My wife just tried to transfer money from her chase account to her Monzo account (chase just did a big cut in interest), and the app told her to call.
When she called they kept her on the phone for 27 minutes only to tell her that they wouldn’t transfer her money to a Monzo account because Monzo is ‘a high risk bank’.
She’s kinda upset and will probably be closing the Chase accounts. (Let’s face it, it’s not your account if they don’t let you move your money).
Has anyone else heard of this?
Nope. Move my money from Chase Savings to Monzo regularly. Have done for nearly three years now 
Might be better asking in here though:
I don’t understand any of this tbh. Are you saying it was fraud blocked and chase didn’t allow the transfer? I’ve never heard of this happening but it must be a thing.
In the days I had chase I had no issue transferring to and from.
By the way, I wouldn’t be too hasty closing chase. I’d imagine all banks will cut the interest eventually, and also if she closes it and wants back in, they won’t let her. They don’t allow old customers back.
I can understand it. One look at the latest report on APP fraud and it’s clear to see.
As for why they’d block it to a Monzo account in your own name, I’ve no idea. I suspect there’s some details potentially missing here. I regularly move money between my Monzo and Chase accounts and have never had a problem.
Chase are clearly very confident something isn’t right with that transaction to take such a hard stance. Or user error perhaps tripping the fraud algorithms. Different name? Incorrect name? Not an exact match? A digit in the account number wrong? First time ever making a transfer to that account and not confirming it’s a transfer to yourself through the flow?
Really hard to gauge, but this is the first I’ve ever heard anything like it. This is something a bank would only usually do if they don’t believe the money is going to you. And they’re all going to be getting very strict about it ahead of October.
Perhaps try moving smaller amounts of cash to Monzo. If she tried transferring a large sum all at once this could have flagged. Chase seem to be screwing up lately. If the transfer of smaller amounts doesn’t work tell her to close the account and send her a cheque
I can confirm this. I tried to transfer £1,000 to my brother-in-law, and they kept me on the phone for over 30 minutes, repeatedly asking if I was being forced to move the money, etc.
They eventually approved the transfer, but wasted so much of my time that I’ll probably be using Chase less in the future.
Well that’s not to your own account now, is it?
Was it the first time you ever sent money to them using Chase? If so, that seems proportionate, and I’m glad to see a fintech bank actually being that proactive with this fraud for once.
It’s going to be commonplace industry wide come October.
How? When?
And regret it later
I’d make a 1p bet Chase would never do that
What’s coming in October? Will I hate doing any banking in the UK?
The current voluntary code for reimbursing APP fraud will become mandatory.
As it stands right now, those not signed up to the code do very little to actually protect you, or refund you when you fall victim.
Come October, they will have to be proactive about protecting you from those scams, and reimburse you when you fall for them.
Whether or not that will make you hate banking will depend how overzealous your bank is when it comes to protecting you. I’m a fan of Monzo’s ideas, but the reality is, as a result of them, folks are going to wind with this exact same experience with Monzo from time to mine (Monzo refusing to make a transfer, you having to contact them to unblock it). They’re going to want to be very sure that you’re:
A) not being scammed, because they’ll be liable for it if they didn’t try to stop it and,
B) go to great lengths to prevent a transfer they are certain is fraud in order to minimise as much as possible their own liability. I fully expect we’ll see incidents where Monzo refuse to allow the transfer too, for whatever reason.
You have to remember though, fraud algorithms are not dumb. Genuine use is very unlikely to trigger it and present as a risky transaction in all but the most extreme edge cases (unless the bank is being overzealous).
Take that £1000 transfer above to their brother-in-law, for instance. In a scenario where that’s a new payee, and that’s your first transfer to them, it likely will trip something. I think that’s Proportionate, and I’d rather bank take that step to interject. Because 100% of app fraud transactions look like that, even if not all transactions of that nature or APP fraud. £1000 is a high amount to be sending in such a scenario.
In a scenario where that’s a payee you already have a history with, the bank is likely to trust it more and let things go through unchallenged. But I fully expect some banks will be overzealous about it. Just like the warning that pops up every time I send my brother money for pizza with Monzo.
