Looking for some advice (and maybe sanity check) on a really frustrating situation with Monzo.
I run a UK-based business and regularly pay small consultancy fees to sub-contractors around the world. Nothing unusual — just standard international payments. I'm the director and upto date with HMRC, have a personal account with Monzo and have banked wit them for years.
Right now, I’m trying to send $800 to a subcontractor in the United States, and Monzo has flagged the payment as a scam. It’s now been over 72 hours of back-and-forth with them.
So:
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This is not a KYC, AML, or compliance issue (as far as I’ve been told).
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Monzo is insisting the payment is suspicious and says they won't make the payment.
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They’ve demanded a full business invoice from the contractor before they’ll even consider releasing it.
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I reluctantly provided them a basic word based invoice, but they’ve dismissed it as not “genuine” (with no clear explanation).
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Their call centre won’t properly engage — I’m stuck in chat loops with people who say there is nothing that can be done and that I can't speak to a manager.
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Worst of all, I am now locked out of my personal and both business accounts.
I find this incredibly concerning and a real sign of how things are going in the UK regarding the endless sludge that we have to deal with (I've raised it in other threads). It feels like an overreach for a bank to block a legitimate business payment and demand documentation like invoices for peanuts small contractor fees, especially when this is part of our normal day-to-day operations. Being locked out of all my accounts without clear justification has made the situation even more serious, as it is now directly affecting my ability to run my business.
I’m trying to understand whether this is standard practice or if others have faced something similar. I’m aware that going down the Financial Ombudsman route won’t be quick, but I’m wondering if it’s still worth raising at this stage, and whether they would (or should) consider compensation in a situation like this. As things stand, I’m now late on around a dozen payments to suppliers and have a lot of understandably frustrated people chasing me.
Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated, as this has become both disruptive and extremely pi55ed off.
Had the same thing with Lloyds trying to transfer money for a car.
I had spent the previous Saturday driving up and viewing the car , test drive , service history , V5 etc .
Did deal , paid cash holding deposit.
Did some more research once back home and all happy so Bacs across a few hundred to ensure correct bank details.
Next Saturday ring bank to arrange transfer of a couple of thousand balance. Flagged up to scam team and put on hold.
You need to ring bank with the car in front of you.
Ok, so the next day I'm en route so try to do the deal, except now it's photo ID with me and the car and the v5 .
40nmins of back and forwards and the guy on the phone refuses to give me his name or a supervisor to talk to.
It's my money. Got there in the end but it was a proper mission.
No advice on how to sort it out, but our business has had the same, on and off, for several years – we pay a significant sum each month to our hosting provider (currently £20,000 a month). Every so often, our bank decides that the automatic transaction is fraudulent and blocks it. I have tried (again and again and again) to get the supplier white-listed but it doesn't work and I've tried to spell it out to them, in no uncertain terms, that if we don't pay our bill, a significant amount of public-service websites won't be available. They don't care (inserts "computer says no" emoji).
Monzo finally called me this evening and cleared the payment and have apologised to their credit. Still really is frustrating. Anyway onwards!
Just thank your lucky stars you aren't trying to deal with french banks...
Monzo finally called me this evening and cleared the payment and have apologised to their credit. Still really is frustrating. Anyway onwards!
To balance it out they allowed my car insurance to take a double payment last night - especially painful as its a multi-car policy
Is the account a proper business account - you've contacted their business team, jumped through their hoops and they've opened an acct, or just a regular personal account that you've opened yourself and use for your business. IME it can make a difference when it comes to this sort of crap.
plus if it's the former, then a sharply worded email should be going to the advisor that looks after your business for the bank.
It is corporate security theatre.
No it's not, it's banks being incredibly sensitive and alert to payment fraud, because they're generally left on the hook for it even when the customer has been absolute moron. The amounts we're talking about are staggering, literally hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pounds
This can, however, obviously lead to over-sensitivity and false-flagging of payments as in the cases here.