Tail - cashback app for Monzo users

Flux is also aiming to integrate I think, which would fall under that ^
Although Tail seems to be readonly with APIs that are clearly launched/available now, as far as I can see Flux also wants to be able to save receipts into your Monzo transactions (text rather than the current images?) and also show you digital loyalty cards, maybe through some html embed/link?

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Hi Danny, sorry you are having trouble signing in.

Were you still shown that screen after uninstalling the app and restarting?

Hi Jonathon, we will be implementing this soon, sorry about the warning message.

Did you sign in with Starling before?

You should still be on the Beta list if you joined last year, DM’ing now

Hi Harley

I was indeed, if it helps I am on iOS 12

Ok, sorry about that.

We are working on a solution now, I will get back to you as soon as it is deployed.

Hi Matthew,

At the moment the Monzo Beta is invite only, but if you are on the waiting list (www.tail.at) you should get an invite soon.

Yep - used Starling but I closed that account.

I’ll be honest, I joined Tail and then freaked out about the level of account access I’d given them.

I gave them access to my account transactions and account balance. That didn’t sound like a price worth paying for a few discounts.

Am I wrong?

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I felt the same as the IFTTT connect process. The Monzo login page lists a LOT of permissions, most of which aren’t even used yet, but it seems IFTTT gets blanket access so they can add triggers whenever they want.

For a cashback app, it needs to get triggered merchant and amount, that’s it. However, if it is to work, it needs all transactions to be checked if it matches the merchants they do cashback for, so that makes sense. They do not need balance. Sounds like Monzo (if they don’t already) need to do what Twitter do where you can select certain permissions you need, and those get listed on the connect page/screen. If Monzo do that already, Tail is asking for more permissions than it should.

That being said, I don’t know the code behind how Tail works and, as a developer, I can appreciate not everything is clear from just looking at the frontend. Explanation on why Tail needs the various permissions it asks for should be necessary.

What Monzo should do is require justifications for each permission an app asks for when setting up API access. This isn’t just social media posts, this is people’s money, and there should be a clear statement, per permission (or group, if appropriate) why it’s being asked for.

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Just weighing in, we are an FCA regulated company and we have a very clear privacy policy (https://tail.at/privacy-policy).

None of your data is passed on or sold, we only receive money from retailers when a redemption is made.

If you have any questions in regards to how we handle data I’m happy to answer.

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That’s good to hear Harley.

Just to be clear, I’m absolutely not suggesting anything dodgy on Tail or Monzo’s part. I just didn’t feel comfortable sharing that much information.

@theshillito you’re right, Monzo should give us a list of which apps are connected to our accounts so we can limit or delete them (a la Facebook/Twitter). I guess that will come when the marketplace is up and running.

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Hey Peter,

The balance is not required, we do not have control over having access to this.

In fact some things listed in the permissions granted are not accurate, for example we do not have access to addresses. Monzo is still working on the API, i’m sure they will be interested in the communities suggestions.

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Good point, it’s still early days yet, and hopefully Monzo takes my suggestions into account.

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@Harley is there a web-page showing the full list of retailers you partner with?
Would be useful to know this before deciding whether or not to join.

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It depends.

Both Tail and the places that will give you the discounts are businesses. They need to make money from you, or what’s the point. And they need to make more money than they give back to you or, again, what’s the point.

I don’t really know how they do it, but then I’m not a tech entrepreneur. Perhaps they’re just going to build up a huge silo of spending data over a couple of years and then sell out to Groupon or whomever, at which point your data gets passed to them. And then Groupon will make money out of your data, or, again, what’s the point of them buying Tail.

Or maybe they make money another way.

Regardless, if you’re happy with companies making money off your passive behaviour, sign up. I didn’t.

In short, if you seem to be getting something for nothing, you’re the product.

Their business model isn’t about gathering user data (at the moment). Their website is pretty clear about how they make money: from the retailers.

For every sale that Tail generates, they take a commission, and they pay part of that commission to me (the user) as a “discount”. The business gets to choose how much commission/discount to pay and what time of day/week to pay it.

It’s an incentive scheme, not a data harvesting scheme. However, they need access to my Monzo account to see when I visit a Tail retailer (because their system doesn’t require me to open the Tail app or scan a card when I want to get the discount, it’s all done passively from my side). My problem is with the amount of account access I have to grant them. Obviously I have to let them see all my transactions so that they can flag a visit to a Tail retailer.

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I get the email inviting me to sign up, I go through the sign up process, get the email from Monzo with the magic link, but when it opens the tail app it shows briefly an authentication error ( it doesn’t stay on the screen on enough to read it) and then I end up back at the welcome to tail screen. Rebooted the phone and reinstalled the app but I still have the same issue :disappointed:

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Same here.

I just get a 500 error every time I go to a https://tail.at page :neutral_face: