In early September, I ordered a Hallowe’en mask. I was sent an order confirmation but had to contact the seller a few times to get information about shipping. The tracking number they sent didn’t work and they no longer replied to emails. I can’t dispute the order via the normal channels as they have closed their store and wiped out all sales records. The link is no longer valid.
How do I get my money back? Or are these scammers getting away with this?
This has left a very bad taste in my mouth regarding the Shop app and Shopify. This is clearly a scam. I will have to contact my credit card company but believe it’s too late for them to do anything. I hope Shopify can help.
I am sorry to hear you experienced this. Especially in this case as you were expecting the item for a specific celebration. Hopefully, you were still able to have a lovely Hallowe’en without this mask.
Just to share some context with you: Shopify is software used by merchants to build their businesses upon, as such I would have no access to information regarding your order. Only the store owner would have this. However with that being said, I do completely understand to order something online and have it not arrive is always disappointing.
When was this order placed? Were you given an idea of delivery date when you placed the order? The easiest and best way to sort this out would be to get in touch with the store directly if possible. Are you able to reply to any emails from the store, the order confirmation email for example? Does the store website have a contact phone number, email or social media link?
If at least 30 days have passed and you have neither received the item, nor had a reply from the merchant, then I would advise reaching out to your bank for their advice on next steps to take. They are in a position to help with redress.
I know what Shopify is - however, they’ve removed their support email address. The hosting platform should be keeping records of which vendors (and their IP addresses) are clearly scamming consumers.
One of the biggest problems is that in order to report a vendor, or a problem with a sale, the Order Confirmation still needs to be in the Shopify system. Once a vendor wipes their store from your servers, all order confirmations are removed. This is the case in this instance.
I placed the order September 8 and did not receive an order confirmation until September 23. I contacted the seller a week later to inquire about shipping and was told Oct 9. All emails since then have been ignored and when I tried to report the transaction via the Shop app, it won’t work since the order confirmation page has been scrubbed.
This is one area where Shopify can help consumers by not allowing that part of any store to be removed - order records should be permanent. There also needs to be a better way of reporting seller frauds like this as that function is also dependent upon the order confirmation.
I’ve contacted my bank and have started the dispute process.
Thank you so much for this feedback, I will be forwarding this onto the relevant team immediately. I really appreciate you taking the time to outline the exact root of the problem for me.
Hello @Ivy_4 , I am faced similar issues with a shopify merchant. I had paid over USD500 and after emails trying to get their tracking details. The shop was gone and I couldn’t report about my 2 orders because “it won’t work since the order confirmation page has been scrubbed”.
It said the shop “is currently unavailable” and no one was replying to my emails.
This isn’t the best customer service and irresponsible thing of the merchant, at least we should be informed of why and if it was lost or they just refused to ship at all.
I was given the notice that they had already been shipped but no tracking details.
I am really upset because I had paid for my favorite things and it isn’t coming after all.
Can someone please reach out to me soon? If Shopify is not the safest and reliable platform for buyers then I have no qualms of discounting my friends from using it in future. It looks like there is no protection for buyers at all.