How to dispute Shopify charges after canceling a High Fraud Risk transaction?!

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment
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Topic summary

A merchant canceled a $3,800 order flagged by Shopify as high fraud risk, following the platform’s recommendation to cancel before fulfilling or capturing payment. Despite canceling, they were charged approximately $236 in processing fees (3.7%) plus currency conversion costs.

Key Issue:

  • Merchant disputes being charged fees after following Shopify’s fraud prevention guidance
  • Questions how to contest these charges given the circumstances

Response Provided:

  • Cancellation fees from banks/payment processors are standard once payment is captured
  • Suggested workaround: Use manual payment authorization instead of automatic capture
  • This prevents actual payment processing, avoiding cancellation fees for high-risk orders

Status: The discussion remains open with no resolution on disputing the current charges. The merchant seeks guidance on formally contesting the fees with Shopify.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hello,

On May 22, I received an order for a very valuable item in our store ($3,800) from a UK customer. Shopify flagged it as a high risk order. I got two messages: “Chargeback risk is high. Consider canceling this order.” AND “Before fulfilling this order or capturing payment, please review the fraud analysis and determine if this order is fraudulent”.

So therefore, I DID cancel the order. But now I am being charged the 3.7% fee plus the currency conversion! It comes out to about $236! How do I open a dispute this charge?! If Shopify alerted me of fraud risk on a specific order AND tells me to cancel it, then I should absolutely not be responsible for those fees. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Please see screenshot below for messages:

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2

Not great, but still better than losing the entire amount?

Note that if payment was captured, then cancelling is not free – banks and payment processors will charge cancellation fee.

You may consider to only authorise payments and capture them manually – this way, because the payment does not actually happen, there should be no cancellation fee. https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/payment-authorization