Essentially what the title says. I’ve switched my account away a few weeks back and I assumed that the Flex and all of my saving pots would get consolidated into one balance with my current account before being transferred to my new account elsewhere. However now that the new month has arrived I’m receiving emails / texts “reminding me” to pay a missed Monzo Flex payment. Which is not possible because the only way to do it is through the app and the Monzo current account - neither of which I now have access to.
I’ve send Monzo an email about it but not heard back and now it’s only a couple days until the deadline for repayment passes. I don’t want this to get sent to collections because of no fault of my own.
They had debt, that two taps would have paid off instead they chose to ignore it.
It’s not for Monzo to decide to pay off that debt. Monzo should definitely provide a mechanism for paying it off after the fact but this is so easily avoided.
4 Likes
BurnyCubbers77
(🔥 Watching things burn from the sidelines. Is this the end?)
7
Why does the blame have to sit with one or the other? I think both Monzo and OP are at fault here.
OP assumed that pots and Flex would be consolidated, despite Flex being a Credit Card product. CASS doesn’t include credit cards so they should have checked what would happen with Flex before they switched.
However, Monzo are also at fault for not having a clear process in place for Flex when someone switches out, knowing that Flex is tied to your personal account (unlike other banks where you can usually have a credit card without having their bank account too). If Flex is not mentioned within any of the communications from Monzo regarding the Switch, then it’s also on them for not being clear about what will happen to it.
It’s none of those things. Especially since OP had the money to pay it off.
If they were moving and needed to wait for next payday to clear Flex then that’s different.
“I have money there, Monzo will fix it” is 100% on the OP. If they get a financial black mark then it’s a lesson learned.
Imagine they had £1k in that account to pay the mortgage and bills, but owed £999 to Flex, you’d be saying Monzo were in the wrong for paying off the debt.
This thread sums up why I find this forum so frustrating sometimes.
We here understand what will happen because we’ve seen it play out before, but to respond to this post properly you really need to take yourself out of the forum bubble and think of things how a normal customer would see it.
There’s no guidance from Monzo on what will happen when you CASS out, hell even the Flex Credit Agreement doesn’t make it clear what will happen when you CASS.
The language used by the CASS makes it sound like everything will be taken care of and there’s nothing the customer needs to do. The assumption the op made isn’t even that wild considering the terms literally say this:
On the other hand if you go with the other extreme, lots of other banks when you CASS out will close your Current Account, but let you keep your linked products. How can it be obvious to your standard customer that switching your current account will also remove your access to Flex?
This is the only reference in the credit agreement as to what happens when you CASS out.
I’m not sure without regulatory push there’s much incentive for Monzo to remove the friction here. It keeps customers with the bank. It’s shady, but they’re doing nothing wrong. I would at the very least like to see the process after account closure clearly defined in the credit agreement.
7 Likes
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
16
They didn’t. They thought that Monzo would consolidate the payment with their funds.
They were wrong, but it’s an understandable mistake.
I didn’t make anything up. I completely understand that Monzo don’t make this clear, don’t provide an easy way to pay it off after you’ve done this.
But I’m still blaming OP. Simple common sense. “Credit product at zero” Done. No worries at all. Especially as it doesn’t sound like there was a financial issue to pay it off. You can make this a Monzo accounts tied together issue, but I’d do this with any bank.
Hopefully recoveries will help and they’ll get it sorted with no financial marker penalty.
Why is that common sense, when literally every other bank will let you keep a credit card (along with online and app banking access) if you are only CASSing a current account?
Common sense is “every other bank lets me keep online access and the credit card open, so Monzo would do the same”.
There are only two days left, quite a long time has passed. I wouldn’t be surprised if they only contacted Monzo this morning, given how slow and unimportant they seemed to think all of this was.
On the other hand, if they did email Monzo 7 days ago, I also wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t received a response yet. But either way, it’s been left far too late, and they’ve ignored it until now assuming everything will just “work” which isn’t the case because they wouldn’t have had messages asking to pay.
Thanks for assuming I’m an idiot. I actually have paid off my flex balance in anticipation of potential problems (I have very low expectations of leaving processes for companies where the only way to contact support is via their logged-in app). My fault laid forgetting was that there was a regular charge which I forgot about attached to a Flex card which went off between me fixing my balance and the current account closing.
That said, while my forgetting lead to this problem, in my opinion it’s 100% on the service provider to make it clear what happens when the account is being closed - which Monzo does not at all.
Anyway, the point is moot now. They’ve responded to my email and gave me an account number I could wire money to to get my Flex balance sorted. Though they still didn’t say anything about what happens to Flex account itself - whether it will just remain open and inactive, or whether they’ll close it or whatever.
I think Monzo’s main sin here is that they offer various services as necessarily connected and associated with one’s current account. This includes things like Flex, pots, offers, and the command of the entire application - including the mechanism they use for communicating with the users.
They do not make it clear at all what happens if that necessary condition of a current account no longer exists. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that is I need a current account to have X and Y, then having a current account close will also close X and Y - which is what I expected. Unfortunately in reality what happens depends on each service - and it’s doubly unfortunate that the service that definitely does close is access to the app through which all other services are accessed.
