Issue:
When requiring video identification and needing to use the video identity recording and submission feature no video is recorded. The video feed to align face stays as a static frame or black screen. Cannot record video to proceed with account verification.
This renders the account completely unusable once this has happened on the phone.
Temporary workaround to actually use account then involves logging in on a different (non Xperia) phone and completing the video verification. Note the account still remains unusable afterwards from the Xperia phone.
Tried: Logging out of the app and logging back in again.
Ensuring all permissions camera, microphone etc enabled.
Uninstalling and reinstalling the app.
(This is probably to do how the app interacts with the camera API for Xperia phones)
General Note:
This is a huge issue because there is no other mechanism to verify identity over the phone.
This issue happened to myself a few years ago and took over a week for the ‘specialist’ team to verify my identity by other means leaving my account completely unusable and leaving me in a very stressful situation for over a week.
This has now happened to my partner who also uses Xperia phone who cannot use her account.
Details to reproduce:
Try to make a large bank transfer or trigger video verification by any mechanism.
Try to record and upload verification video.
OS:
Android 13
Device:
Reproducable on: Xperia 1 III and Xperia 5 IV and I’m sure many other Xperia Models.
App Version:
6.26.0 and many previous versions since the big has been around for years.
There seem to be a few devices out there which have had problems with the video account verification.
One thought - on the Xperia device, can you download the Google Camera app and make it the default camera app? This could be worth trying to get around the Xperia camera app issue.
Thanks for the suggestion but I have tried and sadly it does not resolve the issue, potentially rooting the phone and installing a vanilla android version could work but this is not something I am willing to try purely for this.
The Monzo app uses the underlying camera API independent of what the default ‘app’ is.
This needs to be investigated and fixed by the dev team asap especially since there is no alternative identity verification mechanism. People with Xperia phones with Monzo as their main bank could have to endure some major faff because of this.
What Monzo deem as suspicious activity requiring verification could easily be someone trying to legitimately spend money while they are abroad. If they get locked out of their account in a situation like this, it could be terrible.
In that case, I can only suggest (prior to a possible resolution by Monzo) that you use a different, non-Xperia, device to verify. You may also need access to your email on the non-Xperia device to verify (magic link - accessed via your monzo-registered email account via mobile browser)
The variables involved here to potentially introduce a hurdle are extensive…
Yes l have already mentioned your suggested workaround in the original post but the additional detail regarding needing access to email to verify the magic link is a welcome addition.
I hope this can be escalated as this issue has been around since 2019 with evidence available on this thread:
It’s about time Monzo got this fixed especially considering they are so reliant on this app based video verification mechanism.
