Unknown/unidentified payments being taken from my account overnight

Help
1

Hi
I have enjoyed using my Monzo account for a couple of years but have noticed something strange/irregular on my account which is causing me great concern.
5 payments were taken by a local merchant overnight when that business is actually closed.
I have frozen the card and reported this on the app but no acknowledgement or explanation.
I have tried “walking on water” i.e. telephoning for advice but zero response and cut off at 10 minute interval over four calls.
sadly I have now lost a bit of trust in Monzo. Comms in banking are CRITICAL. Any ideas please ???

I now face the onerous task of printing and scrutinising all of my statements.

2

If you spot a transaction you didn’t make, you made the right first step by freezing your card (provided they are card payments), but you should also click on one of the dodgy transactions and there will be an item you can click to report it as dodgy, this gets it to the specific fraud team immediately.

3

Is it a merchant you’ve used? Are they payments you expected to pay?

There could be a whole host of reasons it goes through late at night, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s dodgy.

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4

I use this same merchant (convenience store) for regular purchases of sandwiches, soft drinks etc and actually this merchant is a great asset to our village

5

Could they have been offline purchases made a few days ago?

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6

Thanks for the quick reply. I can always phone my main bank and eventually speak to someone. That currently doesn’t apply to Monzo. I have spent over one hour trying to speak to someone. They just don’t answer and cut cut off after 10 minutes holding. Very disappointed.

7

You are not meant to ring them for this. They provide a mechanism within the app to report transactions. Use it?

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8

No never bought offline, only used in the stores

9

OK but if you suspect suspicious transactions you reasonably expect a fairly quick response or even an acknowledgement from your bank.

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10

Did you use the “Something wrong? Get help” button to report the transactions?

11

Thanks for your response. Yes followed the guidance but still no acknowledgement from Monzo other than “card blocked”

12

OK, I am sure they will respond. And more importantly you have done the right thing by flagging the transactions and blocking the card. I hope you get a response soon and all is sorted out.

13

So is that not an acknowledgement? Until they can investigate I can’t see that they can give you any more info?

14

Just another thought… have you spoke to the merchant to see if there were any known issues at their end? Seems a very strange situation. When was the last time you actually went to that store and bought something? Can you see those transactions on your account? Is this maybe something that wasn’t processed at the time? Sometimes card machines go into offline mode and the transactions are processed later on. I’m just guessing but I suppose it could be that maybe they had connectivity problems and then connection was restored in the middle of the night and all offline transactions were suddenly processed all at once.

15

Thanks for that. I love using the Monzo App for a host of reasons but when something suspicious pops up, so do the hairs on the back of my neck. I just wish they would answer the phone and give me an acknowledgment or even an explanation.
I have had a thought that they may be so busy (and possibly heading towards being a victim of their own success) that their systems may be overloaded and therefore permitting the transaction to take place at the point of sale but only actually processing the banking transaction when they have capacity, (ie overnight). Even if that was the case they could actually inadvertently lead a customer into a potential overdraft situation.

16

How do I know that they are investigating?

17

Just spoken to the merchant and no known issues

18

Are the transactions genuine?

I.e. Did you buy a can of coke and a sandwich yesterday at 2pm and you didn’t get the notification until 2am?

Or did you not go anywhere near there and they’ve charged you £100?

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19

This isn’t the case.

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20

Wasn’t in the store at all for two days