✅ Disabling contactless feature on card

Could do with a little toggle in the menu just underneath the enabling magstripe toggle… “Enable contactless payments” on as default that can be toggled off and on when wanted?

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Being able to toggle contactless on and off, in the same way as freezing the card, would be pretty cool.

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In what situation would disabling just the contactless (and not the whole card) be useful? :grinning:

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I know at least two people (not Monzo users) who’d rather not have contactless at all, but are happy with chip & pin. Some people see contactless as an unnecessary security risk. Personally I love the convenience, but understand the desire of others to opt out permanently.

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What about in the situation of the UK’s fintech envoy unknowingly dropping her card on Hampstead Heath and finding a bunch of contactless payments logged to a nearby pub before being able to freeze the card? :scream: Not a very good emotional experience and there is no partial security setting to guard against that (only card ON or OFF)

If you were a paranoid person, which a lot of humans are, you could have contactless deactivated and just spend several seconds of your life each day entering a pin, or if your were really active in your paranoia you could turn it on and off as and when you feel safe to have your card out. I guess it’s kind of a ‘Freeze My Card Lite’ some people want where they can at least choose the security of a pin if they want.

I realise that’s all overshadowed by the fact that the bank is responsible for any contactless fraud, but we are talking about why someone would want to have the power to turn it off, and the reason is because they would feel more in control. They don’t want to have this feeling of insecurity but “oh if you get robbed the bank pays you back”, they’d rather just protect themselves from being robbed in the first place.

I personally do not give a hoot about any of that as i am a more typical user, but i have a very paranoid mother who thinks like that, hates the fact that contactless has been forced on everyone and feels worried about it being open to anyone who finds the card. Im pretty sure she got a non contactless card from her bank. I plan to convert her to the bright side one day (very hard sell) and this would be a good feature for her.

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@simonb knows all about this as it looks like he dealt with the below issue :slight_smile:

Here’s what happens when your Monzo card is used to make fraudulent contactless transactions (note the speed of the reimbursement, as well as the time it took to order a new card) -

https://www.thememo.com/2017/04/10/tech-superstar-eileen-burbidge-shuts-down-credit-card-thief-with-monzo/

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You can see though from that feed that the thief got away with a bunch of rounds before it was declined and on twitter Eileen was super angry with the fraudster, very colourful language - not the “rapscallions” that Tom talks about. If Monzo is a ‘feeling of control’ then losing your card shouldn’t have to be so distressing, and if there was an option to have contactless off and Eileen had been worried about that, the fraud wouldn’t have happened.

Her Monzo fraud resolution experience is so much better mechanically than mine last year (not on monzo) where dozens of transactions were delayed across various cards and I had to ring all the banks to cancel the cards, which is a day’s work if you have 10-15 cards in your wallet, and then up to a month to await the outcome of their “investigations”. Really horrible experience from incumbents and Monzo definitely wins on that front.

But when you are defrauded the ideal outcome from an emotional perspective is that fraudster presents card and gets arrested. That probably will never happen ever, so failing that a good outcome is fraudster presents card and is declined and has to pay on their own card… embarrassing for them- good revenge! With the outcome of fraudster commits fraud then you are refunded and a new card is on the way - yeah that’s a lot better than incumbents mechanically, but ultimately the fraudster gets free stuff, the victim is compensated for financial loss and that cost is ultimately passed on to other users or investors (depending how macro you care to think). The victim has suffered no financial loss but still an emotional one and a crime has still been committed and the criminal gets away with their crime. If you could just decide you’ll switch off contactless for the time being because you are out getting pished in the park on a hot day (not saying that’s what Eileen does, that’s just what i’d be doing in the park :laughing:). then you wouldn’t be a victim in the first place and you’d get to have a good chuckle at the shmuck who bought a round and had to buy it themselves!

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Couldn’t agree more with the above comment. Why is it so difficulty to appreciate that a small minority would prefer to not put themselves in this position in the first place? Dismissing these concerns shows blinkered vision.

