Monzo.. Your opinion?

mr_stripey

Fighter1986 said:

Their social media presence is utterly juvenile. Incredibly immature posts; they try to be edgy and modern but frankly they're just embarrassing. Certain posts spring to mind where they try to incite arguments between partners in a relationship, showing that when you buy a coffee your other half gets an instant push notification and gives you a lambasting. Dangerous territory, tantamount to coercion. I found it utterly embarrassing to have my banking with an institution which conducts itself this way. 

It's none of my business what my OH spends his money on. It's his money, his life, and I trust him. These are the values a banking institution should be publicising, if any; not the opposite. If they want to be the new face of British banking they have a responsibility to society to push good values if they're going to push any. 

I think the notifications only pop up (on each other's phone) if you are set up as a "joint" account?
And whilst that might not be for you, there could be some couples for whom that might be a goof thing - you only have to see how many posts on here about "hidden debt from partner". 

I have a standard Monzo account which I pay in my "leftover" money each month (after mortgage, bills, savings etc) and I use it for my day to day grocery shopping etc. The "instant" running balance is ideal for me (who often used to forget about Friday night takeway until it appeared as a £30 debit the following Wednesday in my traditional bank account!)

The details of what I am spending certainly don't appear on my wife's phone, however IF she had a Monzo account AND we made them a joint account AND we set the notifications up that way then I'm sure she would be able to!

jonnygee2

I was happily using Monzo for the past 6 months and ran into a problem yesterday and was advised to reinstall the app.  Since then I cant use it at all and customer services cut you off after 5 minutes.  I`ve wasted 5 hours trying to sort it out so I`m moving to Starling.

It's a shame I've heard this quite a lot recently.

Monzo is my main bank and one of the reasons i switched to them was the good customer service. It did take a while to get a response sometimes but when i got through they sorted everything very quickly. Still, they were also small then, I think all the CS was run out of their London main office, by now it's probably outsourced.

I haven't had to speak to them before but generally one bad customer service experience and I switch away. This is why I left Barclays and Starling! If I hear much more I might pre-preemptively switch away before I'm left in the ****.

harsh_but_fair

Lots of differing views on monzo.

Probably best summarised by remembering what the man with the wooden leg said.....

Mandy278

Up until last month I was very happy with Monzo and like others have said it helped me do my finances better.  However, they recently froze my partners account with no reason or correspondence.  We still to date do not know why as they will not speak with him.  Monzo has made him feel like a criminal when all he was doing was paying his wages in, using for travel, food etc.  Luckily we had another account and when they froze his Monzo account there was no money in it.  Others have not been so fortunate and if you google Monzo frozen account it will bring up lots of complaints.  There is also a recent Guardian report on this.  I have taken the decision to close my Monzo, sadly, as I cannot trust them and that they may at any moment without warning freeze my account, I simply cannot afford to take that risk.  In fact it has made me very nervous about any of the banks even though I have had a bank account with other high street banks for over 30 years with no issues.  It has now made me worry about what I am doing on my accounts and whether I should transfer that £50 to my son, will I be accused of being a money launderer, its how Monzo have made us feel.  So if it was me I would have to say avoid Monzo (sadly).  

ozaz

Mandy278 said:

if you google Monzo frozen account it will bring up lots of complaints  

You can replace Monzo with any bank in that sentence and the sentence would still hold true.

I think Monzo do have a customer service issue which probably compounds frozen account issues when they occur, but yet to see robust evidence that people are more likely to suffer frozen account with Monzo than with another bank.

Emmia

ozaz said:

Mandy278 said:

if you google Monzo frozen account it will bring up lots of complaints  

You can replace Monzo with any bank in that sentence and the sentence would still hold true.

I think Monzo do have a customer service issue which probably compounds frozen account issues when they occur, but yet to see robust evidence that people are more likely to suffer frozen account with Monzo than with another bank.

Either way, the risk of account freezing means that placing all your financial eggs in one basket / having accounts with a single provider whether it is app only banks like Monzo / Starling,  or traditional banks with a bricks and mortar presence like HSBC / Barclays... is probably not the best idea. 

Fighter1986

I've fully transferred my banking away from Monzo to Nationwide and am very happy. The switch was seamless and I don't feel like I'm banking via a child's plaything any more.