Why I'm leaving Monzo

Feedback & Ideas
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I’ve been thinking about switching to a different bank for a while and I finally did it yesterday. I wanted to write down my reasoning, partially as a note to myself in case I ever think about coming back and partially in the hope that it’ll be listened to for the sake of other users. So here it is:

The quality of the help and support you can get has dropped massively since I first signed up. At some point, maybe 2-3 years ago, the help section of the app was redesigned in a way that can only be described as user-hostile. There were lots of individual help pages that you would end up being shunted between which only ever gave the most basic information and never were able to help you with your actual problem, and in particular it was - I’m sure deliberately - very difficult to find the button to talk to an actual person. Additionally, the quality of the support you get when you do actually get through to someone has dropped massively as well. It’s so difficult to get to a point where the agent actually understands the problem in the first place, and even then it’s rare that you get a satisfying resolution.

The quality of the app has dropped significantly too. One of the main reasons I switched to Monzo in the first place is that the app was reliable, fast, and well designed. It’s a regular occurrence now that I either can’t figure out how to achieve a given task, or that the app spews out a bunch of error messages for an action that should really have just worked. For example, when my debit card was approaching expiry, whenever I attempted to confirm my address for shipping the new one, I would just receive a generic error with no information. The ‘confirm your address’ popup didn’t go away for a week, which was annoying. Eventually they just shipped the card to my address anyway. Another example: I wasn’t able to figure out how to remove a spending target just now. I did however manage to get the app to spew out a bunch of generic error messages in the process.

So many upsells! It’s so clear that Monzo don’t respect the customer in the way they approach design any more. It feels like almost every part of the app is now designed to improve internal metrics that eventually contribute to Monzo’s bottom line, rather than being designed to allow customers to achieve the tasks they actually opened the app for. Cashback offers, upsells for Extra, Plus, etc in literally every place in the app that there’s a feature that’s only available for some plans, having a placeholder Starling account come up alongside my accounts with a ‘see your Starling balance in Monzo’ after I made a payment to my Starling account from Monzo, etc…

Lack of care around basic features. For example, I was really excited to hear when Monzo started offering a credit card, and I really like Flex’s 3 month interest-free feature. But I was really disheartened to see that the transaction search feature just doesn’t work for Flex transactions at all! It’s insane to me that this isn’t supported.

It’s genuinely a bit upsetting to me to see this happen, because I think Monzo really used to be special and now I think of it as just another bank that just doesn’t happen to have any branches. I’d probably go for a standard high street bank over Monzo these days. Any Monzo employees who are reading this: I’m sure there are people internally who are pleading for Monzo to change course and start caring about the customer again; please listen to them!

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2

That’s a shame, but yeah I hear you. I’ve not used monzo in a while, just keep it as it’s easy to send folks money who do have monzo.

Where did you end up moving to?

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3

I feel you, I also jump ship last week. I am about to take out a lump sum from my pension to pay off my mortgage and didn’t trust Monzo to be able to do that without triggering all sorts of issues.
(Bear in mind the first time I paid in my Salary and tried to move some to ‘bill’ account with Santander they locked my account down)

Also for me the app is really busy. I thought I would miss the notifications but my accounts with RBS and BOS also give these now.

I will miss the pots and virtual cards

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Grab them for free with revolut. I use revolut just for the virtual cards.

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Where did you end up moving to?

Starling - I’ve heard good things and from their website it sounds like they understand the value of good support. I’ve not really used it for anything yet though so it’s a bit early for me to compare. It does seem a lot less cluttered than monzo at first glance.

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6

Really interesting read and good luck with the switch.

What was most interesting was that none of the points where what I expected to read, mainly because they’re all longstanding issues that haven’t really changed all that much over the years (to me at least)

  • CS support being hard to reach, or difficult
  • Half-Finished products being released (though, it was better in the early years with genuine community involvement which I think does still happen, but no where near to the level it used to)
  • A lack of strategy around product development (at least to the public)
  • Upsells
  • Abandonware//good enough for now approach

There’s obviously a lot of great things Monzo are doing, and will do of course but then again no one would leave if they found it perfect, and wouldn’t post about it.

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This is a relatively new thing that really became very aggressive this year. It’s everywhere throughout the app now. Unavoidable. And for just about every product you don’t have. Even if you have marketing disabled.

I can’t go through a single week without having investments and the premium accounts shoved in my face, and Monzo aren’t my main account anymore. It’s literally just pet insurance payments passing through from my insurer for me to send on to Chase. A fleeting app launch once or twice a week.

Every payment from my insurance provider triggers marketing prompts to get me to invest it with Monzo’s investments product. Every transfer out to Chase triggers a prompt to get me to sign up to Perks and connect my Chase account.

Every app launch brings up a full screen page trying to get me to either order a standard card or re-upgrade my account to keep my current one. This is more one of my own making in that I’m stubborn and refuse to replace my holographic blue card, but if Monzo were really serious about enforcing that, they’d cancel and replace my card automatically upon downgrading. Instead, they’re choosing to use it as an opportunity to upsell you back to a paid account.

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To be fair to them at least they are using the same features to promote some free features like added security

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When I send money to my savings accounts the app asks if I want to invite them to Monzo…EVERY…BLUMMIN…TIME

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I closed my Revolut… too janky for me all the crypto sh!t as well no thanks, also not happy with the ownership or it’s chairmam.

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:eyes:

That crypto you can just ignore and not bother with?

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Not just that there is a dedicated toggle to remove it all from the app in settings

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Ah yeah, I thought it removed stocks. To remove both would be good.

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Fixed that by getting every product you can have.

But seriously, I agree that if this is going on at this level (and I’ve no reason to doubt any of the growing reports on this forum about it), it’s not good at all. Certainly enough to drive people away.

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It feels like almost every part of the app is now designed to improve internal metrics that eventually contribute to Monzo’s bottom line

This is such an insightful comment and when you look you can see it everywhere.

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Hey you do you, but for me the very fact that a ‘bank’ has links to crypto sounds the alarm bells for me. I stopped using Brave Browser for the same reason.

And yes in both cases you can flick a switch to turn off the crypto stuff but it doesn’t remove the taste from my mouth.

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What’s the chew with crypto?

Fraud occurs in all forms of financial products if that’s your excuse.

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I think beyond upselling it has also become incredibly naggy about free features that I’m fully aware of but just don’t find useful. I feel like I’m constantly dismissing prompts to get my money early, split the bill, sort every incoming payment etc.

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Or the crap coming out of it, clearly.

I’m no fan of crypto but a bank merely having involvement with it, is no reason to switch.

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A bit harsh. If your bank isn’t working for you (whether that’s through features or anxiety about the bank’s links with other system) then the obvious thing is to change. It’s the main focus of your financial life, so you want it to be right for you.

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