I posted a cheque to Monzo using Royal Mail’s special delivery (£10) on the 26th April, it was delivered to “the security team” on the 27th April but not signed due to Covid restrictions.
Monzo now say they can’t find the cheque. Is there anything I can do here? The cheque is from TUI who I think will charge me £25 to reissue it. It’s unlikely that I can claim this with Royal Mail as it is Monzo that seem to have lost it.
I am now waiting for Monzo to “double check” if they can find it.
Does anyone have any advice? It is looking like I will need to pay the £25 to get it reissued, and then open up a bank account with a provider that lets me deposit the cheque in the branch. It will end up costing me £35 to get my own money into my account.
They have previously said it’s because part of the payment was made in-store and then online, but as I’ll have to contact them again I’ll push this point, cheers!
I don’t like the Post Office COVID attitude, even though I understand it.
It breaks the link between the sender and receiver because, with the best will in the world, just because a postman has signed something doesn’t mean the receiving party is going to honour that signature as proof that they actually received anything.
If an employee or family member of the receiver can be proved to hav signed something, surely that carries much more weight in terms of insurance or legal recourse than a mark that a post office employee has made.
I’d argue that the sender just isn’t getting the service they’ve paid for at the moment.
(I accept that Monzo are being good about looking for it but I also wonder if there is recorse to the PO here since you only have their word for it that the cheque was actually delivered rather than a signature from the destination organisation which is what you paid for.)
I’m not a lawyer or anything, but if it were me I’d feel like the responsibility is either the Royal Mail’s or Monzo’s.
If Monzo accept they have received it, then the fact they’ve lost it is down to them. I’d expect them to honour it. If I give you a £10 note and you lose it before you can spend it, I’ve still given it to you. It’s your responsibility. And likewise here: Monzo is a bank. That comes with responsibilities. One of the most basic ones is taking responsibility for customer assets entrusted to them, be it on paper or on a digital ledger.
If the argument is that it hasn’t been received because Royal Mail can’t do track and trace properly because of Covid, it would then strike me that RM should be liable.
If it were me, I wouldn’t expect to be out of pocket. And that would include the time and effort to attempt to get a business to reluctantly reissue a cheque.
(That was more a rant than a solution I’m afraid. But I’d definitely complain to Monzo).
Anarchist
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Me neither, but I won’t let that stop me.
If the evidence given is all true, then it is 100% Monzo’s responsibility. RM have delivered the envelope to the address they were supposed to, and that is the address Monzo tell their customers to send cheques to, so any losses suffered by the customer should be reimbursed by Monzo.
I can’t say it often enough or loud enough. If you want to deposit cheques, use a bank which allows either cheque imaging, branch deposit, or ATM deposit.
I’d make a formal complaint to Monzo, pointing out the cheque has been signed for* so they received it, and the loss is their responsibility. To make it right, the minimum compensation I’d ask for would be to cover the cost of having the cheque reissued and the postage for the lost cheque (if they were to give any more on top of that, it would be nice, but the minimum would be what it would take to return you to the point where you started, as it were).
Once the cheque is reissued, I have to confess that I wouldn’t post it to Monzo again myself. If under £500, I’d open a Starling account just to deposit it using cheque imaging (and transfer it right over to Monzo). If over £500, other banks have higher imaging limits. (And if over all limits, most convenient high street bank wins.)
I suspect that “Freepost Monzo” goes directly to the cheque processing centre where it’ll be scanned and processed with all the others. Sending it to the office address means it can be signed for (or not) by a “security team” who may service more than just Monzo (if it’s a shared building), then give it to Monzo, who then have to send it (by who knows what route) to the cheque processing centre.
Sounds about right - normal post has a definite flow, so little room for error. But signed-for takes post out of the flow and now someone has to remember to put it back in at the appropriate place/not put the envelope down in the wrong place in the meantime.
To be fair, it won’t, either Monzo will reimburse you the costs if they lost the original without hassle, or you open a complaint and get your £30 “we’re sawwwee” payment at the end of that and are only out £5. If it’s a good day you may get £35, and be completely covered. If not, take them to the FOS and they’ll have to pay hundreds to the ombudsman, plus what you’re owed if they find in your favour although it’s very unlikely it would go that far. But it was delivered so it’s not your fault and you should, and will, get reimbursed one way or another.
This is Monzo’s fault as something in their process has gone wrong. The cheque definitely arrived at their office, so to lose it is inexcusable (especially when this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this happening, so it can’t be written off as an isolated incident).
As others have said, a formal complaint is the way forward.
would be easier to find than currently