Going on from a comment in another thread I think it makes sense for monzo to charge a user for a replacement card once they hit a certain threshold of replacements in a given period (say after their second replacement in a year).
Not only would this encourage people to take better and extra care of their cards but it would be good for the environment also.
Oh and it should be an easy sell to monzo as it would allow them to cut costs also.
What does the community think should be the number of replaced cards after which a fee should be charged?
Also in what period should be considered - calendar year? 12 months rolling?
As for costs im sure it wouldn’t cost more than a quid or two to send a replacement card in the uk? so cost should be £2/3?
Poll for Threshold
Lets see what everyone thinks the threshold should be, hopefully our resident poll expert @Peter_G approves of this poll.
Don’t think it is workable really. What if the chip breaks? I sure as hell will not be paying for a replacement, I will be CASS’ing out to another bank.
Nationwide used to charge £10 for replacements after the first 2 in a year. I don’t believe they still do this, and I’m not too keen on seeing such charges introduced, but there is a reasonable balance to be had.
My view is that rather than putting in a charge after x replacements, identity those abusing the system and advise them that no further cards will be sent after a certain limit. If they want another one offer them an option to pay, and they can always leave (which would rid Monzo of a costly customer).
Exactly - I’m sure excessive card requests is something which something less than 0.1% of the user base does. No need to have a sweeping rule for the other 99.9% because of them.
I think I know which thread you’re referring to. Was amazed to see some people try and get a replacement card EVERY DAY.
I hope those accounts are closed down frankly. But aside from people who abuse the system, I wouldn’t mind unlimited replacements. That, or 2 per rolling 12 months
I have never had a card stolen and I have never lost one. Back in the day when cards had to go through an imprinter I had a signature strip wear out. That is the only time I have ever had to order a replacement. Must be around 35 years ago. Keep them free until abuse is suspected. R-
I have an account in another country (a standard account at a standard bank) and they charge £10 per replacement. Even at expiry. Even when the card stops working for technical reasons.
I personally have very rarely lost/had a card stolen.
My point re that though being that if you have a shit, unlucky year and you get your card stolen a few times, would feel pretty grim to have to pay for it.
I am assuming (echoing what’s been said above) that very few people need replacement cards often enough for this not to be a very basic and accepted cost of doing business for Monzo.
Following on from what Roger said above - obviously if someone is abusing the system (which again, this seems pretty low stakes even if we get into ridiculous numbers of 10 cards a year…at a still tiny cost to Monzo) then fair enough, maybe charge them. But can’t see there being enough of a reason for any sort of blanket charge.
And while I’m assuming some banks do charge here in the UK under certain circumstances, I’ve never seen it, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be the norm. As such, would be a very easy negative against Monzo if they did.
One of Monzo’s values in the past was not charging unnecesary fees. The cost of new card is very small (approx £1 iirc) and charging for replacing cards is an anti-consumer move.
I will be replacing my Amex cards for the second time this year on the end of August, because both are already failing on some Ingenico terminals which is a known issue with the chips inside of Amex cards, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be charged for that.
If this is really becoming a problem, maybe offer out Apple Pay card by default and send out physcial card on request? Even so, this would be uncompetitive comparing to high-street banks.
Envorinment-wise, going vegan or switching to cycling for a month will have a much higher impact than replacing dozens of cards so I don’t see that being an argument. Monzo card production wouldn’t even make a dent in numbers comparing to other large banks (think Barclays, HSBC, Citi and other soulless corporations)
EDIT: The point above actually reminds me of my former employer who had a 6 month expiry policy on their charge cards, so I was getting a brand new Barclaycard card every 6 months. Each location (approx 600 in the UK) had one card holder on top of the budget holders in the head office. So that’s easily 2x 1,5k cars being issued just for that one company every year. This is what I would call environmental waste, all because of a poor security policy.
Personally id do it like this…
A db table with customer reference column and then some additional columns for each of the accepted number of replacements eg. Col 1 is replacement date 1, col 2 is replacement date 2 and so on.
Then run a daily update script that determines the rolling 12 month parameters to update these dates. Eg if its now greater than 12 months since replacement 1 then move replacement column 2s date into column 1.
Then do a query on this table when a user wants to order a card replacement for their current number and update the ui to say they will be charged if its over the threshold.
Sounds simple in my head but apologies if it sounds like jibberish or needs explained more
Monzo started off that way but when Monzo charge for depositing money and foreign withdrawals, that idea started wane. As Monzo lurches towards finding profitability, I wonder which way Monzo will now go. TS Anil (new CEO) is an industry veteran. Will Monzo start charging for things like stopped direct debits etc?
Yeah id say the costs soon start to rack up once a person is on to their 3rd/4th card within a short period.
I think “fair use” is the correct term, we need to try and strike that balance between a person being unlucky and a person just being lacklustre when it comes to looking after their cards.
I think this is a very big jump, putting a charge to cover costs on excessive replacement cards is different in my eyes from predatory charges done by other banks.
