Thankfully in this case nothing worse seems to have happened, but that is just about the worst thing a bank could manage to do with your data:
Most neo banks send out no letters, so are probably incidentally immune to that particular mistake, but are there any other angles where they could trip up?
Throwing it open to the floor, but keep it legal!
Saw this article,
An ex would know your d.o.b. etc and could apply to companies for data, the frenzy to comply with GDPR has ironically left data very vulnerable in this way, and arguably in a worse position, because depending on your threat model, data leaked to individuals is alot more of a threat then some of my data leaked on the internet.
Why would they send a letter with both addresses on it? That’s ridiculous. High street banks seem to be robots when it comes to things like this “we need him to prove who you are”, “i cant”, “well sorry”.
I’d like to think Monzo and even other fintech banks would be a lot more compassionate when dealing with this kind of situation.
What should happen is, you can dispute a joint account and then once you have both confirmed your identity you either mutually agree on who gets what from the account or the bank just splits it 50:50. I know 50:50 isn’t fair if more than 50% was technically yours but it would have been better than that guy spending tens of thousands while she was trying to gain access. or they could give you back everything that’s been sent from your personal account.
This has always been an issue, even without GDPR. I’ve had an ex send Facebook a picture of my driver’s license she had saved so she could reset my password and see any new people I’ve been talking to.
Yes, I was going to add this, very likely that an ex has a copy of i.d. from booking a flight etc so even companies that try to implement proper checks can be circumvented.
Can they do that though? Because it can be clear that more money came from one side.
But usually by that time one party has emptied the account.
I think that’s why it would be good if you could get away from the abuse, contact the bank and sort of dispute something that would then freeze any immediate spending but still allow direct debits.
The issue is this could also kind of be used against the abuse victim too as the abuser could demand you send all the money to them first and then they send it to the joint account. I’m not sure on a way to prevent this sort of abuse but someone needs to find a solution 
At least it looks like Monzo takes this seriously
I wonder what the legality of freezing the money is, they probably can’t technically.
I’m glad Monzo aren’t as robotic and black and white as legacy banks. In terms of legality I think the whole financial abuse thing needs to have a solution at a government level to be honest. I’m sure there are tonnes of people who have had to deal with situations like “Claire” has.