I recently had an issue where I discovered that Shopify had deducted an amount of $90.00 and an additional $20.00 from our payments. This was unilaterally done and without any investigation or discussion. It appears that the customer went to her bank and informed them that although she purchased some products from us, she never received it. When I approached Shopify for clarification, they said that it is out of their hands and I can submit information showing that the chargeback was incorrect and they will send it to the bank. This dispute period is 30 days from the date of chargeback and up to another 75 days for a response from the bank. In the meantime, the money was sent to the bank without any investigation by Shopify. I have contacted the customer who informs me that she did not inform her bank that she did not receive the goods and in actual fact she did receive the goods. We always strive to provide excellent customer services and always give customers the benefit of doubt in any situation so it concerns me that Shopify have little regard for their customers yet are always deducting enormous fees from vendors.
My gripe is that firstly the customer did not contact me with the issue and secondly Shopify just handed our money over to the bank. Shopify will not tell me which bank it is so that we can contact them and resolve the issue. Clearly for some reason this to me appears to be a scam.
Shopify should amend their policy and firstly contact vendors and give them a cjance to resolve any perceived issues beofre any funds are deducted soley on the request of a bank. I do not not believe that Shopify has provide me as a vendor with any customer support. In addition it almost impossible to have any interactions with their support. Is there any other vendors that has had any similar experiences? If so please bring this to the attention of Shopify.
Thanks for reaching out here to share your experiences about receiving a chargeback on Shopify. I understand they are not ideal and dealing with them can certainly be a stressful situation.
When operating any website, store or platform that accepts credit cards online, on occasion you may need to deal with chargebacks or inquiries. They are definitely not a nice aspect of selling online, but are often unavoidable and can happen on any platform - they are not specific to Shopify.
To clarify, when a chargeback is initiated by the customer’s bank, the bank themselves take the disputed amount from you right away. Shopify does not take the money, we simply act as an intermediary in the transaction so to speak. The cardholder’s bank also takes a chargeback fee from you which would be on top of the disputed amount. This fee varies depending on your location but you can see details here. From what you have described it sounds like the 90$ and 20$ charges are likely to be the chargeback amount and the chargeback fees respectively.
I appreciate your feedback, however we are unable to contact merchants first to give them a chance before the money is deducted as Shopify are not involved in the decision making of chargeback outcomes; it ultimately entirely lies with the customers bank themselves and we can not influence this in any way.
You mentioned that the customer has been in contact with you to say they didn’t contact their bank about the order. In that case, you should start by clarifying with the customer that if there is no problem to resolve, then they should contact their bank and say that they want to drop the chargeback. You should also send evidence to the credit card company that the customer agreed to drop the charge just to cover yourself. You can do so by clicking the Submit Response button on the order page in your admin.
If you win the chargeback, then you get the disputed amount back, and Shopify also refunds the chargeback fee. If the cardholder wins the chargeback, then the disputed amount is returned to the cardholder.
I would invite you to carefully read this resource on chargebacks and how to handle them, as it explains everything in detail and will allow you to be fully informed if this ever happens again. In order to prevent chargebacks in the future, there are some proactive steps you can take which are outlined in this help document here.