Hello, I created my website and after I got my couple of sales my store got terminated before i could get my first payout. I didn’t receive a specific reason, the email said:
"We have terminated ----- due to activity that is not, or that we suspect is not, a legitimate commerce practice. This type of activity damages consumer trust and is a violation of Shopify’s TOS. As a result, we will no longer host – on Shopify and your account has been closed. The full amount of your store’s pending payouts are typically held for 120 days by the processor.
If you believe this decision was made in error, you can submit an appeal. This will initiate a review process to determine if your store can be reinstated.
How the appeal process works
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Submit your appeal with the required documentation
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We will review your appeal and may request additional information if needed
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We will reach out to you via email to let you know the outcome of your appeal
Ticket ID: 648e9ffb-0db5-4d09-b747-0dc7e4fbbccf
I urgently need your help regarding the 120-day hold on my payouts. As a small business owner, this situation is extremely overwhelming and has put me under tremendous stress. Without access to these funds, I cannot pay my suppliers, which directly prevents me from fulfilling customer orders and puts my entire business at risk.
I understand the need for security, but a full 100% hold makes it impossible for me to continue operating. If there are concerns, I would be more than willing to work with a compromise, such as a 10% rolling reserve, instead of a complete freeze.
I kindly ask you to reconsider this hold as soon as possible, as it is creating severe hardship for me and my business.
Please Shopify look into this matter urgent.
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Not only did they 100% hold my store, they closed it down! I’m now getting emails from customers about this issue!!! Shopify need to look into this matter and resolve it asap how outrageous, this is totally wrong it really does effect your mental health. Really stressful shopify.
If you’re going to appeal to Shopify, one of the first things they look at is whether your sales are from genuine customers (not test orders, friends/family, or anything that looks manipulated).
So yes — your sales need to be real, verifiable transactions:
Orders paid with valid cards/PayPal (not declined attempts).
Customers with real shipping addresses.
Orders you can show proof of fulfillment for (labels, tracking numbers, invoices from your supplier).
If Shopify suspects that sales aren’t real, that’s exactly the kind of thing that can trigger account termination and the payout hold.
In your appeal, make sure you include proof that your sales are genuine and fulfilled — that’s your strongest defense.
Hi there,
I understand how stressful this is. The 120-day payout hold is Shopify Payments’ standard policy when an account is terminated, and only the Trust & Safety/Payments team can review or adjust it.
The best next step is to submit your appeal with clear proof of business legitimacy (supplier invoices, order tracking, business registration, etc.). If you’ve already appealed, reply to the same email with your ticket ID to ensure your case is active.
Unfortunately, the community can’t lift the hold — it must go through Shopify’s internal review.
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If you are successful in getting your site back, you should download all customer and product information, and regularly update your backup, so that in the event of a complete loss of site you’ll be able to migrate to a different hosting service and import your products and customers.
Just checked my customer support emails, and look at this… Now its creating issue of my customers and now my entire business is at risk.
What an absolute joke, never using shopify ever again.
