It was so specific. To be honest I haven’t used my account in so long I’d probably fail any of those kind of tests.
I could give him my addresses, previous addresses, passport number, birthday, NI number, even the date I opened the account. But no, because I don’t remember who I paid in November 2017 that’s enough to suggest it’s not me…
But don’t worry, I can just call back and speak to someone else. What a weird system.
What a weird system. GDPR doesn’t state that a particular number of questions need to be asked, but surely providing all that other information would suffice from a logical point of view.
Definitely alarming if the call handler told you to call back to get a different question, doesn’t seem like something you should tell someone who’s just failed security lol.
That’s right and at the time it made zero sense. However now, to be fair, I can see how it makes sense.
If Monzo had done what Starling do and counted it part of your balance for the purpose of overdraft but then couldn’t for Interest bearing pots and ISAs then:
a) it would be confusing, some pots would do it and some wouldn’t or the feature taken away altogether
b) everyone would kick off because something has been taken away from them (a la unlimited cash withdrawls) or changed to their detriment.
But yes, the messaging wasn’t clear at the time.
Monzo have made clear that their overdrafts are focused on simplicity, not being competitive. From this perspective how it works makes sense.
Charging someone for being overdrawn when they have an overall credit balance does not make sense to me.
borrowing money when you have a “credit balance” makes no sense to me either , move it from your pot and don’t borrow - job done 
That’s because banking security has nothing to do with GDPR per se.
Neither it does, had a work meeting on GDPR, must have been on my mind 
At which point you should only get interest on the amount in the pot, minus the amount you’re overdrawn.
Then you have to consider what should happen if you go below the minimum allowed amount for a savings pot (£500/£1000), should the pot shut down and empty or should you lose all interest on the money in the pot? The minimum limit is from a third party, so at that point Monzo are loaning you the money to keep at the pot’s minimum limit.
There’s also the consideration of which pot it should deduct from first. If you have £1000 in one pot at 1% and £500 in another at 1.2% and you go £200 overdrawn, which pot should you get reduced interest on?
The end result of this would be a spiderweb of code, leading to a lack of future comprehension and bugs creeping in (not to mention more edge cases) and a massive lack of simplicity for the user. From a user’s perspective they’ll randomly sometimes not get charged interest when they go overdrawn.
That’s not to say Monzo shouldn’t come up with a long-term solution but it’s clearly a bit more complicated than it initially seems. A starting point would be a notification when you go overdrawn if you have money in pots that is easily withdrawable.
Surely a pot is only a portion of your account with Monzo / Starling? If you have an ISA or other type of savings account then these are separate accounts?
So any money in a pot is in your Monzo account and thus should be included in overdraft charges calculations.
Had to call Startling today to reset my password since I haven’t used the account for over a year.
They asked for my name, email and postcode as well as when I opened my account and got a SMS with a temporary password to use.
Only took about 3 mins, the woman on the phone was polite enough but didn’t sound very happy or enthusiastic.
The issue is more that it’s simpler to calculate and easier to understand if the Main account balance is used to determine how much overdraft is being used.
Upon asking in live chat when I could resign up for an account if I ever decided to (was curious) I was asked what device I used at the time as a security question…
I was at the time seeing if I liked iOS so I had no idea if it was the Android phone before, after or an iPhone? 
I just named them all. 
Please can we keep this on topic.
Monzo’s overdraft calculations regarding pots has been discussed in length. You can see @tom’s comments in this thread 
So because Tom’s outlined what Monzo do we can’t discuss that Starling do it differently? Seems a bit stifling of a discussion point.
We all know what Monzo do, but it doesn’t really explain why Monzo do things and what other institutions do.
Frankly (this is me personally so don’t all jump angrily on me) I think Tom’s response there was rude and almost aggressive.
“if you don’t like it, leave”
How very Revolut of them
(Ok last part was slightly tongue in cheek there)
That was the question I got asked when I called up second time. I listed every iPhone I’d had in the last few years. Still not passed.
Which is a technical impossibility given I’ve only ever had iPhones…
Anything farmed out to another provider should not be counted as part of your balance. Pots that earn 0% aka pots v1.0 and just segregate cash in your current account should.
Agreed
There’s just more and more conceptual confusion between pots and accounts, which is only getting worse now incumbents have started calling their instant access savings accounts “pots” as well.
An account is an account because the funds within it are subject to the same terms, treated as a single balance.
What Monzo has done by applying different terms to pots is create a sort of semi account. It’s subject to its own specific terms, but it doesn’t have its own account number and so on.
Personally, I think pots should simply have been a convenience feature for earmarking funds - more or less with the same effect as keeping a spreadsheet - and anything else should be set up as a separate account with its own terms.
So, the Starling approach is conceptually logical and therefore more attractive, as simpler to understand.
I do wish Starling would show a global account balance though…
Not obvious by any means but…
Account Management → Account Information → Interest
This displays your current cleared account balance for the purposes of working out interest. It takes into account your main balance, Goals and and overdraft usage 
Not quite what I would want either, as I can see a debit card payment yesterday mustn’t have cleared yet, so it’s still a bit “out of date” for a live balance.