Using Monzo everywhere: improving merchant acceptance

Definitely complain directly to BA. Hopefully they’ll communicate to their staff properly and dispell this misinformation.

7 Likes

Same here it’s very odd. I’ve never had a response back from FB either on it

Not sure it’s that polite to refer to cabin crew or people in retail as ‘Monkeys’

They don’t want to get in trouble for potentially causing financial problems for the company.

11 Likes

I’ve never had any problems with British Airways and I’ve used Monzo a lot on board!

2 Likes

Bit of a random one, but was at Hengrove Leisure Centre in Bristol today and as soon as the receptionist saw the colour of my card, she said “we can’t accept Monzo I’m afraid”.

1 Like

Same. But I guess not all stewards are the same (had very varied experience with BA).

@sfev - BA’s CS tend to be brilliant (speaking from personal experience, then again I only had to contact them due to severe weather cancellation) so if you get in touch, there is high chance they are going to look at it and inform the steward he/she was wrong and they should not be doing that, so I actively encourage you to do so :slight_smile:

1 Like

Weird. I’m Bristol based and i’ve never had any issues using my card. Did the person explain why they wouldn’t take Monzo?

2 Likes

Thanks. I’ve emailed BA and await their reply. I’ve got a feeling that the attendant had transferred from EasyJet and got her wires crossed, there was no telling her though! Hopefully the message will get through

I’ll update here if/when I hear back

3 Likes

A lot of easyJet staff are going over to BA lately.

Having worked in retail, it’s not actually uncommon for the card machines not to enforce the rules that the company employing those staff puts in place.

1 Like

Second this. My work has a “no credit card” rule but actually doesn’t stop them being used by the machine, just a company rule.

It’d be interesting to know some of the reasoning behind these company rules - and whether they’re compatible with merchants’ agreements with MasterCard/Visa.

For example, does paying by credit card still cost a merchant more? (That would seem rational, whereas a “we don’t approve of credit” because Reasons would seem not to be).

1 Like

A “no credit card” rule is almost always down to cost, especially American Express as it has the highest merchant charges of all credit cards, which is why acceptance of Amex is so low compared to Visa and Mastercard.

2 Likes

Is there somewhere we can provide the name of a merchant that is having trouble accepting Monzo for payment?

Send an email to acceptance@monzo.com and they’ll get on it

2 Likes

But does Visa charge more for a credit card transaction over a debit card transaction?

I believe so, yes. Credit transactions are more expensive than debit ones with all card issuers.

That aside, do Visa and MasterCard scheme rules allow merchants to accept debit but not credit cards?

Yes. When the law came in where merchants couldn’t charge extra for using one method over another, many services stopped taking credit cards altogether but still accept debit cards. Most notably, a number of council services (e.g. paying council tax) stopped accepting credit card, which they used to charge extra for.

1 Like

Only in Europe because EU regulations allow that. Just like surcharging is only allowed in the US (surcharges were always banned by merchant agreements here) because the US considers surcharges a form of constitutionally protected free speech (companies are considered people in the US).

Even company policies that are legal like debit only here or surcharges in the US are usually a sign of a very anti-consumer business and thus will put me off. If you’re willing to lose a sale completely to get a few extra pennies, you’re clearly not the type of person I want to buy from.

Here’s an example, at Bristol Pride I almost bought something from a company with a stall called Chameleon Jewellery. She wanted to surcharge me. I told he it was illegal. She said ‘it’s not me, it’s PayPal’ (a total lie as her surcharge was far higher than the PayPal fee plus PayPal is charging her not me). I called her out on the lie and told her it’s still illegal and walked off.

If it had been a business with a fixed address I’d have reported her to Trading Standards, but not sure how I’d do that with a stall at an event.

The thing is, when I called her out for being a criminal, her true attitude shone through further confirming my theory that most people who do this aren’t businesses I would want to support anyway…

4 Likes