Not sure where to post this but as has recently switched from Apple to Google for maps I’ve looked again at some of my recent transactions.
My question is on the address that appears under merchants name below the map - a couple of mine are showing the home address as I use a lot of local independents. This is slightly worrying to me - it seems wrong but I don’t know what to tell the merchant so they can fix it.
I have mentioned it to one today and she was slightly worried that her home address is exposed but she did say that it used to appear on the receipts and she’s managed to get that changed to the business address.
As a reasonably tech savvy old git what can I do, if anything, to help the merchants out?
I had a similar issue with a friends pub I use locally - I knew his registered business address was in London and every transaction in the local pub had the address in London - I reported “something wrong tell us” readjusted the map on location and now it always comes up as their local address rather than what I assume is the firms registered office
I’ve raised this concern before, I have the home address of a chap who sells at various markets. Since he produces at home that’s where his business is registered.
I think registering an address is a requirement for taking card payment, and I don’t think there is anything Monzo can do.
Aren’t there companies which will give you a registered business address in London for a small fee? Perhaps small merchants who are concerned could use something like that.
Pretty much this. When you register to take card payments, you give your processor a whole list of information that you agree to share with banks and customers. The only thing Monzo is really doing differently is actually showing that information to the cardholder.
To take things further, simply registering a business with Companies House requires you to publish, among other things, an address that you can be contacted (well, served legal papers) at.
Businesses don’t really have the same claim to privacy that individuals do, if an individual does not wish for their information to be published, they need to separate their businesses registrations by use of some form of proxy service, or by registering things to the address of their physical business. The same applies to domains and many other registrations.
Hey @dunsford thanks for raising this - it’s a really important thing for us to fix
Our merchant data is still growing and being developed, so it’s not perfect yet As @anon95680666 said, if you’re on an iPhone you can tap the ‘something wrong?’ button at the bottom of the transaction page and submit new data. We’re still building this for Android, but feel free to get in touch through the chat and we can fix it too - especially in cases like this!
Without getting too weedsy, there are a few different things which cause this to happen, lots of which have been touched on above. Mastercard gives us a location code for each transaction this is of varying utility for several reasons. In the UK we get a postcode, which isn’t so bad, but for US transactions we get a ZIP code, which is a much much larger area, so that makes it harder.
Secondly, the payment terminals small businesses use aren’t always registered to the location of the business, for example market stalls. These are sometimes registered to the office of the payment provider, sometimes to the home address of the merchant, and sometimes to something totally different
That’s why we augment the Mastercard data with our own secret sauce, drawing on external data providers, and of course your feedback, to get it right.
it’s not perfect every time yet, but we’re working on it
Yes in the UK, Companies House data is public. But it is possible to suppress directors’ personal home addresses by contacting Companies House using this form. And as mentioned above, the business addresses can be that of some other party like an accountant or service address. I do not known about payment card contracts, but suspect it is a separate issue what data is given to and presented by companies when applying to card schemes for a merchant account.
Really it is up to companies and merchants to sort these things out themselves. We don’t need Monzo to be nanny for merchants.
No, but I want to help the local independents who are not necessarily as tech savvy as they need to be. I’d hate for the lady that runs the cafe to have an irate customer getting hold of her home address.
has recently switched from Apple to Google for maps I’ve looked again at some of my recent transactions.
As 
this is of varying utility for several reasons. In the UK we get a postcode, which isn’t so bad, but for US transactions we get a ZIP code, which is a much much larger area, so that makes it harder.
