šŸ‡§šŸ‡¬ Monzo in Bulgaria

Yeah, I hear you. There are some differences in card setup between Monzo and Revolut, that’s why Revolut is working okay in Bulgaria. That being said, this problem will totally disappear for Monzo in Bulgaria once current accounts and debit cards are rolled out, and it’s pretty :soon:. :smiley: (hype is real)

Marta disagrees with me on this but I think it’s worth mentioning that, the information in her post’s been confirmed by one of the team, it’s not an assumption :slight_smile:

Just came back from Varna - worked fine with FIBank but as mentioned previously, not Bulbank or Societe Generale. Did not work at any shops.

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Hi all, currently over in sunny Bulgaria about an hour from Sofia in Samokov. Card works great at Postbank as previosuly mentioned however shops and other ATMs it doesnt. Popped to Blaveograd for a few nights and same story there too.

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I went to every ATM that I could find in Sunny Beach, St Vlas and Nessebar and every single one refused to give me cash from the Monzo card. So out of the £1100 I loaded onto the card I came back with £950 on it. Some big supermarkets accepted the card, Aldo, Mladost, but not Mercury and none of the mini ones.
In a cash economy where literally no restaraunts accept any cards this was a major problem.
Who wants to spend their holiday searching for a specific bank that accepts this stupid card?
I contacted Monzo through the chat in the app and was told its a known problem.
Cosmic!
So out of necessity I went to one of the exchange desks on every street corner who were very happy to accept the card for a fee of £8 for every £100 withdrawn.
So a total waste of time. Luckily I had other cards that I was able to use.
Thanks for nothing Monzo.

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@anon48815922 It’s a shame you didn’t have the best Monzo experience, but this is Beta service. :cry: Bulgaria is probably one of the worst EU countries Monzo acceptance wise. If that’s any consolation, once Current Account is rolled out and prepaid card is replaced with debit card… it will work a LOT better (like those other cards you had to resort to). :raised_hands:

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I was lucky I had other means to fall back on. Maybe while its in beta you
should warn people not to rely on it.

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There’s literally a paragraph of warning when you receive your card - looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/iqh6KcB.jpg.

Monzo Staff as well as community members like myself, extensively remind people that this is beta. I appreciate it might have not came through, but warning signs are everywere, even on Monzo homepage just above the prompt to download the app. :slight_smile:

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Hmmm. We all read the small print dont we. I bought a kettle the other day
that in the small print warned against plugging it in or putting any water
in it. However I did expect it to work as a kettle because the big letters
on the front said it was a kettle…
I expected to load the Monzo card with money and to be able to spend it
while on holiday.
If it was a kettle it would have been a kettle with no spout, you can put
stuff in but you cant get anything out.
Just say sorry and stop saying it was my own fault.

I didn’t say it was your fault that Monzo card didn’t work. When you raised your concerns about Monzo card not working, I remarked that it’s to be expected that Beta service might not always work flawlessly AND I explained when such problems might end.
When you said you didn’t perceive it as beta service, I pointed out where Monzo informed users about service being in beta.

I’m providing information and clarification, not judging. Why would I say ā€˜sorry’, if I’m not even working for Monzo? :thinking:

And that beta warning was definitely bigger than this text.

Monzo plans to get debit cards rolled out to all existing users most likely by end of the year or shortly after. I can totally understand that unreliable card is unacceptable to some users. I’m sure you’ll receive comms via app or email when this will be affecting your account and then you can reevaluate if Monzo is worth your trust or not. :slight_smile:

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Sorry, I assumed you were representing Monzo. If you don’t work for them
why defend them so vigorously?

Good luck for you if you are enjoying the experience.

For me it was promoted as a good way to get a good exchange rate and a safe
way to take money on holiday.

It was a spectacular fail which could have left a person with less flexible
means unable to access their money. Completely unacceptable.

Marta has acknowledged the fact that your experience fell short of what you were expecting.

She’s also explained why that happened, when the issues will be resolved & how. I don’t interpret her comments as a defence, I think she’s just trying to help you understand the situation.

For now, your feedback serves as a useful warning to others that they shouldn’t expect to use Monzo in Bulgaria with the same ease as they do in the U.K. or most other countries in the world.

Hopefully that will no longer be an issue soon.

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Anyone who works for Monzo has a different icon but unfortunately there aren’t any in this thread and as I guess you’re new you wouldn’t realise - sorry you had a bad experience. @anon44366284 who started this thread seems to have had a slightly better experience but that was back in May2016 :slight_smile:

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Currently in Bulgaria and finding a few places don’t recognise the card. Will try some of the things posted here, but given I don’t read Bulgarian I can’t see what the machines are saying - and the shop assistants just look blankly when I ask what the issue is.

Nothing comes on my app though so I assume the machines are blocking the payment before it even goes near to Monzo.

Same experience as many here, no luck with the atms or card terminals I’ve tried so far in Sofia.

A couple of weeks ago I had trouble with a POS terminal in a shop. From the receipt I gather it is operated by CiBank (https://www.cibank.bg/en/home). Has anyone had trouble with POS terminals/ATMs of this bank before? It was a shame I couldn’t use my Monzo card and had to use my normal HSBC one which charged me Ā£5 fee :frowning:

I’m very surprised to see that Monzo is experiencing such issues… with my Clarity card i had no issues paying throughout Bulgaria this summer and in fact mostly through Apple Pay, where contactless was accepted.

Anyone tried a current account card? Anyone want to pay my fare to Sofia and I’ll go check for you :wink:

From in app chat:

Unfortunately, many of our customers have had difficulties using their Monzo card in Bulgaria :pensive:
We think that this is partly due to the way some of the Bulgarian card networks process pre-paid card data.

Monzo cards will not work at any merchants where Unicredit Bulbank (Bulgarian United Bank) or Raiffeisen Bank terminals are used.

Most shops have their tills connected to either of those two banks, and users receive a ā€œCard number invalidā€ error message.

However, the Monzo card does work at about half of the sales terminals in Sofia.

Customers have found that the following ATMs are less likely to work with Monzo :x:
UniCredit Bulbank
Reiffeisen Bank
Investbank
Central Cooperative Bank
SociƩtƩ Generale Expressbank

On the plus side, customers have said that these ATMs are more likely to be successful :white_check_mark:
PostBank
Banka DSK
First Investment Bank (FI Bank)

We’re working hard on rolling out our current accounts, after which using Monzo internationally will be even easier and a lot smoother :tada:

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Mine is a current account.