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Has anyone else seen this suspected scam? - Recovery Operations

LloydGreenfield
New Member
4 0 0

Hi all,

A client of mine recently got the following email (names removed). The links take you to a payment page of a store called shopifycollections-uk. 

The balance is not in dollars and the amounts do not match up with what we see in the Shopify UI. Has anyone else seen this?

---------------------

Hi xxx,

You currently have an outstanding balance, of £982.93 for your Shopify Payments account associated with xxx. We require that you make a payment of £491.47 to keep your account open.

You can make a payment for your full outstanding amount of £982.93 by using the link below:

Pay full amount 

If you are unable to make a payment for the full amount you can also use the following link below to make a partial payment of £491.47, using the link below:

Pay partial amount 

If you would like to discuss this further, we are available to you over phone at 1-855-908-3988 or by replying directly to this email. If you have already addressed this concern, please disregard this email and we apologize for any inconvenience, your email address will be removed from our campaign shortly.

Regards,
Shopify Recovery Operations

---------------

Many thanks,

Lloyd

Accepted Solution (1)
Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

This is an accepted solution.

Hi, everyone!

Sophia here from Shopify. I appreciate you expressing your concern here and checking in to verify whether these emails are legitimate requests from Shopify. Based on what you've shared, these do appear to be messages from our Recovery Operations team. I recommend checking the sender's email address to confirm before clicking any links. You can then reply directly to the email to create a ticket with our Recovery Operations team.

I absolutely agree with @LloydGreenfield's suggestion to get in touch with Shopify Support if you're ever unsure about an email. If you don't feel comfortable replying directly to the email you received or aren't sure if the sender email address is one of Shopify's, please get in touch via live chat, email, or callback through the Shopify Help Center and our team would be happy to take a closer look into the message with you. We also have documentation on account security that I recommend reviewing.

Since the next step in this case is to either reply directly to the email or contact Shopify Support, I've marked this as the solution for the benefit of others coming across the topic. 

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

View solution in original post

Replies 19 (19)

Grovely
Tourist
14 0 2

We have had this today too.

 

I am guessing this is a scam. Can you please confirm. Thanks

You currently have an outstanding balance, of £2106.43 for your Shopify Payments account associated with ? We require that you make a payment of £1053.21 to keep your account open.

You can make a payment for your full outstanding amount of £2106.43 by using the link below:

Pay full amount 

If you are unable to make a payment for the full amount you can also use the following link below to make a partial payment of £1053.21, using the link below:

Pay partial amount 

If you would like to discuss this further, we are available to you over phone at 1-855-908-3988 or by replying directly to this email. If you have already addressed this concern, please disregard this email and we apologize for any inconvenience, your email address will be removed from our campaign shortly.

Marc08
Visitor
3 0 0

We had the same, but sadly fell for it as it was the exact amount we had to refund a few of our customers for, so felt legit enough at first sight.

No idea how to recover the money.

If anyone can help with that, it would be well appreciated. Thanks.

LloydGreenfield
New Member
4 0 0
In hindsight, I think it may be legit for that exact reason. I checked the
numbers against what was in the platform and it was the same.
Marc08
Visitor
3 0 0

After we paid half the amount we received the confirmation mail and it ended up in spam.

It literally says “thank you for your order” just as if you bought something off an ecommerce.

It’s the usual shopify confirmation you get from any store after a purchase.

From that email you can also check your order or visit “their store”, which is not Shopify’s platform, but it’s an ecommerce trying to look like Shopify:

https://shopifycollections-uk.myshopify.com

Just the link should make you think twice, but fell for it since the numbers were so exact.

I wonder if it’s not Shopify itself that is leaking data, because there is no other way anyone could get to these numbers without having actual access to our shopify account.

Any idea about what we should do beside reporting it by our bank and freezing our card?

LloydGreenfield
New Member
4 0 0
I'm afraid not, sorry.

Does your store process a lot of refunds or high value refunds? You may
find that you were paid out before a refund came through.

Check your orders and payouts. If that's the case, you may well owe Shopify
for the negative balance.

I agree with what you're saying, the payment method looks very suspicious.
It's just worth double checking.

If in doubt, get in contact with Shopify directly.
Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

This is an accepted solution.

Hi, everyone!

Sophia here from Shopify. I appreciate you expressing your concern here and checking in to verify whether these emails are legitimate requests from Shopify. Based on what you've shared, these do appear to be messages from our Recovery Operations team. I recommend checking the sender's email address to confirm before clicking any links. You can then reply directly to the email to create a ticket with our Recovery Operations team.

