Updated Contactless Limit 💳

[Revels]

Contactless limit raised

If it’s fraud, your bank has to refund you by the end of the next business day. Unless they can clearly articulate why they believe you are acting fraudulently. The Payment Service Regulations provide extremely strong customer protection if you’re a victim of fraud. If your bank messes you around then you should make a complaint and insist on compensation.

I didn’t realise it was that quick!

[Ordog]

@Revels

I didn’t realise it was that quick!

Wow. In that case it will have zero impact on me then.

It’s rare I’d have £200 in my main balance anyway because it all gets filtered into pots.

[Revels]

I’m sure there will be people that IF they lose their card and IF they had just reset the limit and IF the person who finds the card isn’t decent and honest and IF they can get to use it multiple times before they realise, will lose £200. But knowing you get it back by the next day makes it a lot of fuss over nothing.

There will no doubt be a Daily Mail sad face article because someone couldn’t refuel/buy food until the next day.

[breville_monkey]

One of the few brushes I’ve had with fraud was someone picking up my debit card which I dropped at a Tube station and using it in a few shops. I think they spent £10 and then £25 in the next shop before I saw and froze it. It was tried again for £30 or so in a few different shops over the next few hours before presumably being discarded.

It was refunded within a few minutes of speaking to Monzo.

Thing is, they find your card and then what. Unless they are organised they probably don’t know what to do with it, try their luck buying some cigarettes at a nearby shop or something. They don’t know if the card works or how much is on it. And after each transaction you are getting a notification.

Overall seemed like a small event to me and they didn’t get anywhere near £200. I guess most such cases go down in a similar way.

[HoldenCarver (Nick)]

@phildawson

When looking back in 2019 it was negligible compared to non-contactless related card fraud.

Was reading an article last week that said scammers don’t really go for contactless fraud; there’s a physical risk/difficulty in having to acquire a card first, and then there’s the fact that it’s pot-luck if there’s £5 or £95 to go before the limit is it.

It’s far more lucrative for them to scam you by calling you up pretending to be your bank and getting you to transfer your money to a safe account, or any kind of scam of that ilk.

The article ended by saying that while contactless fraud will probably go up when the limit goes up, it will still be a relatively small drop in the ocean compared to other ways of scamming and frauding people.

[breville_monkey]

@HoldenCarver

It’s far more lucrative for them to scam you by calling you up pretending to be your bank and getting you to transfer your money to a safe account

Also safer, you can run it from sweatshops in India and the main beneficiaries - the organised crime gangs that run the scams - don’t need to go anywhere near the dirty work.

[andrew_fishy (Biggest horse fanatic in Leeds)]

Lloyds and other banks have done this, so it is more than possible to implement this in the app

[NoIdea (Ray)]

You could limit any unauthorized transactions by reducing the money in your current account.
It’s easy to move money in from a Pot as needed.
It isn’t ideal and I would rather be able to set my own contactless limit.

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

That would mean permanent overdraft charges

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

Doesn’t work if you have an overdraft.

I’d quite happily settle for an on/off toggle though. I don’t really need the slider to set my own limit.

Found out today that Chase let you do this too without impacting Apple Pay!

Was going through Monzo earlier and it’s a bit puzzling how few card controls we actually have with Monzo. I’m sure there’s a design decision behind that, but it is bizarre given what we get elsewhere.

[SebH]

It also doesn’t work if you use your Monzo account for more than just spending.

Direct Debits and Standing Orders, etc, could end up leaving your “empty” main balance and push you into overdraft by accident.

It’s too fiddly to really be workable.

I do agree with you @N26throwaway on your point about Monzo’s card controls too. Starling, as you said earlier, are the gold standard with this and it can’t be too difficult to add a few more toggles (unless it is) so I’d like to see Monzo and others doing that too.

It would help people control their account in the way that works best for them, and possibly be good for Monzo as it might limit fraud too.

A win-win!

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

I suppose you could work around that by having those payments come from pots.

While I’ve succumbed to having my one direct debit bill paid from a pot (and my more out there subscriptions with a virtual card), I’m reluctant to go further, because it’s really not an approach I like, as much as it’s the best thing out there right now for getting the job done.

Gets too messy and I find myself getting frustrated with Monzo. This isn’t to say Monzo at times feels like software designed by engineers for engineers, but it’s the same feeling I used to get trying to get on with Windows as a child.

It’s a long winded way of saying I don’t like how pots are overly used and pushed as a workaround solution to excuse the lack of a better one.

I’m probably starting to ramble off topic here, but the point is, pots is not a viable solution to controlling your contactless limit!

[SebH]

@N26throwaway

I suppose you could work around that by having those payments come from pots.

Of course, but at that point you’re implementing workarounds for workarounds (and you would need to pay for Plus or Premium, which isn’t something you should need just to emulate the effect of a simple toggle at Starling or Lloyds).

@N26throwaway

It’s a long winded way of saying I don’t like how pots are overly used and pushed as a workaround solution to excuse the lack of a better one.

I’m probably starting to ramble off topic here, but the point is, pots is not a viable solution to controlling your contactless limit!

Yes, exactly!

[jamesg062 (James)]

I’d also like to see a custom contactless limit in the way starling has. Where’s the innovation that Monzo used to be so good at? Even Lloyds are ahead with this!

I agree with others too, a simple toggle would suffice to turn it off with the card whilst being able to use contactless via apple pay/Google pay.

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

@jamesg062

Where’s the innovation that Monzo used to be so good at?

In fairness, Monzo’s been doing quite a lot of other stuff in other areas, and certainly rolling out new and exciting things faster than the competition lately.

But yes, this is a simple thing, and they’ve had time to prepare and develop the tools in time for today as other banks have. The fact other, legacy banks did so, and Monzo didn’t is a bit embarrassing, I think. Perhaps they don’t see it as an issue and chose to continue focussing on other things instead, but that’s a mistake in my view and a miss on their part. The small things matter just as much as the exciting new things!

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

@N26throwaway

But yes, this is a simple thing, and they’ve had time to prepare and develop the tools in time for today as other banks have.

If they wanted to. They obviously don’t want to

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

Sorry, how is it obvious please? No one from Monzo has said they don’t want do.

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

Because they haven’t done it

[N26throwaway (Sir Tom MacMonier)]

Doesn’t mean they don’t want to…

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

But if they’d wanted to then they’ve had time and you’ve said it’s really easy to do. So you think they wanted to but didn’t dedicate the time to do something really simple?

It’s a pretty niche request probably only really wanted by people really into banking forums