I’m hoping someone here has been through something similar or that a Shopify rep can help point me in the right direction.
We run a UK-based custom grillz brand. We’ve been processing through Shopify Payments since April 2026 and have fulfilled approximately 45 orders — every single one shipped with Royal Mail Tracked, with proof of delivery on each.
One customer raised a chargeback on an order worth £74.49. We had full proof of delivery — Royal Mail tracking confirmed the item was delivered, and the customer had even confirmed receipt themselves before raising the dispute. Shopify submitted our evidence to the bank. The bank reviewed it and ruled in our favour within days. The chargeback was fraudulent.
Despite this, our Shopify Payments account has been disabled and over £900 in funds is being held until October 2026. That is four months away. For a small business at our stage, that money is critical — it covers materials, production, and shipping for live orders we are actively trying to fulfil.
We have appealed through the proper channels, submitted all documentation, and have been fully cooperative throughout. We are not asking for anything unreasonable — we understand if Shopify Payments cannot be reinstated, we accept that. What we are asking for is the release of funds that belong to us, for orders we fulfilled honestly, for a chargeback that was proven fraudulent by the bank itself.
Has anyone dealt with this and managed to get funds released early? Any advice or visibility from a Shopify team member would be hugely appreciated, as if we do not get a response soon we will have to look into legal matter as this is just ridiculous , we didn’t do anything wrong .
Hello there @HugoWilma
I understand how tough that is for a small business. Even when a chargeback is decided in your favor, payment providers can apply reserves or holds due to their wider risk evaluation, that is oftentimes different from the result of a single dispute.
Meanwhile, you may want to activate a different payment gateway so you don’t have to stop processing new orders and scrambling for cash. It’s also a good idea to save all your fulfillment, delivery confirmation and customer communication records, as a good operational record can help in future reviews of your account.
Sorry you’re stuck in this, the funds-held-until-October part is the bit worth understanding. A Shopify Payments hold or disablement is a risk-team call about perceived future exposure, and it runs separately from the chargeback outcome, so even winning that £74 dispute won’t automatically unfreeze the account. That October date is almost certainly a rolling reserve, they hold the balance roughly 90 to 120 days past your last order to cover any chargebacks that could still land.
Two things that actually move the needle. The disablement won’t get reversed through normal support chat, you need to reply to the risk or underwriting email they sent, with your proof of fulfilment, delivery rate, and business docs, because that team is the only one who can lift it. And separately, get a backup gateway connected now so you can keep selling, since reinstatement is slow and not guaranteed and you don’t want the store dead while you wait.
On the chargeback itself, was it filed as “item not received” or “unauthorised transaction”? That changes which evidence wins, tracking with proof of delivery beats the first, but the second usually needs AVS and device data instead.
Honestly the part I can’t get my head around is what actually triggers the disablement, because it doesn’t seem to line up with anything. There’s another thread where someone’s at 2,500 orders and a 0.4% chargeback rate, well under the 1% line everyone treats as the danger zone, and they got the exact same Payments disabled plus 120 day hold:
Hey @HugoWilma .
That’s a tough situation.
A few things that help:
Contact shopify payment support directly and ask for the risk review team specifically.
Mention the chargeback win clearly and ask for a manual review for the whole period.
Keep everything in writing in case you need it later.