I have been subjected to gaslighting for years from Shopify support but it has reached new levels of abuse. I want to know if anyone else is experiencing this and what I can do about it.
I love my shopify store and I think it offers excellent value for money. My customers love it too. However, often, when I have to contact support, the staff give me the wrong information and take hours to do this. It is creating a lot of stress for my business and me personally and this is time that should be spent improving my business.
The most recent issue happened yesterday. I created a text box and the link in it wasn’t showing on the page as clickable but showed in the text box as underlined. I contacted support and for an hour they told me that Horizon had a limitation that it would not show links as clickable when added in a text box and that they couldn’t accomodate my preferences. On the same page, there was already a text box with a link that worked that I had added in the past and the support agent refused to check when the box I added that day wasn’t working. I gave up and tried with a new agent. After half an hour, they also would not check this. I tried deleting the box, copying the box that worked and then changed the text so I closed the chat. An hour later I received a message from the second support member telling me that they had discovered how to fix it, described exactly what I had done and then claimed that they had done this for me. I have attached a screenshot of this. I complained and this was the response
"Hi there,
Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback. I want to acknowledge your message and clarify that I understand you took the initiative to resolve this issue on your own. I am glad to hear that your store is now working exactly how you need it to be so you can focus on running your business.
Your feedback regarding your support experience is incredibly valuable, and I have documented your comments so we can continue to improve our service.
Please know that we are always here to support you. If you ever need further assistance with your store or have any questions in the future, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Warm regards"
No apology. No explanation. No resolution for future. Just a patronising reply congratulating me on fixing it. This is unacceptable.
Is anyone else being gaslighted by support and how do I address this as it is not a one off incident?
Shopify support has gotten noticeably worse over the years, lots of scripted replies, agents who won’t actually dig into the specific problem, and that exact kind of non-apology you got. You’re not imagining it and you’re definitely not alone. These days I’ll often just troubleshoot myself or ask an AI before contacting support, because the back and forth eats hours and you frequently end up solving it yourself anyway, exactly like you did here.
You clearly know your store better than the agents do. The realistic takeaway, sad as it is, is to lean on community forums, devs, and self troubleshooting for anything technical, and reserve support only for account/billing stuff they actually control.
As a Shopify Partner, I understand your frustration. The issue is not just incorrect information, but spending hours troubleshooting only to fix it yourself while support later implies they solved it. Hopefully Shopify improves support consistency and technical investigation, because merchants and partners rely on accurate guidance.
Also, if support chats are taking too long to resolve issues, you can create a post in the Shopify Community Forum as well. Many partners, developers, and experienced merchants reply there quickly, and sometimes you can get faster and more practical solutions than through support chat.
I don’t view Support as the place to go for help in editing the theme. At all. That just clogs the system with unnecessary tickets and attention. In fact, I would say most everything can and should be done without Support. There are so many ways to get done what you need. First and foremost, Shopify Sidekick is there for a reason. Use it. It has a huge knowledge base in coding. It also has a custom code generator. Then there is Google, Chatgpt, YouTube, and even this forum. If you search in Google you’ll most likely be directed here anyway. This is a great place for issues like your text link. Avoiding Support and finding ways to solve your technical problems would give you much less headaches. Support, imo, should be reserved for access and account related problems.
Onto your issue. Make another post. Include screenshots, theme name, store url, and a description of what the problem is and what you want. There are thousands of people here who can help and give you suggestions and code. Most of the time you’ll get a response, if not full on solution, within a few hours.
I don’t understand your reply. If there is a glitch in the theme, why would I not alert Shopify to this? Furthermore, Shopify support staff have told me not to use Sidekick because in their words “it could wreck my store”. I have also found ChatGPT and Gemini to be unreliable in terms of advice in my store, creating even more confusion and issues.
Thanks for your reply. I don’t understand how a company as large and successful as Shopify have a culture of abuse that involves gaslighting and nothing is done about it. Surely they can employ skilled staff and managers that root out this behaviour? It feels to me, having experienced it getting worse and worse over the last nine years that Shopify are not only allowing it but encouraging it.
Isn’t it sad that this is the reality. Makes me wonder why Shopify have support staff at all when people feel that they are better avoiding contacting them.
If there is a true glitch or bug in a theme, sure you can report it. That is purely from a desire to inform Shopify Theme Developers. That’s not the same as trying to get help with your problem. Think about it this way. There are millions of Shopify stores and maybe a hundred Support Staff, if that…
You’re thinking about Shopify Staff as the go-to for all your problems. This is wrong thinking. Sorry but it’s true. Sorry you don’t understand but the theme code is susceptible to corruption that makes Support wholly inadequate to be the end all be all for advice.
Not sure who told you Sidekick would ruin your store, but in a sense they’re not entirely wrong. Any customization could ruin it if you give bad instructions or don’t create a backup before major changes. I’ve used Sidekick for some pretty heavy custom building without worrying about wrecking anything.
Take some time to browse this forum. You will find many theme-related posts. That’s what this platform is for… @Moeed has over 2 thousand solutions under his belt. Again, you’re not wrong about Support, but you should be thinking about them in a completely different perspective. Come here for this kind of problem. That’s why we’re all here in the first place. You have a theme issue, post it.
Shopify have now locked me out of my account. I contacted them because I received an email asking for personal information and they told me it was phishing and to report it. I asked them to check and they refused and now I am locked out and can’t get access to my account. I really feel bullied and tortured by the support team. I don’t know what to do.
I am so sorry you had to deal with this. It is incredibly frustrating when support wastes your time and then tries to take credit for your hard work. You are definitely not alone in feeling this way. Many merchants have noticed that standard Shopify support is getting much worse lately too, too relying on scripted answers instead of actually looking at the real problem on your page.
Next time you run into a weird theme bug like this, just skip the support chat and bring your question straight to this community forum. There are many experienced merchants and developers here who have faced the exact same issues. We do not use scripts, and we are always very willing to jump in and help you find a real fix!
