I had £9.71, I topped up £200.00 and the balance suddenly became £200.31.
Community, please pay attention, you may also be affected. I doubt they are scamming us for money intentionally, it’s probably a bug (in their favour). Hopefully just a bug.
I’d get in touch with customer support via in app chat. They’ll be able to give you some more detail about what’s happened there. Report back when you know more 
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Customer support are trying to make up a story about TfL having charged me while I was doing the top up. I went through my entire transaction history, added up all of the top ups and subtracted all of the expenses and I’m right. I’ve asked customer support to do the maths manually and not rely on monzo’s buggy software, still waiting for their reply.
I’ll be honest - Monzo is in the top 5, possibly top 3, for customer service I’ve ever had the pleasure of using. I would struggle the believe they’d make anything up when it comes down to actual customer funds. 
They’re super fast with replies so I’m sure you won’t be waiting long - Might be worth triple checking your maths. Also, I’d suggest going to the account you topped up your Monzo account with to see if £200 was actually subtracted Could’ve been an error on your ‘normal’ bank’s behalf!
I hope this issue gets resolved for you! 
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Customer support claims TfL is at fault because they have a “weird” way of processing payments. They also claim I should “soon” see a charge amounting to the value that’s missing.
There’s no way to tell whether they’re working on creating a fake transaction entry to cover up their mistake, or their system is so bad, it can only show up a total balance, without “processing” or “in progress” payments.
I can’t honestly believe they own the balance, the transactions and the payment processing, and they can’t show a “processing” payment to justify the missing funds. They are a bank, after all.
Anyhow, they claim it’s ok, I see a clear difference between my transaction history and balance and there’s nothing I can do but wait for a magical transaction to show up later to make up for the missing funds. Or report them to some ombudsman. I’m open to suggestions.
Pay attention to your pre/post top up balances, you might get scammed or bugged as well.
Take a look at the posts in the community & on social media. Is it not likely that after processing 100m+ of transactions, another user would have noticed money going missing from their accounts?
I think it’s slightly odd that you’re not willing to give Monzo the benefit of the doubt here, they are in beta after all…
Also Wirecard owns the processing, not Monzo, which does make these issues harder to resolve. That won’t be the case later this year.
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Hello Mihai! 
I can confirm that the conversation you had with my colleague in Customer Support was correct with regards to the missing TfL amount that’s not yet showing in your feed. As some of our community members have already mentioned, all TfL payments are processed offline and not in real time, which can lead to a delay in the amount showing in your feed.
I am sincerely sorry that you have such a low opinion of our company that you believe we would ever “make up a story” or create “a fake transaction” - I can personally assure you that nobody here would even dream of doing such a thing, and neither would our infrastructure allow for this to happen.
As you can see for yourself by the replies in this thread, our community full of happy customers stands as testament to the fact that great customer support is our number one priority and once again, if that hasn’t been your experience, then I apologise for that.
The feed should resolve itself with the TfL transaction, but I must add that we are in Beta, and we do occasionally have problems like this with feed items not showing correctly. If it hasn’t appeared for you by tomorrow, feel free to ask us on here or in the in-app chat to raise a ticket with the engineers in order to get this looked at as an engineering issue. I can already see the transaction you’re referring to in the backend, so it’s just a case of waiting for TfL to finish processing this, or looking at it from an engineering perspective as a missing data bug.
If there’s anything else you’d like us to look at, feel free to drop us a line any time, but please allow us to conduct an investigation before immediately pointing fingers. As mentioned, we’re a Beta service and sometimes there are bugs, and it’s a perfectly reasonable request to allow us to investigate without accusation of wrongdoing. If that seems unreasonable for you, then perhaps our app isn’t for you, at least not whilst we remain a Beta service.
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Hello,
When a regular app shows you that 10 + 10 - 5 = 7, it looks unprofessional. When you’ve got the same thing in a banking app with your own money involved, it’s much, much worse.
Instead of dismissing my bug report, consider coming up with a way to highlight discrepancies on your own (i.e. unprocessed transactions: 9.40), or some sort of user friendly. self explanatory ux.
