Card pictures on Twitter

Monzo Chat
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This is getting to be a bit of an issue now. I have a saved Twitter search for Mondo and Mondo related things but too often I’m seeing full 16-digit card numbers or poorly redacted numbers (either covering the first half, not last, using a poor blur or not drawing across enough of the area of each digit such that it’s possible to greatly reduce the number of attempts to get the correct digit).

I know that alpha participants were specifically warned about it (but some did anyway…) and that the beta letter includes both a paper strip covering the numbers and holding the card (looks SUPER nice by the way and doesn’t use irritating glue dots), as well as a note a little further down. I also see that some very nice people are reaching out to those who post their card number and warning them about doing so.

Instead of scapegoating the users, I prefer to iterate on designs that reduce the issue as much as possible. Following that, I’d like to discuss with the community if anything else can be done to effectively eliminate people posting their card number in pictures. My hypothesis is that some people are just grabbing the card and not necessarily reading the rest of the text on the page.

Moving the message about not posting pictures to the strip holding the card is one idea, this ensures that every user at least has to look at the message when removing their card from the paper. However, it kind of ruins the photo opportunity with the card sitting in the folded paper like that. Maybe a message could be placed on the paper behind where the card sits, above the cut strip in addition to the existing one like the one about signing the card but where the spaceship is?

If the card was flat, I’d consider a nice solid colour weak adhesive strip (think new style iTunes gift cards) but I’m not sure how much the raised numbers would affect that or how much that would cost to put in place.

Given that I’m seeing fewer pictures of card numbers than I originally expected considering how many otherwise fairly smart alpha users did it, it seems like something is going right and the #gotmondo strip is ALMOST working perfectly. Just minor tweaks to be done?

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Good call Richard - given the #1 ‘top’ result for a search on twitter for getmondo is a full unredacted card number looks like this is still an issue. At least they will get notified instantly when someone else uses their card…

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Still don’t get it…why this is happening with Mondo? Since users (us) should be a bit smarter and more into the modern cyber crime news if they are that alpha/beta/investor to Mondo. Anyway, seems Mondo should warn some users a bit more.

Maybe even directly blocking or sending a notification to those numbers found online? It will be a superb customer service!

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That would actually be incredible if possible to maintain and in a way that won’t annoy users.

I partially agree with the “why Mondo?” though but my best explanation is that it’s a brightly coloured new card that people are very excited to receive. Even the best of us can slip up in excitement.

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I agree - I’m guessing its down to Mondo’s popularity that people are excited and want so share on social media.

On another point - looks like other people are noticing with this tweet from an editor at business insider

Steve O’Hear liked
James CookVerified account ‏@JamesLiamCook 11m11 minutes ago
Stealing someone’s identity is so easy these days, you just have to search for “@getmondo” on Twitter and everyone photographs their card

Ill let mondo know via support - might not be good publicity

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Just sent a couple of DMs through Twitter to Mondo for those that I’ve found.

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Thanks all! We try to contact everyone who does this :frowning: and are working on new ways to a) tell people not to do it and b) contact them if they do.

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Could be an interesting Hackathon project for someone?
Scan Twitter for photos tagged with Mondo, and then use some sort of visual recognition to identify card numbers, then block/freeze the card numbers?

Similar to what AWS do with Github, to check for people who accidentally upload API keys in commits, which then get used to run up huge bills.

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It will be a nice challenge for a hackathon project!

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