UPS Shipping through Shopify BEWARE

Topic summary

Merchant reports two unexpected $1,250 charges each after purchasing UPS labels via Shopify for large wedding sign shipments. The extra fees appeared on bank statements with no email, warning, or explanation, totaling about $2,500.

After two weeks with Shopify support, the cause was identified: UPS audited the packages as larger than declared by about 1–2 inches. Instead of recalculating the label cost (~$300 at the corrected size), UPS applied a high oversize/large-package surcharge.

Charges were automatically debited; the packages were not held and no notification was sent by Shopify. No images or attachments were referenced.

Outcome: explanation provided, but no refund or policy change mentioned. The poster advises buying labels directly from UPS rather than through Shopify.

Status: unresolved concern about transparency and lack of notifications for carrier adjustment fees when packages are measured over declared dimensions.

Summarized with AI on December 25. AI used: gpt-5.

I’m a sign maker and sometimes ship large wedding signs via UPS through Shopify. Have never had any problems until recently. Only after looking over my bank statements did I find that Shopify charged me an additional $1250 on TWO occasions without any notation, email, warning, or explanation as to what the charges were for. After dealing with Shopify support for two weeks now- it turns out that I had two large UPS packages that were flagged by UPS as being over the size listed on the label. It is possible that our measurements were off by 1-2 inches at most. The “Fee” for this overage was not what the actual label cost at those slightly larger dimensions would have been (which was roughly $300)… instead it was $1250. They billed and charged my bank account without a word. I got no red flag warning, the package wasn’t held- nothing. Had I not noticed that $2500 was randomly missing from the account I never would have known. Let this be a warning to you if you use Shopify to ship your items. I highly recommend doing so directly through UPS and not through Shopify.