Here I present a case study of how shopify is enabling scammers on their platform.
Over a month ago, one of their “merchants” set up a scam website, namely https://study-notes.uk/ (as you’ll see that site no longer works). They then ran adverts on Instagram selling a physical book:
The entire order process (that is no longer accessible) talks about a physical book, all images are of a physical book, there is no mention of digital downloads at all, you have to enter your address for them to calculate shipping costs of the physical book to your address.
After ordering, you get an email from a different shopify site, https://studynursenotes.com/ with a digital download. You then email them to complain and ask for you money back. Of course they ignore you, they are running a scam.
Then then pull the adverts and delete the site you purchased from.
You try complaining to shopify, but their complaints form is specifically coded so that it’s impossible to make complaints. After raising that repeatedly in this forum they relucantly update their form so that you can make a complaint. However, all you get is a notice that they’ve emailed the “merchant” and actually they aren’t going to do anything at all, and you should contact your bank if you haven’t received what you purchased. The complaint form is in fact a complete and total waste of time.
After 30 days you contact your bank to do a chargeback. They ask for evidence. The shopify website you purchased from is gone.
The bank say:
In order to evidence you received goods which differ to what was purchased, Mastercard require a copy of your invoice which shows what was purchased.
Of course, your invoice has the different shopify website with digital products. The invoice doesn’t show what you purchased.
The downloads they sent you are freely available online from another site https://study-notes.super.site/, and are not authored by the shopify “merchant”.
As shopify provide no way to report the scam in a way they will actually take any action, they choose to enable scammers like this to use their platform to scam customers online. The scammers make money, shopify makes money, instagram makes money, your bank makes money, you get ripped off.
How many scams like this is shopify enabling?
