Failed Card Payments

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1

Hi, I was just wondering if anybody else has had this problem and how it was resolved.

On Tuesday I made a card payment of £21, the payment failed with the merchant, however 2 payments of £21 were taken from my Monzo card and £42 was deducted from my balance.

I spoke to the merchant who said that the deposits would be credited back to my account within 3 days, however they still haven’t arrived, so I have contacted them again and they have said that they never claimed the funds and to speak to Monzo to find out why the payments haven’t been credited back to my account.

The details on both transactions state the following

Screenshot_20200411-122542_Monzo
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I have spoken to Monzo in chat and shown them screenshots of the Merchant confirming that the payments weren’t received and that they would not be claiming the payments and that Monzo should credit the funds back to my account within a few days and the issue was transferred to a specialist who had come back to me this morning and stated the following:

“I’m really sorry for the trouble you’ve had with this. I’ve had a look and we expect this money to be refunded into your account by Friday 8 May at the latest.”

I have replied with the following:

"It states on the transactions that the money is still in my account, but you have just set it aside so I cant use it, so it shouldn’t need to be refunded back to me as it’s still in my account according to what it says on the transactions. It also says that if I am due a refund then it will automatically be released within 8 days, however to contact you to get it released sooner. Your help pages also states this:

Screenshot_20200411-111810_Samsung Internet
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So I dont understand, if it’s still in my account, the merchant hasn’t collected it and they have stated that they are not going to why it is now going to take over a month to be released back into my account?"

Monzo have not responded to this in the chat.

Has anyone else had a similar issue to this, if so, did you have to wait a month for the money to he released?

Cheers

2

It has usually been about a week if something like this happened

Obviously this a 4 day bank holiday weekend so I assume it is only working days that the process is running. What is the date on the charge?

1 Like
3

The date on the charge is the 7th April. What I dont understand is that it states on the transaction that the money hasn’t been claimed by the merchant, but Monzo have just set it aside in my account so I cant use it and that it will automatically go back into my account in 7 days, or I can question the payment and get it back straight away…but when I did question the payment Monzo have said it will be back in my account by the 8th May, which is actually 31 days…even though both Monzo and the merchant have acknowledged it was an error and that the payments should not have been taken and that they have not actually left my account, the funds have just been ring fenced by Monzo.

4

If the merchant hasn’t collected, money is still yours. If you go overdrawn for an amount smaller than this, you will not incur fees.

Monzo put aside any money for all authorised transactions since in most cases merchants collect what has been authorised. This gives monzo that real-time balance feel.

For the record, this happens in the background on any other account. Had you put these transactions through any other credit card or bank, your ‘available’ balance on them would have dropped by that amount, meaning you wouldn’t be able to spend these amounts. A credit card will max out and bank account run out of funds even if all these are just deposits or eventually not collected by the merchant. Like Monzo, you’d have to wait for any other bank/credit card to realise these transactions are not being collected by the merchant and your ‘available’ balance to be refreshed and brought in line with your actual balance.

1 Like
5

Hi, thanks for replying. I understand what you are saying. What I dont understand is that Monzo say on their help pages:

"If the payment declined on the merchant’s end but went through on your app, this might be because of a problem with their card machine.

To get your money back:

  • Pick the payment you’d like to question
  • Scroll down and tap ‘Something wrong? Tell us!’
  • you can either question the payment and get your money back straightaway. Or you can wait and automatically get the money back in 7 days"

In my case the payment was declined, but went through twice on the app.

I have questioned the payment, and provided evidence that the payment was declined on the merchant end and that they have confirmed they wont be claiming it, so why cant I get the money back straight away as stated on their help pages? I wouldnt really be bothered about just waiting the 7 days for it to automatically be credited back, but I dont understand why Monzo chat have stated that it will be automatically credited back in 31 days.

6

Ah OK yeah sorry, yeah that seems inconsistent, hopefully it’ll get reversed soon.

1 Like
7

i had a similar problem when i tried to make a payment online it was failed however it went from my account and it took 30 days for that money to be returned, monzo couldn’t do anything about the money, i just had to wait

8

I wonder if they’ll be changing their approach to reduce the support load. I can’t recall any other bank I’ve used encouraging a customer care/support contact over a pending transaction, hearing some others questioning their bank over them it would seem a policy of not acting until transaction clears is fairly normal

One approach could be to allow users to remove their own pending transactions within certain limits. Another could be to simply fill in a quick form, which then gets processed as a lower priority background task

9

It can be handled many different way but the fact remains that the merchant still has the ability to take payment within that 31 day period. As a result, every such transaction that’s “cancelled” like this is a little bit of risk that Monzo take on themselves in the event that the customer doesn’t have the money if the merchant comes calling.

10

Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this? Had the same thing and am still waiting for the transaction to stop pending and for money to be returned to my account.

11

There’s not really anything to ‘get to the bottom of’. This is the way that Mastercard transactions work.

When you order something, the retailer reserves the money in your account for later collection.

If you then cancel the order and the retailer/vendor doesn’t send a message to Monzo to release the funds again then it can take up to a month for the reservation to expire and ‘drop off’ the system, freeing the money for use elsewhere.

I’ve never seen it confirmed anywhere but I assume that where an 8 day maximum turn around is quoted is the case where the retailer actively cancels the transaction on their end.

Through all of this the money hasn’t actually left your account. It’s simply reserved to make the payment when the retailer asks for it.

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12

In terms of automatic reversal if pending it should be 7 working days for anything but car rental and hotel deposit style payments

13

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