That’s one way of describing them I suppose 
When I used to work in customer services the biggest thing I found is how rude and entitled most people are.
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I can definitely relate
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"Monzo said that it hadn’t acted unfairly when it had taken the decision to close his account.
Mr B said he was unhappy with Monzo’s response, so we looked into his complaint.
Our investigator thought that Monzo had acted unfairly and said that it should keep his
account open as Mr B would also find it very difficult – given his credit file and banking
history – to open up an account elsewhere. They recommended that Monzo pay Mr B £400
in compensation too.
Monzo didn’t agree with our investigator’s recommendations. So I was
asked to consider this complaint.
I contacted both parties about this complaint and, having done so, I said that I didn’t think
Monzo had acted unfairly when it decided to close Mr B’s account. I told both parties that I
would issue a decision with reasons and that’s what I’m doing now."
When you read it the first time it sounds like retaliation from Monzo. I never knew the FOS could tell a bank not to close someone’s account 
.
Am I right in saying this wasn’t the original complaint and this was Monzo disputing a decision?
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Yes.
When a decision is made, both parties have to agree to it, and either party can dispute it with the ombudsman if they don’t. In this case, it sounds like the investigator didn’t do a very full investigation!
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You only get one shot at this though if I remember correctly 
You say your bit and then whatever the investigator says next is final.
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There’s an initial assessment. If the case can’t be resolved, either party can ask for a formal ombudsman review. The ombudsman then issues a final decision, which is binding on the business and binding on the customer if they accept it (they can reject it and go to court). It’s the final decisions that get published.
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How the FOS makes its decisions isn’t really the point. What really advances the topic here is the reason given. The thing about account activity totally unrelated to the financial aspects.
Being a drain on the banks’ resources really hasn’t been explored here.
I’ll bet a whole shed-load of account closures are related to this - those customers who somehow have determined Monzo should be at their beck and call, presumably for spurious reasons.
A very different picture, indeed…
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Which sounds to me a lot like a “Fair Use” policy, which I think was mentioned further up in the thread.
If it is for being a resource drain, then what’s the measure? I personally don’t think it’s appropriate to close an account down because they contact the bank a lot, or even disagree with the bank / support staff. In the FOS pdf above, it even says something to the effect of “Monzo thought the consumer was getting around the gambling block” - does that become an account-closable activity?
I can understand if “disagreeing with the bank a lot” turns into “abusing the bank staff” - but that is a given reason to close the account immediately.
They’ve captured the “order a new card every day” extreme with minimum requirements around free card replacements, so it’s not like they cannot introduce fair use policies.
If this little spate of account closures is because of high resource use of Chat/COps time, I think that would be super interesting give the trend of activity around making Cops harder to access, and all the things around that.
Edit: I will add though I do agree with the conceptual difference of “just using my account normally” and “being an edge case on resource use”, but not sure where I draw the line on account closing on that continuum
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Quite
Now THAT’s an interesting point. Has Monzo contributed to the very problem it describes in its reasoning?
Let the chat commence…
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I wonder if he used PayPal to top up to avoid the gambling. But to me, that’s something Monzo should try and help further with. Not kick him off.
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Possibly because there’s no evidence that it’s true.
Monzo are quite happy to alter their fee structure to punish unprofitable behaviour, so there isn’t really any need to close accounts on that basis.
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We don’t know that they didn’t. All we know is that the ombudsman said that there was a significant number of interactions with the customer and some didn’t end well.
According to the ombudsman,
[Monzo took] into account the additional support Mr B might be expected to need given his vulnerabilities.
At the end of that, Monzo claimed that the relationship had become unsustainable, and the ombudsman agreed that it wasn’t unfair to close the account.
We don’t know whether or not Monzo went an extra mile or two, but it seems that they didn’t exactly drop him like a hot potato at the earliest opportunity.
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If its because they are a draining monzo resources and being a poor customer should monzo not put things in place to inform the customer?
Be that a warning in chat or an email or something along those lines.
I feel like something as upheaving as telling someone to find a new bank should be a last resort, should be mechanisms to help the customer.
In saying that this is all hypothetical, may not even be a reason monzo close accounts. My points above are if that is the case**
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That could be tricky to word and I think the media would have a field day with it.
“You’re messaging support way above the average person does. Please make use of our guides or your account may be suspended”.
The approach they’re taking now is probably best. Let everyone on here exhaust themselves debating it all and then it will die off like the frozen accounts saga.
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I think there wouldn’t be any drama with more transparency. People who aren’t harassing support wouldn’t have to worry at all.
If people would be aware, that after a support chat not only they can rate how much they liked a “support person”, but it works both way, they might be nicer in a first place.
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You don’t think there would be loads of bad press from it? There certainly was from the frozen accounts issue and it can’t have helped the business.
I also doubt it would make much difference to the amount of support queries they get. People will still get in touch to try and argue their case regardless of what they’re told the reason is.
But of course, we’re debating this again on the assumption that they can tell people the cause. Which from all the facts people have posted it seems like they can’t even if they wanted to.
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I must admit, I don’t know if Monzo have ever given a reason directly to the customer even if they can. For instance, in the infamous ‘Mr B’ case above, Monzo could have given a reason, but it’s not clear whether or not they did(other than to the ombudsman.
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It could be seen two ways though. If monzo weren’t addressing the issues experienced by people, resulting in then accessing support more often and monzo then closes their accounts it looks very bad.
Plenty of people come to the forum with their issues looking for how to contact support…
Monzo can obviously improve but as seen on here, most people just don’t look/read for themselves. In most cases, typing their thread title into help or Google would solve their issue. But people are lazy and want it handed to them.
True. But people are clearly finding support (If we’re basing this on one person’s complaint)
It would be an absolute nightmare for Monzo to publish this and not have a monster backlash. Some people will just be unlucky/unsure and want to talk to support. Your bank should do that, not tick another box on your countdown chart and tell you how many times you can talk to them again this month without getting cut off.