Account blocked with no visibility on turn around time

UK Feedback & Ideas
1

Edit : Adding a reddit post which I made which has more details. As few people in comments think I am ommiting details - here you go. I wanted to keep this post as a feedback post and make it verbose with all the details. If you are interested in all details please go to reddit post.

Update : This has been resolved now and account is ublocked. I am still disatisfied by the support that Monzo has post blocking someone’s account.

Original Post :

I have been using Monzo now for last 3 years. And slowly it had become one of the main banks for me. All of my transactions happen though it.

Today I tried to transfer some amount to a friend ( someone I have known for 20+ years ). And BAMMM! It was flagged as suspicious and asked bunch of proof of relationships and why this money is needed. The friend was really in need and it made the situation worse.

Provided all that information and now silence. Got a message in app stating that scam specialist will call you now - been over 2 hours waiting for the “now”.

A couple of feedback

  1. Please improve the customer service. It doesn’t work in real need.
  2. Build responsive integrity team where the blocked customer knows about an ETA.
  3. Improve fraud detection. I know it’s an ever evolving hard problem - but If a customer provides pdfs, chat screenshot and detailed reasoning - they must know what they are doing.
  4. Integrity teams should be enabling and not blocking by default. Have options to do video verification - to reset the block, or have an option to cancel transaction in question - allow smaller transfers upto a limit of 50/100.

Situation like this will now push me (and would have pushed others ) to use a high street bank for all my transactions where I can call my relationship manager and sort things out.

Will still use Monzo for pots and foreign transactions - but for everything else and dealing with large sums I am moving away from Monzo as soon as my account gets unblocked.

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Good luck at your “high street bank” :crossed_fingers:

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I’ve had the same happen with Monzo and other highstreet banks, highstreet banks win everytime here. Sadly it’s something you have to experience first-hand with Monzo, and is so far pretty much the only bad thing I have to say about them. The team that deal with this is clearly way overworked and has a huge queue in front of you, you cannot seem to ever contact them, they can only contact you (also different with highstreet banks)

What is a very simple call to, say, HSBC to assure them a transaction in legitimate, is a blackhole with no communication from Monzo, in my experience

Most highstreet banks will also just block the transfer, not your entire account. Monzo trying to protect you will be a reality to check to anyone who thinks about going Full Monzo with no backup

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And in case of a false positive like this one, this is causes a lot of stress and issues for the customer. And I would definitely move my business from Monzo to some place else.

In this particular case my friend would be moving homes for renting. A delay for even 2-3 days would mean they need to restart the search and put in a lot of effort.

6

Good luck with that.

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To be fair to the OP this is not an area where Monzo excels.

I’m all for robust fraud detection but then have the customer services ready to back that up to allow genuine customers manage their money on their terms (within the law, of course).

I’m not saying that another bank would necessarily do better (though in my experience they have) but whenever someone posts about these things it’s just a pile on when they really are just having a bad customer experience and it may not be their fault.

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I have had faced similar issues with other banks twice - on first occasion I could visit branch, talk to a person and get it resolved; and on 2nd i could get someone on phone and resolve this.

The issue is not with all these protections, it is with the support post that ( as you said ).

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rightly or wrongly, monzo has earned itself a reputation of being over officious & hard to deal with in these situations. I transferred some money the other day (an unusual transaction for me) and was concerned it would trigger something.

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10

A couple of thousand, according to Reddit. Did you explain to them what it was for?

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Had a feeling the original post may have omitted a major detail :thinking:

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I did explain and provided the all the details - including reason for transfer, screenshot of chats, pdfs for the reciepts and everything else.

and why is “A couple of thousand” a concern here? i have had transactions ranging from few cents to a much larger amount than this one.

13

Spending patterns pretty much.

14

Bye bye Monzo. Never again.

I tried to transfer £9,000 to my bathroom fitter this morning — a completely legitimate payment covering one month’s work plus fixtures and fittings. Monzo stopped it and blocked my account.

I immediately provided the invoice and a full explanation. They briefly unblocked things — but still refused to release the payment. I was told to wait 24 hours.

Twelve hours later, I called to chase. Result? My account was fully blocked again — this time no money in or out for 48 hours.

Let’s be clear:

  • This is a genuine payment

  • I am not being coerced

  • There is a valid invoice due today

The frontline staff were polite, but powerless. The “other department” had flagged it as suspicious, and apparently no one has the authority to step in, sense-check it, or act with any urgency.

So as a customer, you’re simply stuck — locked out of your own money — while your legitimate obligations go unpaid.

The moment they unblock my account, I’m moving everything straight back to First Direct, where I’ve banked for 35+ years. They ask sensible questions on large payments — but they deal with you like a human being and resolve things quickly.

This isn’t fraud prevention done well. This is blunt-force, process-driven control that punishes the customer while hiding behind “security.”

It leaves you feeling like you’ve done something wrong — when all you’ve done is try to pay a bill.

I understand the need to stop scams. But freezing accounts, delaying access to funds, and offering no meaningful communication is not the answer.

I’m done. Completely.

If you value access to your own money, think very carefully before trusting Monzo with it.

15

This isn’t happening to a completely legitimate transfer without some red flags from you/them.

I did this exact thing, with the bathroom guy too. I had to verify but no account locking, no blocking, I had to jump through some hoops but I paid him within minutes.

Did all the details match? Paying a business account?

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Yes everything matched perfectly. The guy is as honest as the day is long. Account still locked. They say it was a ‘random check’ so no particular reason other than a large amount of money. I have absolutely no problem with fraud checks - I welcome them. But they do need to be able to differentiate more quickly than this. As soon as the account is unlocked I will transfer to First Direct as they will hopefully allow a transfer to a known bank account - and First Direct will do a fraud check and pass it. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.