Hello. Yesterday I have noticed an unauthorised transaction of 75 pounds from my account. I chatted with someone from Monzo who froze my account and told me they are sending me a new one. On top of that they said someone from the disputes team will contact in the morning (which still didn’t happen and it is 2 pm) and I shouldn’t do anything about it at this point. This is a problem because I am a student. For me 75 pounds is a lot of money and I depend on it daily. Monzo is my full time bank and now with my card blocked I can’t even use any money. Not for food, not for travel (I don’t keep cash). I would expect someone to reach to me faster. Also when I asked about a refund, they didn’t even reply to my question so I don’t know what to believe. I never had problems with Monzo before but this is a big issue.
Nobody on here can help with this unfortunately. 
You need to email them, use chat in app or call the number on the back of your card.
I would start another chat with to in app support team who should be able to look into this quickly.
You could also call Monzo on 0800 802 1281
If you’re unable to cope without your Monzo card for the 2 days it would take for a new one to turn up, surely that’s something you should have mentioned to COps when you contacted them and they froze the card. You would then have had the opportunity to quickly withdraw some cash or something before the card was frozen to keep you going until the new one arrived.
I can’t see what else Monzo could have done here?
Thanks
I thought GPay or ApplyPay could be used regardless whether or not your card has been activated?
Only the first card. Not replacements, at the moment.
This is the unfortunate downside of debit cards. A credit card by comparison does not have this problem, because when there’s a fraudulent transaction the transaction is frozen and deducted from your balance, allowing you to continue to spend even while the fraud is being investigated. Fraud investigations can take days or even weeks, you should start looking for alternatives to survive the next few days because there’s no guarantee this will be resolved today. Personally I never spend with my debit card, always a credit card, for exactly this reason. The only transactions out of my accounts are direct debits and standing orders with my Monzo card permanently frozen.
If you don’t want to have a credit card then an alternative is to open multiple bank accounts and either keep emergency money in them, or have an overdraft facility with them. Many banks offer “emergency cash” functions that mean even if you don’t have your card you can still withdraw from your account, unfortunately this doesn’t help if you have no available balance.
Do you have any friends or family you can borrow cash from short-term? Do you have the ability to enable an overdraft in your Monzo account? You could enable the overdraft and then send the money to a friend who withdraws it in cash for you and then disable the overdraft once the fraud investigation is resolved and the money returned.
If you can’t get an overdraft from Monzo you could alternatively look at opening an account today with another challenger bank like Starling as they have quick account creation turnaround with overdrafts available, then you can send the money from Starling to a friend who can withdraw it in cash…
For future reference, you should always have more than one account with separate financial institutions (with different passwords) because of the risk of account compromise, fraud and even a bank going offline.
Hi everyone. Thanks for the replies. I have been talking the whole day with the Monzo support team and they told me they can defrost my card for a bit until I can get to an ATM and get some money out and then froze it again. Luckily, I have borrowed some money from my boyfriend until my new card arrives so I pull not have to deal with the situation and also make them keep frosting and defrosting my account. Also, they said I will get a refund which I am waiting for currently.
May be a silly question but can you not simply freeze and unfreeze it yourself? When I’ve lost my card before, I froze it while waiting for a new one and then would unfreeze it to make a payment with my phone then re-freeze it immediately afterwards. I guess there’s a very small risk someone could make a payment in that 10 second window but unlikely.
Or would Monzo not allow you to control this yourself since it’s fraud rather than a loss?
Yep, Monzo wouldn’t allow you to control this since it s fraudulent.
Hi Vanessa , I just faced the same issue.
An unexpected and unauthorised payment was deducted from my account from a website which is totally unfamiliar with me. Today was the first time I opened this website and saw I’m automatically a member on their website. And I had a chat with Monzo. I need to confirm in how much days did they refund you your money?