Suspicious activity notification

UK Feedback & Ideas
1

I know that there are some things, when someone tries to use ATM/else when phone location doesn’t match and similar ideas (or maybe already in place).

I’d like something from this area, but focused on multiple transactions.

Recently, it happened that one of my transactions went through, but errored on merchant’s page. I assumed it didn’t go through, because it was payment that failed. I made another purchase and I was charged twice. I didn’t notice it until 5 days later, because it was Barclays with rubbish phone app and no notifications at all. This is a lot less likely to happen with Monzo, but knowing me as a user… situations like this can fly under my radar even with Monzo. :wink:

Monzo is sending many notifications, and I’m slowly getting worried that I’ll dismiss them brainlessly, without fully realising what they mean. I’d like ‘suspicious activity’ = on/off setting in Monzo.

With this setting enabled, Monzo would send me separate notification (with many danger noodle emojis and exclamation marks so I pay attention), for example when:

  • 2, 3 or more purchases are made within short time period to the same merchant.
  • 2 or more purchases for exactly same amount are made on the same day or at least within hours of each other.

It’s cognitive bias in a way, I can’t tell if I’m seeing same notification again (but I forgot to dismiss it earlier), or is it new notification. And because I rarely suspect the worst, I might not see duplicated or fraudulent transactions until I open up monzo app and put my brain to work.

I can see how this might be false-positive for people buying coffee in the morning and in the evening in the same coffee shop. Or sitting at the airport and buying 1 coffee/hour for 3 hours. However, setting can be disabled and it’s only outcome is warning notification from Monzo - so nothing bad could happen. :slight_smile:

It could also lead to slightly more advanced feature. System could observe and attempt to detect a bit too many contactless payments within certain time frame (card was stolen). Put it as a warning to user via app. In critical situations, call from support about extremely suspicious activity.

1 Like
Android Notifications
Switch Off / Limit Transaction Notifications
2

Would these notifications mainly be for at-a-glance convenience? As you can always view a full list of transactions in detail when opening the app, I’m guessing what you had in mind is a push notification to alert you when numerous transactions are recorded from the same merchant in a short space of time?

I had a situation a few weeks ago where my lost card was used repeatedly in the same stores over an afternoon. Some sort of notification to alert me about group of transactions may have drawn my attention sooner, however I think it would be quite rare to find instances where you would miss or ignore a notification from a merchant you don’t recognise, and conversely unlikely that a thief would stick around to use your card repeated times at the same merchant you have also spent with, in a small window of time.

The other point you raise is around the issue of duplicate transactions and being charged twice. This sometimes happens when an authorised transaction shown in the app is actually declined, but the message gets lost somewhere between the card machine and our card processors’ systems. This is why it isn’t displayed. In this case, the payment will be refunded by us within 10 working days although if you need it sooner you can contact customer support via the help button :slightly_smiling_face: This can be confusing and inconvenient to say the least and we’re working on improving our processes to prevent this happening where possible!

3

That’s not quite what I mean. Without notification, I won’t be prompted to open app and see what’s going on. But Monzo notifies about every transaction anyway. However, at one moment in time, it’s not improbable that functionality to disable certain notifications (or category notification) will be added to Monzo app. But that’s another thing.

Problem I’m trying to prevent are UNKNOWN to user accidental double charges, rather than general fraud detection. Normal notifications seem to be quite good for general anti-fraud detection - if you’re sitting at home and you see £29.95 charge from Waitrose, yeah, would ring some bells.
My functionality is more focused on informing user that 2 or more transactions together might not be intended. Two notifications separately wouldn’t mean be as meaningful or could be missed, but
“You made TWO transactions to Domino’s Pizza in last 1,5hours. :bomb::loudspeaker::interrobang::zap:”
would make me think “Uu, nope, I only purchased one pizza”.

Scenario I had was when payment was taken, but it errored on restaurant’s website AFTER payment was taken successfully. Instead of confirming/finishing order, stuff got lost completely with 500 error page. I believe that error was fully on merchant’s side.