This bug should be raised with the engineering team anyway, it makes you look buggy and unreliable, it makes both of us waste time with support, and I was quite close to involving the authorities.
A TfL transaction has now shown up in my feed which amounts to the originally missing 9.40, so my balance now adds up, but this bug probably still persists within your infrastructure and will show up the next time these conditions are met.
I’m intrigued by this scenario as someone living outside London and therefore not a regular TfL user.
I understand that TfL process payments in a “special” way which allows them to present for amounts they didn’t authorise for etc, and they present transactions in batches overnight.
Why was there no authorisation-type feed entry and why was the overall balance reduced with no accompanying feed item? Surely the reduction in balance has to have come from a transaction that already exists in the feed?
Maybe the technical explanation for this would be helpful in this situation.
1 Like
tfl payments are offline and their charging system is rather unique, so can take a short while to show up. I would advise you to register your Monzo card to your contactless cards page on Oyster online as it will tabulate your travel costs and usually shows a day or so before it hits your Monzo card.
Also then if you REALLY don’t trust Monzo you can also check they’re also charging what tfl say. I’ve been using Monzo for six months and the card for the same amount of time with tfl though and Monzo’s one of very few comapnies I have a lot of trust in.
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I can confirm that the conversation you had with my colleague in Customer Support was correct with regards to the missing TfL amount that’s not yet showing in your feed. As some of our community members have already mentioned, all TfL payments are processed offline and not in real time, which can lead to a delay in the amount showing in your feed.
By re-reading my support conversation, it becomes clear that the transaction was visible in your system, otherwise how would you support personnel be able to tell that the missing £9.40 were from a TfL charge? Since the transaction was in Monzo’s database with sufficient details (amount, date, time, merchant), why was it missing from my feed?
If the transaction wasn’t in your database, since it wasn’t showing up in the feed as well, the only logical assumption was that Customer Support was trying to come up with an as-plausible-as-possible story for the missing funds.
I am sincerely sorry that you have such a low opinion of our company that you believe we would ever “make up a story” or create “a fake transaction” - I can personally assure you that nobody here would even dream of doing such a thing, and neither would our infrastructure allow for this to happen.
My apparent distrust in Monzo comes from Customer Support from all companies (including Monzo’s, last night) trying to shift the blame away from the company and onto third parties or the customers themselves. I’ve had enough of all industries blaming me or each other for their mistakes. This is Monzo’s bug, not TfL’s, because the transaction was visible to Customer Support and not to myself. Stop trying to shift blame away from yourselves when it’s your fault.
The feed should resolve itself with the TfL transaction, but I must add that we are in Beta, and we do occasionally have problems like this with feed items not showing correctly.
Then please stop Customer Support blaming merchants for discrepancies in Monzo’s feed. You’ve only created more distrust with your own users this way.
If it hasn’t appeared for you by tomorrow, feel free to ask us on here or in the in-app chat to raise a ticket with the engineers in order to get this looked at as an engineering issue.
It would appear that you haven’t raised an engineering ticket, so this bug will likely exhibit itself in the future, with other users. You could at least announce it somewhere, i.e. “known bugs”. Missing funds sounds like a bug which should at least be publicly documented.
If there’s anything else you’d like us to look at, feel free to drop us a line any time, but please allow us to conduct an investigation before immediately pointing fingers.
You’re the ones who started pointing fingers at the merchant, when you clearly had the transaction in your database but not in the feed. Please stop pointing fingers and lying to your users, I’ve had enough of all Customer Support personnel lying to everyone, trying to point fingers away from the company they represent.
As mentioned, we’re a Beta service and sometimes there are bugs, and it’s a perfectly reasonable request to allow us to investigate without accusation of wrongdoing. If that seems unreasonable for you, then perhaps our app isn’t for you, at least not whilst we remain a Beta service.
As a Beta service user, I expect visual glitches i.e. scrolling problems, payment processing issues i.e. contactless refused, app crashes etc. I do not, however, expect my funds to simply go missing. If a bank mishandles funds, it shouldn’t go into public beta.
