Has anyone used a monzo card in a zip zap machine?

Was wondering this last night, monzo is the only embossed debit card in my wallet.

Has anyone used one and how long did it take to show up in the app.

Forgive me if I’m missing something here, but isn’t this entirely down to when the merchant processes the transaction? It will show in the feed at that point in time.

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Never used a Monzo card in one but it’s whenever the shop processes the transaction.

Was just wondering to be honest if it’s been done.

Old technolgy meets high tech bank.

Non embossed cards will work in these machines. The merchant has to write the details on the slip. It’s how customer not present transactions were sometimes done.

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The only time I used one was in gambia to buy a meal and a drink in the airport and he put my old NatWest debit card in it and I just signed.
Showed up in a week’s time.
Visa only so had to be my NatWest card (which at the time was embossed and Visa only is common in africa) I had no cash in GMD lol.

my Girlfriend used her Monzo card in a zip zap machine a few weeks ago, and it was declined when they tried to put it through later - was for a book, about £20. But Waterstones didn’t take her contact details, so I’m not sure what happens next

If it were me, I’d pop back in to Waterstones and have a chat.

except the Waterstones in question is an hour’s journey away
She paid at a stall at an event we went to which was taking impressions to process later - it wasn’t in the shop

Ahh, that is tricky. Could try phoning them (can find numbers via the branch locator ), or emailing them using the contact form on their website?

ETA:

Thought I’d best add this to my post, as what Rika says is true, and clarify that when I said I’d take the steps in this post and the last, more than anything it would be to ease my conscience (in much the same way that if I were given too much change in a shop I’d give it back if I could).

For what it’s worth, these machines are not guaranteed by anybody to work at all and have been explicitly recommended against for several years. Mastercard and Visa have long been encouraging merchants to move to offline-capable terminals.

Practically, merchants have to accept a loss for declines if they choose to use these machines on the basis that they did not get any authorisation are the time of purchase.

The reason merchants do use them as a last resort is because it’s still slightly better than letting customers walk out without paying at all.

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It used to be that you’d phone up and get an authorisation code, is that not a thing anymore?

Not really. It’s still in the specifications but is not required, not recommended to support, and still puts quite a lot of fraud liability on the merchant.

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I remember it well. I used to work in a shop with a low floor limit. We had to phone Visa or Access several times a day to get an authorisation code. They’d occasionally ask to speak to the customer if I recall correctly.

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Was the same when you had a cheque above the guarantee card limit. Phone up and occasionally you’d have to bring the customer to the phone, always when you had a queue a mile long :joy:

Fun times

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I’m glad I missed those days…

I have vague memories of chipless cards (in the UK), and less vague memories of the phaseout of the cheque guarantee card. Interesting memories and times.

For delivery in the US often they would take a carbon copy of the card rather than relying solely on an over the phone card not present transaction
.

Although I have never used my Monzo card in one of these machines, I do remember having to use one at work back in the early 2000’s
It was a complete pain in the backside.

  • Swipe Card
  • Get customer to sign imprint
  • 1 copy for customer, 1 copy for you, 1 copy for bank
  • Before banking them, fill out reconciliation form with number of transactions, individual amount and total amount
  • Put all bank copies into special envelope (only 30 per envelope too)
  • Take to bank
  • Wait at least a week for bank to process payments

Thank heavens things have moved on :grin:

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