It’s not that as Starling is reportedly working fine and you have the ability to freeze that too.
I suspect that they have had a disproportionate amount of fraudulent transactions using Monzo cards, so have taken the steps they have. That’s just my current thinking based on the information available, I may be completely wrong.
Can’t help but think this wouldn’t happen to one of the big banks. If ASDA had suddenly decided to block all HSBC or Barclays cards there would be uproar.
Couldn’t Asda have contacted Monzo if they have a problem and worked to resolve it?
Seems an odd decision to just randomly block cards.
PS: It would be great if Asda could also fix the cashback problem. It’s never worked.
My local Asda I fill up at weekly, doesn’t even accept contactless of any kind I don’t believe. Been a little while since I’ve bought < £30 fuel mind.
When making a payment the terminal doesn’t even show a contactless sign, let alone even trying Apple Pay!
It’s still not working so ASDA clearly aren’t backing down
I’m not a payment engineer of any sorts, so I may be wrong… but once the initial £1 auth (doesn’t have to be £1, can be any amount) has happened, I believe the merchant can take the money and settle the transaction regardless of if the card is frozen or not, as it’s not a new card payment at that point and simply changing the previous amount to a settler status.
So I don’t imagine it’s anything to do with the ability to freeze cards.
This kind of thing does happen to “big banks” though…
If they are only pre authorising £1 they are only checking there is £1 on the card.
Would it not make sense to charge an amount and then refund the difference?
On monzo I can get refunds instantly so I’m sure it could be done
The pre auth for PAP should be £99 as per Mastercard and Visa requirements and this will be implemented soon and they will then adjust the total like is currently done with £1 pre auth
Yeah I think though this will create a lot of problems for people and people contacting banks etc.
The retailers will need to be quicker at completing the transaction (guessing but I don’t see why it can’t be instant?)
£99 is a lot for some to have blocked over a weekend.
It was implemented briefly last Spring but as you say, there was significant concern about people filling up £30 of fuel and having an extra £70 unavailable until presentment.
Most AFDs in the UK still use £1 authorisations (as far as I’m aware) but the Mastercard guidelines still require authorisation up to the maximum that can/will be dispensed.
Sorry, what’s an AFD? I tried googling it but it came up with a German political party 
To me it means all f***** day, (well known shift in hospitality)
I’ve never understood why we even pre auth petrol and wait.
Why doesn’t it hold onto the card until the transaction is complete and charge the amount used?
But then what does it do if you don’t have enough money in the account?
I understand Monzo not wanting you to go overdrawn but on the other hand why can Monzo just not trust its customers to use account responsibly. all other banks seem to be ok with
auth just the £1 and putting full amount on the account when presented.
after all the liability is generally limited to £99 and I don’t think any customer is going to mess up an account for this amount & be charges of 50p a day…
A little gun comes out and shoots you in the leg.
But seriously, isn’t it the same as getting to the till and not being able to pay?
Or
Why not type in the amount you want to fuel up, it pre-auths for that amount then the pump stops when you fill up to that amount, if you don’t put that much in, it just holds and adjusts at normal.
I feel like there’s plenty of seemingly better ways of doing it.
This makes the most sense, especially because the pumps have number pads for the pin code to be entered anyway, I wonder how easily this functionality could be added and how the cost compares to the potential fraud losses.
See, this is how it works in BP’s app which you can use at some of their stations.
You choose how much you want to pre-auth before unlocking the pump. The pump then only dispenses up to that amount, and if you end up dispensing less fuel it adjusts the transaction down a couple of days later.
Surely there’s a way to do this by jabbing buttons on the pump.