Fraud

Monzo Chat
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Sadly I have had to stop reading this forum because of the amount of winging and whining that goes on about investors not getting their little special cards, or such and such a feature isn’t working, or i need to go through one extra step to top up my card with a bank transfer rather than a card, or god knows what other really petty issue you now have, its actually really off putting, and yes, you’re right, I don’t have to read it, and I no longer do. Problem solved. :wink:

So whilst people are happy to complain about the little things, lets consider the big things, the things that in my opinion, actually matter. How your bank handles fraud and your money.

Yesterday I woke up to 18 notifications overnight on my phone about paid and declined transactions. Transactions I didn’t make because I was asleep, nor was I in France, or Switzerland. In total nearly £1500 of transactions, but only £280 of which that actually went through because I’d siphoned off my salary the day before into various pots or into my wife and I’s joint account to pay the mortgage etc. nearly all of it appears to be transactions for mobile phones which are nice and easy to sell on and clean the stolen cash.

After my initial gob smacked reaction whilst sitting in my towel, still dripping after my shower (TMI?), the first thing I did was freeze my card. Certainly cant do that with my other bank without being on hold for 20 minutes… Second, contacted Customer Ops. 59 minutes it took to have the transactions cancelled, refunded and new card ordered, and to be fair it would probably have been quicker but I could reply to them as I was driving for 35 minutes to get to work (thanks Benjamin!).

Now had this been my other bank, I wouldn’t have even known for a few days till the transactions were actually presented, then followed by several days of waiting for my money back and a new card.

I really cant fault Monzo at all. Sure, the ability to do some things differently with pots would be nice, but behind the cool stuff, and the planned cool stuff that’s still in the pipe line that people are complaining about, is a pretty solid banking system who give a toss about its customers, and fixes things, the important things, quickly. Lets not forget this.

Thanks Monzo!!

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Thanks for posting this @andrewb!

Really sorry to hear that you had your card cloned :frowning:
However, this is a really great post for illustrating how useful instant notifications are :+1:

I’m glad COps were able to resolve this for you quickly :slight_smile:

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Depending on the backlog we can sometimes identify and re-credit fraudulent transactions within minutes of you becoming aware of them! Ideally we’ll get to a point where we have enough staff and smooth enough tooling where less than 10 minutes is the norm for this kind of thing (right now, sometimes it is this quick, sometimes it may be longer).

Anyway, fraud totally sucks and we aim to make it as stress-free as possible when this kind of thing happens! Thanks for posting your experience, @andrewb! :slight_smile:

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Totally agree - a while ago I figured all the challenger banks were pretty much the same. It’s clear to me now that monzo is head and shoulders above the rest because of the way they choose to run the business - focusing on support, solid infrastructure etc.

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Coming from a banking background i would be interested to know what anti-fraud measures Monzo use?

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enough staff you say? :joy:

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Did someone say Monzo need need staff?

@crablab @simonb hook a mans up :joy_cat:

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@ismet it would be unwise for us to go into too much detail - but this is a really great article written by @daniel, our Lead Security Engineer on how we’re using machine learning to combat fraud on the prepaid scheme.

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lol no, just give me a job :smiley:

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You would be perfect as the main public face of Monzo. I think all comms should go through you. :wink: :exploding_head:

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why do we have no :joy: reaction!

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Good article!

I’m happy to hear the experience was a good one and Monzo managed to get everything sorted in a timely manner, you never know what you will go through in regards to Support until it happens to you, which is why this forum is great for everyone using Monzo.

It also raises an idea that may be useful as a future security measure. Would be good to link the location of the app with the card itself and thus stopping any fraud happening from outside the country you are currently in? Let me know your thoughts and whether it could be possible.

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There is location based security already (on iOS)

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As I said, I was driving for most of that 59 minutes and couldnt reply, so it probably would have been quicker!! Honestly couldn’t fault the process. :smile:
Plus, to cap it off, my new card arrived today, a coral core beast at that! Christ this thing is brighter than the last one though!!! Won’t be loosing it that’s for sure :wink:

I just think people loose sight of what you are actually doing here, from the ground up no less, but patience is a virtue. The service however is exemplary!!

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Think I’ll be turning that on…

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As Danny said, there is an option which presumably enables some form of this. But remember that even if you have your card with you in the UK, you might make overseas purchases with your card either online or over the phone (which might show up as a purchase at a specific location), so Monzo needs to be smarter than just saying, “if the purchase is at a location more than 500m from the phone, decline it.”

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Ahh shame I’m on Android so will keep an eye out for it and will also have a read about what is exactly involved in the setting.

Thanks

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Yeah, good point for the online transactions. I guess that’s why they (Monzo) are focusing on AI to help identify possible fraud actions.

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So impressed by this. It’s when things go awry that a company really proves its mettle. Good work Monzo. Also I love that the goal is sorting all this out in 10 minutes or less. My deliveroo always takes longer than that to arrive.