Hi,
So on Saturday I took my car to the garage with a planned budget, and the repairs required exceeded my planned budget, so I asked the garage what my options were and was told I could either pay the full bill now (3 times my budgeted amount) or I could make use of their Payment Assist service (https://www.payment-assist.co.uk/) which offered a 4 month repayment option with no interest - much more desirable to my budget, So I confirmed with the garage that I would take the payment assist route, and after the work was complete I went to the garage to collect my car and pay for the works, and that is when the fun begun!
When I spoke to the garage before collecting my car I was told a DEBIT card was required for payment, and a CREDIT card would be declined, this is fine with me I dont own a credit card.
So I arrived to collect the car and pay the first installment and setup the payment plan, filled in the online forms with the garage within their Payment Assist portal, entered my Monzo card details and… this card is not valid/recognised/allowed… even before the expiry and CVC had been entered, cue frustration and panic as I checked my balance to see if the required funds werent hiding in a pot! all good…Nope… still didnt work, tried my partners card… nope, tried our join account card… nope.
Now having gone #fullmonzo since April of 2018 I panicked, my wife and I have no other banks even our Son is #fullmonzo, after discussing options with the garage I dismissed the issue as a fault on Payment Assists end assuming that they just assumed Mastercard cards had to be credits and blocked the transaction before it even begun! But in the end we contacted a family member and they came down to the garage and setup the payments on their card, and we paid them… what a palava! I contacted Monzo through the in app support and was assured that there should be no issues.
Roll around to yesterday (monday the 25th) I contacted Payment Assist at the suggestion of the garage and what follows is the transcript of that conversation:
Merit @ Payment Assist 16:54
Hello. How may I help you?
16:51
Me: Hi, i would like to know why my mastercard debit card was declined for use by your service over the weekend?
You have been transferred to: Sophie @ Payment Assist.
You have been transferred to: Merit @ Payment Assist.
Merit @ Payment Assist 16:55
what garage was it through
16:55
Me: formula 1
Me: the manager in store even showed me the screen where your website was saying that my card was not valid for use on your site
Merit @ Payment Assist 16:56
what bank is it with?
16:56
Me: Monzo
Merit @ Payment Assist 16:57
There is an issue with recurring payments on Monzo cards
16:57
Me: Not according to monzo there isnt, and i use recurring payments every monht
Me: have you discussed this with monzo? as they are not aware of any issues
Merit @ Payment Assist 16:59
unfortunately our banking system does not allow Monzo cards
16:59
Me: why?
Merit @ Payment Assist 17:00
this is due to ongoing issues which we have previously had with Monzo cards
17:00
Me: which are?
Merit @ Payment Assist 17:00
unfortunately i am unable to discuss this due to GDPR
17:01
And that is where they terminated the discussion with me, no clarification, no explanation of the issue, just “unfortunately our banking system does not allow Monzo cards”
Could you guys possibly shed some light on this for me? this experience today really made me cautious about relying on Monzo for everything financial in my life! Had it not been for a family member being available to assist I would have either been without my car, or financially broke for the month! Now I dont for a moment imagine that this issue was entirely on their end, and their refusal to assist highlighted that further, but some insight from some Monzo staff would be amazing!
