"Banning" Monzo Cards

So following on from the ASDA pay @ pump outage and some other anecdotes from the forum members - I wondered what (if any) is the reasoning for “banning” Monzo cards.

Specifically:

  • Can they do this?
  • Why do they do this?
  • Does Monzo know they do this?

Just find it interesting because surely it all goes through MasterCard?

My guess would be that there is a higher level of fraud with Monzo cards, possibly due to a more relaxed approach to opening an account than the traditional banks and some other digital banks.

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What’s relaxed about a selfie video and photo ID? :yum:

Just trying to get a feel for why you think monzo would be more susceptible to fraud than other banks - I would think the opposite would be true here :grin: Monzo’s fraud prevention systems seem rock solid :sunglasses: just take a look at how many topics get created on the forum for “my card was blocked because reasons

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Strangely a lot of the topics seem to indicate that there is absolutely no reason at all and Monzo is just picking on them

/s

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But isn’t this a ‘Monzo Poblem’ and not an issue that a shop would have or even know about? The money is in the account, MasterCard operate the transactions - is it just the fact its Hot Coral and it burns their eyes so they don’t like it :rofl:

I’m not questioning the method of identification. I’ve seen a number of examples where someone was turned down for a Starling account but managed to open a Monzo account. Also, there appear to be a number of people who have managed to open a Monzo account but then got the account frozen due to suspected fraud.

I may be completely wrong but Monzo’s criteria for opening accounts seems to be a bit more relaxed than other banks.

I’m not knocking Monzo, I think it’s good that they allow people to open an account when other banks may turn them down. I’m just suggesting that, perhaps, the downside of this is increased levels of fraudulent activity.

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thing is thats hard to compare with Starling because they dont have a forum… so you may never become aware to how often that actually happens now due to less public presence to vent such frustrations :man_shrugging:

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I know that there were examples of this happening with Starling too. When you look at the likes of TrustPilot where disgruntled fraudsters post negative reviews after being found out, there seems to be a lot of occurrences with Monzo compared to other banks.

Does this automatically correlate to providers not accepting Monzo cards though? Granted the “ease of access” to a Monzo account as compared to a legacy but isn’t all the infrastructure there to allow for payments to Monzo - is it just an ignorance point?

Lets say my only card is Monzo and they refuse to take my card (but they take mastercard) can they actually refuse it, if its based on a ‘personal preference’ to not take Monzo I should surely be able to pay with my Monzo card nevertheless.

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I’m just speculating as to why a major national retailer may have taken the decision to block all fuel sales using a Monzo debit card. Hopefully we’ll get a full explanation soon that will end all of this guesswork!

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No I take that point, I was just seeing what your thoughts were on other retailers “banning” the use of Monzo cards.

If they’ve just decided out of the blue to block on fuel but not in-store it seems like an oversight somewhere rather than a conscious decision to not allow Monzo (do we know if any other fintech/challengers were affected?)

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It sounds like N26 may also have been affected. Starling cards work OK.

It’s certainly unusual to see a specific bank or banks being blocked. Very interested to hear what the reasoning was.

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The other possiblity is they messed up when updating their database of BIN ranges, perhaps?

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Hoping its that and nothing else as Asda would be in breech of 5.10.2 of the ‘Mastercard Rules’

A Merchant that accepts Mastercard Cards must accept all types of Mastercard Cards

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It looks like it could be just an oversight like not updating the BIN ranges - seeing as ASDA stores were accepting Monzo ok.

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Can’t see that stopping them. Plenty violate 5.11.3 and nothing seems to be done

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This is what I mean - are you just at the mercy of the retailer saying “we don’t take that here” and that being it?

Just seems slightly dodgy that Monzo put all this effect into ensuring transactions work that a retailer no matter how big or small can just ban you :rofl:

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