Shopify not refunding my customers?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Main issue: Refunds to customers have not been processed since October after a surge of chargebacks/refunds tied to a TV appearance and stockouts. Orders show “refund will be deducted from your next payout,” but payouts were paused and the Shopify Payments account was later closed.

Current state: The merchant balanced the account with a 13k payment, yet sees no refunds issued and only a small negative balance that doesn’t match open refunds. There is no clear way to view the true outstanding balance.

Support experience: Frontline support advised following email instructions to appeal the pause, without offering visibility into balances or refund status. The merchant is seeking a path to escalate to second-level support.

Community feedback: One reply suggests two possible causes—Shopify technical issues with chargebacks/refunds, or delays with customers’ payment methods—and recommends waiting/confirming with customers. No concrete fix or escalation route was provided.

Status/outcome: Unresolved. Key questions remain about balance transparency and whether funds are being held instead of refunding customers; customers have been waiting weeks.

Summarized with AI on December 10. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hi,

due to a combination of a Tv appearance and being out of stock our store has received a lot of chargebacks and refunds.

Payouts were paused and we were asked to balance the account, which we did. The strange thing is that no refunds have been issued to the customers since october but looking at the orders it says refund will be deducted from your next payout.

The shopify payments account is paused/suspended but I can only see a very small negative balance that does not match the open refunds we have.

Is shopify holding back out balance payments instead of issuing the refunds to the customers? Some of them have been waiting for weeks now, its very frustrating.

There is also no way of seeing what balance if any is still open.

Support has also not been helping only saying we should follow the emails they send to get the pause appealed.

Has anyone experienced something like this or has any tips?

Greatful for any insight at this point.

Thank you in advance,

Tim

2

Hey Tim,

Thanks for sharing the detailed explanation regarding your concern with the refund for your customers.

It’s really frustrating when Shopify show the Refund Status finish, but actually your customers not receive the payment.

There maybe two solid reasons.

  • There maybe technical issue with Shopify in term of handling the charge back or refunds.
  • Shopify might refund your customers successfully, but their payment method might taking time to proceed the payment.

In both cases, you might need to wait or you can confirm from your customers regarding their current payment status.

This is how you can handle this situation.

3

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Shopify has now closed the payments account after a balance payment of 13k. I do not see that any customers have been refunded. Out main issue is not knowing what the balance is.

Has anybody got an idea on how to get to second level support to adress this?

Kind regards Tim.