This has long been my point of contention with Flex though, especially now that Monzo are marketing it as a credit card.
I can buy something on my Amex card today, and not have to pay a penny until the 25th of March. I am borrowing money, and not paying any interest.
While the “x days interest free” isn’t enshrined in regulations, it has become standard across credit card products. So by marketing it as such, Monzo sets this expectation for customers.
Are they doing anything wrong? No. But are they going against expectations? Yes. Why they do it I don’t know.
The fact you got a refund shouldn’t have any bearing on the “changing installments” part. The minimum monthly payment for any Flex transaction (as far as i’m aware) is £2 (excluding final payment), so you can’t “split” the 74p that’s left (minus interest).
I’ve had partial refunds on Flex before, and still been able to adjust my installment plan afterwards because my monthly payments were still more than £2.
So I can’t see the Flex T&Cs because I don’t have Flex. But the FAQs say:
Things to keep in mind
If you’re paying 0% interest and you switch to a longer instalment plan, we’ll charge interest at your personalised rate here. You also won’t be able to switch back to 0% interest as this benefit is linked to the monthly payment you originally chose. There’s more on this in our help article about interest rates on Flex
To me this suggests that once you’re on the longer payment plan, you can’t go back to 0%. Can you usually change it if the first payment hasn’t become due?
Yes, as long as it’s before the first payment being made I can go back and forth between different number of instalments for an unlimited number of times.
The mentioned restriction is after the first payment has been made. i.e., after the billing cycle is complete and a payment is made, we can choose longer instalments and be charged an interest but cannot go to shorter instalments.
Exactly my point. Except that it does lock my instalments into as is and levies an interest on the remaining part. Because apparently Monzo considers refunds as repayments even within the same billing cycle.
I thought this might be the case too. But, in the case of small value transactions, they’ll be moved to 1-month interest free transactions instead?
At the time of payment, it was on hold. Had a “pending” at the bottom. Then, it got through to the merchant and then they issued a refund because it wasn’t needed and I’ve made a payment using another card by then?
Monzo didn’t explicitly state a refund would prevent me from changing instalments anyway did they?
It’s not the same issue. That refers to changing instalments after the billing cycle and after the first payment is made. I’ve went back and forth between 3-24 instalments within the same billing cycle many number of times. Haven’t you?
I don’t really understand why you’re being rude here?
Isn’t the whole point of this forum to discuss potential issues and bugs with Monzo?
I made this post so that someone at Monzo could become aware of the ambiguity surrounding Flex Refunds and how it causes unknown side effects like not being able to change instalment plans.
It’s not like I cannot pay the 19p myself, so thanks for your offer. I’m good.
You borrowed the money, you pay the interest due on it.
There’s no unknown side affects - you borrow money, you pay it back.
It works as designed. You’re informed you cannot chop and change between interest free when it suits you, whether you choose to acknowledge that is on you, not monzo.
Can someone else who actually use Flex explain to @Carlo1460 how instalments in Flex works? I think they’re intentionally misunderstanding the issue or disregarding this? With some implied disrespectful jabs as well.
Did you even read my responses to come to this conclusion? I’ve time and again explained you how users can change payment plans before the first payment and it wasn’t specified anywhere that refunds block this.
As a non-user of Flex and as someone who doesn’t even understand the issue being cited here, you’re being really irrelevant and tbh uncalled.
The given link points to “Changing payment plans after paying at 0% interest” i.e., after the first payment is complete.
Again, everyone can change back and forth between payment plans until the first payment for that transaction is made. Nowhere is it stated how refunds affect this ability.
I understand it’s Monday, and you don’t want to respond. Please let others who understand this issue respond. Don’t get annoyed at someone actually engaging in a conversation and throw insults at others. If you don’t want to participate please don’t.
This isn’t a contest and I’m not asking you to pay what I owe. Clearly there’s ambiguity.
I think this is the big take-away from all of this.
For the record, I don’t think anything’s been done wrong or that anything malicious is happening. The behaviour you’ve seen is implied in the terms but not explicitly stated.
Monzo are big on explaining how products and features work clearly and simply, so when something like this that the user isn’t expecting happens, it’s quite right that they ask questions.
Maybe some work needs to be done on the UI to explicitly show the user how the interest has been accrued if they tap more info or something and why they can’t switch plan? This probably isn’t the answer, but it’s definitely something for the Flex team to brainstorm.
For now though OP probably just chalk this up as a lesson learned. As least you know next time to select the interest-free option from the get-go to save your pocket a fraction of a Freddo.
Thanks. The whole reason I posted it here is so that Monzo and it’s users could be aware of this ambiguity and could make Flex better/understand it better.
I don’t know why this is being seen as me fighting over 19p. I know it’s a negligible amount but when grown proportionally to fit the user base, it could be a huge amount of interest charged that Monzo didn’t actually account for.
Yes, I usually always select the payments from get-go but when missed, I do select them before making the first payment/end of billing cycle.
This behaviour not to let me change the plans was unexpected as it was within the billing cycle and since I haven’t made any payment either.
Also, since their defaults don’t allow to 3 months plans, it tends to happen a few times. I’ll make sure to chalk this up for now.
But Monzo definitely needs to work on it’s clarity around refunds and how they affect choosing payment plans.