Extremely Disappointed in Shopify Payments

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
1

I hoping for some insight or guidance on how I can get the attention of a decision maker at Shopify for a problem I’m having.

I setup my shop over the weekend and was extremely satisfied with how easy everything was. More important than that I was totally bought into the mission and brand of Shopify. I mean what type of incredible world do we live in where it is so easy for a small shop to get an amazing and professional online presence for so little up front cost.

I worked over the next few days trying to drive traffic to my site. During that time and before I even had my first order Shopify decided I was high risk and disabled my access to Shopify Payments without notice or reason given. Other than being annoyed this action was taken without any warning or chance to address concerns, I wasn’t too concerned with the risk rating because I take customer service, risk and fraud very seriously. Surely, I would be able to partner with Shopify and take appropriate steps to mitigate their concerns.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case. I emailed the Risk Operations team back and expressed my willingness to work with them to address any concerns. What I received back is unsatisfactory to say the least.

"Hi David,

Thank you for reaching out. Unfortunately, we cannot provide detailed analysis of our underwriting review.

As per our previous email, please note this does not affect the use of the Shopify Platform but you will have to integrate a third party payment processor and you can find more information here: https://www.shopify.ca/payment-gateways/.

Have a great day."

The have a great day part was especially nice. It makes no sense to me that Shopify has concerns with my store and will not let me work with them to lower my risk. I don’t want to be high risk! If I’m doing something risky in their eyes I want to take steps to lower that risk for their sake and mine.

In closing, I’m looking for constructive feedback. I asked the Risk team if there is an appeal process but I’m not expecting to hear anything useful back. I was going to open up another store on Shopify but after being blocked without cause given I don’t see how I can do that. More importantly I’m just disappointed because I feel like I am being treated very unfairly and not being given a chance to properly represent myself.

2

Anyone? I’m still getting no where with e-mail support. How can I escalate my concern?

3

Just in case this helps anyone in the future I wanted to post the outcome.

Recap: I opened a new store, provided full and accurate information and within 24 hours was blocked from Shopify Payments. I immediately reached out concerned and made it very clear I would do anything needed to become unblocked. I also asked for a reason so that I could understand what went wrong and fix the problem.

For the past week Shopify has done literally everything in their power to be as useless and unhelpful as possible. They refuse to tell me why I was blocked, what I could do to become unblocked, if I would be blocked again for some of the other stores that I planned on opening. I reviewed the entire terms of service for Shopify Payments. It is very clear in the terms of service reasons that you could be blocked. Non of the reasons applied to me. I specifically asked what part of the terms of service I was in violation of. I again expressed my concern that maybe their review was faulty either using bad or inaccurate data or perhaps could be reconsidered with more information.

Over and over Shopify refused to provide any meaningful information. I expressed concerns that I might be being discriminated against since they couldn’t give a solid reason that was backed by their terms of service and this is the response I got.

"Hello there,

I have reached out to the Business Operations team and, as they mentioned in a previous email, we cannot divulge any findings of a review due to privacy and security reasons. Once an account has been rejected from Shopify Payments, the decision is final and we cannot release any of the information that lead to the decision."

So for those of you trying to start a small business using Shopify good luck. They seem to be flying by the seat of their pants and making decisions without justification. I have closed my account and moved to another platform. I dare them to charge me anything. I am also speaking with my state’s attorney general because they are in violation of their own terms of service.