Payouts Frozen for Weeks – Shopify Support Feels Useless Unless You’re Paying $14K/mo

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

A merchant reports their Shopify payouts have been frozen for weeks due to a failed identity verification for one business owner. Despite submitting IDs and contacting support through multiple channels, they receive only generic responses stating their ticket “will be picked up randomly.”

Key frustrations:

  • Frontline support provides no actionable solutions or timeline
  • The merchant feels deprioritized compared to enterprise-tier customers ($14K/mo plans)
  • Funds remain inaccessible while business operations are impacted

Seeking help:
The merchant is looking for advice on escalating directly to Shopify’s Risk or Trust & Safety teams, as standard support channels have been ineffective.

Another user echoes the frustration, noting the irony that a company with 8,000 employees serving 10+ million stores appears unresponsive to critical merchant issues.

Status: Unresolved and ongoing.

Summarized with AI on October 23. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hey everyone,
I’m honestly shocked by how poor Shopify support has become. My payouts have been frozen because identity verification fails for one owner, and after countless chats and emails, all I get is “your ticket will be picked up randomly.”

We’re a growing business with real customers waiting — but Shopify support moves like it’s 1998 dial-up. It genuinely feels like unless you’re on their $14,000/month enterprise plan, they just don’t care.

We’ve submitted IDs, double-checked details, reached out on every channel… and nothing. Our money is just sitting there while our business suffers.

If anyone has successfully escalated an issue like this to the Risk or Trust & Safety team, please drop advice below — because frontline support is doing absolutely nothing. Or even if anyone has any help to help me get out of this

2

Yep it’s crazy that a company with 8,000 employees and over 10 million active stores looks like a ghost town.