We're closing your account on 17th May

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#1

Hi all,

I have been with Monzo since 2016 and have never had an issue with service, with the app or with any aspect of banking with Monzo. Until now.

This week I received an email which states ‘We’re closing your account on 17th May 2021’. No further detail, no explanation and no obvious way to dispute this decision and seek clarification.

Having read through Monzo’s Terms and Conditions, I have broken none. Equally, having read many posts on Reddit about seemingly random Monzo account closures, it seems there is one common denominator: crypto currency.

There is nothing in Monzo’s T&C’s that explicitly forbids using the service to transfer to or from one of the world’s leading crypto currency exchanges, so this area is at best ambiguous.

That being the case, I’ll submit a formal complaint to Monzo’s Head Office and to the Financial Ombudsman Service on Monday, but in the meantime I would like to ask the community if there is a way to appeal this decision with Monzo?

Thank you all
-John

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#2

I’m sorry that Monzo are closing your account, however, you will most likely lose your complaint against both Monzo and with the Financial Ombudsman service.

Monzo are a private company and are legally allowed to discontinue their business relationship with you for any reason, including no reason.

The same terms you state you have not broken state Monzo can close your account with 2 months notice, which they have given you.

We can close your account by giving you at least two months’ notice.

It will be hard to justify hardship when you have been given notice and there are lots of current accounts in the market. You would have to prove Monzo broke the law somehow which they haven’t from your post. Still submit your complaint as there is a minuscule chance Monzo could reverse it, although the odds are negligible, you never know.

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#3

I wouldn’t waste my time, the FOS won’t look at your complaint unless you can show them that you’ve exhausted Monzo’s complaints procedure first

But as others have said it’s highly unlikely that Monzo, or even the FOS will decide in your favour. You’re better off opening an account ASAP and CASSing, at least then it won’t be Monzo closing your account

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#4

If you have a search on here you’ll find similar threads and the ones that have tried to fight it just get a generic response.

Just create a new account elsewhere and probably best to have a completely separate one for crypto.

#5

Perhaps they thought it was business use if you were doing it frequently and you crossed their personal use threshold.

It could be anything. Monzo do allow you to use your account for crypto so this could be a red herring.

As mentioned, you don’t really have a case to fight this so personally I’d just move on and CASS before the deadline to make moving accounts a bit easier.

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#6

Thank you all for your responses.

The account couldn’t have been mistaken for a Business Account: no large or unexpected transactions. Nor was the account ever overdrawn, etc. On the contrary, it was used modestly for domestic expenses: Vodafone, TIDAL, Hyperoptic Direct Debits, etc. Quite clearly NOT business usage.

Even the crypto transactions were spread out, were to the same exchange (The largest in the world so certainly not ‘dodgy’) and were of similar size.

Which leaves us with two possibilites: I wasn’t a profitable, paying customer or a dislike of crypto transactions. The sad thing is that after using the service for five years, it would have been nice to be informed -why- the account was being closed. After all, how would any of you folks feel if Monzo treated you in the same, shabby way?

Will press ahead with drawing publicity to this and have messaged Tom Blomfield in the faint hope of some assistance.

Monzo have every right to withdraw their service as you have all pointed out, but that does not mean they should be able to treat loyal, decent customers with such disdain.

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#7

It’s not this. Monzo has 5 million customers and a few hundred thousand paying accounts.

That doesn’t really matter. Cypto is something that most banks don’t like. Monzo have said they are okay with it for personal use, whether they deemed your use more than that or not, we’ll never know.

I mean this in the nicest way, but nobody cares about it. Tom won’t care. The public doesn’t care. The media might do a “OMG Monzo closes accounts” article again, but that’s it. There’s been a few of these cases recently and Monzo are completely within their rights to do it. I understand it’s frustrating for you, but all you’re doing is wasting your own time and stress on something you can’t solve.

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#8

That’s what you believe and we will never hear Monzos side of this. We also don’t know what their system checks for, the thresholds or anything. I’d try not to draw conclusions from it because it’s futile and you’ll never get confirmation either way.

Like a bad relationship, you and Monzo just didn’t work out so just move on and forget about it would be my advice. Trying to cause a media frenzy and such is only going to give you false hope.

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#9

I have no desire to create a media frenzy, nor am I particularly concerned about losing one bank account out of eight. Rather, I am a firm believer in drawing attention to bad or non existent customer service.

Revels has confirmed above what I suspected: that Monzo and many existing Monzo customers are thoroughly indifferent to this issue - until it happens to them.

If anyone on this forum believes that this is the correct way to treat a customer of five years, then it’s clear Monzo are failing their own customers in setting such low expectations for good service.

The more that we, badly treated Monzo customers, make our experiences known, the greater the impetus becomes on Monzo to clarify their position and improve their customer experience.

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#10

Not sure this will go anywhere because he doesn’t work for Monzo.

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#11

We’re not saying they’re right or wrong. We’re telling you that nobody knows why and we’re not just going to blindly believe everything that you (an internet stranger) says. There are two sides to every story.

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#12

So the default is to defend Monzo’s customer service despite numerous other examples of shabby treatment of existing customers. That’s interesting.

I’m not quite sure you would take such a stance if one day you wake up to a similarly inexplicable email.

#13

How long you’ve been a customer is irrelevant.

If they’d said “You have until lunchtime to move your money or we donate it to our staff party” then you may have a point. But I really don’t see how you’ve been treated badly at all.

You have done something Monzo don’t like. Whether that’s fair or not is a completely different debate. But they don’t want you as a customer and have given you two months to move your money, when you can do it in a morning. I think that’s more than fair.

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#14

Mods plz lock :grimacing:

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#15

No it’s to be impartial as we have been and explain it’s within their rights because it’s in the T&Cs. Which is the only fact we have

#16

This is pure speculation. Monzo won’t tell you why and there is no way anybody could guess what it is.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been with a bank for 1, 5, 10, 50 years – as you can choose at any given point if you want to be their customer, they can also choose who they want as a customer. It’s a service provider, not a friend or a family member. It’s life, you move on. There are a million other banks out there

Newsflash: nobody will care. Tom certainly won’t as he has nothing to do with Monzo’s running anymore. He left a while ago

You don’t really think it works this way, do you? We’re all small drops in the vast corporate ocean – nobody will care, and corporations certainly won’t.

They don’t have to clarify anything because they haven’t done anything wrong. It’s clearly written in their T&Cs that they can close accounts with 2 months notice for any reason. Some of us would just understand that Monzo isn’t our mate and move on and find another account instead of banging on about it.

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#17

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

#18

I think you’ve taken his comment the wrong way :laughing: I think he wanted it closing for your benefit.

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#19

I’d prefer that the thread remains. There is nothing to hide and nor do I mind criticism of my position.

As mentioned in the opener, I have not in any way misused the service and as such will fight my corner.

#20

Good luck! :crossed_fingers:

Let us know how you get on and we can advise others to do the same if they find themselves in a similar situation.

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