To be honest, we have seen both in different instances! The problem seems to be rather varied, but the common theme is processing a decline.
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Interesting, I’m surprised it gets as far as sending an authorisation in that case. What could possibly be different about your decline response from other banks? I don’t know a lot about EMV processing, but I’d think the decline response they get back is virtually identical regardless of issuer.
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I went to visit the pub with @anon56040506 - the landlord really doesn’t like us…
By the sounds of it he had a chargeback against him and so point black refuses monzo cards. He refers to them as either “mozzies” or “Monza”
I’m not saying organise lots of people to turn up with only one form of payment haha - but that might make them realise there is an incentive to accept monzo cards. He refused to give us any of his time after bar a 2 minute ‘talking at’ and just said “well how will it make me any money? I’m wasting time talking to you now when I could be booking Christmas parties” as if we weren’t even normal people, and the bar was totally empty.
He said he’d spend an hour talking to us but it would cost us £155. I said sure, do you take monzo? We left quickly after…
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I’ll happily book lots of Christmas parties there with my Monzo card 
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I think we should book a Monzo Community Christmas party there!
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Did someone say Pub and Christmas party on Monzo??? 
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Not sure that is exactly what I said!
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Could have quite a party for £71m
Have you got MasterCard involved? Surely one of the roles of MasterCard is to handle situations like this.
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It’s a shame that many retail staff don’t seem to know how to use card machine. I get some funny looks when I wait after the contactless beep (as in what are you waiting for).
With mainly offline contactless the beep did sort of work as a check, but really retailers should be waiting for terminal to finish and say wether accepted or declined.
I’d imagine excluding Monzo online contactless is probably single figure precent, and odds of getting an online card and decline were pretty low.
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All Visa will be online by the end of the year. American Express seems to be mostly online (haven’t seen it run offline in maybe a year but no announcement). All foreign cards will be online as the currency doesn’t match. All Apple Pay and Android Pay are online.
I’m not convinced at all that online is less common than offline authorisation.
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Oh ok things have obviously moved on in last few years.
Most (all?) local independent shops/cafes/etc I use in Edinburgh seem to be online. And I always wait for the ‘approved’ message. Person at the register always seems to understand the wait, we’re both looking for it, and then a nod or a thanks and I leave. It obviously will vary, but maybe a mixture of training and usage experience is leading staff to understand the system better.
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Almost all terminals can go online, and usually do for contact transactions. Contactless, to improve speed, was introduced designed to function primarily with offline authorisation. This is being changed as it lead to a lot of complaints and terminals generally have much faster connections today. The Monzo card will go online whenever technically possible, which is almost always.
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Not too mention that offline contactless is a bit of a fraud nightmare CS wise for legacy banks
Not sure if this was the same thing, but two mates of mine (both separate issues) had similar refusal issues with their Monzo cards. Both occurred at pubs, and both times the landlord refused by saying “I don’t take Pre-Paid” cards.
Despite letting them know that they were in fact current accounts/debit cards, the landlords couldn’t get it out of their heads that they weren’t pre paid.
Both pubs lost business, but wonder what merchant acquirer would have an issue with pre-paid vs debit cards?
So, first, they can’t really refuse prepaid (the honour all cards rule), though this rule may be unenforceable under EU regulations - I’m not quite sure on that.
Second, stupid, stupid business decision on their part - why do they care how the card is funded? They get paid either way. sigh
Speaking as a pub landlord, there is a lot of folklore and misinformation about cards in the pub trade!
I’ve always accepted cards for any amount and offered cashback where the card supports it. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t want cash lying around, it costs money to pay it into the bank! I don’t know any other pub landlords who do the same, though, and they’ve never been able to articulate a reason other than “but fraud”.
(My losses to card fraud amount to about £100 in 15 years, or about 0.001%.)
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A successful fraud chargeback on a prepaid card is probably LESS likely - most come with such appalling customer service that succeeding to make one would be a miracle (not referring to Monzo)
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they can. The honour all cards rule applies to not discriminating against any particular bank brand rather than anything to do with card types. Merchants are entitled to only accept debit and/or credit and/or prepaid and/or giftcard card types as they wish, but they can’t say accept Monzo but reject Starling.
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