CherryTree Inc review for Shop
Aug. 28, 2023
For about 3 weeks now, almost every purchase made via the Shop channel/app has ended up being a fraudulent order. Not only that, the orders were not flagged by Shopify's system - Shopify Fraud Protection did not catch those things and we got hammered with fraudulent orders and chargebacks - we found out on our own either from people calling in after the orders went through, or when we look through the order details and payment capture information. Yes, we do look at each order that comes in - we're not a large company, we're a small business, and we like to know where each one of our products go to; being that we are a small business, these fraudulent orders have caused financial losses and the stress on the team is almost unbearable. The first one we noticed was about two weeks ago, when that person actually called us and told us they never placed this order. The shipping address was his mother’s and the billing address was his old address. He said he hadn’t used the Shop app in months. We chatted with Shopify’s support but the only thing they said was that they think that person's account got hacked. Fast-forward to two weeks later, and we get a chargeback from someone else with nearly the same story. They ordered something that’s custom-made and takes about 4-6 weeks to build, so it hadn’t even shipped yet - but production has begun and parts ordered so that sucks a bit. But, same story: they had never heard of us, and didn't even know we made licensed Star Trek things. A bit of digging, and we see more orders where chargebacks were filed but they were protected by Shopify’s Chargeback Protection and we didn’t even get notifications about those. But all of those were also pretty much the same stories. And here’s where it gets really weird: The shipping addresses do match those of the owners of the hacked accounts, are all correct - some packages are still en route, and some are at nearby UPS stores waiting to be picked up. So no, the scammers who hacked those accounts don’t even have the merchandise. Here's actually a little excerpt of the chat with Shopify after a call with the first customer mentioned above: "16:59 Agent (Support Advisor): Thank you for waiting we have double checked our resources and also based our Support Shop Department they mentioned to me that they don't have the visibility as to why this particular order got a fraudulent or high risk they can only provide some general information or general insights and suggestions: 16:59 Agent (Support Advisor): * Account security: It is possible that the customer's account may have been compromised or hacked. In such cases, fraudsters gain unauthorized access to the account and place fraudulent orders. It's important for customers to use strong, unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication (if available) to enhance the security of their accounts." PLEASE Shopify, do not tell us fraud can happen and to use your fraud prevention system like you did in another review. We ARE using your fraud prevention and your system doesn't catch it!!
Hi, thanks for the detailed review of your experience of using the Shop channel. Dealing with fraudulent orders are never easy, so I can understand your frustration. For context, our Fraud Analysis feature uses machine learning algorithms to determine an order's risk level. The displayed risk indicators aren't a comprehensive list of points looked at when reviewing an order however, but are instead instead a small subset of this data. I understand it can be frustrating when the system does not catch a high-risk order for your store, though we have a team of engineers and data scientists that are continuously working to improve our algorithms. From this, we're hoping to see a more accurate risk indicator being displayed overtime for orders on a store. I know it's not what you'd like to hear, and perhaps this has been communicated to you many times already, however our fraud prevention features as listed here: https://shopify.link/Qe1p, which includes the Fraud Control app, is the most effective way to provide another layer of protection to your store outside of the Fraud Analysis. The Fraud Control app: https://shopify.link/4krb in particular allows you to filter and block specific orders using a set of rules you implement, so if you haven't already done so I recommend installing this on your store. -Kimi, Shopify Support