Isn’t it a bit unethical to target people who are likely to vote for you?
Doesn’t seem fitting with Monzo’s ethos.
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I don’t see the problem with asking people to vote for you. It’s perfectly normal and ethical to ask for support.
Some might say it turns the award into a popularity contest but that’s pretty much the whole point of these types of awards anyway, being able to point to something which says a lot of people like you, and more than your competitors at that.
If monzo were paying members of the public to vote then that would be a different story, but they aren’t. They are asking those that are likely to help, and those people can easily choose not to by doing nothing.
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I’d call it “gaming the system”. Starling make a big deal out of these awards and post loads of tweets, include it in their newsletter, etc. It’s not targeted though. I think it’s a bit underhand to target customers that you know will give a glowing review. The point behind the awards is that people can go and read a range of honest reviews from actual customers to help make informed decisions.
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Their facebook advertising of it will be targeted. Your darling Starling do all this too.
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Starling - I wouldn’t put it past them though. Monzo I feel are supposed to be the ‘better’ one.
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You forgot to include a trigger warning 
My point was that Starling are quite happy shouting about these awards from the rooftops and asking everyone to vote. I see it everywhere. I’ve also seen disgruntled customers replying to them saying they’ll be voting, but not in a positive way. You only have to have a look at their Twitter account for many examples of this. Asking certain people to vote because you know they’ll give a positive review is underhand in the context of the whole voting/review/awards system.
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But they can’t know how someone will vote and we don’t know what metric they are using to select who gets an email.
If they email everyone who has ever created a Monzo account, did someone who created an account 4 years ago, put £20 on the charge card and never touched again going to give a glowing review? They’ve probably long forgotten who Mondo are.
I haven’t had an email, but even if I did, Monzo can’t know that my review will be positive. It could be positive right up until that day when support piss me off and now I want to leave.
There were some posts in the Starling thread (or may have been a different one) about Starling using targeted ads for a banking award that was only going to certain people. There seems to be so many variations of these awards lately too, it was only a few weeks ago that Starling won in a few categories.
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They obviously think they do…
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No, they’re the ones whose marketing told you that over and over for years so that you then regurgitate it as if it were fact like you have just done. Just how product manufacturers slap ‘New improved’ or ‘Even better’ on something with nothing at all behind it and it passes into folklore that it’s reality.
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Where an award involves nominations from the public, I think it is right and natural that companies reach out to customers they think have enjoyed their product and make them aware they can vote.
This is much like a tradesperson who has done a good job asking for a review on checkatrade.
Monzo do not know how any customer will vote. They cannot influence the comments of customers. All they are doing is making people aware of the opportunity should they wish to make a nomination.
What would be wrong would be if a company where to pay customers to give them a good review, or to employ fake customers so submit reviews etc.
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Given most of us haven’t seen the emails we can’t be sure of that. It’s possible they’re offering a bribeprize for everyone who fills out the survey.
In any case, the main reason I created this thread was to say that I personally, as a customer, think Monzo are the best current account out there and deserve an award.
All I really wanted was to make others in the community aware in case they also feel the same and want to submit a nomination.
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Monzo will not receive a list of which customers made nominations and what they said. There is no way of them knowing. Therefore, they cannot truly influence anything.
Even if they tried to give rewards - which I hasten to say there is no reason to think Monzo are - they would just have to take customer’s word that they submitted a nice review. Would be a very odd business decision!
I adi
I disagree… I was sent a gift voucher from the office national statistics and asked to fill out their survey… I kept the voucher and didn’t fill out the survey at all so whilst it proves the point that it’s an odd decision there is defintiely precident for it.
Don’t let logic get in the way of Monzo bashing from the usuals.
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No
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To be fair I think the issue is, as is often the case, a lot of the nonsense that has come after the OP, rather than the OP itself. Ideally say ‘Monzo are up for this award, go vote!’ and leave it there. That’s all it needed. I guess it would look a little different had it come from staff than a customer but at least staff could have locked the post, left it as a sticky or such, and everyone could have got on with voting. Often I find on this forum it’s the thread that goes on after an OP that gets bogged down when everybody has to say their bit when they really aren’t adding anything, be they positive, negative or staff comments (and I am of course not so unaware that I don’t include my own comments sometimes in that), rather than the initial stuff which often deals with the matter in hand.
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Any business that doesn’t do targeted advertising/promotion might as well throw their money down the drain.
I don’t understand why it’s so alarming 
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it cuts both ways… posts like this always seem to bring out the ultra right and left wings of the community that have nothing to do with the OPS post
That’s perfectly understandable.
The reason I won’t be voting in this, is because I feel that it is essentially a marketing exercise, and I have no desire to assist any bank in their marketing.
I, along with, I suspect, 99% or more of the voters in this scheme, have no idea which bank is ‘best.’ I have only had direct experience of 5 banks in the last 12 months, and I think that is probably more than most people voting.
If I was to vote, would it be for Starling because they make it easy to pay cheques in, Nationwide because there is a branch near my home, Santander because of their cashback, or Monzo because I like the app?
I find the whole thing a bit farcical, frankly.
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