I was wondering about something from that happened to me the other day. I work in retail concierge and had a customers wallet handed into our lost property, I called the number for lost/found cards (it was one of the big 5 banks, we get a lot of lost cards and we rarely have the time to call the bank.) the lady who answered was most unhelpful. She blocked the card and despite saying I was from the shopping centre itself and offering a item log number she wouldn’t pass a message on the the owner to say we had his wallet.
I was wondering what Monzo would do in the same circumstances? I assume there must be a straightforward reason to have been bluntly refused to pass a message onto the owner, but who knows?
Overall I’m curious into what Monzo/banks can and can’t do in such a situation?
In the above situation the card would most likely be frozen by the account holder anyway. I would guess they would possibly do exactly the same thing as the above bank.
Yeah, I was mostly on about getting the rest of the wallet back; I know cards can be easily frozen.
I called my own current bank, Metro Bank (I was bored at work, it’s a slow day. ) who said that they’d happily add that someone/a store/shopping centre had found my wallet in my notes file and inform me of the details if I called in saying my card was stolen/lost or I froze my card in app. Any contact details the company or person left me would be passed to me if the finder gave them with permission to do so, so I could get my wallet back.
Trying to think of why the bank wasn’t more helpful, I guess it’s the classic: fraud. There’s no guarantee that the bank knows you are (a) working for a shopping centre [spoofing] and (b) not trying to further defraud them [unscrupulous staff]. All they can confirm is that card x has been compromised.
I do like the idea of a shop reporting that my wallet has been found (and a note in the feed as a bonus), but Joe Blogs may see I have lots of money or bank cards and insist on a reward before returning it. I’d prefer Monzo to recommend handing the wallet into the police/nearby store/etc.
It is strange. Blocking the card is the right response from them as they know it’s in the wrong hands. Not putting a note that the wallet is with someone else who is trying to get it back to them is just ridiculous.
I know, I could understand about it better if I was a private individual, but I said I was from a rather large and well known shopping center and that I’m from Concierge/lost property. I even offered the systems log number for the wallet itself.
May just have been one of those times you speak to someone who just can’t be bothered or having a bad day as her attitude was truly attrocious.
Either way it’s good to know a bank is allowed to take details if someone calls in.
Can’t see the point in faffing around with a QR code, and not everyone has an app for them installed or the space to do so. Just typing in a page like monzo.com/lost would be easiest and could take them to a page where a) lost cards can be reported as found thru a web form, b) and those who lost a card have some advice on actions to take
Further into that post was this comment, which might answer your point.
As for,
The whole premise being missed is convenience. The QR augments the simple human readable url on the card with machine readable information. How is this not handy especially when OP mentioned this in their opening post:
It’s an interesting approach from other banks! Here at Monzo we understand how frustrating it can be to lose a card and other property. It’s not the greatest feeling but it happens.
Our first instance in any case is to check and ensure the card is frozen (which the user has the ability to do in the app). No harm in double checking. ️
We try to treat every case on a case by case basis and make every effort to ensure that the user has every opportunity to retrieve their card and property. This means working with the finder and our users to make this happen.
Security is also super super important in these cases and we’d take full permission before disclosing any contact information of the user or the finder of the card.
In the most basic instance we’d freeze the card and request the finder to destroy it. We’d then reach out to our user usually though the in app chat and let them know their card was found and we’ve frozen it and sent out a replacement.
QR codes have worried lots of people after it was found from discarded boarding passes you could find someones frequent flyer number and details to access their account from the QR code.
QR codes are like a barcode. They can have as much or as little info as the creator wants. If you embed all that info in it, a scan will reveal it.
The card number on a card does not remain a private bit of information when the card gets lost. So having that same number embedded in a QR code doesn’t reveal anything new, but instead could be used to save typing it.
) who said that they’d happily add that someone/a store/shopping centre had found my wallet in my notes file and inform me of the details if I called in saying my card was stolen/lost or I froze my card in app. Any contact details the company or person left me would be passed to me if the finder gave them with permission to do so, so I could get my wallet back. 
️ 
