How to handle Shopify payments after account holder's sudden death?

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

Issue: A bereaved family member is receiving Shopify payment emails for a deceased sister’s store but cannot access the account. Creating a trial account led to a chatbot loop with no human assistance.

Key guidance provided:

  • Try the chatbot prompt “shopify advisor” to reach a human Support Advisor, as access is now obscured.
  • If that fails, treat it as a legal matter and contact legal@shopify.com. A court order may be required to make account changes due to verification and abuse-prevention concerns.

Official support direction:

  • Forum staff cannot access or escalate account-specific issues via the Community.
  • Use the Help Center. Type “Can’t log into account,” select “Account support,” then choose options like “I still need help” or “Chat with a Support Advisor.” Wait up to a minute for these options to appear.
  • Images were provided showing the exact steps to reach a Support Advisor (these visuals are central to following the process).

Status and next steps:

  • No resolution in-thread. Action items are to contact Support via the Help Center using the specified prompts, or proceed via the legal channel if necessary. Discussion remains open.
Summarized with AI on January 10. AI used: gpt-5.
3

Hi, @Grieving . I’m so sorry to hear about your sister and I appreciate you reaching out about this. I can share some information to help you out.

For more help with this you will need to speak with us through the Help Center so that we can look into this account. We can’t see any account details or escalate any questions here over the Shopify Community, but if you contact us through this page we can help further. When you visit this page you will need to first type your question to the Help Center assistant so it can direct you to the right team for more help. I recommend typing something along the lines “Can’t log into account” and it should direct you correctly from there. The wording of the options can differ, but you’ll likely need to click a button that says “Account support”. You may also see a button at the bottom of the chat box that says something like “I still need help” or “Chat with a Support Advisor”. If you don’t see these options right away, please wait about a minute to ensure all of the options appear. It can sometimes take a moment, but this is the way you will want to contact us so we can follow the proper steps to assist with this.

Example of how you can speak to a Support Advisor:

15-45-83709-23190
15-45-83709-23190524×744 72.5 KB

15-51-71509-77806
15-51-71509-77806814×751 77.1 KB

Please let me know if you have any questions or trouble speaking with us through the Help Center.

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