I’ve wanted to talk about this for a while. But I didn’t want to be “that guy” scaremongering. But it’s no longer an issue. (and never really was then, for somebody savvy)
Somebody in my family works for a fraud department for a high street bank, I used to talk to my family about switching to Monzo but this person would tell me that Monzo accounts come up in fraud Investigations all the time (when Monzo was a pre paid card) not just Monzo either. Revolut.
I’ve spoken to her about this today. Not mentioning the fact that Monzo no longer has pre paid cards. I asked her if she still gets a lot of fraud investigations involving Monzo accounts.
Her answer was no. Absolutely none at all, she hasn’t seen anything regarding a Monzo account for ages.
I then asked about Revolut. Apparently yes. Revolut accounts are still at the forefront of fraud investigations with her company all the time.
this is not a dig at Revolut, it just shows that moving away from pre paid cards was a great thing.
Probably due to top-ups.
It’s more likely to come across stolen card details than it is to come across stolen online banking details, which can then be used for bank transfers.
With Monzo now only offering current accounts, the amount of top-ups has likely been reduced by a significant margin, in addition to Monzo seemingly taking a more proactive approach to tackling fraud.
I’m not going to reply any more to this thread until I have more information. I realise this is quite important and don’t want to say anything that isn’t factual.
I promise I will post once I have gathered a bit more info x
From what I remember - I’m 99% sure of this. Is that it was payments going out to Monzo that people hadn’t authorised. (Top ups)
It kinda really is a dig though. Are there not other prepaid cards available? Certainly yes, yet you solely contrast Monzo with Revolut on a topic with negative connotations attached to it.
Makes sense given that prepaid top-up cards (with little to no ID verification) are the best way to cash out stolen card numbers; you can’t directly withdraw cash from a card number, and buying goods with them is tricky (due to retailer’s fraud checks, the need for a physical delivery address, and then reselling the goods), but you can top-up a Monzo with the stolen number and then cash it out at an ATM.
Current accounts have reduced the risk of this happening as they require proper ID checks before an account is open, while the prepaid allowed you to use the card instantly within some limits (200£/month? But still good enough when you can order dozens of those cards).
The comparison still makes sense though, since Revolut is arguably among Monzo’s biggest competitors, in addition to both offering prepaid cards at point, until Monzo moved to current accounts. Also, the opening post clearly refers to Monzo having the same problem past. So the reference to Revolut can be considered in that context.
Only because the only companies I have dealt with are Monzo and Revolut
Edit: Confirmed, it was transactions being debited to Monzo that were not authorised. Apparently its normally picked up on “Click Safe” I’ve asked what this means.
Naturally one will refer to a big competitor, but not only did the post not mention the existence of other prepaid card issuers, the post was unreasonably biased. There was no mention of Revolut’s efforts of introducing disposable virtual cards very recently for the sole purpose of countering fraud. To then conclude Monzo +1 and declare that isn’t a dig is clearly disingenuous.
Virtual cards were not to protect the bank from the sort of cardholder frauds referred to, but to help the cardholders protect themselves from fraud online. Different types of fraud.
