I’m genuinely curious why you, and it appears so many others, thought this:
Names on statements change and often bear little resemblance to the merchant, what was so unusual about this case?
I ordered a birthday card for someone a day or two ago from http://thortful.com and the transition showed up as “Stripe” on my Amex account. I wasn’t concerned as I knew what it was for since the transition amount was the same and I’d literally only just paid for it.
This, and this isn’t uncommon. I just… I’d love to understand but I can’t understand how people jump to the ‘hacked/fraud’ conclusion when a name mismatches, it’s just so common. Especially, there was one post here where a group of people decided together they were all being hacked. It makes no sense to me - you all paid for a service, you all get a single transaction, for the amount you paid. Why would anyone jump to ‘fraud’ and not ‘payment processors are weird and show up wrong sometimes’?
…and especially when Stripe is one of the largest online payment processers in the world
I totally get what you’re saying, but in a usual daily madness, it’s not abnormal to get confused for a second (and not have enough time to think about it properly!). 
I’m actually glad that people were jumpy about it! It means that observing finances becomes a habit and it’s a healthy one to have. I’ve read this story where a woman didn’t realise she had a recurring payment taken for years for a service she didn’t have. She got her money back, but it took her around 5 years to realise she was charged £20 a month! 
I didn’t realise stupid crunchyroll failed to cancel subscription for 3 months… I’m know that I’m comparing recurring payments to a top-up bug, but watching and making sure you recognise all transactions is quite related in my head. And it’s good trend. 
Being one of the largest payments processors in the world has nothing to do with Stripe’s fraud risk. They will still have many collusive merchants on their books and will have a fraud chargeback rate similar (or higher, as their underwriting criteria are less stringent) to Worldpay, Barclaycard or the other acquirers.
I don’t think it is particularly helpful for Hugh (who I now believe works in custoner services at Monzo) or Merkitten to imply there is something wrong with the rest of us being concerned about unrecognised transactions on our accounts. It is good practice to check your account every day and if there is something you do not recognise, question it with your bank. There are many reasons why someone may not remember what’s transaction was for and if there is any doubt, they should speak to their bank immediately.
As a fast growing card issuer and new entrant to the banking sector, Monzo should be encouraging its users to engage in good fraud awareness practices, not imply that they’re being over eager or stupid.
For clarity, I don’t believe Hugh works for Monzo…yet. Acceptance of a job isn’t the same as starting it so he’s a free agent to the best of my knowledge.
For posterity, if he gets the little Monzo badge on his forum icon in the future, it wasn’t there when this was written.
It’s okay to be concerned with your accounts but isn’t blocking cards a bit of an overreaction in this case given that it was only one transaction for the exact amount you topped up your Monzo with?
It’s always the same with the regular contributors here - Monzo can do no wrong, the customers are idiots for not reading the forum/T&Cs or just plain not knowing that Stripe= Monzo.
The simple facts are that there is a concern here identified by more than one account holder who posts on the forum. It would be a simple matter for Monzo to communicate these facts to its customers but so far has chosen not to do so.
The regular contributors need to understand that this enterprise will fail unless sufficient traction can be gained with the banking public at large or possibly become a small niche player with high monthly fees.
Surely it depends on whether you remember the top up or not. In my case, I didn’t, as it had occurred three days previously on an account that had a lot of different payments being made around the same time.
I would still encourage anyone who doesn’t recognise a transaction to speak to their bank and err on the side of caution. Fraud is a growing problem and we should all be vigilant.
There’s nothing like lumping a large and diverse group of people together and giving them a single, simple characterisation to make a point! Marta, who is a leader and regular contributor, actually defended people who queried this charge, further up the thread:
There are numerous other examples of ‘regulars’ not agreeing with Monzo or suggesting things could be done better. I think it would be more helpful to respond to specific points raised, rather than trying to dismiss a whole group of people.
Correct.
Not what I was trying to imply - appologies if that’s how it came across.
My point was simply that if you top up say £50 then £150 and they both appear as Stripe on your transaction history, knowing that Stripe is a payment processor (as you reminded me at the beginning of the thread) wouldn’t the logical step (as the money has appeared in your Monzo Account) be to assume Stripe is Monzo’s payment processor?
Again, not what I was trying to do. You were obviously concerned about transactions on your account and nobody can fault the action you took to secure you account 
Totally agree.
Maybe in some situations it is good to do some digging to find out where, when and how a transaction occurred - maybe it was for a Direct Debit you forgot to cancel, before blocking the whole card.
With Monzo it’s much easier as you can see all the merchant data live, and with live notifications. So, if you see a transaction in Columbia when you’re in the UK you know that’s fraudulent and can probably have it reversed within minutes.
All of the sniping of this discussion aside, this is as close to a universal truth (in my system of money management at least) as you can get. I simply cannot comprehend the ability of some people to run through life without even checking statements and everything that goes with them let alone raising any concerns.
Of course, I’m commenting far more on my own character here than I am on anyone else’s!
As ever, please feel free to respond to the content of a users post without having a go at the user concerned. The guidelines apply to all sides in any debate and gross generalisations are very unhelpful in fostering sensible discussion.
Thanks for sharing your opinions but, just as you’re at great pains to suggest to other people, please recognise that your opinion is only one among many.
Maybe Monzo should write to every bank and say “Pardon the confusion while we revolutionise your industry. If you wouldn’t mind telling your customer service teams who we are, that would be great. Also if anyone complains about Stripe transactions, it might just be one of our customers moving money over while they wait for CASS to arrive. Once it does, we expect these calls to reduce as your customers start leaving. Thank you for your patience.”
Exactly. I also never said it was wrong to be concerned. But to jump online and get frantic about ‘being hacked’ was just such a massive over-reaction. Be concerned, sure. Double-check that it is, indeed, the expected reporting or at least reasonable.
This. I concur 100%.
Interesting example, but remember that could be jumping to conclusions too. What if you’re at a market, where you don’t really know where the POS is registered. I’ve had in-person transactions as far away as San Francisco to the west and Dusseldorf to the east happen in London. The best bet is to look at the amount and timing and see if that passes a basic sanity check. Location and name may have no relation to what you expect.
Totally. As you say, it all requires basic sanity checks.
Oh, I totally had a transaction in a food stall in London, that appeared as being made from Germany.
My legacy bank sent me a text message asking Is this purchase made by you? Reply with Y for Yes, N for No and I completely freaked out as I wasn’t sure what’s going on and completely forgot I had made a purchase for the exact same amount just like 5 minutes before that.
I ended up calling the bank and asking and they explained that it could be merchant using 3-rd party payment service such as square. And then I connected the dots.
But it surely got me worried.
Exactly, I’m not saying I don’t understand why there’s some worry and concern, but people need to sit down and try to connect dots before panicking
You illustrate my point beautifully. Anyone slightly off script and they are criticised.
No problem, I am not offended and will continue to use Monzo to suit me.