Shocking customer service

Hi all, I’m starting to get fed up of Monzo. Yeah, that have a great app, but when things go wrong or you have a question most people want to talk to a human. This is where things are going from bad to worse.

Earlier on in the week it took 32 hours to respond regarding a loan enquiry. Tonight, I had an odd ‘card check’ on my account. Froze my card and messaged them numerous times but no response in two and a half hours. Have called them six times and got cut off after five minutes each time. This is a total shambles and not what I signed up for. Am seriously considering going back to HSBC.

What do I do?

Thanks

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You should do it if that’s how you feel.

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You can still call them have you tried. I know it’s obviously not ideal and your right to be annoyed if not worse but I’m sure they are not maliciously out to upset you, they are far from perfect. I have rang them before but not sure how much they can help as it’s pretty much only one small department for calls and anything else has to be forwarded to other department and then they get back to you.

After nine times calling finally managed to get through - nothing they could do BUT would arrange an app response “within 10 minutes”. Currently been 45 minutes and nothing… This isn’t what I signed up to Monzo for.

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What is it exactly that you need them to do?

There’s no need for that. Lots of people would at the very least like to he assurance that nothing untoward is happening.

Customer service at this level is unacceptable, I agree with @rhurl.

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I’m not following. I wasn’t trying to be rude.

The above story is bad and you should vote with your feet if you don’t get a satisfactory answer.

What would compel you to stay?

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Completely understand. CoOps has been beyond useless lately. Took me 4 days to get a simple double charge issue sorted. Was 1 response a day. At least with Barclays I could ring and it would be sorted. After being a beta user and one of the first current accounts I’m seriously thinking about going back to Barclays and leaving Monzo for same reasons I left Barclays in the first place. At least there app has caught up in many ways.

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There are three ways to get hold of Monzo.

You can call, email help@monzo.com, or in app. If you’ve tried all of these all you can do is wait. And yes, banking elsewhere is a viable option. I think , if I found myself in your position, I’d move my banking to another provider.

Good luck. :+1:

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Assuming there are things about Monzo you prefer (compared to traditional banks), I’d suggest having two bank accounts. A Monzo account and a back up account with a traditional bank. If possible, keep enough money in the traditional bank to tide you over for a few weeks in the event of issues with Monzo.

This is what I do. Unfortunately, Monzo’s customer service isn’t good enough for Monzo to be my only bank. I don’t have faith that issues will be resolved in a timely manner and I don’t like the lack of proper phone support. However, there are many, many things I prefer about Monzo to traditional banks and don’t need customer service frequently. So as long as I have a back up bank account I personally wouldn’t ditch Monzo due to customer service concerns.

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I think that the chat interface gives users the impression they are going to receive real-time communication. However Monzo realistically only offer is a secure messaging service for asynchronous email style communication presented in a chat interface

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Thanks for all the responses. I called customer services early this morning and they were very helpful. New card coming and issues with chat might be a software glitch in my phone but also could be result of long delays. The person I spoke to was really helpful and recommended to call customer services in future straight away. Easier said than done I must add if they won’t answer. I’ll monitor it over the coming weeks and see if I need to open an account with a different provider.

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The problem with your explanation is Monzo advertise (and not long ago on national UK television) 24/7 customer support.

Can I talk to a real person 24/7?

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There is nothing stopping you having two current accounts , or more if you wish , the reaction to a bad experience with a bank of closing down the account is in most cases premature , bad responses ( no excuse ) come with every bank , you will soon run out of banks …then when you want to come back to Monzo it will take you 30 days , just keep the account open and get another current account with another provider.

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Don’t go back to HSBC. The phone rang for 28 minutes last night for them to sort something for me that took less than a minute.

For great customer service you need to go to First Direct.

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Or you could just stay with Monzo. Fundamentally nothing has changed in how services are delivered.

I do think there needs to be a better system of distinguishing between urgent and non urgent queries. The problem is that urgent is subjective and what is urgent to one person might not be to another.

I have to say that anytime I’ve contacted CS I’ve always had a reply in a decent amount of time. But I get it that if something really disastrous happened and I wanted help NOW then it could be an issue.

The good thing is that there is a lot of options for self help within the app such as card freezing, replacing cards, disputing transactions etc.

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Thanks all for the really useful replies. If I were to get another current account, apart from First Direct, are there any other’s you’d recommend?

It depends what you want from an account. There are subtle differences in bank offerings so depends on your priorities.

I use Nationwide and Santander. In my experience, their services ‘just work’ so that I’ve contacted them over a period of more than fifteen years less often than I’ve contacted Monzo over a period of two or three years.

I like that their contact channels are either phone, or if it’s not urgent, via secure email.

As always, your mileage may vary.

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28 minutes is still better than several hours and then still not being able to fix your problem. That’s the Monzo way.

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