Scammers took £3,500 from my Monzo business account

It should have been an exciting summer for theater maker Hannah Crawford.

Her business, Thistle and Rose Arts, had a packed schedule at the Edinburgh Fringe, but instead she’s mired in stress after scammers deducted £3,500 from the company’s account.

This left her unable to pay staff ahead of the company’s biggest event, and she chased after Monzo to talk to one of their banking specialists.

In early July, Hannah was awakened by a call from an unknown number claiming to be from Monzo. They said someone had tried to spend £7,000 and £3,000 with John Lewis and eBay, and they would send a text to confirm that the payment was not approved.

At that point, they knew Hannah’s address and email address and began asking questions about recent transactions.

The fraudsters said more payments had been made on the card and Hannah had to use her Face ID to approve the payments in order to refund them.

Hannah, who was ill and disoriented, approved payments to a money transfer service before hanging up and realizing what had happened.

The criminals called back to ask about Hannah’s overdraft and asked her to extend it, still assuring Hannah that they came from Monzo. They said they could see she had contacted Monzo’s customer support team in the app, leading them to believe they had access to the account.

This is often a tactic used by scammers who assume that customers contact a bank’s customer support team, but do not actually have access to chat logs. That’s why the scammers asked Hannah to approve the payments.

Monzo has since confirmed that no one else had access to the account.

Hannah then contacted Monzo’s online support team, which registered a dispute and said it would contact her as soon as there was an update. She asked to speak to someone on the phone and Monzo said she would call back within 24 hours.

Having just lost £3,500 in investor money, Hannah asked to speak to someone immediately. Unfortunately she was ignored.

Several times over the next few weeks, Hannah requested a call from a corporate banking specialist, to no avail.

She was passed on to several advisors – from customer service, to fraud, to welfare, and then corporate banking.

She was offered a call to the welfare team after disclosing some personal information, but she was still none the wiser about the status of the fraud investigation or when she might expect a response.

Four weeks had passed and Hannah still hadn’t heard from Monzo about the fraud investigation. In the meantime, she had been able to crowdfund cash flow for another week, but the situation had become desperate.

She says the experience has been “hellish.”

Hannah added: ‘It has taken energy from day to day of our theater show. We considered canceling, which entails reputational damage.

“One of the companies said they are not comfortable keeping the money with us because it is not safe. It has been a bull’s eye for me as a producer.’

Five weeks later, after This Is Money contacted Monzo, the bank said it acknowledged that Hannah’s experience fell below usual standards.

The online bank has refunded Hannah the £3,500 in full and has also offered compensation of £345.

A Monzo spokesperson said: “We are sorry for this customer’s experience, which simply falls short of our usual high standards.

“Our support and communication could have been much better here, which is why, in addition to compensation, we also spoke to the customer and offered compensation.”