High Risk Orders / Shopify payments / the way to handle

Shopify Discussion
1

Hello,

I run an Apple an official Apple reseller in Austria and Germany. (www.apple-guru.at)

In may we received an order that had “medium risk” marked as Shopify. So we went about doing what we always do when something does not seem to fid. We contacted the customer, asked for ID verification and proof of address for shipment.

We got all the documents and it turned out the order was legitimate. We proceeded to fulfil the order and all went well. No chargeback, no complaint, nothing.

Yesterday we received an order marked as high risk and after 15 years in the business all my alarms went off for this one too. But still, everyone deserves to be treated the same, so we reached out asking for the same level of documentation we would usually want. So far no reply (totally fine), and if it checks out it is ok, and if not we will cancel the order. All good from our end.

Then I got this e-mail from Shopify last night and to be honest I do feel a bit pissed about the wording:

Hello,> > XXX(Redacted) here from the Risk Operations Team at Shopify. We are writing to you in regards to your account XXX(Redacted).> > During a standard review of your Shopify Payments account, we have noticed that your account has received a number of high and/or medium risk orders that have gone untreated. As a result, you’ll notice a red banner in your Shopify admin alerting you that your Shopify Payments account has been placed on hold. This hold is only for payouts, your customers can still place orders and make payments on your site.> > When orders are placed on your shop with a high and/or medium risk rating, it is often a good idea to cancel and refund the bad orders. Here is a great doc to walk you through refunding and cancelling these orders.> > If you are considering fulfilling the order(s), we highly recommend you take action in confirming their legitimacy, as there is a high likelihood that these orders may result in a chargeback.> For more details about confirming legitimacy, we would like to refer you to this document here. Confirming as much information as possible about the order and the buyer will give you a better idea as to whether a specific order should be fulfilled or refunded and cancelled.> > Please do not submit any buyer information to Shopify as they will not be reviewed, per Shopify’s PCI compliance standards.> > After attempting to validate these orders by speaking with the customer, if you are not satisfied with the information given it is often a good idea to cancel and refund the bad orders.> > We take high and medium risk orders seriously and have the best interest of you and your business in mind at all times. Not taking action on high risk orders is one of the leading factors in receiving chargebacks. Regrettably chargebacks may result in not only monetary loss but product loss if the order has been fulfilled. By following the document provided above, you should be able to deal with these high risk orders appropriately.> > Can you please advise us how you will be handling these high risk orders so we may treat your Shopify Payments account accordingly?> > We’re here to answer any questions you may have about anything in this email. We’ll be your best point of contact for everything mentioned here, so we recommend replying back to this email directly. Our Support Advisor team is great for solving more general questions you might have, but when it comes to this we’ll have more context and information.> > Thank you.

So in total we have had 1x Medium and 1x High risk.

I do believe we are following our due diligence in every way and I can not share the sentiment that this feels like we are being accused of doing something wrong.

we have noticed that your account has received a number of high and/or medium risk orders that have gone untreated.

A number of orders? Yes, 2 over half a year.

They have gone untreated? The first one was handled and taken care of - no negative outcome. And the other order was less than 4 hours old not even giving anyone the chance to fully react (except reach out to the customer).

Seriously this does not feel like a way business partners treat each other.

What, in the eyes of Shopify, did we do wrong?

All the best,

Fabio

1 Like
2

Hi @FKrois

This is a standard warning email usually sent out to merchants having their 1st red flag order. Shopify just wants to make sure that you understand the risks involved and that there is a high chance that this order might comeback as fraudulent, which would then cause monetary loss for your business. Passing a certain chargeback percent threshold will also result in ultimately causing you to lose your Shopify payment gateway.

Shopify is just wanting to confirm what additional steps you are taking to ensure the legitimacy of this order incase this order does comeback as fraudulent.

3

Hi,

I do understand that, and my primary concern is the wording and accusatory nature that Shopify is choosing here.

4

Hi, @FKrois .

Greetings, I hope your day is going well despite your frustration!

I do apologize that you felt the tone of our email was accusatory. That was not the intention. This email is a standard email sent to stores when they receive a high risk order. We want merchants to be aware of the situation and how it can affect their business. In your case, it appears you are following our recommended steps already. That is fantastic, and we appreciate you doing your due diligence.

In the meantime, I will provide this feedback to our escalated team so that they can consider rewording their email. For the sake of clarity, the use of “untreated” is used as it is a blanket term for an order that has not been executed either by cancellation or fulfillment. That being said, your feedback is valuable and will be passed on.

1 Like
5

Hi Skye,

Will be just perfect if we can collect automatic payments but High-Risk orders. Why is this feature not available yet? That would be a game changer.

6

@GimboSlice

Beacon

Has this featured where you can place high risk order payment on hold and you can setup to capture payment for everything else.

7

That’s too expensive for only this feature, but thank you for the suggestion. There is some way Shopify integrates this?

8

Hi, @GimboSlice .

I agree that would be a fantastic feature to have. I will absolutely be passing this feedback on to our developers to consider for future platform upgrades! Thank you for bringing this request forward.

9

I too have recently gotten some high risk orders. They all come from the same account. I looked them up and they have made 4 orders in the past 5 days going to 2 different addresses. I looked up the sales history and I sold them something 3 months ago with no problems. I am confused whether to ship the orders. Really makes it hard