I’ve been a victim of fraud. Saw an item advertised on Facebook market place and paid a deposit of £100 for the item, the balance being paid when I received it. I transferred the money from my monzo account into his bank account with the reference being the item name. No cash exchanged hands.
A week had passed, the item didn’t arrive and I realised I had been scammed.
Something similar had happened to me in the past (when I was with Natwest) on that occasion I notified Natwest two weeks after the bank transfer and they refunded me within 24 hours via some sort of charge back and then recovered their funds at a later date.
My question is, is there anything I can do to get my money back?
I have told monzo help in the app but not getting very far, I’m not sure that monzo have the same powers that traditional high street banks do?
Would you expect the bank to refund you if you met a stranger in a pub car park and paid them £100 on the promise they come back next week with the goods?
This seems like victim blaming… OP the only way to find out is to contact Monzo customer service and flag it with them. Banks have different policies and they may be able to notify the receiving bank to freeze the funds and recover them (however it has probably already been withdrawn). It’s a shame more banks don’t have a fraud guarantee like TSB that covers authorised payments.
Bank transfers are the equivalent of cash transfers, though. So, in a manner of speaking, cash did indeed change hands.
I’m surprised that Natwest refunded you in similar circumstances the past, I’ve not heard of them doing that before.
Reporting to Monzo is the right thing to do, but whatever action they can take (if any) will not be a chargeback, as that doesn’t apply to bank transfers.
I believe paying through PayPal for things like this and tagging the payment as “good and services” can provide recourse when something like this happens.
Natwest gave me the impression that cash carries the most risk, with bank transfers having some protection, debit card epos payments having higher protection and credit card payments being the most secure of them. And I’ve always thought that’s why we’re all going cashless, cos it’s more secure, traceable and reversible, even more so now when you can’t pay cash into someone’s account, it has to be done via transfer :s
I’m afraid Natwest gave you a slightly misleading impression. In reverse order:
Credit cards: these will have Section 75 protection for purchases over £100, so correct to say these are the most secure. This protection is enshrined in law.
Debit cards: the next step down as you can request a Chargeback, but quite a large step down as unlike Section 75 protection, this is not enshrined in law, and may not always be successful
Bank transfer: no protection, equivalent to handing over cash. If you’re very lucky you may be defrauded by someone stunningly inept who doesn’t move the cash out of the account, but that’s more luck than protection. It’s really difficult to reverse these (check the money pages of page newspapers eg the Guardian and you’ll find stories of people struggling to reverse fraudulent and mistaken bank transfers)
I hope that helps add some clarity, and I’m sorry this has happened to you. Once you finish reporting through Action Fraud you should get a crime number, I believe, which you should be able to give to Monzo in the in-app chat so they can add that to your report.