name + Shopify order number) or 10 dated post office receipts

Did not get what is it exactly. We have not delivered any products to customers yet. Are these proofs of deliveries of our products to our customers?

Social media links (related to your business)> > Add them in the comment box or attach a document that includes the links

What if we don’t have any besides the web-site?

1 Like
2

Hey, @Art80 !

I’d be happy to go over these with you.

Regarding government IDs:

We do require US government identification. In special cases a non-US ID may be considered, however we don’t recommend it. If you do choose to use the non-US ID, be sure to add a note explaining your situation. That said, the representative added here doesn’t necessarily need to be the account owner. This just needs to be an owner or senior executive of the company, who exercises significant control and who has the power to ensure compliance with our Shopify Payments Terms of Service.

Regarding proof of address:

This will be for your business’ address, to prove that the business is operating out of the United States.

Regarding proof of business association:

Your EIN will suffice if you are an LLC or Corporation, however if you are a Sole Proprietorship then this will need to be an SSN.

For the shipping information and social media, you should be able to leave these blank with a note (if given the option), explaining that you don’t have them yet. I will check on this and get back to you. Cheers!

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3

@Art80 -

To add one thing to the above in the meantime, the proof of address would be a personal address in the case that it is a Sole Proprietorship. Just to clarify!

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4

@Brie Thank you very much for the very detailed explanations. Let me ask for some details to make sure I get everything correct:

Regarding government IDs:

Understood it’s highly recommended to be a US government identification.

  1. One of our seniors has a Limited-Term identification card. Is it OK it’s temporary, and he is not a US-citizen, but living in the US?
  2. There are two IDs asked to be provided by Shopify’s request. What should be the second one if the first one is as mentioned above?

Regarding proof of address and proof of business association:

Understood EIN is sufficient as we are Corporation.

  1. Is it OK if our current physical and operations office address is different from the one in EIN because of our lawyer is working from another location?
  2. You said, “This will be for your business’ address, to prove that the business is operating out of the United States”. Is it a mistype, and you meant inside of the US?

Thank you in advance for anwering.

5

Hi, @Art80 !

First to follow up on the above regarding your shipping information and social media, I checked with our team and you can just leave these blank. That said, please leave a note in the comment section explaining why you do not have these, to avoid any unnecessary back and forth with the review team.

For the government issued IDs, the only accepted forms of ID would be the following:

  • Passport
  • Passport card
  • Driver license
  • State issued ID card
  • Resident permit ID / U.S. Green Card
  • Border crossing card
  • Child ID card
  • NYC card
  • U.S. visa card
  • Birth Certificate

They must provide two of the above.

Regarding your proof of address and business association, there’s a possibility that this may cause an issue if your business address is not what you have registered it as legally. Ultimately our review team has the final say, so I’d recommend submitting what you have and explaining in the comments section why the addresses differ. Any context you can provide will speed up the review process for you. And yes, the business’ address must prove it’s operating out of the United States, which means the business is being run from within (inside) the US. Cheers!

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6

Thank you @Brie !

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7

Is there a way to submit this information in advance?

8

Hi @Lenox26

That’s a great question! I touched base with our Business Operations team who would normally handle these reviews and they confirmed that as long as Shopify Payments is setup on your store, you can proactively request a review by reaching out to our live support. From there, your ticket would be escalated and our team could do the review on your behalf.

Keep in mind that reviews can happen at any time as policies and legal requirements change and you may be reviewed more then once as your business is hosted with us. This is normal and nothing to be concerned about though.

If you have additional questions, please let me know.

-Shay

9

Can you send the link for live support please?

10

they dont have live chat link bro

11

Hi @Lenox26 and @aakash876

We don’t have a direct link to our live support, but you can find all our support options through our Help Center. To contact our live support please follow this link: Shopify Help Center - Contact Support, sign into your store account, search for your issue and use the contact support button at the bottom of the search results to see all our live support options.

Thank you!

-Shay

12

hey im 18 and living with my parents. I dont pay utilities and dont have my own inventory so there is no way for me to submit these options. I also don’t have proof of business because registering for an llc is really expensive. Is there a way to keep getting payments from shopify without these documents?

13

Hi @micahmansfield

In this situation I would recommend replying back to any email communications you have received from our Risk Operations team. If you have not yet received an email from them about this situation then I would instead reach out to our live support so they can escalate this for you.

Please provide detailed information about your business setup (dropshipping or using a vendor to manage your inventory is totally okay) and our team will be able to assist you from there.

1 Like
14

thank you

15

Brie,

My email is mcook@emdesignsgroup.com I signed up for shopify and made $5,000 payment to my account. My account is now inactive. I have forwarded the neccessary documents to your legal department (legal@shopify) for the case as I have a ticket number when my info was requested by your legal department. Kindly look into it.

1 Like
16

When setting up my shopify payment account, they accepted the SSN. But when I have to receive my money they don’t accept it anymore, they ask me for my EIN while I am individual, I told them that. What do I do now in the proof of business association part? I already provided the picture of my SSN they refused it.

17

@mcook7 I appreciate you sharing your contact information in hopes of receiving additional help here. Our community support team is unable to authenticate merchant accounts and would not be able to provide a reach out regarding this matter. With that in mind, I encourage you to remove your contact email from your post to avoid any unwanted email solicitations.

It sounds like you have been in contact with the team handling this review. I would encourage you to continue replying to your open email ticket as that is the only way our team is able to communicate on this topic.

@Jacquesg Thank you as well for sharing those details. I can appreciate the urgency of getting this approved. Shopify Payments has strict policies in place for approval and those needs have to be met in order to continue using the payment gateway. If Shopify Payments is not a good fit for your business there are lots of other payment gateways you can consider. What country is your business based out of? I’d be happy to provide some suggestions.

18

Hi,

I have already provided all the documentation and still didn’t got approved. Can I know the reason or how to fix it? I have read everything and we comply with everything.

19

Hi @GimboSlice

I understand that you wanted to use Shopify Payments for your store but you were not approved at this time. This could be due to a huge range of possibilities, but if you are located outside of a supported country for Shopify Payments or if your business is considered to be higher risk of chargebacks, then these decisions are generally final.

Our banking partners closely review all applicants for Shopify Payments to assess if their business is a good fit for the payment gateway. Even if your business follows all the standard requirements asked of it, that is not a guarantee that you will be approved.

What country is your business located in? I would be happy to provide some alternative payment gateway options for you to consider instead.

20

Hello, would state permit id cards be accepted?