Is Shopify violating UK law by denying access to historical data?

Shopify Discussion
1

We have left shopify few weeks ago, for many reasons such as ; we got banned by google due to dead scripts on our pages to which we don’t have access to yet support advised us to pay shopify expert to sort it out. And the other things like complete lack of features or very slow loading of the website because you need extension for even very basic functionality. The support is completely useless.

It was a relief to get out of here and on a day of the launch of new website we were reinstated by Google and sales went up 10 times!

But going back to original issue, we have used Shopify payments and after closing the shop we have no access to the historical data, we had one chargeback for example and while the money was returned to us in the end, when we click view the transaction we get the message that account is closed and to get access to Shopify Payments historical data we would have to subscribe again!!!

By UK law this is illegal, but not only that this is just very bad practice.

We have contacted Financial Conduct Authority as Shopify Payments is not registered in the UK and has no entry on Financial Services Register.

In addition we have contacted Prudential Regulation Authority and now both will investigate Shopify Payments.

According to Financial Conduct Authority they have to provide every UK seller with access to historical data for a minimum of one financial year.

I can’t wait for Shopify to get wake up call with some nice penalty. This cowboy approach is not acceptable in the UK.

After all I just got the following message after adding relevant labels

The following labels are not available here: Shopify Payments, not UK legal, illegal in the UK

Screenshot taken for the record, Shopify only allows to choose from their list of labels.

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Hi, @Ingredients .

Julie here from Shopify Support.

First off, I appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback and I’m sorry to hear about the issues you’ve experienced. While I am sad to see you leave the platform, I’d love to offer you some guidance and make sure you can access your Shopify Payments data, such as finance reports and payout records.

While you may be required to reactivate your account so you can access your data, I suggest contacting our Support team directly through live chat to explore any other options. You can access live chat through the Shopify Help Center here. Our Support team will be able to properly authenticate your account and provide you with next steps in tracking down and exporting any relevant data that you may need.

Again, I appreciate your feedback and I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. If you have any further questions, feel free to respond here and let me know.

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I find it hard to believe that with only one day with a new site, and being re-indexed by Google (which takes about 14 days to complete), that your sales increased 10 fold, unless of course they were zero with Shopify.

Your other complaints are somewhat unjustified, the information you want is no longer available to you because you are not the account holder any longer, and due to GDPR laws you are not entitled to see it.

Strange that you complain about Shopify as a payment provider, I’m sure if there was anything illegal about their operation in the UK, the major banks, building societies and companies like Apple Pay, would have nothing to do with them!

If I were you, I’d take that bunch of sour grapes back to TESCO for a refund