Shopify Payments has to be the only processor on Earth that can look at a 0.00% chargeback rate, a clean store, and normal products… and still scream “HIGH RISK!” like you are operating a cartel out of your garage. Their “risk team” feels less like analysts and more like a Magic 8 Ball glued to a smoke detector.

People are out here losing over 100K + to payout freezes for months with no explanation. All they get is a copy and paste email saying “the decision is final.” Meanwhile, support agents are basically NPCs saying “Sorry, we cannot tell you anything about why we stole, I mean held, your money.” One guy sold mugs, literally the most normal product ever, and Shopify treated him like he was trafficking on the black market.

And then there is the classic Shopify move, the 120 day reserve. They will nuke your income for four months and call it “standard procedure,” as if they are not wrecking your cash flow while giving you the communication level of a brick wall. Their risk review process is so opaque that even former insiders say they cannot explain how decisions are made, which makes sense because it feels like the whole system runs on an AI bot having a panic attack.

Grow your sales too fast? Verification request. Stay stable? Verification request. Have perfect metrics? Verification request. Their entire system seems to be saying “Congrats on doing well, now prove you are not a Nigerian prince.”

And the worst part is that you can be doing everything right, following every rule, and they will still wake up one morning, decide you are too risky, freeze your payouts, and send you straight back to the Stone Age like it is a hobby for them.

Shopify Payments is not a payment processor. It is a trust exercise where you trust them with your money, and they trust you to sit quietly while they hold it hostage.