I absolutely agree with @LloydGreenfield's suggestion to get in touch with Shopify Support if you're ever unsure about an email. If you don't feel comfortable replying directly to the email you received or aren't sure if the sender email address is one of Shopify's, please get in touch via live chat, email, or callback through the Shopify Help Center and our team would be happy to take a closer look into the message with you. We also have documentation on account security that I recommend reviewing.

Since the next step in this case is to either reply directly to the email or contact Shopify Support, I've marked this as the solution for the benefit of others coming across the topic. 

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
 - Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know! 
 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

tbroen
Visitor
2 0 0

I've recently been through the same process and got the same mail, also similar to the fee of a customer return.

I wrote customer support (ticket: 24213234) who told me that this was most likely scam or phishing and I should forward the mail to Shopify's safety-mail as a phishing attempt.

Afterwards I get a reply from safety at shopify.com that says that the email is legitimately from Shopify whereafter I pay the outstanding amount, and I end up at a shopify-store that looks like this:

Screenshot 2021-06-21 at 11.01.43.png

Definitely not a very good customer experience. Not only did it take hours to figure out if the mail was legitimate or not, but it also feels like the entire process is quite sketchy. It doesn't even say what the amount covers. It just says there is an outstanding balance. A balance that can not be found in the admin console, where other payments are processed.

If this is a legitimate Shopify process, they should seriously consider redesigning the process - It is NOT very user friendly, informative or reassuring.

 

/Thomas Broen

Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

@tbroen wrote:

I've recently been through the same process and got the same mail, also similar to the fee of a customer return.

I wrote customer support (ticket: 24213234) who told me that this was most likely scam or phishing and I should forward the mail to Shopify's safety-mail as a phishing attempt.

Afterwards I get a reply from safety at shopify.com that says that the email is legitimately from Shopify whereafter I pay the outstanding amount, and I end up at a shopify-store that looks like this:

Screenshot 2021-06-21 at 11.01.43.png

Definitely not a very good customer experience. Not only did it take hours to figure out if the mail was legitimate or not, but it also feels like the entire process is quite sketchy. It doesn't even say what the amount covers. It just says there is an outstanding balance. A balance that can not be found in the admin console, where other payments are processed.

If this is a legitimate Shopify process, they should seriously consider redesigning the process - It is NOT very user friendly, informative or reassuring.

 

/Thomas Broen


Hi, Thomas.

Thank you so much for sharing your feedback here. I'm not able to review your tickets or store from this public space, but I will make sure that our Recovery Operations team receives your feedback about the email and process to pay the outstanding balance.

If you have any questions about what the outstanding balance was for or where to find this information in the admin, please reply to the Recovery Operations email and our team will be able to look into the account with you from there. I believe this may have been in regards to Shopify Capital, in which case the information is located under Settings > Capital in the admin, but our team will be able to confirm if you reply directly to the Recovery Operations email.

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

tbroen
Visitor
2 0 0

Thank you for the response Sophia. I've also forwarded the same feedback to the recovery team. It seems the process has not really been designed, but just automated with the available tools. I've even just received a tracking number for my “purchse” at the Recovery Team. Not really something imagine will be very helpful as the “purchase” was payment for an outstanding customer return. Not really anything trackable.

 

/Thomas

Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

@tbroen wrote:

Thank you for the response Sophia. I've also forwarded the same feedback to the recovery team. It seems the process has not really been designed, but just automated with the available tools. I've even just received a tracking number for my “purchse” at the Recovery Team. Not really something imagine will be very helpful as the “purchase” was payment for an outstanding customer return. Not really anything trackable.

/Thomas


Thanks, Thomas! I checked in with our Recovery Operations team to make sure that they received your email reply. I've shared this thread with them as well so they can consider the feedback from yourself and others in any future updates to the emails and collection process.

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

ourikalondon
Visitor
1 0 0

I've had exactly the same experience, I received an identical email to those above. I assumed it was legit because the amount corresponded exactly to my outstanding balance, so I clicked the link and made the payment and am now panicking as my balance owed hasn't changed / I haven't received a receipt, just an odd "order confirmation" and the whole payment process has been extremely sketchy. 

I've had to phone my bank and block my card as I am now concerned that I may have been scammed / data may have been leaked.

If this process is legitimate its really not clear, professional or reassuring - you receive an email from a random address and are asked to make a large payment via an online link without ever logging in to your Shopify store account. It's an alarming email as its worded as if your account will be disabled, which is why I rushed to pay without investigating enough. I was never notified or given a prior warning about this outstanding payment while logged into my store, I can find no record of it there and would have felt a lot more comfortable paying or receiving this kind of request via the console or shopify platform rather than through a random unverified link. 

Anyway I am hoping that I haven't fallen for a scam and that I can soon unblock my card. If it's legitimate, please change the process Shopify, its very stressful. 

Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

@ourikalondon wrote:

I've had exactly the same experience, I received an identical email to those above. I assumed it was legit because the amount corresponded exactly to my outstanding balance, so I clicked the link and made the payment and am now panicking as my balance owed hasn't changed / I haven't received a receipt, just an odd "order confirmation" and the whole payment process has been extremely sketchy. 

I've had to phone my bank and block my card as I am now concerned that I may have been scammed / data may have been leaked.

If this process is legitimate its really not clear, professional or reassuring - you receive an email from a random address and are asked to make a large payment via an online link without ever logging in to your Shopify store account. It's an alarming email as its worded as if your account will be disabled, which is why I rushed to pay without investigating enough. I was never notified or given a prior warning about this outstanding payment while logged into my store, I can find no record of it there and would have felt a lot more comfortable paying or receiving this kind of request via the console or shopify platform rather than through a random unverified link. 

Anyway I am hoping that I haven't fallen for a scam and that I can soon unblock my card. If it's legitimate, please change the process Shopify, its very stressful. 


Thank you for sharing your experience here, @ourikalondon

The email should come from an address associated with Shopify and the Recovery Operations team. If it seems like a random address, please report it to safety@shopify.com so our team can investigate. If you ever receive an email about your account that you're not absolutely positive came from Shopify, you can contact our Support team for confirmation before clicking on any links or engaging in any way. We are available 24/7 through the Shopify Help Center to answer your questions.

I will ensure that our Recovery Operations team receives your feedback on the process. If you have not yet received confirmation of payment in the meantime, please get in touch through the Shopify Help Center so our team can look into this for you. Thank you!

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

Hibbos
Visitor
1 0 2

Just received the same email, ended up here trying to find out if it was a scam.

This is a very poor experience, this should be shown inside our dashboard at least. The email makes it sound like our account may be closed and threatening - "We require that you make a payment of £xxx.xx to keep your account open" - with no date or any further information.

Awful, and reading the other comments on how the balance does not show in the dashboard after payment makes me even less inclined to pay this way.

Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

@Hibbos wrote:

Just received the same email, ended up here trying to find out if it was a scam.

This is a very poor experience, this should be shown inside our dashboard at least. The email makes it sound like our account may be closed and threatening - "We require that you make a payment of £xxx.xx to keep your account open" - with no date or any further information.

Awful, and reading the other comments on how the balance does not show in the dashboard after payment makes me even less inclined to pay this way.


Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback, @Hibbos. This has been shared with the Recovery Operations team.

I want to clarify that the amount requested in the email should be reflected on your Shopify Payments Payouts page, which can be found in the admin under Settings > Payments > View payouts. If the email is specifically pertaining to a Shopify Capital MCA, you can view the details under Settings > Capital.

If ever you receive an email about your store requesting an action you're not comfortable with, please contact Shopify Support via live chat, email, or callback in the Shopify Help Center so we can take a look into the store with you and confirm whether the email is from our team. We're available 24/7 to help you.

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

SC60
Tourist
6 0 1

Hello, could you tell me please if this ended up to be legit? I can't believe 2 years on and we're still having the same doubt! I'm only concerned because when I was first sent this email, Shopify Support told me it was a scam, and so to receive this email again and for the exact same amount that is associated to the refund I had was quite alarming!

grafixoner
Visitor
1 0 0

Are you sure? I got one of these and paid it. Same experience as others but when calling shopify twice they told me it's a scam.  

Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

@grafixoner wrote:

Are you sure? I got one of these and paid it. Same experience as others but when calling shopify twice they told me it's a scam.  


Hi, @grafixoner.


I can't confirm without seeing the email, but this part of one of my earlier posts in the thread pertains to any emails you're unsure about:

The email should come from an address associated with Shopify and the Recovery Operations team. If it seems like a random address, please report it to safety@shopify.com so our team can investigate. If you ever receive an email about your account that you're not absolutely positive came from Shopify, you can contact our Support team for confirmation before clicking on any links or engaging in any way. We are available 24/7 through the Shopify Help Center to answer your questions.

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
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 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

SC60
Tourist
6 0 1

Hello, please can you tell me if this was legit? I've actually had this email twice. The first time I received it, I contacted Shopify support right away and they told me that its a scam, and that Shopify always deducts refunds from the next payout. The second time I received this email, Shopify support tells me to pay it... I'm so very confused. 

Sophia
Shopify Staff
1666 108 217

Hi, @SC60.

 

While other store owners have received similar emails, no one will be able to confirm whether the email you received was from Shopify, as they can't see the full message including where it came from.

 

If you are uncertain about the email you received, please forward the email including the headers to safety@shopify.com. It's important that we treat these matters on a case-by-case basis so we can confirm for you whether the email you received is in fact from Shopify.

Sophia | Social Care @ Shopify 
 - Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know! 
 - Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
 - To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog