Case research · C013

Tufano v. Shopify

2025-04276 · Lackawanna County

Removed to federal courtRemoved to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; same originating action as C054Pennsylvania
CourtLackawanna County
FiledJune 6, 2025
StatusRemoved to federal court
OutcomeRemoved to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania; same originating action as C054
Final dispositionSee C054 (same originating action)
JurisdictionPennsylvania
Pro se
Current / transferee court
Transferred case
Last researchedSeptember 23, 2026

About this case

Evidentiary treatment: This summarizes the plaintiff's own allegations as stated in the complaint or docket record cited below. It reflects what was filed, not a court finding, and is not a determination that the allegations are true.

Proceeding pro se, Tufano filed a complaint on June 6, 2025 in the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas (removed to federal court by Shopify on July 7, 2025, tracked separately as C054) alleging that Shopify (USA) Inc. and more than one hundred other named defendants conspired to violate his constitutional rights and interfere with his business enterprise, framed as a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241. The court noted the pro se complaint could also be liberally construed as raising claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and for breach of contract arising from his Shopify merchant agreement.

The available record does not specify particular damages sought beyond relief for the alleged interference with his business. The complaint further details that his “Frankie's Free Range Meat” business runs on the Shopify platform, which also acts as its payment processor and handles chargeback disputes; he alleges he received 138 chargebacks over the life of the business, that banks initially sided with customers he characterizes as fraudulent, and that some of those customers left what he calls slanderous reviews — framing Shopify's handling of the chargeback/dispute process as enabling this pattern of harm.

Complaint / docket source — govinfo.gov ↗

Defendants

Source record

This page separates court/ruling records, party filings, research classifications, secondary sources and public statements. Unknown or unresolved fields remain labelled as such.

Outcome and research status

Outcome reason: Tufano filed an Objection to Removal on July 10, 2025. Shopify removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on July 16, 2025 -- the same underlying action already tracked as C054; see C054 for the removal’s downstream federal disposition.

Research status: Source-backed (direct LPA portal docket + case detail)

Research notes: Confirmed by direct review of the case’s Verified Complaint and docket/Case Comments entries via the Lackawanna Prothonotary’s portal. No new federal-side information beyond what’s already recorded under C054.

Related litigation

Public video statements

Public statements are displayed separately from court findings. Quotations are transcribed from the video’s own YouTube auto-generated captions and timestamped from the caption cues covering the passage quoted. The Strong / Moderate / Context tier is this project’s research classification of how closely a statement bears on the documented filing patterns — it is not a judicial finding. Any second badge names the filing-restriction factor the statement’s own words describe; it records what the speaker said, not that a court found it.

How quotations are marked: An ellipsis (…) inside a quotation marks words left out between two passages of the same video, which can sit some minutes apart. The omitted wording is not reproduced here, and a clip on the statement supercut plays the whole span from the quotation’s first word to its last — so it includes the omitted material. Quotations without an ellipsis are continuous speech.

Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeFiling after an adverse decision02:54

Time to GIVE UP ON THE COURT SYSTEM? Please help hand out Flyers! · June 12, 2025

We filed the new lawsuit against Shopify as well because the judge wouldn't let me file um just against the chargeback people. And then we had to file uh some stuff against the current Tibon lawsuits.

He names Shopify (a tracked party in the Shopify / business-platform litigation) and states that a new action was filed because a judge had refused to let the prior one proceed — the conduct both core factors describe, stated as the reason for filing. Two tracked actions sit within ten days on either side: C050 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00975, filed 2025-06-02, whose defendant roster is ~140 individually-named chargeback customers and whose recorded refiling basis reads "the same chargebacks-as-conspiracy theory and the same 18 U.S.C. 241 count that C040 lost, re-pled against a substantially identical ~140-name defendant roster"), and C013 (Lackawanna 2025-04276, filed 2025-06-06, later held by a court to raise claims identical to C040 and barred by res judicata). Both are recorded in this research as refilings of C040.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 02:54 — youtube.com ↗
Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeSelf-reported filing volume00:30

Shopify continues to STEAL MONEY!!! · July 16, 2025

I have multiple lawsuits filed in the state and federal court, which they don't seem to care about either.

He names a tracked defendant and, in the same breath, states that he has more than one action on file against it, in both state and federal court, over the same chargeback grievance — the conduct the Strong rubric describes. It is also independently checkable and it checks out: as of this upload date (2025-07-16) the case tracker holds five Shopify actions, two state and three federal — C095 (New York State Supreme, 651064/2025, filed 2025-02-24), C013 (Lackawanna 2025-04276, filed 2025-06-06), C047 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00316, filed 2025-02-21), C050 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00975, filed 2025-06-02) and C054 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-01227, filed 2025-07-07, nine days before this video). The tracker separately records Strong refiling evidence for C054 and C072 on this same grievance. The classification is a research classification recording what the speaker said; it is not a judicial finding and not a vexatious-litigant determination.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:30 — youtube.com ↗
Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeSelf-reported filing volume20:21

US Customs lets $20,000 of WAGYU BEEF ROT!!! Frank Tufano v. All Ways Forwarding · August 6, 2025

This is the This is Dr. Tobant getting my Tik Tok taken down. This is uh Shopify getting transferred to federal court. This is the guy that sold me all the broken restaurant equipment. There's like three different Tabon cases.

He states, in his own words and in the present tense, that he is running three concurrent actions against the same defendant on the same grievance. That is the repeat-filing core factor stated by the speaker rather than inferred by a researcher, and the defendant is a tracked party (Dr. Taban, in the Taban eye-surgery dispute group). The count checks out against the tracked record: as of 2025-08-06, C046 (M.D. Pa., filed 2025-01-02), C101 (LA Superior, filed 2025-01-06) and C053 (M.D. Pa., filed 2025-06-27 — the TikTok removal, in which Taban and Mehryar Taban MD Inc are named defendants) were all live. He also names the TikTok takedown and the Shopify removal in the same breath, tying two more tracked matters to the same account. One classification caveat, stated for transparency: the tier rests on a caption correction. The auto-captions render the name as “Tobant” and “Tabon”, spellings that match no tracked party; only the correction to Taban identifies the defendant, and a reader who declines to rest a tier on a corrected proper noun would read this as Moderate. The Strong classification stands because the same video’s captions render “Dr. Taban” correctly at 17:22 and the video’s own description spells “Dr. Taban” correctly four times, so the party’s identity is not in genuine doubt.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 20:21 — youtube.com ↗
Repeated/escalatory filing
Strong pattern relevanceRepeat filing on the same disputeFiling announced or confirmed00:15

I SUED THE POLICE to Expose Chargeback Thieves!!! · September 16, 2026

We've filed multiple lawsuits against Shopify. We've contacted the police department multiple times. The most recent lawsuit we just did, we're suing the police department. We're suing all the banks. Hopefully hopefully naming every single bank kind of puts an end to this and they keep an eye out for it now.

The speaker states in his own words that he has filed more than one action against Shopify on the same chargeback grievance, and then describes the most recent one by its party composition — the police department plus "all the banks." The dataset holds six Shopify actions (C013/C054, C047, C050, C072, C095) on the chargeback/reviews theory, and C083's amended complaint of 2026-08-24 names Carbondale Police Department, Shopify and seven banks. The identification is from the party composition described in the transcript, not from the title.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:15 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:41

BACK TO WORK AFTER SURGERY - Free Range Meat Vlog · December 12, 2023

things first I put an automated email response saying like oh Frankie is going to be away for about a week so please be patient with the emails the people that harass my business Place fake orders file chargebacks took that as an opportunity thinking I wasn't checking my emails and orders to just try to place a bunch of fake orders and do charge backs and caused me a bunch of Mayhem so there were probably between 10 and 20 orders where people intentionally placed an order with the wrong address

The grievance the Shopify / business-platform dispute is built on, stated 162 days before C040 was filed (2023-12-12 against 2024-05-22, both dates on record). The claims-summary record for C013 records that he pleads "he received 138 chargebacks over the life of the business, that banks initially sided with customers he characterizes as fraudulent", and for C072 that he "noticed an evolving pattern of the behavior of [] customers filing chargebacks". This passage is the contemporaneous version of that same pattern claim, including the specific mechanism (a deliberately wrong shipping address followed by a refund demand) and a count ("between 10 and 20 orders") for the single week he was away. The count is his own and unverified, and spoken figures are the least reliable content this research handles. He describes other people's conduct, not his own filing conduct, so No filing-conduct factor applies.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:41 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance15:38

Cavity Concentrate! Water Kefir! Demi Glace! Free Range Meat Vlog · April 22, 2024

I'm not going to talk about the chargebacks and scams this week but it's it's tough you know it's like a few people were like saying uh I maybe I'll talk about that next week because it's always like firsttime customers and they're doing sketchy stuff like when I tell them to take photos of the entire order immediately and then the packing s they say oh I already threw it out or I don't have it so it's just you know trying to filter through the nonsense but it hasn't been that bad

C013's claims summary describes the grievance C040 was built on as "138 chargebacks over the life of the business," with banks siding with customers he characterises as fraudulent. This quote states that grievance — first-time customers, "sketchy stuff," a photo-and-packing-slip evidence protocol he has already put in place — 30 days before C040 was filed, and does so while explicitly declining to discuss it. It also confirms chargebacks are a standing segment of the vlog, which 4nRZcoGscmk (2024-05-20) corroborates from the other side ("you guys want to hear about me complaining about chargebacks and stuff", plus the uploader's own Chargeback? chapter title). No filing, court, lawyer or intention to sue is mentioned anywhere in this video.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 15:38 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance43:52

LA Restaurant Vlog #2 - Avra Beverly Hills · May 12, 2024

when like I don't really like for me $200 bro like I lose so much money on my business doesn't make any sense like how can you lose so much money on your business every week from people just filing chargebacks that you could eat a restaurants a few nights a week and not [ __ ] worry about it cuz like oh what's another $500 I lose

The Shopify-dispute chargeback grievance stated in his own words before the action that pleads it existed. C040 (Tufano v. Frankies Free Range Meat Conspirators, M.D. Pa. 3:24-cv-00846) was filed 2024-05-22 — 10 days after this video published and, given the documented lag between this video's recording and its publication, at least 27 days after it was recorded. C040's recorded claims summary alleges that ~130 named individuals, "apparently Shopify merchants, employees, or customers," are liable to him for $1,000,000 "based on chargebacks connected to his 'Frankie's Free Range Meats' online meat-delivery business." The quote supplies the grievance, the mechanism and a running dollar figure, with no case, court, filing or lawyer mentioned anywhere in 48 minutes. Because the word "filing" appears in the quote, the classification needs saying plainly: the filing described is customers filing chargebacks with their banks, not anyone filing a lawsuit — he describes no filing of his own, no threatened filing and no prior action, so treating this as a filing announcement would be a straightforward misreading. "What's another $500 I lose" is also a fifth irreconcilable chargeback figure, joining the four already on record across three other videos ($650 / $700 / $2,000 / "3 or $4,000"); it is recorded alongside them and reconciled with none of them. Note also that the loss period here is "every week," which not every one of those four attaches to.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 43:52 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance03:00

First the Freezer BROKE! NOW THE FRIDGE!? Free Range Meat Vlog · July 15, 2024

on top of that chargebacks like $1,000 in chargebacks and people trying to scam me so it really never ends

C040 (Tufano v. Frankies Free Range Meat Conspirators, M.D. Pa. 3:24-cv-00846, part of the Shopify / business-platform conspiracy litigation) was filed 2024-05-22 and was pending on this date (dismissed 2024-12-09), and chargebacks also reach the claims summaries for C013, C050 and C072. The quote states the underlying grievance — chargebacks framed as coordinated scamming — while that action was live, and names neither the action nor any defendant. Earlier research recorded the same shape on another video: the theory of a pending case narrated without the case.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 03:00 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

OVER 50 CHARGEBACKS IN TWO WEEKS!? · May 18, 2025

I'm trying my best with the business stuff, but these gangstalkers are getting ridiculous with the chargebacks. I think it's over 50 in the past two weeks. This is the first page of chargebacks in my emails. Second page, third page, and here's the fourth page of chargebacks.

A number attached to a date — over 50 chargebacks in the two weeks preceding 2025-05-18, i.e. roughly 2025-05-04 to 2025-05-18 — for the exact factual predicate of the Shopify-dispute pleadings. The claims-summary record for C072 quotes the complaint itself: Tufano "noticed an evolving pattern of the behavior of [] customers filing chargebacks, the majority of them making no attempt" to resolve directly with him. The C050 claims summary describes the same theory as the basis of a $1,000,000 demand. Nothing else in the dataset carries a chargeback count or a date range; this supplies both, on camera, as his own contemporaneous assertion. He also shows what he says are four pages of chargeback emails — visual, not captioned, and not assessable from the transcript. Recorded as a party statement, not a verified figure.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Filing announcement
Moderate pattern relevanceFiling announced or confirmed00:31

CHARGEBACKS CONTINUE! Shopify colluding with Gangstalkers!? · June 11, 2025

And I did file a lawsuit. So, I'm going to be allowed to list and name all the defendants in this lawsuit publicly. So, all 150 people who stole money from me on these chargebacks will be listed in a YouTube video.

The most consequential statement in this video, and possibly in the slice. He states a purpose for the filing that is not a remedy: naming ~150 people as defendants makes their identities publishable, and he says on camera that he intends to publish them. Set that against the docket — C040 (3:24-cv-00846) lists 65 individual defendants and C054 (3:25-cv-01227) lists roughly 140, overwhelmingly private individuals with no corporate connection to Shopify. His "all 150 people who stole money from me on these chargebacks" maps onto that defendant list almost exactly, which is his own account of what those ~140 names are. Filing announced or confirmed is the factor: he confirms a filing made. Cost imposition as stated motive was considered and rejected — the stated motive here is publication, not making anyone spend money — and the tier stays Moderate because no core factor applies.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:31 — youtube.com ↗
Filing announcement
Moderate pattern relevanceFiling announced or confirmedJudicial or forum bias alleged00:47

CHARGEBACKS CONTINUE! Shopify colluding with Gangstalkers!? · June 11, 2025

This week, we filed a case in both the federal court and the state court. As if a judge is going to do the right thing, though. They're probably just going to dismiss the case and I'm going to be screwed as usual, losing money.

A self-reported parallel filing that the docket independently confirms. In the ten days before publication the tracker records exactly that pattern, twice over: C050 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00975) and C051 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00976) filed 2025-06-02, and C013 (Lackawanna 2025-04276, Tufano v. Shopify) and C014 (Lackawanna 2025-04277, Tufano v. TikTok) filed 2025-06-06. This is one of the rare cases where a self-report about filing conduct can be checked against the docket and matches. The second half alleges the outcome is predetermined ("as if a judge is going to do the right thing"), which is Judicial or forum bias alleged.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:47 — youtube.com ↗
Filing announcement
Moderate pattern relevanceFiling announced or confirmed00:00

Gangstalkers STEAL ANOTHER $1000 on Shopify · July 13, 2025

Despite my current active lawsuit against Shopify, they are still facilitating over $1,000 a week worth of chargebacks against my business.

He confirms a live action against Shopify on the publication date and puts the ongoing loss at over $1,000 a week. On 2025-07-13 three tracked Shopify actions were on foot or freshly filed: C050 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00975, filed 2025-06-02), C013 (Lackawanna 2025-04276, filed 2025-06-06) and C054 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-01227, filed 2025-07-07 — six days before this video). He says "lawsuit", singular, and names no docket, court or judge, so which action he means cannot be fixed from the transcript. Filing announced or confirmed is not a core factor, so the tier is Moderate.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Legal escalation / contemplated proceeding
Moderate pattern relevanceThreatened or prospective filingJudicial or forum bias alleged00:39

Gangstalkers STEAL ANOTHER $1000 on Shopify · July 13, 2025

I mean, I'm just going to file a motion for monetary sanctions in the court and watch this judge ignore me as usual.

Two factors in eleven words. He announces an intended filing that has not yet been made — a motion for monetary sanctions — and in the same breath alleges the assigned judge will disregard it “as usual”, which is Judicial or forum bias alleged. Neither factor is core, so the tier is Moderate. Whether this motion was ever filed is not established here: the transcript names no docket, and a threatened filing that never happened is itself a finding, so a docket check on the Shopify-dispute cases live in July 2025 (C013 / C050 / C054) remains the outstanding follow-up.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:39 — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

Shopify continues to STEAL MONEY!!! · July 16, 2025

This is 100% gangstalking. Shopify is secretly working with people to defraud small businesses of money.

Names Shopify directly and states the conspiracy theory of the case — that the platform is not merely permitting chargebacks but is a participant in them. That is the same chargebacks-as-conspiracy theory the case tracker records as the shared core of the Shopify / business-platform dispute group; C054's own refiling note describes "the same chargebacks-as-conspiracy theory and the same 18 U.S.C. 241 count that C040 lost."

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

Shopify Chargebacks ARE CRIMINAL not Civil · July 22, 2025

Yeah, I've been physically sick at this point. So disgusted by these chargebacks. I started calling up some police stations and I found out it's actually a criminal offense. So this is not a civil issue. These people that are stealing money from me can technically be put in jail

The chargebacks are the subject matter of a whole tracked line of litigation — the Shopify / business-platform conspiracy dispute. The recorded claims summaries show that C050 (M.D. Pa. 3:25-cv-00975, filed 2025-06-02, 142 defendants) alleges Shopify and "over 140 co-defendants … apparently Shopify merchants, employees, or customers" are liable for $1,000,000 based on chargebacks, "characterized as criminal civil-rights violations under 18 U.S.C. § 241" — and that C054 (3:25-cv-01227, filed 2025-07-07, 144 defendants) is the same roster refiled. So this statement is not a change of theory: he had already pleaded the chargebacks under a criminal conspiracy statute in a civil suit. What is new is the announcement of a parallel non-court route for the same grievance, made 15 days after C054 was filed and while C050 was still pending (C050 was dismissed 2025-09-04).

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:00

Customer with $9 Million House CHARGEBACK · February 26, 2026

There has been some type of organized gangstalking against my business since I've started and we've lost thousands of dollars in chargebacks every single month for over six years now. This is why I tell people never to use Shopify and we're trying to get off the platform. But they will help these gangstalkers steal money from you.

Names Shopify and states a quantified theory of harm attributed to the platform's chargeback handling, thousands of dollars a month over more than six years. That is the substantive grievance behind the tracked Shopify actions in his own words.

Why this classification: Moderate because the platform defendant is named in the audio and the harm is stated with a figure and a duration, which is dispute background rather than general commentary; no filing conduct is described and no case number or court is spoken. The organised-gangstalking framing is his characterisation and is offered without evidence.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch / source — youtube.com ↗
Dispute background statement
Moderate pattern relevance00:20

Customer with $9 Million House CHARGEBACK · February 26, 2026

Someone gets the product delivered, they file a charge back, they always win. They side with the gangstalker. They don't side with the small business.

States the mechanism he attributes the losses to: a customer receives the goods, files a chargeback and prevails, with the platform siding against the small business.

Why this classification: Moderate because it is the clearest single-sentence statement of the theory behind the tracked Shopify actions, with no filing conduct described. No individual is named and no identifying detail about any customer appears in this passage.

Transcript-verified verbatim quote

Watch at 00:20 — youtube.com ↗

Related video research

Each video has its own research page with its verified publish date, timestamped statements and case links. A researched link between a video and a docket record is not a finding of causation in either direction.

Cite this page
Frank Tufano Litigation Research. "Tufano v. Shopify (2025-04276)". Research last verified September 23, 2026. https://suedbyfranktufano.com/cases/2025-04276-tufano-v-shopify/