DonateMate
The reviews are overwhelmingly positive about the app’s core purpose: merchants say it is easy to install, intuitive to use, and effective for adding donation, roundup, tip, or pay-what-you-can options to Shopify stores and POS. Many reviewers highlight that it integrates well with their theme, works smoothly once configured, and can handle both online and in-person donation flows. Support is a major strength throughout the feedback, with the developer repeatedly praised for being responsive, patient, proactive, and willing to help with setup, styling, bugs, and custom changes. Several reviewers also mention that the app is a good fit for nonprofits and community-focused businesses, and some note that it has helped increase donations or process significant donation volume. The main negative feedback centers on technical issues and fraud-related concerns. A small number of reviewers report errors during onboarding, glitches, formatting problems, HTML/403/503 issues, or conflicts with other apps/themes, though some of these were later resolved with support. One serious negative theme is donation fraud and chargeback exposure: a reviewer says fraudulent donations were being automatically fulfilled and causing costly chargeback fees, and another mentions daily fraudulent donations. Overall, the app is seen as strong and useful, but merchants want better protection against fraud and more reliable behavior in edge cases.
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So far, this has opened me up to a lot of scamming, and I'm being charged the chargeback fees once a bank fraud claim is issued. So Shopify is making $0.35 on every $1 donation, the donation is not being caught by Shopify fraud detection and instead automatically fulfilled, the real person disputes and I'm charged $16. My store will go broke very quickly at this rate.
Thank you for sharing this — we take fraud concerns seriously and understand how frustrating chargebacks are. Card testing fraud is unfortunately a growing issue across all Shopify stores, not just those with donations. Fraudsters use small transactions to validate stolen card numbers, and because donations are typically low-value, they can slip past Shopify's built-in fraud filters. We'd love to help you get this under control. A few things that can help immediately: • Setting a minimum donation amount to make card testing less attractive • Enabling Shopify's bot protection on your storefront • Reviewing your payment capture settings We've reached out to you directly with more detailed steps. We're committed to helping you resolve this — please don't hesitate to reply. — Ben, Founder of DonateMate
we are having fruadelent donations, daily.
Thank you for reaching out — we're sorry to hear you're dealing with fraudulent donations. That's incredibly frustrating. We've looked into this and it appears these donations are being added via direct cart access (Shopify's cart API), not through the DonateMate widget. Unfortunately, this is a broader Shopify storefront issue where bots can add any product — including donation products — directly to the cart, bypassing all on-page widgets. If you'd like more assistance you can reach out to me directly at [email protected] or you can contact Shopify Support.
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