PayPoint Shops don’t know how to process cash deposits

Whilst I don’t disagree, they should take that up with PayPoint, it should not be our problem.

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In that case, the shop should cancel their contract with Paypoint and stop providing the service. But until they do, they should provide a substandard service or extort money from people wishing to use the service. Customers shouldn’t have to make allowances for having a crap experience with Paypoint.

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Let’s be a bit more pro-active and constructive about this, bearing in mind Monzo will now have entered into a contract for a period of time, you list the merchant so that Monzo can take it up with Paypoint to address.

To facilitate such an idea, maybe Monzo could create an email address of topupissues@monzo.com for people to report such merchant top up issues to - obviously something a bit catchier than topupissues@ as the address though…

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I am - by discussing my disassisfaction.

We shouldn’t shy away from calling out negatives here. And this is a big one. While I acknowledge others have had positive experiences, plenty have not, and I’m not willing to try Paypoint with my money.

I’m sorry but negatives should not be seen as not being constructive. It’s not.

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The only reason I do this is because most of the staff have been trained to “top-up” various cards via paypoint so seem to feel more comfortable and confident carrying out the transaction.

I can completely understand where they are coming from though; I doubt many have heard people ask to deposit cash via paypoint (possible red flag 1), then there’s a bit of confusion as to how they do this as there’s no direct button (possible red flag 2), and then they see your bright coral card - which might be a conversation starter but also another possible red flag.

When you combine this with the fact that they’ll be liable for any losses, you can imagine why some staff who don’t directly own the stores get a bit worried and refuse (easier to say no and sorry to the customer than try to explain it to your boss).

I use my method because it seems to be what staff have been trained to do. Not sure who the responsibility belongs to as to how you should retrain the staff; Monzo? Paypoint? Or the individual stores?
Seems a bit of a difficult one to overcome.

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Yeah I agree staff may be scared etc if high volumes of cash, forgeries etc.
However in my example the guy took great delight in telling me he was the owner and gave me terminal number.
I get the impression (maybe wrongly) that it isn’t the first time the shop had refused to do paypoint and he wasn’t really bothered if I reported it.

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Personally think Monzo shouldn’t have gone with them in the first place - but I can honestly see why they did. So no blame, really.

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Or better yet pick a service which is known for banking deposits, like pretty much every other bank has done i.e. the post office where they do this day in day out and is not primarily a bill payment service.

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I am trying to be constructive here - the contract has been entered into; yes Monzo need to change to provider, but that isn’t possible until the current contract ends - unless PayPoint/Monzo failed to include an exclusivity clause :wink:

We have no idea which is the case. So until we do, I think we may as well continue to register disassisfaction. Monzo is better than this, IMO.

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The shopkeeper won’t get sanctioned by PayPoint, though. Why should they?

The shopkeeper can serve, or refuse to serve, anyone. They’re not obliged to provide a service if they don’t wish to.

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Hence the “top-up” tip, before they know what’s happening you’ve already added funds to your account. Although I’ve never added more than £151 at a time (£1 for the fee, 50p to the store and 50p to paypoint as far as I can gather).

As a rural user, it’s actually way more convenient to use PayPoint - even if there is a fee compared to adding the funds to my Santander account in the post office then transferring to my Monzo. The mixture of more locations and better opening hours is a god sent to me personally.

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Thought it might be part of their contract with paypoint. There was no reason given just they won’t do it anymore.
I did buy things also when using the store.
But like you say he can refuse if he wishes.

Essentially because it wasn’t possible because of the card profile issue :slight_smile:

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That could of been overcome if the bank really wanted it to be for example Starling did by sending out new cards, Monzo could of done the same. I appreciate you getting back to me but it sounds a little like a excuse. (Not by you I’m talking about why the bank decided not too.)

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Apologies for the bad phrasing :disappointed:

So, the reason we decided not to do that is that it could have caused significant issues with merchant acceptance.

It required adding a second application to our cards which I think we were advised could cause problems for terminals, particularly abroad :grimacing:

Post Office need more than 1 AID (Application Identifier) on a card so that their systems can differentiate between it being just a ‘payment’ card or a ‘banking services’ card. Our cards only have 1 AID, Mastercard Debit, and these can only be installed at personalisation time (when the card is produced) - adding more would require us to re-issue all our cards.

I think there were some more nuances regarding exactly how the application worked but it was a while back I’m afraid :sweat_smile:

Essentially, the biggest blocker would be having to reissue a lot of cards which isn’t inherently an issue but would be a bit of an operational pain (customers thinking they had the right card to use at the Post Office, some kind of rolling replacement programme to avoid overwhelming the card producers) :disappointed: It’s certainly something we’ll always continue to review but if the choice is PayPoint vs nothing then I think there is a distinct advantage in one :wink: :+1:

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Thanks a lot for making the reasons a lot clearer to myself, you didn’t have to but I appreciate you doing so. Thanks again. :+1:

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Just to clarify, whenever you buy something in a shop, you’re making a contract (offer, acceptance and consideration) with the shopkeeper. You’re saying, “I offer to buy this tin of beans and this chocolate bar from you. The shopkeeper accepts and says, “I’ll sell them for £1.” When you hand over the cash, the consideration takes place and the contract is complete.

The shopkeeper can always say, “I’ll sell you the beans but not the chocolate bar, for 50p” and you always have the right to continue with that purchase or go elsewhere. Just think of the PayPoint service as the chocolate bar.

The shopkeeper can, if he wants, also tell you you’re barred from the shop and not serve you at all; you have no automatic right to access the PayPoint service.

PayPoint can’t make him do business with someone he doesn’t want to. In business terms, if his time is not worth what he earns from the PayPoint commission (at the point of sale, administration and banking the cash later etc.) and he’s not getting any extra business from the customer, then refusing makes perfect business sense in that respect.

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You say that - but some other banks use card swipe so there must be alternatives.

Also, you said multiple applications on a card can cause payment issues abroad, so why doesn’t this present an issue for every other bank in the UK with post office applications on the cards?

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