Shopify Payments are Pending - This is a Nightmare

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A merchant experienced a severe payment hold with Shopify Payments after switching from their previous gateway (Eway). Despite successful transactions appearing in their system, six weeks of payments remained pending with no notification or communication from Shopify.

Key Issues:

  • No initial email alerts about the hold or documentation requirements
  • Support chat staff could only escalate cases but provided no direct assistance
  • No accessible email or phone contact for the Payments team
  • The merchant faced potential eviction and inability to support their family during the hold

Resolution:
After 7 days of active pursuit (following 6 weeks of unnoticed pending status), funds were released. The automated notification email that should have been sent initially arrived just 8 minutes before the hold-release confirmation.

Ongoing Pattern:
Multiple other merchants report similar experiences:

  • Payments suddenly stopping without notice
  • Five-figure balances locked and inaccessible
  • Support responses taking 7-14 days per inquiry
  • Generic or bot-like responses that don’t address specific issues
  • Inability to fulfill orders or pay suppliers during holds

The original poster emphasizes this appears to be a systemic issue affecting many merchants over an extended period, with no apparent improvements to the process.

Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

This is a very very serious issue!!

Shopify Payments are Pending. No way to communicate.#### Stolen Income and damaging Business. Feels like a scam.

We have been using shopify for over 10 years.

We changed to shopify payments due to an advertisement for shopify capital, that we were eventually denied.

However this process removed our current payment gateway (eway) without our intention. Which now could not be reintegrated apparently.

We then went with shopify payments, as our website now had no credit card facility.

Spent a day integrating it, setting it up. All fine. more expensive, but who cares.

Orders coming in.

All says succesful.

Sending orders out.

Note: there is no further requirements, no documents, id or anythign requested.

… a month goes by…

“Hey honey, how come we have no money and completely crippled, unable to pay rent or operate our business?”

“Holy Crap!! All of our income for the last month is pending”

Now, shopify sent us no emails, no notifcations, no nothing. They requested nothing at all.

We go to the shopify help chat.

Had a person escalate our case and tell us to wait for an email.

No email came. If we reopen the chat, noone responds.

They never processed anything, responded or anything. Left us to rot.

a few days later, we opened another help chat.

This person said exactly the same thing.

A day and a half later we recieve a notice in the online chat saying we need to upload a photo of our drivers license.

… should have asked for that a month ago. wtf. ok… upload the license.

Since then we have been ignored.

ive opened multiple chat windows asking for assistance. noone can do anything but tell me to sit and wait.

It is so messed up. My money has been stolen and they wont even respond to me. Tell me the process and whats going on.

There is no email address, no phone number. The online help people are from the “wrong department” so…

Just have to have faith.

If this wasnt directly linked to shopify i would assume its a scam and im being robbed blind.

I am not sleeping. The stress is completely debilitating.

I am literally watching my business fall apart around me.

While someone has to press some buttons somewhere.

Its imoral and potentially criminal.

Im trying to figure out where to go.

The banking/finance ombudsman, the acc or the federal police… all of them.

The level of distress this is causing is outrageous.

Shortly i wont be able to feed my 3 kids and will be evicted.

Please help me to have my funds released.

Im being held captive by shopify payments. its crazy.

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2

Followup:

So, it has now been resolved. Finally, after lots of sleepless nights, many useless help desk chats and mental/physical health concerns.

It took 7 days to resolve after first contact.

There was 6 weeks worth of payments owed.

… do you want to try not being paid for 6 weeks?..

Shopify Help was unable to help… uselss and patronising. The amount of times i got told to sit back and wait for an email.

I never recieved an email.

Shopify Payment staff are terrible and impossible to contact. They have no profesionallity or accountability.

I left many messages pleading for communication and assistance. Completely ignored and disregarded.

This process was disgusting and so stresssful.

Yet this seems to happen to a lot of people and has been happening for over a year.

There seems to be no intention to improve this situation and are emotionlessly putting people through this over and over with 0% accountability or humanity.

This needs to be taken further and fixed.

If they need more documentation, customers need to be told. And dont start taking payments and saying that its complete when its not.

This should be part of the install process.

Massively disappointed.

I feel like i was left to rott. Not so much as a “were sorry that this happened to you”.

The automated email notification that we were supposed to get 6 weeks ago was sent through 8 minutes before the email saying our account was taken off hold.

Whoops… forgot to press that button ey.

This is peoples lives and livlihoods and they treat it like a joke.

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3

Sorry to hear, we are going though a similar situation right now, complete theft,

4

I am having the same issue, all cards are still on pending and support’s only answer is: " we’ve escalated the issue to our team and you’ll be contacted" but I still haven’t received any answers. WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX IT ? is stressing me up

5

I’ve been receiving payouts regularly for the past two months, but recently, they stopped without any notice. Currently, I have a balance of over five figures that I’m struggling to withdraw. This situation is impacting my ability to purchase products from my supplier and fulfill customer orders. I hope you can assist me in resolving this issue as soon as possible.

6

We are working on a submission , and they spend 7-14 days to answer a simple question. It is just horrible! We have many many clients waiting for us, and it looks like most of Shopify support emails are from ChatGPT. Our problem is that the Shopify team dont understand the problem we face, and we must describe several times, and every time it takes several days. They are probably using bots. I hope to get help soon!

1 Like