Anyway, this looks like a transactions feed bug. The payment was in your database, the amount was subtracted from my available funds, but the transaction was missing from the feed, leading to discrepancies. Again, 10 + 10 - 5 = 7 is not something you should blame on others, like you already have. As soon as you start pointing fingers away, your users may start pointing fingers back at you.
The good news is, your funds weren’t missing, they were exactly where they should be in Monzo’s (Wirecard’s accounts) so what you’re seeing was a bug which caused a discrepancy between your available balance & your transaction feed, exactly the type of bug that you said you’d expect while Monzo’s in Beta -
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In my experience, no credit card or current account has shown matching transactions/available balance in real time online. You usually have to wait until the actual statement arrives to get an accurate view of what you owe them. A lot of people find it hard enough to keep track of spending on some cards (more so when using them heavily, like before Christmas) because transactions are usually delayed in being displayed in the account (online) and they are not really real-time.
My Lloyds credit card online banking will generally show the reduce balance but the transactions will not appear (on-line anyway) until after they settle. At times, this leaves me guessing and trying to remember where I had spent this money.
Admittedly this should’t happen with Monzo and I do agree that if they are selling their “live-balance” feature, then balance and transactions need to feel live and always match. I however find it extremely unfair to criticise Monzo for what you are being told is a minor glitch and inconsistency (remember they are in Beta) on a feature which they are definitely market leaders (Life transactions and balance tracking).
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This is where you are wrong. I was told “not Monzo’s fault” by Monzo.
Put yourself in my shoes at the time when funds went missing immediately after top up, no other information available. Would it still seem minor? It was a good enough reason to contact Customer Support, and they immediately tried to shift the blame onto TfL.
I’m willing to bet the value of your ‘missing’ funds that you weren’t told this by Monzo.
It was reasonable to contact the customer support team to query the discrepancy but not to assume that Monzo was trying to steal your money.
Judging by the fact that no one has liked or replied to your posts, I think it’s fair to assume that other users don’t share your concerns.
So perhaps this is a good time to move on.
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TFL probably are to blame, they process things days later, often refund things then take it again. Register your card with the TFL website and keep tabs, it always works out correct in the end and if not (forgot to tap out, etc) their support is pretty good too.
TFL does cause havoc on a Monzo card because Monzo is responsive enough to show you all TFLs weird processing. Offline transactions and refunds generally affect your Monzo balance before it shows in the app, but Monzo can check this manually. I think it’s a limitation rather than a bug. Most TFL customers with normal bank accounts wont notice as it takes a few days for transactions to show up anyway.
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I’ll take you up on your bet. I’ve got the conversation in my email, but I can provide a screenshot if needed:
On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 09:31 PM, REDACTEDwrote:
Unfortunately these TfL transactions show up late, so your balance in-app does not correctly reflect your actual balance until you make another transaction (this transaction being your top up). Sorry about this confusion Mihai!
On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 09:24 PM, REDACTED wrote:
The 9.40 transaction is listed on Monday, 2 days ago, not 5 minutes ago.
On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 09:22 PM, REDACTED wrote:
Hi Mihai! Sorry about the confusion here. I can confirm that before you topped up, your balance was £9.71. TfL had charged you £9.40 just before you topped up, bringing your balance down to £0.31. You then made the top up, which brought you to £200.31. We have not scammed you at all - sorry if it appears that way!
Thank you for sharing those messages. Monzo aren’t telling you that it’s not their fault there they’re simply explaining how TFL transactions work.
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I live up North (not grim) and obviously don’t ever use TfL but can appreciate the frustration, I have had similar with other merchants before too. Simply put, Monzo, I believe, do their best with what they get from merchants.
If anything, TfL need to upgrade their systems, however, that is unrealistic as well 
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By pointing fingers at someone else, I take that as an indirect “not our fault”.
The TfL transaction turned out to be visible to Monzo’s Customer Support, not to Monzo’s User. I’d say it’s not TfL’s fault here.