Absolutely devastated this evening after receiving a spoof phone call from a ‘Monzo representative’ informing me my account was compromised.
The representative verified the call by sending a verification text, which I received from the ID ‘Monzo’ and advised me I could cross reference the number they were calling me from with the number on the back of my Monzo card; they were the same.
I was told that a new secure account needed to be made for me; new sort code & account number and that I should transfer my full balance into this account, in turn my app would refresh with my new details.
I have lost nearly £1000 this evening and have bills to pay. I have called Monzo three times but keep being reverted to the app to ‘chat’. I’ve still had no response from them in chat 3-hours later.
I don’t think I will ever get this money back and I don’t know what I am going to do, I can’t stop crying. I honestly feel suicidal over this.
I’m so sorry you’ve fallen victim to this scam. Have you contacted the police? If not, call 101 and let them know.
And if you’re serious about feeling suicidal, please please please go to A&E to seek some help. Or call your local mental health crisis team if it exists.
As for Monzo, hold tight with the chat and if you’ve not heard from them in the morning try the number on the card first thing during office hours.
In the meantime, can you borrow money from friends or family to cover essentials?
Sorry for the double post. Here’s how to seek help if you’re suicidal:
I know its easy to say but try not to worry… Monzo will get back to you asap and assist you further… I know ever second feels like an hour…
Also echo what @adinus said… please seek help, there is always support.
Hey @mylastbrownie 
I’m Kim, I work in Customer Support for Monzo and I just came across your topic here. I’m so sorry this happened to you and all the inconvenience this has caused you 
I’ve just sent you a DM from my end, so we’ll pick this up from there onwards 
Please let us know what happens. So often we see these posts and it’s the scammers themselves. Fingers crossed it works out for you.
Thank you for your messages of guidance & support.
I was directed to completing an online application form to report the scam and have a crime reference number. Although it doesn’t give me much hope.
I feel so low & violated by this cruel scam and don’t have anyone to turn to for financial support. I don’t know how I will make it through this month let alone the coming months if the money cannot be reimbursed.
In retrospect I feel so foolish.
The police won’t do anything other than refer the caller to ActionFraud.
This is the additional ‘cost’ of these things.
It happens to many many people, I’m sorry it’s happened to you, but these scams are clever and you are not alone in falling for it.
For the bills you have, if you call them and explain (which I know won’t be easy) most should be able to help you spread the cost, the fact you have a crime reference number will definitely help.
I hope you get it all sorted out.
@mylastbrownie I hope you’ve reported this to Action Fraud/Police. Once you have the Crime Reference number provide the reference number to Monzo. Contact any companies you have direct debits, payments or loans with and explain to them what has happened (providing the Crime Ref as proof), they will allow you additional time to make payments. There is help out there for you.
When a user gets quicker support by posting on a user forum than by actually using the official support channel, something is deeply wrong.
The forum is not an official support mechanism. The fact that a Monzo COps has decided to reach out after having spotted the topic (we don’t even know if they were working or just browsing in their own personal time) is not indicative of anything.
It’s disappointing that you have decided to use this as a stick to beat Monzo with.
Try not to blame yourself. Scammers will always elevate themselves to seem very ‘legit’ and their scams can be very elaborate and official looking.
Sincerely hope this gets sorted for you. Not sure who you need to pay but companies by and large should be quite open to helping you out in the short term.
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That monzo hasn’t immediately answered you’re calls isnt great, but there’s not much you can do about that. Keep trying to get through if you have the time, as the quicker they answer the better a chance they can simply reverse the transfer (assuming its a monzo account).
Disagree - Monzo are a real bank and need to do better here.
OP - I had a similar experience last year (not a scam, but an error by my legacy bank which locked me out of funds for five days). It’s scary now, but it will be ok 
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I didn’t see any defence of Monzo’s failure to answer the call when needed, so I think the “disagree” is unwarranted here. Probably just a difference in the tone we read in it
I think we all agree that this is something Monzo really need to get on top of.
Firstly: I hope this gets sorted out, it’s obviously an awful situation to be in.
These scams are increasingly sophisticated and feed off incorrect assumptions people make about telecomms systems.
For the benefit of others, I think it’s useful to go through some of the scam details:
There are next to no controls on alphanumeric sender IDs within the UK. Anyone can register a paid e.g. Twilio account and send SMS messages using any text (up to 11 characters) as the sender name.
No pre-registration of names is required and it’s up to the communications provider to deal with abuse - which is usually done reactively when complaints are received. It’s far too late at this point, because the scam has already happened. As a result, you cannot put any stock in the alphanumeric sender ID from which SMS messages appear to have been sent.
Scammers know that this isn’t well-understood, and also know that messages showing up as from your bank can be incredibly convincing.
There are currently no authenticity guarantees for phone CLI. Ofcom does not foresee this changing until 2022 at the earliest, and even then it is unclear how international non-UK calls will be handled. At present Ofcom also appear to be wasting time and money exploring “blockchain based solutions” for number allocations/authenticity. In the US, STIR/SHAKEN is already being rolled out to help solve this problem.
You simply cannot derive any reliable information about call authenticity from caller ID.
The UK should probably follow China’s mechanism on this. Withhold Caller ID is disabled on the networks and all anonymous calls received are rejected by the network. Anonymous calls domestically aren’t a thing and internationally the call is rejected until the caller displays their caller ID. It means we wouldn’t be able to withhold our number but guarantees authenticity and will cut down on the number of spam/fraudulent calls because they could be traced to an individual/entity without issue.
Whilst somewhat intrusive I believe it’s wholly necessary as the measures already implemented haven’t curbed anything. ‘Legal’ companies might follow the rules but non-legal ones are still dialling from non-dialable numbers etc
That wouldn’t solve people spoofing legitimate numbers, unless I’m missing something
Should’ve mentioned that but I meant removal of this mechanism where the caller can send basically any ID they want so spoofing wasn’t possible and all numbers were authenticated to a real person/entity.
It’d even benefit small businesses as there’d be less of people ordering takeaways to people unexpectedly and all the other childish pranks.
Plenty of companies legitimately assign one number to multiple phones eg a call centre. It’s spoofing but for a legitimate business reason.
The far simpler solution is not to deal with any banking calls where they didn’t originate with you phoning the bank. And always check for a dial tone first as it shows the line hasn’t be held open.
Hopefully when bank account name check verification comes on line this type of fraud will be harder to commit.
I’m obviously very sorry to hear that it has occurred to the OP.