We refunded a customer last week and received confirmation that the funds were deducted from our account, however, the customer has notified us today that the card we refunded is not active (and hasn’t been for a while).
The customer used Shop Pay for their purchase. If their card details were updated in Shop Pay, would the refund have automatically gone to their updated card details, even if the timeline notes on the order still reference the old card number?
If not, how do we reverse the refund and issue it to the customer’s new card?
I understand that you need help with understanding how to reverse a refund issued to an inactive card and issue it to a customer’s updated card details. I am more than happy to help you out with this today.
If the order has been paid for in full and not via Installments, then refunds can only be processed to the original payment method that was used, so it would not be possible for either Shop Pay or for you as the merchant to change where the refund would be sent. We aren’t able to say for sure what will happen to the funds when a refund is processed to an inactive card as it depends on the policies of the receiving bank.
We recommend the customer reaches out to their bank or payment processor for further advice as they will be the best team to confirm what is most likely to happen. Furthermore, we do commonly see that most banks will either reroute the refund credit to an alternative account that the customer has with them, or they may transfer the funds to a holding account and then make arrangements to reconcile those funds with the customer by another method such a paper cheque.
If the order was paid for using Shop Pay Installments, the buyer can reach out directly to Affirm (our partners for Shop Pay Installments) and they will usually issue a cheque to send directly to the buyer. Affirm’s contact email would be help@shop.affirm.com
I’d also suggest checking out our help center guide here, to learn how to promote Shop Pay on your store. I hope it helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.