Why was my overdraft offer withdrawn?

I don’t know. What I think happens is that there are two soft checks when you open your account: one for identity verification [Edit: not identity verification, sorry. It was an ‘administration review’ - I don’t know what that means] and one quotation search at the same time (presumably to assess whether to offer you an overdraft). In my case, these took place months after I’d opened my account.

From a cursory look at my records, I don’t think that anyone I have a credit relationship with has ever conducted another search after I’ve agreed to take out a product, so I wouldn’t expect Monzo to.

I don’t know if Monzo would carry out other quotation searches on a regular basis to see if they could offer a customer an overdraft (assuming the answer was no in the first place).

My personal preference remains that I’d like to express an interest in a product before any form of check (soft or hard) is done on me. It’s my data - I want to be in control of it.

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This falls short of what I expect from Monzo, and makes me worry about my own overdraft which, like most people, I rarely use, but view as essential to a current account. The message comes across as vague and arbitrary (county court judgements surely don’t apply in the majority of cases?).

IMO Monzo should have given users advance warning (at least 7 days), and you should have told them explicitly what the problem was in each individual case and offered them the chance to discuss it with COPs before any decision was made. It’d be nice if noddle reports were available in app or with an integration too, so that people could see what you base judgements on. Very few consumers have even heard of noddle.

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Maybe that’s something @richardcadman could comment on.

It appears this only affected users who did not their overdraft before, although it looks like not everyone was impacted, as @Peter_G stated above. I agree that a botice-period could have made this less controversial.

It has been my experience as well. That’s why I am surprised about Monzo carrying out periodic soft checks, if that is indeed the case, without me applying for any financial product or overdraft limit increase with them.

It is impossible to disagree. Someone said yesterday that overdrafts are the worst part of Monzo experience. It feels like that. There is a lot of uncertainty and confusion surrounding this part of their operations. In the interest of transparency and trust, it needs to be fixed and clearly spelled out to users

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Another thread about soft searches

I don’t think a notice period would have made a big difference. It would be the same argument, just “Monzo is taking my overdraft in X days” instead of “Monzo is taking my overdraft”.

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For balance, my direct experience has been somewhat positive and, if it hadn’t been for the reports on here, I would be extremely content.

Rightly or wrongly, these anecdotes have made me feel like my relationship with Monzo might be contingent on things that I don’t know about, or that I might somehow be under continual observation.

Now, that might all pass. And it’s quite likely that this is just due to the amplification/bubble effect of the internet. And I don’t rule out the possibility that there’s something that can’t be shared that, if it were, we’d all go “ah, yes, of course”…

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I feel the same way - personal interactions with Monzo have been great, and the customer service has been almost uniformly really good so far. However it is very worrying to hear about arbitrary actions without notice, and it’s important customers give feedback when Monzo are not living up to the high standards they set themselves.

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This thread’s issue is that there’s a large information vacuum that is naturally being filled with our worst suspicions.

I’d put money on us all being pretty happy with the truths of this situation; we’re just not being given them.

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There is a lot of information that monzo can’t give us about their decisions on a wide range of issues. Things like customer privacy, KYC, AML and internal policies for commercial reasons they will have to be vague about or just not provide answers

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The issues we’re speculating about boil down to:

  1. Why was my overdraft cancelled?
  2. Why wasn’t I notified?
  3. When is my credit file checked? (Less relevant to rest of discussion)

Point one has been answered by Richard above, albeit vaguely. As someone else suggested, if the message had said the overdraft was cancelled due to X item on your credit report or even just linked to Noddle then this thread may not have started.

Point two is - I think - a reasonable annoyance. Regardless of any obligations on Monzo’s part, withdrawing someone’s overdraft with no notice and a generic explanation is below Monzo’s usual standard, which is why we’re miffed.

As for the soft credit checks, I personally think that they’re pretty inoffensive. A response along the lines of “Yes, we periodically check your credit report if you have an overdraft” would put a cap on this.

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The problem is, overdrafts are something we all try and avoid being in. They are meant for emergencies not regular borrowing.

People want it as a safety net which means randomly removing it, feels like a kick in the teeth.

I think the difference between this and “legacy” banks, is they have the money to risk a little more. I think they take people’s history with them into account more than a credit score (just like when I couldn’t get credit due to no credit score, Lloyds still offered me a credit card which I used to build a credit score)

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I think you might have got to the bottom of the ovedrafts removal issue. Spot on.

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It’s as good a guess as any but it’s still just guesswork.

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I think in an earlier reply it was mentioned that COps can tell you exactly what new information Monzo has that has caused them to withdraw the overdraft facility.

Perhaps someone will be along soon who has had the facility withdrawn and is willing to share exactly what COps say when asked.

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Not sure that information has been released but it’s an interesting question.

I think I remember reading 37K somewhere.

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Well remembered, you’re right and it’s from this

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I wonder how this compares to legacy banks?

37k out of 750k + current accounts seems low to me

One thing to remeber is that Monzo are still being very careful who they lend to. Hopefully this will change in the future for those that want an overdraft.

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