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I did, it was very nice of Eileen to mention me :grinning:

I asked about the contactless as I was unsure of the use case. So rather than it being something that people would toggle frequently, it’s something that paranoid people may wish to keep permanently disabled?

We do deal with fraudulent uses very quickly - and the contactless limit helps keep the costs low. In the vast majority of cases the real time notifications allow people to freeze the card very quickly and so contactless fraud is generally quite low amounts.

I think this is definitely a conversation worth having. Are there other banks offering this option?

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I appreciate the fact that having money stolen from you (even if it’s only temporarily) is upsetting but personally I’d consider the mental burden of feeling that you have to remember to disable the contactless option for your card or the increased friction of keeping it disabled, a much higher price to pay than the stress of having fraudulent contactless transactions - particularly as it happens so infrequently.

Revolut offers this feature.

I think I might have popped in to the Abbey Tavern to see if I could spot a bright coral card…

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I have a few friends who order their cards without contactless, and i think its just a matter of personal preference and about giving choices to the customer. They like the extra layer of security entering a pin gives, it helps them realise the value of money instead of just tapping blindly, they’d rather not have even the possibility of/dealing with contactless fraud etc

I think it might be a novel and cheaper solution to having to print a new card without contactless specifically for a customer if they can just toggle it off.

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I am one of those people who would keep contactless switched off in general. If Monzo solution allows it, I might enable it for particular day out or something, but I’m willing to go as far as not having contactless at all.

I’m making very few POS transactions in the first place, so lack of contactless payments has very small impact on my time/convenience. However, chances to have my card stolen remain the same regardless how many contactless POS transactions I make.

My perceived chance of having ‘problems’ (despite refunds and so on) seems to outweight benefits from contactless. If I know that my stolen card doesn’t work contactless, magstripe is disabled, I certainly didn’t write down PIN on the back of the card… then only possible fraud route is online. Online fraud would still be quite difficult (though not impossible, if someone has amazing google skills), because thief wouldn’t be able to get my address from wallet, so thief wouldn’t pass AVS check. :smiley:

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You might not like contactless and want it switched off, but it is far from a gimmick.

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I disagree with the idea what those who want to disable contactless entirely are paranoid, though I do question the usefulness of a network-side decline as in many of these cases, you would want to fully freeze the card anyway.

In my use case, I’d like to eliminate card clash by only carrying one card that has working contactless (so disabling it at card level, not network level). Of course, for me, my Monzo card would be the primary card so I have to request non-contactless cards from other providers. It’s a pain to have to try and convince somebody that I’m not crazy and that their workarounds are not acceptable.

Contactless cards also have a bad reputation of data leakage thanks to the configurations used by certain issuers and the marketing of products such as NFC blocking sleeves, cards, wallets, etc. Given the huge complexity and secrecy over how it works, I do not blame anybody for entirely opting out of a contactless card or wanting it disabled.

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That explanation makes a lot of sense :slight_smile:

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FYI this is revolut’s implementation

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For me the only real use case would be for tube travel and preventing ‘card clash’. I used to just tap my walled on the reader, now with two contactless cards (Mondo & Curve), I have to keep my Oyster separate. Not a huge pain, but annoying enough that I would find this useful and consider not carrying my curve on my daily commute. Also, security is still a concern for some. While it doesn’t bother me personally, there is a market for NoRFID wallets, which wouldn’t exist if some people didn’t trust the tech.

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and NoRFID passport covers too!

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Wouldn’t necessarily work, I think you’d still have a declined transaction but the actual annoying card clash aspect would still be in play albeit without the transaction on the wrong payment card. There would never be a way to disable the rfid aspect completely.

I’ve just been winging it - not too conscious about the potential for fraud as I have enough trust in monetary institutions to rectify any issues. (Never been a victim of fraud touch wood - so I can’t say I know how hard it is to go through the motions and get your money back :thinking:.)