Advice Needed - Fraud with Monzo

Monzo Chat
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Morning All,

Long time lurker, infrequent poster looking for some advice from you all :+1:

A bit of background - a fraudulent payment to Foot Asylum (via PayPal) for £170 hit my account in mid-Jan. Luckily, I was just heading into a meeting at work and as I was switching my home to silent, saw the notification and immediately froze my card. I contacted COps in-app, flagged this as fraudulent, and got this refunded and a new card re-issued. Amazing Customer Service, easy process, and thought nothing more of it - I love this part of Monzo.

However, yesterday I received a message from the Dispute Team saying that after Monzo had raised this with Mastercard, Foot Asylum have turned down my claim. Monzo also say they’ve checked the evidence. Subsequently I’ll be having the £170 debited from my account again shortly.

Needless to say, I didn’t make the transaction and have never shopped at FootAsylum. I genuinely have no idea how this has happened.

I’m concerned I’ve effectively been found guilty with no further say on the matter. I’ve gone back to Monzo and have challenged what evidence they have seen and if I can see this. However, given the occasional posts on here that suggest Monzo COps sometimes go down a ‘case closed’ route, I’m worried this may be the case here too.

I doubt I’d gain much traction from Foot Asylum as I have no details about the transaction at all except the date and amount - no transaction reference, name against the transaction, delivery address, store this was collected at, etc.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and can advise on next steps? I’m at a total loss here and have a complete loss of faith in Monzo and the dispute process :pensive:

Thoughts really appreciated!

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If this was through PayPal could you attempt to dispute the payment with them?

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Update, and indicative of just how long it took me to write the above post :snail:, COps have come back to me and are going to get hold of the evidence, whatever this may be, and also put me in touch with the Customer Advocacy Team.

I’m still really interested in anyone else’s experiences of similar with Monzo.

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Is disputing with PayPal possible to do? This transaction didn’t go through my own PayPal account (I checked my transaction history at the time) and I purposefully don’t store any card details in my account for that reason.

Someone has added my card details to their account (and I did receive an Active Card Check at the time of the fraud) and used it that way.

Can I dispute something that didn’t go through my account?

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Sounds like Monzo’s problem to me. No point going to PayPaL in that instance.

I’d get hold of the evidence and see what Monzo have got. If it’s not satisfactory then continue to complain that you did not make that transaction.

I’d be asking why they refunded me in the first place?

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Did you not think this was funny as soon as you got it?

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I’d suggest contacting both PayPal and Foot Asylum. Both should have SOME details of the transaction, down to IP address, which could help confirm you did not make the purchase.

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The refund is made as part of a chargeback. They refund the payments and then MasterCard raise it with the merchant. They provide evidence to MasterCard who then make the decision on if they are entitled to it or not, it’s not Monzos decision.

We get a lot of these at the legacy bank I work at. PayPal cases are always difficult as the payment is to PayPal, not the merchant. So the chargeback is with them and they just need to show the payment was made to an account with your details for MasterCard to side with them.

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The active card check and fraudulent transaction were pretty close together time-wise.

So, to answer your question, yes - as soon as I saw the active card check and subsequent fraudulent transaction, of course I thought it was funny and froze my card straight away.

Genuinely think there was nothing more I could have done here and if this was a legacy bank there’s no way would I have spotted it for a good day or two.

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Problem with the active card check is if the payment details are being added at checkout the 2 will be seconds apart, so from the time you hear the 1st transaction sound the chances are by the time you get ur device out ur pocket the whole transaction process completed even before you get into the app :wink:

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Do you have any kids :wink:

I have worked at PlayStation that supported AUS/NZ and the amount of times parents called to ask why PlayStation has fraudulently taken money from their card was unreal, when the kids had done, they even stole the parents card details and used it on the parents PlayStation accounts and never got the money back from PlayStation, however the banks would refund the money customer may have asked for 1 payment but bank would refund every transaction they did :joy:

I have had a similar thing as I sell voice comms servers like Teamspeak, some one purchased a server via debit/credit card then a month later had a fraud request I disputed it provided users IP address email everything and lost the case and had a £15 fee for disputing it :joy:

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Also re PayPal not really used it in years, but do you not have to confirm a verification amount before being able to use a card?

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I added a credit card last week. PayPal deducted £1 and I had to input the code on the transaction. But I’m not sure if you need to complete these steps to use a card with PayPal.

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Same process as far as I know that’s what happened when I setup my card with PayPal.

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Yes, thinking about it you do not need a PayPal account to complete a transaction using PayPal

However from there payment sites https://www.footasylum.com/secure/
Paypal

PayPal enables our customers to securely, conveniently send payments online, without having to enter sensitive information into anything other than the Paypal interface. Please note that we require all customers to use Paypal accounts with confirmed address only. Any order with an unconfirmed address will be cancelled. If you paid for your order using PayPal, unfortunately you will not be able to return your order to store for an exchange or refund.

So this to me looks like unless you have a verified PayPal account wiht the verified address the transaction wouldn’t be completed so wondering if, unless the verified address doesnt have to match the card address?

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If the payment went through PayPal which would suggest it was an online or mobile payment - this data will be stored on the bank’s system. Every mobile device has a unique code (I can’t actually remember what its called), therefore you should be able to show your unique code as against what was used to make the payment and that should prove you didn’t make the payment.

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I thought it’s a process before it goes to an expensive MasterCard arbitration?

Bank disputes, merchant looks at evidence (send to bank also?) and re presents the charge , bank disputes again and finally merchant presents the charge again, (maybe not the last step iirc) and only then can it go to MasterCard.

MasterCard arbitration is really expensive it’s hundreds of euroes just to send them a case, then more fees when they rule on it , also fees if they decline to rule on it, plus €100 fine per rule broken to any side who didn’t follow the book.

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Ok, further update. I’ve had the evidence provided back from COps that allegedly shows I made the transaction. This shows that the Billing Address and Shipping address with the paypal transaction were my home address. Hence, Monzo’s decision.

I received no goods to my home address or a card through the door so I’m convinced my home address was not the destination of these.

However, there are no details of the order, no order number, the delivery address field is blank, and tracking details are blank.

Interestingly, the transaction data suggests a CVV wasnt used as this is blank and 3DS wasn’t used either.

The transaction also details an IP address that I’ve looked up online as related to O2 in Uxbridge, London. I can prove I was actually in Portsmouth at the time of the transaction with work.

I’m not convinced Monzo are going to fight my corner on this and have already had a ‘I’m sorry this is not the outcome you wanted’ message :pensive:

Has anyone experienced disputing with PayPal directly?

Do banks get order details with the original transaction that I might be able to get hold of to investigate this further?

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If you didn’t get the goods then you may be able to dispute with PayPal through their resolution centre - I did this for something I bought but never arrived. Although this can be a timely thing.

Only other thing I can suggest is formally complaining to Monzo and then to FOS if Monzo don’t side with you.

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You may want to do your own digging at Foot Asylum as well in terms of what was actually purchased, time of purchase, email address of who made the transaction etc etc - they may be able to give you some more info

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