Merchant Mysteries

[Sherlock (James)]

Just purchased a couple things on Amazon and noticed that in my feed they were separated as two transactions with different merchant information (in this example, the logo is different). This prompted me to take a 5 minute look at my feed and I felt like there were enough issues to warrant me opening a thread - it feels like even after all this time, these issues still come back and plague the app.

Amazon

From what I can tell one of these is Amazon Marketplace and one of these is Amazon Retail (the “normal” one)

Domino’s

From what I can tell one of these is through Domino’s website and one of these is through Domino’s mobile app.

Co-op

The transaction description on these are identical, but they were very likely done at different self-serve tills.

Uber

Okay I’ll give Monzo some leeway here cause I know Uber change their transaction identifiers more times than I care to acknowledge but still

Premier

I’ve left my favourite until last

This is a reservation for a hotel at “The Hub by Premier Inn”, not a very expensive trip to my local convenience store. I believe this one is just genuinely incorrect… regexes are hard.

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In the interest of making this a tiny bit helpful for any Monzo employees who’d like to fix these examples, here’s some API information for you in order of appearance in this thread:

API Details

Amazon:
Transaction: tx_00009jvrv1bqxebXuyx3U9
Merchant: merch_000093D1V7gU44y9SLPJh3
Group: grp_000092JYbSIkjviyjwdqtN
Transaction: tx_00009jwlq3vMWSQUoHEAzp
Merchant: merch_00009ddGCt8jcNhwUuENt3
Group: grp_000092yP3CSSCrEqQDOnYn

Domino’s:
Transaction: tx_00009jQ24oZr3E6wz71naz
Merchant: merch_00009WUaHxLZKUcWXWBOPB
Group: grp_000093YSGmyh20SeYR2O13
Transaction: tx_00009iN4BpMW6O3KOlW85x
Merchant: merch_00009dcV1LFwYqnoQCuEvx
Group: grp_000092v6VebIgWSrNI6zJZ

Co-op:
Transaction: tx_00009juHkC1w5OV1Xmj96n
Merchant: merch_000094JaGKXCiLMc07WsgD
Group: grp_000092JZnRtu9iXXsoK1Uv
Transaction: tx_00009jVWXEAXSpASV7y9LN
Merchant: merch_00009KC0Z2y626kqv6ZBNR
Group: grp_000092JYq31L12hjBbeCxN

Uber:
Transaction: tx_00009jUplxbv0vfi9rghGL
Merchant: merch_00009hOSf5TxnC4CWQc8h7
Group: merch_00009hOSf5TxnC4CWQc8h7
Transaction: tx_00009jVWLQ8n7xESXC0GwL
Merchant: merch_00009iKqJKTh1dZcnBqCen
Group: grp_00009dRQOKNlL6SFonpnPt

Premier:
Transaction: tx_00009jKF8dzKUoZFaNA9Oj
Merchant: merch_00009KA46UTog5OFwfLHxB
Group: grp_0000941970AMsYu114xJsP
The actual merchant metadata looks correct (labelled hotel etc) but the merchant name and logo are both incorrect (which is what I actually see as a user)

CC: @kieranmch as I know you’ve done some great work into looking how Monzo can manage this moving forward.

[adamhale]

I’m guessing this is caused by franchises? For example Dominos and co-op franchises out its brand so who you’re purchasing from is different from store to store ?

I also have this with Amazon and guessing it depends whether you’re buying directly from Amazon or a third party via Amazon?

[Sherlock (James)]

The co-ops are from the exact same shop, just different terminals. Domino’s isn’t from a store and is using the 1st party website/app.

I understand why they’re recognised as different by Monzo, but I still believe they should be merged together as one merchant.

[HoldenCarver (Nick)]

All these are great examples of why I think Monzo should have a dedicated merchant enrichment team (and when reports to COps lead to weird merges or changes, or nothing happening, a great example of the tragedy of the commons/why Wikipedia* fails).

A dedicated team could sort everything you’ve mentioned out**, lock it from further changes (if a problem was reported to a COp it could get referred to the team to fix properly rather than a COp making a good faith change but still mucking something up), and provide some accountability and authority.

As long as this sort of thing is managed by COps blindly picking items out of a queue when they have free time, there will always be inconsistencies.

