No notification for pending transaction settling at a different amount

Are you sure about that? That’s not what I’ve understood to be the case previously. A quick search finds this reference:

If things have changed, or my understanding is incorrect, would be good to know.

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I’ve actually had a bit of a to-and-fro with Monzo about this - I had a similar issue (website issue, pending transaction stuck) that Monzo wouldn’t reverse for me. I ended up raising a complaint as I was getting inconsistent advice from support about whether the hold amount would count for overdraft or interest purposes. This is what the final decision said:

We’re unable to uphold your complaint about being treated unfairly as a result of transactions in an authorisation hold not accruing interest or prevent you from entering your overdraft and accruing fees as the money is not in your ‘available balance’ and would not be unique to your personal situation.

So, while I fundamentally disagree with it, the policy seems fairly clear cut to me. They do, though, go on to say “This would be the same for all other banks based on the way payments are processed” which I don’t think is accurate, but that was Monzo’s final decision. I don’t think me writing back would persuade them to change their mind, unfortunately.

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Thanks for sharing that, I take it all on board and will make sure I don’t trot out the old line again in future given this. Monzo’s response is a little disappointing to see. I fear that if you wanted to take the issue further, the next step would have to be going to the ombudsman rather than writing back to Monzo.

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Indeed. I think that their view is that they are not treating me unfairly (as an individual) because it’s the same for everyone. It’s jolly opaque, though.

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Okay, I’m gonna have to write back to them. This is what the overdraft agreement in the app says:

When you make payments, Monzo immediately deducts the money from your account, but we only calculate interest on transactions that weʼve settled with Mastercard (which may happen a couple of days after you made the transaction).

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Yeah, someone tested this (I think @BritishLibrary) and they weren’t charged overdraft fees as a result of a pending transaction taking them overdrawn.

I’ve heard mixed reports on this myself though, and a mixed experience, so just assume if the transaction is in my feed, it’s counted.

Fairly recently after reading the account of a user not being charged after a pending transaction took them overdrawn, I tested this myself with an Amazon, and wasn’t charged, but moved money back shortly after 1am.

Likewise, quite some time ago, I was charged after a pending transaction took me overdrawn and I forgot to transfer money from my pot to cover it. My own fault though, because they did notify me.

I get the impression they used to count pending transactions for interest, then changed their mind at some point and just communicated it poorly.

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This is the equivalent of charging you interest today for a purchase you might make tomorrow. It’s bad enough that money in pots doesn’t count, now they want to say that money in your current account doesn’t count either.

I’m sure they’ll offer you some ex gratia payment for this if you take it to the customer advocacy team, or, failing that, the ombudsman.

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That quote was from the final decision from the customer advocacy team. :man_facepalming:

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On the foreign travel thing - perhaps it would be a good idea for the Monzo travel report you get upon returning to UK to mention how much spending is still unsettled with a reminder that settled amount may be higher or lower

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So, to be clear, they charged you interest because your balance was below zero, but it was only below zero because of a pending transaction?

Or

They charged you interest on all of your below zero balance even though part of it was because of a pending transaction?

Either of those, take a trip to ombudsman towers.

Not Peter, but in my case it was this. It was a few years ago though, and we’re only talking 50p. Maybe worth pursuing this on principle, but I distinctly remember being under the impression that this was the way things worked with Monzo, and so they hadn’t done anything wrong necessarily, just something different.

Reminds me a bit like how bulb expect you to pay up front for your energy instead of in arrears like everyone else, which leads to complaints of direct debits being too high, or being in credit and denied a refund.

Definitely. My principles are worth 50p.

I’m not too sure how you’d prove it, though, as they cleared date isn’t available to we mere customers.

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Ah neither. Sorry for the confusion.

I had a pending transaction. Monzo wouldn’t reverse it for me. I asked for clarification of whether the value of that transaction would count for interest purposes (I was in credit) and whether (if I were to be overdrawn) the amount of the hold would count towards the overdraft or not.

After receiving a few different responses it was referred to to customer advocacy team. That was their answer. So while I wasn’t disadvantaged because I never went into my overdraft, the advice they have given in their final response seems at odds with the terms and conditions of the overdraft.

This isn’t difficult stuff. They really must do better at giving the right information.

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Isn’t the date shown on statements the cleared date?, or it should be. N26 shows pending dates in apps, but on statements it shows the date cleared, I believe Starling is the same. Not sure if Monzo is the same, but I would have assumed so. I’ll have to dig it out later and check.

I think this is the worry - folk are under varying impressions but no one really seems to know for sure.

Support didn’t seem to know. Customer advocacy deemed that things work one way - which seems to be in direct opposition to what the terms and conditions actually say.

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Monzo do offer payments for bad, or in my case, incomplete advice. So it might be worth pursuing.

Somebody somewhere will not buy a kebab because they’ve had bad advice about overdraft interest eventually.

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Okay so I’ve found the transaction that took me £11.47 overdrawn on the night of November 30 2018 that resulted in a 50p interest charge on the morning of December 1st. (Hope they got themselves something nice for Christmas!)

The statement doesn’t use the cleared date but the day I initiated the transaction. Unless it’s possible for a transaction to settle in under 2 and a half hours, I can’t see why I would have been charged if Monzo didn’t take pending transactions into account back in 2018.



This overdraft talk is probably best suited for another topic though

I don’t want to take this off track but most banks now do have instant notifications and in my experience most of them show pending transactions in your feed

I also don’t want to turn this into a bank vs bank discussion but Starling do give you a notification of the transaction settlement, Albeit their message is a little bit clunky. For example a pending transaction settles I get another notification to say a transaction has gone through that appears as a new transaction in the notification, but not in the feed

Equally I’ve seen it with them where a pending transaction is reversed out and I got a notification to say it was reversed.

Isn’t this why the rules on overdraft charges were changed and why the rules on pay at pump which changed?

Now that banks can’t charge somebody as easily for going into an unauthorised overdraft, issues were being created where the pump was authorising £1 and then people were leaving without enough money in their account but the bank had a pre-authorisation which required them to settle the full amount and put someone into a unauthorised position.

Sometimes (Worse IMO) it would settle the amount days later when somebody didn’t necessarily have the money in their account because they hadn’t realised the transaction hadn’t settled and spent the money in their account

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I’ve put this in a separate reply just in case the thread does get split.

Banks generally only charge you fees or credit you interest on cleared balances. The same way the most banks only allow you to earn interest on cheques once they have cleared.

I would definitely challenge being charged for that fee.

Equally and I appreciate this doesn’t apply to Monzo, if the charges were not being calculated on the cleared balance but on the pending balance then any bank that offers in app check scanning (remember folks there is a whole other thread for that one here :joy:) would have to take you out of a potential overdraft situation from the minute you scanned the check

Apologies for the miss spelling of cheque (sometimes my phone seems to forget that I moved to the UK quite a while ago)

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Admittedly I haven’t read the whole thread so I’m not sure if this is the same thing or not, however, whenever I’ve used Pay@Pump in petrol stations, I always get 2 notifications, one for the initial transaction such as 10p or £1, however much it is, then I always get another one to tell me the final value.

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