It was the 3rd time I sent them the £1K, usually every month end
I don’t particularly mind if they rang to do a quick check, what I detest is asking me the same question 20 different ways, over and over and over again because of just £1K, they even sent me a message and requested that I read it out loud like a school kid, and they seem not to believe whatever I told them. Not a good experience, I’ve had similar calls from HSBC and it was always brief and to the point.
Then that is bad IMO, and is the kind of overzealousness I was speaking of.
Have you complained? I would.
Why did you call? That’s the part I didn’t understand. You would have a chat record if you’d use the chat feature.
Monzo are definitely not a high risk bank. Despite what Reddit may tell you!
I would just try the transfer again or transfer it to a High Street bank if you have one and then from the High Street bank to Monzo
Ask to speak to their manager. That’s what I did when I was lending my sister a few thousand from my Chase savings account. I was on for over half an hour being asked things like “I can hear voices in the background - are people telling you what to say?”
I asked to speak to a manager, was put on hold for a couple of minutes, then the original agent came back on the line and said the money would be released straight away!
I’ve had the full 20 minute ‘are you sure nobody’s asking you to do this?’ experience from HSBC before, so they do do it.
I understand the rationale for it, but it is frustrating when you just want to move your money between accounts and get on with your day.
I wonder what kind of hit rate they get with people who are victims of fraud and cave after 15 minutes of being asked the same thing over and over?
All I see is the regulator being overzealous and punishing the majority to try and protect the dumb people from being dumb – but it won’t be enough, the bank could send someone round their house and they’d still fall for a scam if they’re determined to.
Better education, not tyrannical decision making of when and how I can spend my money.
I have had a number of tradespeople around who no longer send an invoice that I can pay at my own leisure due to people not paying them. A symptom of the cost of living crisis, I guess. But now they will stand in my hallway, waiting for a transfer. If I then had to sit on the bloody phone for 35 minutes trying to explain that I’m paying a bill, I’d hit the roof.
Let me opt out of this bullshit and any reimbursement that comes with it. All I need/want is money back if card is cloned or stolen; or if someone gets unauthorised access to a device.
Well this thread got informative quick. I’m aware of banks declining the payment, usually followed by a quick phone call. Though even for me with HSBC it’s rare. Only one time trying to re-add a card to my Apple Watch of all things.
But point blank refusing that’s a new one and as you say sounds like there’s additional detail here.
So, did the money eventually be allowed to transfer? And in the new world of protection what will banks do if they don’t allow it.
In fairness to Chase and HSBC here, this is unfortunately what they’re up against. Most of the time the scammer will also be there, coercing their victim, gaslighting them, and they’re just trying to be extra sure that that isn’t happening. You end up with the bank agent essentially competing for the customer’s trust, and if they think there’s any hint of manipulation, you probably won’t get very far.
In many cases, it’ll even be the scammer trying to call Chase pretending to be you whilst they also have you on the line. IIRC there was a report of that happening to someone with Chase on Reddit a while ago, and Chase deployed the message via the app method in order to try to bypass the suspected scammer they were on the phone to and reach the customer directly (identical to what was described above). But the scammer seemed to know Chase would do that and exploited it out of the customer.
But those interrogations are how they stop those types of scams in their tracks.
It’s a shame and I applaud the effort, but they really should only be doing this for large transactions to brand new payees not in your name. If you’re sending money to someone you have a long standing existing financial connection to, they ought to be left alone.
I know - but, as you say, I’d sent her payments and she’d repaid me a number of times before this without any issues. It was the relentless “are you absolutely sure there’s nobody telling you what to say” that annoyed me, despite saying “yes, I’m sure” plenty of times.
Unfortunately that doesn’t work either. With fraudsters getting customers to set up accounts with Monzo, Revolut, Wise etc. confirmation of payee becomes a lot less reliable.
Either large or small payments don’t matter regarding checks. What customers and journalists seem to walk past regarding the CRM code, is there are two main components. There’s a refund consideration element and then a scam prevention element too, which these blocks fall under.
Established payees mean little with certain scams too. Investment scams and romance scams can go on for years and are the biggest fraud losses to customers and banks.
You dont see stories in the Daily Mail where a bank has refunded over £1m due to APP fraud. But we’ve had to do this more than once this year alone.
If we want to keep free banking at the point of use, then this is the cost I believe.