Something frustrating just happened, and I’d appreciate some advice.
A merchant installed my app and soon messaged saying there was an urgent issue — the widget turned their site fully yellow and couldn’t be disabled. At first, I didn’t realize what had happened, so I suggested uninstalling and reinstalling.
After checking the logs, it became clear that the merchant had manually changed all widget colors (background, text, icon, etc.) to the same yellow color — which made all content invisible. They did this four separate times, and each time blamed the app, saying it was broken.
I reset the settings from my end and explained what caused the issue. Still, they changed the colors again and repeated the same complaint. They also claimed they couldn’t see my replies in the live chat — but session replay logs confirmed they did.
Despite everything working correctly and me actively trying to help, they’ve now left a 1-star review saying the app broke their site and support was poor.
To be honest, this doesn’t feel like a misunderstanding. It seems intentional — possibly a fake or competitor review.
Has anyone experienced this kind of behavior? Any suggestions on how to respond publicly or protect against these kinds of attacks? I have full session reply of the user.
I’d recommend publicly replying to the review explaining what you just explained here, so at the very least future merchants can better understand the situation and judge for themselves. It’s frustrating but sometimes this is all we can do.
Would also recommend reaching out to support, and/or some higher-ups on twitter/X to see if they can get the review removed, because fake 1-star reviews do slip through. And if you kind find a similar pattern across other stores it may help reaching out to build a case.
Similar happened to my app and many other checkout-related apps back in February:
It was a lot more blatant but the reviews ultimately got removed. It was another app developer who reached out to me, along with all other affected apps, he compiled a spreadsheet tracking all the incidents, forwarded it to devrel, and next thing I know the fake reviews were removed.
I already submitted a report with full evidence a few days ago, but haven’t heard back yet. It’s a bit worrying since the review is clearly misleading and is hurting the app’s reputation.
Is there a way to follow up or escalate the report? I have clear proof of the user’s intentional actions, including session replays and chat logs.
Yes, I’ve posted a reply on the review to give some background information. It’s frustrating how quickly one fake review can destroy trust, especially when you’re a smaller app just beginning.
I’ve not heard back from Shopify support yet, but 'll try to reach out through other means as well.