There is a support article “Can I get my new card delivered abroad?” Which states:
"Yes, as long as it is not your first card. But we’ll have to charge you £30 to send your card via DHL air delivery.
We are unable to deliver to a few countries due to complexity with suppliers and/or customs."
Not sure if you are aware of it but if you are in Germany (for holiday or any other reason) and in need of a replacement card. Monzo will not send a replacement card and will not provide a explanation as to why not!
I’m in a situation due to some family situation I need to stay in Germany for a few months (lucky my UK employer allows me to work remotely) and got notified by Monzo that my card is about to expire. So I started the process via the in-app chat asking to have my card sent to Germany, even though 30£ charge is expensive but due to my circumstances I don’t have much of a choice.
Anyway long story short my request has been declined without any explanation apart of that Germany is on the list of Countries where they can not send any cards to. I rang the support hotline hoping to clear that on the phone however got turned down there too. Also with that vague response that they cannot provide furter information however they escalated it further with their advocacy dept. And they will get back to me.
Which doesn’t make sense to me since they most likely will provide the same scripted response.
When I raised the concern what would have happened if I lost my card in Germany and weren’t here for family reason but let’s say for “holiday” - would Monzo still refuse to send me a replacement card? The customer support agent answered yes due to their internal process they would not be able to send it.
Now I find this very strange and am keen to discuss this further with the “Advocacy Dept” as I really don’t understand why this would be such a big issue but am also worried if I would fly on holiday I can not really rely on Monzo if I lost my card to get a replacement card.
Now I’m interested to see if anyone else within the community here had similar experience and what your thoughts are. I think there are a lot of dual citizen here in the community who do travel back and fourth between EU and UK and of course as well international.
Hi, this is not great, and I’m curious why Germany is an excluded country. You’d typically expect them to be amongst the included ones! But if they’re excluded, who else is? Gonna catch some people off guard I imagine!
Hopefully you stay on at Monzo and get somewhere with them, or find some kind of justification.
In the meantime, you still have a few options I think, though not ideal. You should still be able to continue to use Apple Pay or Google Pay! That may be enough to get by. When I was in Germany, I didn’t need a physical card aside of withdrawing cash.
Alternatively, if you have a friend or relative back here in England, perhaps it’s possible to ask them to forward the card onto you?
It really shouldn’t be beyond the whit of a bank to send an envelope to Germany. Brexit or no brexit. I’ve been sending and receiving packages to Germany since Brexit with no issues.
This is probably a useful one to flag to @Beth and to @AlanDoe who were asking for examples of great customer service.
This is one of those situations which seems a bit silly - but there’s probably a good reason for it. The frustration, I think, is in the robotic, scripted responses (and escalation to Customer Advocacy) - when all I’d want in this circumstance is for some to be human and say something like “we’d really like to, but every time we’ve tried we’ve had problems with customs, or customers have been asked to pay addition charges so we’d made the decision not to offer it any more”.
Speaking only for myself, it really (really) annoys me when I can’t get past someone who doesn’t seem to be able to read what I write or properly engage with the substance of it.
Yes I could get a friend of my to send it from UK to Germany.
But shouldn’t my Bank be able to ship a bank card to Germany??? (And Germany ain’t a third world country and yeah I know Brexit might have been heated between UK and EU but that’s not a reason)
Also I’m flagging this so other people are not catched off guard, who are maybe travelling to Germany for holiday.
I’m sure Germany was removed from the list when they had the trouble with flooding. Or at least that’s when it was last brought up? In any case, maybe they just haven’t added it back on and so “computer says no”?
If your name isn’t printed on the doorbell and/or letterbox in Germany, any letter or parcel will be returned to sender. If you’re not registered as living there, that can be hard to arrange.
I disagree. Flagging it is useful, because although people won’t decide against going to Germany on this basis, it’s good to know ahead of time and take another card with you, or get your card replaced ahead of time.
Useful for me, as I typically only take one physical card abroad with me, and Germany is a country I’ll be visiting again in the future on a regular basis post-pandemic.
Yikes, I’m really glad we don’t have that policy in the UK! I wouldn’t want every random passer-by to be able to see my name and where I live. I’m surprised actually, considering how strong Germany’s attitudes towards privacy are.
and yeah I know Brexit might have been heated between UK and EU but that’s not a reason)
