Yeah, it’s certainly giving me more ammunition to drive a discussion
1 Like
Yeah, if they said they’d had an outage, my response would basically be ‘oh well, they’re a new startup. some downtime is expected.’ I wouldn’t rely on such a new bank 100% anyway, so no big deal. If they proactively told me about it, even better - I’d know not to use my card in the mean time. This response, though, really puts me off.
I’ve been using Starling as my main spending account, and quite liking it, but the fact that they’ve gone back to this attitude after promising to change it last time is making me reconsider. Seriously tempted to just abandon the whole challenger bank thing and go back to my legacy bank.
3 Likes
Starling has a good app offering for a new bank, just as Monzo does - or will soon (apparently 
) , I just want them to be open and honest when asked - maybe giving the benefit of the doubt the Customer Ops didn’t actually know about the outage - though why they shouldn’t is beyond me
Seems unlikely but possible. If that were the only issue, you could put it down to a customer ops person who wasn’t sure how much they were allowed to say, or were just following a genering script. That’s what your conversation looks like to be honest. But not listing the incident on their status page (after they’ve had complaints about that before) and deleting tweets about it suggests a deliberate policy, rather than just one staff member handling it poorly.
1 Like
I’m but even sure what to make of what Starling’s CEO just posted there…
@anon91821566 care to comment since you’ve been name dropped by Anne?
I’m quite confused what any of this has to do with the transparency issues people are concerned about. Hopefully this has got enough attention that it may help improve that 
. This really is the only thing that puts me off using Starling
7 Likes
My brain hurts, too much stupid for one day I think!
1 Like
This has been a wild 24 hours for both Monzo and Starling.
There was the ‘brutal’ thread here yesterday Switched from Monzo to a legacy bank (Barclays) 💫 and the thing today on the Starling forum about outage reporting.
Both painful to read.
3 Likes
I assume you mean this one.
2 Likes
Yep, that one… 
I hope Tom doesn’t comment. There’s no need to make this about personalities.
7 Likes
Me too now I think about it 
2 Likes
Oh this is just bad so bad… Its sort of Trump tweeting I wouldn’t respond if I was Tom.
4 Likes
the facts - concerning Anne s post on her forum
I am Toms Uncle, anybody on Twitter or my Facebook would have worked this out by now if they were interested, a few on Monzo forum know this also. I should perhaps start every post of mine now with “hey Im Toms Uncle” though probably not necessary now that Anne has “outed me” - I think she has “outed me” about 3 times on twitter when responding to some of my criticism of Starling. “Mr Silversides is Tom Blomfields Uncle so its not really valid criticism of my bank”
I have been “involved” in Monzo since Tom gave me a card in December 2015 to use as a personal prepaid card- he actually gave it me as a christmas present ( no money on it I seem to remember) I was customer number 440 , not quite the beginning, or important, but close -
I have now converted to a CA - I still have a lloyds bank account, a co-op bank account , a Halifax CC - oh and a Starling card
I have since the crowdfunding round mentioned in a few posts that I am an Investor in Monzo.
I have been a fairly active forum member since getting my prepaid - not always supportive of Monzos ways - but mostly
Anne seems to play these cards every time I criticise Starling, that Im Toms uncle, so it cant be a valid criticism , please come into our welcoming office… etc etc - ever since the spat on Twitter with Megan posting “Starling is the first at implementing absolutely everything” along with Megan biting a chunk out of @alexs for the same criticism , right through until I posted on twitter that her posting a customers card details (Megans fiancees ) on her twitter account to all her followers wasn’t the greatest security feature she could offer for her bank along with Megan trying to rip me to pieces for me advising Starlings customer (her fiancee) to take down his photo of his card showing all his account numbers.
I am a customer at Starling have been since October this year and have in the interests of clarity received 2p in interest so far over the two + months , I was today querying whether notifications were available for outages , @anon40728597 said there didn’t seem to be an outage as the above thread shows - , I thought I might have not seen correctly - I queried Starlings customer services - they obfuscated, I shared that with Monzo community which was then shared with Starling community , Anne didn’t seem to like the criticism - and attacked with vitriol - thats really her problem not mine.
Anne seems to equate trying another challenger banks offering as a full hearted endorsement of their offering, Im sure everybody at Starling won’t have Monzos card
No I don’t like Starling ways of doing business , I do like the features on their app they are probably superior to Monzo at present , but and its a big but , Im not keen on Annes way of conducting business if this is how they take criticism of their customer replies to genuine queries about outages that did happen today, it was at best a customer services operative working to a script at worst simple stonewalling a problem - Starling customers can decide that - together with whether Annes remarks are appropriate to a customer query or not
Anne doesnt seem to take criticism well unfortunately
wooooo hooo I can also be considered an expert - not sure many would agree
34 Likes
I’m sorry for any grief I’ve caused from my part in this - especially referencing your screengrabs. Your relationship (or otherwise) to Monzo / Starling is not my business 
. I did not in a million years expect the discussion to be going anywhere in this direction 
4 Likes
not a problem as far as Im concerned Peter
sorry forgot
“hey Im Toms Uncle”
8 Likes
I feel bit uncomfortable with you having to clarify things which you really didnt need sorry about Anne made you feel. Don’t understand how a CEO of a bank can write a post like that just so bizarre. Then again we have Trump… So I can probably understand the obsessions and style?
I really hope Anne apologise to you and her customers for this sort of behaviour.
9 Likes
Hey Im Toms uncle - I will get tired of posting this eventually -
as Ive said above , if I talk to any customer service operator with a legitimate question, I want my question to be answered, not avoided and then avoided again and eventually answered after being pushed , same goes for Monzo - this is what its all about - a different kind of banking - if a question can be answered it should be
7 Likes
@anon95680666 remind me who are you again? 
6 Likes
With respect, I do not need to know nor care about your relationships with any staff. CEO or not. It’s not relevant.
I feel like this was not a professional response from Starling. I’m sorry this has turned in that direction.
Edit: I do actually quite like their forum font 
3 Likes
forum font …me too