There have been occasions in the past where my card details had either been generated or had been stolen from a website storing card details in plaintext and using vulnerable software. In most cases, this was detected by my old bank and they’d block my card and call me and I’d have to identify transactions, etc. With Monzo, I’ve had nothing flag up as suspicious or unusual, etc. So I am wondering whether there’s any processes in place for this.
From what I can tell looking through the forums, the instant notifications move most of the fraud detection onto me and no transactions are blocked as standard.
I’ve turned on “Location-based security” (which hopefully won’t block transactions from Japan mis-identified as POS rather than on a website) so that’s another thing moved onto me to monitor.
One of the times my card details were stolen, my bank identified it as fraud because fraudsters buy mobile top up from O2 as they don’t lock you out after many attempts and didn’t use 3D Secure. Presumably, that wouldn’t get detected by Monzo, as it’d be up to me to tell chat that something isn’t right.
So rambly post over, the short version is: does Monzo proactively monitor for fraudulent transactions and block them before the app’s balance is reduced, or is it all up to users to report and act reactively to said reports?
EDIT: For example: If tomorrow my card was used at a jewlers for £1k+, which I’d probably never do, would it go through or would something go “hang on a minute…” and block the transaction until I press a button to authorise it (3D Secure for real life).
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Anarchist
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They do. They are somewhat famous for it.
Also, the fact you get instant notifications helps you to identify fraud at the customer end.
I am aware of this. However, this is what I’d call reactive, as they reacted to lots of people reporting fraudulent transactions and then did searches to find the common link.
I expect it would go right through. To be fair, I’d also expect it to go right through on my legacy bank too. I bought my last car using my legacy bank card, didn’t warn the bank any, that went through no problem at all.
That Monzo have instant notifications does really help, as I would notice within minutes (to hours at worst) if any fradulent transactions occur, as opposed to days/weeks/a month with my legacy bank.
As fraud detection goes, that works for me.
There probably are systems working in the background to identify suspicious activity on Monzo accounts, but I haven’t tripped any of them yet and Monzo probably can’t tell us (much) about them. On the other hand, I used a credit card late at night to place an Amazon order once, and that caused all manner of problems when they blocked the payment as suspected fraud (even though I’ve been ordering from Amazon late at night for decades, almost!)
I’ve had sudden fraudulent jewelery purchases blocked on my old card a couple of times when they detect working card details, seems to be the first thing they try…
The only time I ever had a legacy bank correctly detect fraud it was months later, and that was only because a credit card I had never used was at its limit… The fraudster had cloned the number and had been using it for loads of stuff.
OTOH They’ve ‘proactively’ stopped me buying things, stopped regular direct debits and generally messed me about lots of times (some are worse than others. I left Halifax due to this happening on a weekly basis plus being really hard to contact, First Direct only did it once and were really good about unblocking the card).
Give me monzo’s method any day. If my card got cloned they’d get exactly one transaction before it was blocked and useless to them.
What is monzos approach to fraud as I have reported an account on a anumber of occasions now with no reply it would seem that they’d are quite happy to house the fradsters taking money by deception.
when they detect working card details, seems to be the first thing they try…