had 40k set to be released this month just to receive only $300..
Topic summary
Multiple merchants report significant discrepancies in their account balances after Shopify released their reserved funds.
The original poster noticed their available balance dropped substantially when reserves were lifted, despite the reserved payout appearing correct—as if Shopify deducted the reserved amount from their existing balance rather than treating them as separate.
Similar cases reported:
- One user expected $40k but received only $300
- Another had $35k in payout balance and $37k reserved; after release, the payout balance disappeared entirely
Conflicting explanations:
- One commenter suggests funds are permanently lost due to Stripe (Shopify’s payment processor) issuing refunds on high-risk orders without merchant authorization
- Affected merchants dispute this, stating their order records show no refunds matching the missing amounts, with minimal high-risk transactions
Current status: Unresolved. Shopify support has not provided satisfactory explanations. A prospective merchant expresses concern about using Shopify Payments based on these experiences. The discussion remains open with no confirmed resolution or recovery of funds.