Its normal to get riled up when something goes awry - I’m glad calmer heads prevailed. Hopefully Monzo can get it all sorted for you and you’ll be back up and running in no time.
I agree the legislation isn’t the best in this area and maybe just ring-fencing the monies that are deemed suspicious may be a better way to go - but as you may now understand Monzo have their hands pretty tied with things like this or face quite large fines and possible personal criminal charges if the officers don’t do their job properly
Although I’ve never been in this situation, when Monzo don’t have their hands tied, they are usually spot-on with customer support (I messaged about the pots bug and got a response immediately).
I’d always err on the side of caution when you know something that isn’t usual will be hitting your account - a simple message in chat should hopefully clear it up should it happen in the future!
Glad you got this sorted but this points to a failure in customer support processes on monzo’s side IMO. 40 hours wait with no contact is not acceptable. Did you receive no automated message when the account was frozen explaining the situation? Did you try the helpline?
I agree the legislation is wrong here, but Monzo also need to up their game.
I’ve read that previously thanks. Not allowed to tell you the reasons is fine, not allowed to tell you it is frozen is clearly nonsensical, as the act of freezing tells you that.
Freezing a current account is a very serious act. Monzo should be sending a link to this immediately when accounts are frozen IMO, do they? They should be sending at least automated updates every 24 hours to update, and at least auto-responding to say we can’t give you more info but will be in touch within 24 hours (or whatever their policy is). There should be a clear policy on account freezing with timelines for followup. I’d be very annoyed if my account was frozen for days without communication and only unfrozen when I complained publicly on a forum. That’s a sign of a broken system.
It is one reason to never have all of your eggs in one basket - what if you falsely trigger the fraud algorithm and you have no access to your money for days on end?
I disagree - it’s information that will be yours as soon as you try to use the account. It’s simple good manners to tell the account owner that it has happened. How would the tipping off actually benefit anyone in this case? If the account is frozen, it’s frozen. They can do nothing.
Telling someone you’ve frozen their account is akin to tipping someone off.
By this logic, freezing the account is tipping off. Freezing it is telling them, so why not be a bit more forthcoming about timescales for responses, reasons accounts can be frozen (link to the post etc), without actually being specific, and explaining why they can’t be specific. They don’t need to tip off in any sense just be a bit more communicative and quicker to resolve false positives. I don’t know what they do at present but it doesn’t seem to be enough.
Hmm, I’m a fraudster looking to launder some money through my account. Realistically, how many seconds difference do you think it would be between the bank freezing my account and me finding out, vs a message they send as they freeze it?
The only people sending the message would actually benefit are those unfortunates falsely accused.
They do tell you that your account is frozen, but they do not give you the reason (they can’t). That is the tough part. By repeating “we are looking into it”, and nothing else, they just end up looking completely incompetent. The law around this particular detail is questionable. I’m sure criminals know exactly what is going on when they see their account is frozen…
I feel that that is the distinction though, working out why your account might be frozen (and what that means from a legislation/ regulation point of view) and being told “you’re under investigation” or “your account is frozen because of X” is different.
One you are inferring and the other you are being directly told of the investigation.
