Yeah here in the south west, you just pay the fine, then appeal afterwards. Appeal period takes a couple of weeks, then it takes about 9 months for the rail company to send you a refund cheque.
Wouldnāt! The ācollectionā term I used was how it was described to me by support - the payment had already been authorised, the money ātakenā and it had shown in my monzo feed from the instant that I clicked pay on the website. Either way, they never tried to take it again, contact me and my monzo card always has plenty of funds.
That was basically my entire argument. This wasnāt a random bank transfer, this was a normal card payment that I had initiated through their site. I clicked a button and their system was clever enough to start the ātake Ā£11.50 from that cardā process. Monzo confirmed that TfL had requested the money, hence the authorisation, earmarking and feed update.
Something must have glitched and the second part of the behind the scenes process didnāt happen (where their system actually takes the money from monzo?) didnāt happen.
The fact that they couldnāt find any evidence of payment (using my details or monzos transaction auth numbers etc.) was my āevidenceā that their system and processes are fallible.
The fact that during the tribunal and appeal, after missing notification from London Tribunals (who confirmed they informed them to delay the fine) the fact that TfL sent bayliff threats to me added to my evidence that their processes and support wasnāt perfect. (After multiple phone calls, the tribunal eventually sorted this with TfL and it dropped back to the ānormalā Ā£130 fine)
But thatās basically all I could do and say. Iām just the guy who clicked the button, at the mercy of the company with all the weblogs and the uncaring phone support. They couldnāt see the attempted payment, they didnāt care that what the bank said and no one wanted to look at this as simply as me - that none of this could have started/happened without me logging on to a website, entering a load of details and clicking a button in an attempt to pay.
I am not a lawyer and this post does not constitute legal advice
If I was you, Iād pay the fine then file a small claims case against TfL to recover it.
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Unfortunately even though I have a current account itās threads like this that make me too nervous to try using it as my primary. I love the Monzo philosophy but there just seem to be too many bugs (even if those are actually external and based on ālegacyā behaviour) to trust it yet.
Do you know if any headway was made with this, Hugh? Have you discussed this with customer support againr recently, @anon53645004?
As @itspete has mentioned, this account is pretty concerning to read. I suspect a lot of customers are going to be in the mindset of assuming that the feed item = payment made and could potentially be caught out in a similar situation to this if theyāre not careful. Is someone using a legacy bank more likely to therefore insist on a receipt in the absence of the sort of feedback that Monzo gives you?
Iām particularly interested in the root cause that caused the funds to never actually be taken, though I guess if this is on TfLās end weāll never know.
Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again, I really donāt like Monzoās ātreat an authorisation as a completed transactionā philosophy. But, itās one of their main selling points and most people seem to love it, so Iāve left it as āno product is perfect, Monzo is by far the bestā 
No matter what the situation, TfL are the ones being ridiculous hereā¦ a card failure of any type should not lead to a fine if an attempt was made to pay in good faith as soon as one became aware the payment failed.
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When the authorisation is reversed for whatever reason youāre supposed to see a refund type transaction on the feed I think to make it clear funds have been released for whatever reason
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Yeah, Iāve been in contact multiple times throughout this. The support has been pretty decent, I was provided an authorisation number, a letter and screenshots of their own system (showing the transaction). Monzo have said that theyāre confident the issue is on TfLs side but have goodwillād me the cost of the fine. Iām happy with this as despite not being able to reclaim the stress and time wasted in fighting, at least Iām not out of pocket. Obviously this sort of thing has never happened before so I canāt compare how this was handled to what a ānormalā bank would have done.
This TfL payment in Dec ā16 was actually my very first use of monzo. Not a great start and one of the reasons I thought the error could have been on their end. Continuing on from that same day till right now, Iāve been averaging about Ā£1500pcm as a spending card without any problems (as youād expectā¦). As @Peter_R asked, i mentioned before but I did receive a refund of the initial payment after 6 days. It was swamped in my feed and I didnāt think anything of it (I assumed I hadnāt been through the zone and was being refunded accordingly). I didnāt query this with TfL until the first phone call regarding the fine and it likely wouldnāt have made any difference anyway. TfL have said that they canāt see any evidence of payment and I donāt have a receipt number, despite the word from myself and monzo, they say I never paid - I was well past the deadline for payment when the feed notification came thorough.
As mentioned, it is still worrying to me that feed notifications arenāt actual confirmation of money exchanging and if anything, reduce real world confidence of payment. Saying that, Iām still going to continue to use monzo (without salary in and dd out) as Iām very content with their assistance (but like I said, not that Iāve had any experience from banks).
At least most(?) of payments people make are for goods and services that wonāt result in a penalty for legitimate customers. For a time critical payment for a similar charge to mine, Iām going to be very wary in the future (whichever payment method I use!) despite having done this countless times without thought in the past.
For an Ā£11.50 payment and even a Ā£130 fine, itās been a ridiculous journey.
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Thatās amazing customer service from Monzo! Two thumbs up. Thatās like what Amex customer service used to be like. Wow. Pay for something that isnāt even their mistake.
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The problem has nothing to do with how Monzo handles feed items. If this happened to a legacy bank you wouldnāt even had anything on your statement regarding that transaction as TfL never settled it.
Thatās exactly what I meant by reduced confidence 
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I hate reopening graveyard threads but @anon53645004 issue doesnāt seem to be unique:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/aug/09/congestion-charge-penalty-error-paid
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Related to this Iāve added this bug report