Why do paypoint merchants not accept monzo top up?

Wow one whole shopkeepers account, doesn’t really speak for the many other locations that have the terminals installed.

I have some stupid conversations with TFL staff about getting my railcard discount applied to my London Oyster card, I kept getting morons who kept arguing with me about it being impossible because it was a Santander railcard even when I showed them website…

Yeah I did, I read it at the time. If I remember right they chose to take over a shop that already had one in, and the paypoint contract was party of the deal.

I don’t disagree it’s costing some shops money. But there’s a reason so many chose to get one anyway, and that’s that they view it as a normal business expense that’s gonna get customers in the door, similar to an advertising cost.

It was quite a while ago I wrote my original post so I thought I might chip in again and explain a bit further and yes this is only one shopkeepers opinion but my explanation of this situation may help others understand. Many retailers have had paypoint for a long time that is true but they have been seriously eroding commission over the years. 15 years ago my paypoint made a profit then it slid until it was costing me money to run. Over the last 5 years or so pp has added more services, these are predominantly bill paying and banking. Customers are paying in large amounts which in turn cost more to bank. In my case 70p in the £100. These types of transaction are killing small businesses. Pp contracts are 5 years in length and hard to get out of. Customers are hard to convert and approx 90% bought nothing else. (This could be due to location, I can’t answer for all shops) I am surrounded by supermarkets.
When Monzo customers are refused some of this may be due to poor training but the vast majority just don’t want the payment as it is costly to them, they will make all sorts of excuses as to why they can’t take the payment.
Pp always instil into retailers they will loose business if the don’t have pp. this is not true in my case I removed pp approx one year ago, so did Another 2 Local shops. In my town that leaves only 2 pp retailers. This must tell you something.
If you have complaint please direct it to Monzo as I am not sure they understand the gravity of the situation.
I fully understand the situation of the Monzo customer, it must be so frustrating but this is the fault of Monzo and paypoint not the shop keeper.
We get enough abuse on a day to day basis.

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Cash is expensive to handle.

And government is trying to push for no-purchase cashback too.

I am confused how a shop can operate on ATM margins, when even ATMs can’t!

You’re right cash is expensive but on the other hand so are card transactions particularly when they are small which is why you see so many small businesses insist on a minimum purchase. With reference to cash back I’m not sure what will happen, we are not a bank, at present my card provider has no facility to allow a cash back if you don’t input a sale amount.
It is small convince stores who will be worst of again.

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Indeed. If it’s uneconomical to run ATMs in small communities, surely the economics don’t add up if you force that on small businesses which themselves don’t have easy access to a bank.

I can see “sorry mate, not enough cash in the till” just becoming the stock answer.

I can see “sorry mate, not enough cash in the till, but there’ll be a Monzo customer wanting to make a deposit along in a minute” not becoming the stock answer.

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It’s great that you’ve been able to get this taken out as it wasn’t working for you

But this seems to be an odd myth that floats around (I’ve had people tell me it’ll cost them anything up to 18% if they accept cards). If you sign a deal with an actual processor, rather than a popup provider, you’ll get rates down to around 0.6% for visa and 0.9% for mastercard. That isn’t a huge amount, especially when compared with paying cash into a business bank account which can be as high as 3%!

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I’ve had this problem in the past and my husband has just had the same at 2 Paypoints. It’s frustrating because he was told at one that they don’t do it and another that they don’t know how. I’ve been told by Paypoint it’s a problem with Monzo and Monza saying there’s a Paypoint problem. This is the only thing that stops me relying totally on my Monzo account :worried:

The PayPoint terminal will work. It’s a staff issue, they think it doesn’t work so don’t want to try.

Next time just tell them to swipe the card, it’ll come up with the option to add cash.

I’ve just evolved into just handing the card over and saying “Can I top this up with £x please”, Had no issues at all since I started doing this. I don’t mention Monzo, or that its a bank, I just treat it the same way I would if it was a gas card or something.

I also think having the Plus card helps, not having all the details on the front makes it a lot less obvious that it’s a debit card so raises lees questions.

It may also be advisable Monzo adding the PayPoint logo to the card(as horrible and cluttered as it would be) so when a shop says you can’t use that with PayPoint you show them the logo.

Having said that, since we moved there’s a PO a lot closer than a cashpoint so I tend to use that with Starling and send it over.

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If you have a Co-op nearby, try them. They usually do it no questions asked. You might need to instruct them to swipe the card instead of putting the chip in depending on the type of till they have, but I find using Co-op a lot less hassle than other retailers.

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Yeah Co-op was the first place I tried because they’re closest. They swiped loads of times even while they were on the phone to Paypoinmt and I was messaging Monzo at the same time but still no luck :worried:

Have you checked to see if your magswipe isn’t faulty?

I raised this a long time ago, but I think having a barcode to scan from within the app would cause far less confusion for all involved, a bit like what Amazon and Smarty do:
Screenshot 2021-10-29 at 13.27.43
Amazon.co.uk: Top Up - In Store: Gift Cards

Here’s the old mock-up I created:

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I didn’t to be honest, because I hadn’t had any problems with it up until then. I have a new card now though so might try again

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I think often people try to pay for paypoint things with credit card which does not work. So try to flash cash first and say I need top up onto this, showing card second works.

I had people fail to find mag strip on the plus card, though until I told them just swipe it, it does work.