Hi, I am a Monzo prepaid customer since in August this year. So far, the experience has been great, I’ve travelled abroad a few times and it worked smoothly without problem, until last week
When I signed up, I had to take photo of my ID and record myself as part of the verification. Hence, I have the “after identity verification” spending limits. Last week, my card suddenly stopped working without any error message on the app, but the card was declined from all merchants I used to make transactions with.
I just contacted Monzo using the chat support. Apparently my account was suspended because “we weren’t able to verify your information on signup”, and requested that I send photo ID, photo of myself holding the ID, and bank statement. I have sent those, but there has been no further response from the agent so far (2 hours ago).
It just doesn’t sound right that I had done ID verification and then got suspended 2 months after because of the verification problem that came out of the blue. Additionally, there is not even a single email or notification telling me that this is happening.
you really should be talking to monzo through help@monzo.com or the in app chat if it is still available to you - not sure I would count 2 hours on a Saturday as slow but I can understand your frustration at the speed of the additional verification
don’t really think any forum member can help with this as Monzo staff are the only ones that will know the full circumstances
It is against the law for UK banks to give the reason an account has been closed in some fraud situations. It can lead to rather Kafkaesque situations where banks just repeatedly say “refer to our Terms & Conditions” but would be committing an offence themselves in giving further details.
For the avoidance of doubt, I have no knowledge of the OP’s situation and am not implying this is to do with fraud in any way, but simply replying to your concern over someone possibly receiving no notification of an account closure.
Yeah, I believe this was discussed on another thread where someone pointed out it could lead to a “domino” situation where all their accounts were closing one by one with no reason!
It’s quite funny that with this fraud protection nonsense terrorist groups and criminals (and corrupt politicians ) still manage to finance themselves where as legitimate users like the author get in trouble for no reason.
Thankfully there are many times more of us (honest folk) than them (baddies), so maybe false positives flagging us in error are statistically more likely?
I wasn’t notified when my legacy bank account blocked me from making any transactions/ signing in because of possible “fraudulent” activity. Only found out when I tried to top up my Monzo PP card 4 days later I had spend over half an hour on the phone to sort it out. I don’t know how it was different that they suspended it instead of sending a text I sometimes get from them eg “reply Y/N if you made this transaction”. So I don’t know if they’re required to notify the user, but it would be nice to know.
Isn’t that redundant? I mean if you’re actually laundering money the simple fact that your account is closed should be enough of a tip off. Only legitimate people would actually bother by asking the reason. Fraudsters will just up their game to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
A lot of people don’t realise they’re laundering as they’re socially engineered (tricked) into ‘lending out’ control of their account, usually for a promised small financial gain. For some, they see it as the equivalent of lending someone their debit card. They are victims too.
Agreed. If a family member asked if they could use your card to get some cash and they’ll pay you back in a couple of days, you wouldn’t be too concerned.
but there is an issue of ownership and control on both business accounts and joint accounts. The person depositing or transfering funds thru the account may not own them (e.g. a spouse or staff) and they may be under an instruction from their employer or partner to do a transaction. By telling that innocent party you make their spouse or employer aware so you are tipping them off, that is why the law is that way and is not ‘redundant’ but neccessary. Particularly when the bank may be in contact with other banks and making an account owner or signatory aware may enable them to take laundered funds out of other accounts before they are properly frozen.
I am not saying any Monzo card holder is laundering money but just answering the question about when the law stops banks telling customers.
While sometimes an action may be taken by Monzo in other instances they could be contacted by other financial institutions and then they have the dilema of becoming party to the knowledge and suspicions of other banks and if they fail to act upon that it could cause them issues. That is when the domino effect kicks in with one account after the other being frozen or closed
) still manage to finance themselves where as legitimate users like the author get in trouble for no reason.
I had spend over half an hour on the phone to sort it out. I don’t know how it was different that they suspended it instead of sending a text I sometimes get from them eg “reply Y/N if you made this transaction”. So I don’t know if they’re required to notify the user, but it would be nice to know.