*It’s the classic example

**With the possibly exception of merchants who will always play silly buggers with their identifiers, like Uber.

[nathanthomson8 (Nathan)]

Merchant data just needs attention… plain and simple. Its a big selling point if done well

[anon72173902]

It has been going on for years with no fix coming

Merchant Data Corrections

I’ve reported this stuff loads of times before and tbh I can’t be bothered to look for those threads so I’m gonna make a new one Anyway this merchant data fail is really taking the piss now, this was and always has been The Slug & Lettuce yet all of a sudden it’s some random bar in Copenhagen!! I really do fail to understand how a place can all of a sudden change to something else, is there no manual checks in place or no system locks once verified? It really does defeat the point in having i…

[Daniel.costin1990 (dan costin)]

I get the same from Amazon, Each order is from a Amazon Prime delivery but some are Amazon Retail and Amazon Marketplace

The thing that annoys me is that Uber Eats and Uber Taxi use the same logo / merchant information

[JohnE]

Another…

These were in the same bar on the same evening

[anon72173902]

@Daniel.costin1990

The thing that annoys me is that Uber Eats and Uber Taxi use the same logo / merchant information

They don’t, they used to be seperate with separate logos, it was fixed a while back but in typical Monzo fashion it’s now just been left as a #Fail

[simonhunter87 (Simon Hunter)]

I work for co-op and shop in a lot of different co-ops…a lot…

Only ever had Co-op appear on my Monzo account. Never the co-operative

If you can tell me the shop (4 digits number at the bottom of your receipt or address/postcode) and the setup of the tills (self scan/with a person/was it new/old) - any info like that. I’ll look into it

[Sherlock (James)]

@simonhunter87

If you can tell me the shop and the setup of the tills

West Point Co-op, Unit 1b West Point, Leeds, LS1 4JJ

~6 or so self scan tills and then 2 manned tills. I only ever use self scan.

[simonhunter87 (Simon Hunter)]

So both transactions were at self scan? Were the machines exactly the same?

I know we have some models running POS that a third party manage certain bits of

[Sherlock (James)]

Aye they were different terminals

[GarethTheNerd (Gareth)]

There is also inconsistencies where the merchants look the same. For example, I have 2 Greggs’ near me. If I shop from one, I get a baguette emoji and other one a cake and a coffee. If I look at the total spent they are different because they are too different “merchants”. They look identical in the app though

I then went to a third Greggs’ and the total got added to one of totals already there. Without going through all my Greggs transactions and making a note of the totals then adding the unique one’s together, I have no idea how much I’ve spent at Greggs (although I know it’s too much!)

[danmullen]

Why isn’t there a master merchant table with one, single record for Domino’s, one for Greggs, one for the Co-op, etc. Then each separate franchise, outlet, PDQ machine, etc. could be mapped to the master record. One image per merchant, problem solved.

Additionally, something I mentioned on here and on the old Starling Community is the concept of crowdsourcing. If the banks don’t have the resources to keep these up to date, let the users do it. There are plenty of heavily engaged, enthusiastic people who I bet would be more than happy to review merchant updates and vote “Yes” or “No”. If three users all approve an update, for example, make it live. I think this would very quickly lead to a very rich database of up to date merchant information.

Even better would be if the likes of Monzo, Starling, et al would collaborate on this and share merchant data. They could build an industry standard database so all users across all apps feel the benefit.

[anon72173902]

@danmullen

Why isn’t there a master merchant table with one, single record for Domino’s, one for Greggs, one for the Co-op, etc. Then each separate franchise, outlet, PDQ machine, etc. could be mapped to the master record. One image per merchant, problem solved.

Coz that’s too easy to do and not as important as #Tags or releasing broken features or better still releasing a half baked Monzo Plus.

[Daesimpso]

I have issues with my Office 365 transactions every month. They just show on the feed as a random 10 digit code. Sometimes though they come through as Office 365 and sometimes as Microsoft Store.

It really buggers up Summary. Every month they fail to track, so I have to add this month’s transactions (I have 3 per month) and then scroll through and remove last month’s. I go through this process to make sure Summary is correct when telling me how much I have left to spend.

What’s annoying is the transaction detail lists MSFT and MSBILL.INFO in every transaction, so there’s no reason for it not working.

I did log it with support, but it went nowhere.

[anon72173902]

Same here!! It’s been happening for years.

It’s pathetic when as you say it clearly says MSFT.

[AmorAmor (William)]

I have noticed this too - usually when I use a different POS/Pin Machine. Is it possible that the POS/Pin Machines are providing different data for the transaction?

[JustJordds (Jordan)]

@danmullen

Why isn’t there a master merchant table with one, single record for Domino’s, one for Greggs, one for the Co-op, etc. Then each separate franchise, outlet, PDQ machine, etc. could be mapped to the master record. One image per merchant, problem solved.

Apologies for my possible ignorance - but is this something that Monzo could achieve? With new terminals being brought in and likely being assigned to different sub-companies, franchises, locations etc. It sounds simple, having a hierarchy of sorts which all lead to the same merchant logo and those terminals lower down all feed into that top image - I just feel like it is actually a situation where we are eating with our eyes and not our stomachs.

@danmullen

Additionally, something I mentioned on here and on the old Starling Community is the concept of crowdsourcing

Although with that being said - this would help to move the merchant data along.