Cloned Website

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A Shopify merchant discovered their website and products were cloned by fraudsters, likely based in Malaysia, who are selling copied items at discounted prices. The merchant reported the issue to Shopify’s fraud team but has received no response or acknowledgment, causing significant frustration.

Actions Taken:

  • Reported to Shopify fraud department (no response)
  • Filed report with Action Fraud (UK cybercrime authority)
  • Identified fraudsters through ICANN domain registration
  • Set up Google Alerts to monitor cloning activity
  • Sent information to Google

Community Response:
Another user shared similar frustration, noting they were scammed by a Shopify store and couldn’t even report it without an order confirmation. A PageFly representative suggested legal action, strengthening security measures, and reporting to authorities—advice that was criticized as impractical given the international nature of the fraud and associated costs.

Core Issue:
Multiple users express that Shopify’s platform makes fraud easy to execute, yet the company lacks an effective, immediate response system to shut down fraudulent clone sites. The merchant simply wants the fraudulent site taken down quickly without incurring legal expenses, and is considering leaving Shopify due to the lack of support.

Summarized with AI on November 3. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
4

Hi Richard,

With respect, your advice is entirely pointless. Suggesting legal action, when the client is probably a scammer sitting in a Vietnam (as example) basement, will achieve nothing other than severe legal costs.

Shopify needs a fraud team that can act immediately and investigate the claim, following which they should be shutting down the fraudulent clone.

The Shopify platform, by it’s nature, makes fraud very easy for any non-technical person to execute upon, and they therefore have a responsibility to wipe this out without cost to legitimate merchants.

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