Scam! do not fall for it!

Product Development & Sourcing

Topic summary

A user lost $1,900 CAD to a dropshipping scam after a friend’s apparent success story convinced them to pay for website setup and marketing services.

The scam operated through:

  • Fake customer emails on every sale, ensuring no actual payments were received
  • Instructions to “mark orders as paid” despite no money coming in
  • Orders left untouched in DSers with excuses about “waiting for more sales”
  • The scammer initially collected legitimate payments ($2,000-3,000 CAD) using “collect payment” before switching tactics to the fake sale method

Warning signs identified:

  • Scammer poses as a BTS member (romance scam tactics)
  • Uses fake dating website profiles with young women’s pictures
  • Made Instagram account private after being exposed
  • Has multiple victims (“not his first rodeo”)

Key advice: Always verify customer emails are real, confirm actual payment receipt before marking orders paid, and report this individual on Instagram. The post aims to prevent others new to Shopify from falling for similar schemes.

Summarized with AI on November 6. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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I gave a total of 1900$ CAD total [redacted] after my friend showed me on shopify that he made 40 000$ CAD in a week. I was so impressed and asked him more info, he said that all he did was to pay this dude and let him make a website for 350$ US and then do a down payment for marketing. I thought to myself: “if it works for him it might work for me” so i tried. Sent the cash and made me activate the bank deposit with no comments or instructions for payment.

DO NOT IT IS A SCAM

The process of every sale was to:

  1. wait 1 hour until the email has been sent to the customer (to give them the info to pay you by email, this is how bank deposit is supposed to work) but every sale’s customers had fake emails. So the money was never sent.

  2. He made me mark orders as paid on every sale even tho they never got paid for.

  3. They went to wait on DSer for him to never touch them and do nothing saying “we are waiting for more sales.” which is stupid.

At first, my friend actually got legit money (about 2-3000$ CAD) because he used the “collect payment” and then pay the supplier to send it to the customer (which is what you should do) But recently, he got switched to pressing “mark as paid” and having fake customers making him believe he actually got more sales.

So do NOT give any money to this man, report him on instagram if you get the chance, always check if the payment actually has been made by your customer and always check every customer’s email to see if they are real.

He put his account in private right after having me exposing him in instagram’s messages.

Comments on his IP are:

  • Do not answer this IP he is a scammer

  • Scammer posting on a dating website with fake profile and picture of a young woman. Stay Away.

  • January 2024. Yes this is a romance scammer pretending to be a bts member. BEWARE he is smart and convincing.

This shows that it is not his first rodeo.

DO NOT FALL FOR HIS SCAM, i feel stupid for believing him.

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Hi @Phil06

Thank you for sharing this, I know it must not have been easy to write this but this could help some people to learn about this scam.

And when someone searches his name this post will come the first on Google.

Hope that money returns to you in some way, like winning a bingo.

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Thank you,

Everyone starting on shopify with someone helping them should be aware of this scam. This is why i wrote this post!

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