Scammers took £3,500 from my business Monzo account

Theatre producer Hannah Crawford had £3,500 taken from company account
It left her unable to pay staff ahead of the Edinburgh Fringe, her biggest event
She waited five weeks for a response from Monzo’s fraud team

Published: 01:00 EDT, 12 August 2023 | Updated: 01:00 EDT, 12 August 2023

It was supposed to be an exciting summer for theatre producer Hannah Crawford.

Her company, Thistle and Rose Arts, was set for a packed schedule at the Edinburgh Fringe, but instead she has been mired in stress after scammers took £3,500 from the company’s account.

It left her unable to pay staff ahead of the company’s biggest event, and she was left chasing Monzo to speak to one of their banking specialists.

Fraudsters took £3,500 from my small business and I had to chase Monzo for weeks

In early July, Hannah was woken by a phone call from an unknown number claiming to be from Monzo. They said someone had tried to spend £7,000 and £3,000 at John Lewis and eBay, and they would send a text to confirm the payment hadn’t been approved.

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

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

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

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

This is often a tactic used by scammers who assume customers will contact a bank’s customer support team, but they don’t actually have access to chat logs. It is why the scammers asked Hannah to authorise the payments.

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

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

What to do if you’ve been scammed

If you’ve been contacted by someone you think may be a fraudster, hang up and call 159 to speak directly to your bank.

It works a little bit like 101 for the police or 111 for the NHS. It’s a number you can trust to safely contact your bank.

Your first port of call should always be your bank, but if you think you’ve been scammed it is always worth reporting it to Action Fraud here.

Given she had just lost £3,500 of investor money, Hannah asked to speak to someone immediately. She was unfortunately ignored.

Over the following weeks, Hannah asked for a phone call with a business banking specialist several times to no avail.

She was passed around several advisers – from customer services, to fraud, to wellbeing and then business banking.

She was offered a call with the wellbeing team, after disclosing some personal information, but she was still none the wiser about the state of the fraud investigation nor when she might expect a response.

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

She says the experience has been ‘hellish’.

Hannah added: ‘It’s taken energy from the day to day of our theatre show. We were considering cancelling, which comes with reputational damage.

‘One of the companies said they’re not comfortable with keeping the money with us because it’s not secure. It has been a confidence hit to me as a producer.’

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

The online bank has fully reimbursed Hannah the £3,500and has offered a £345 compensation payment, too.

A spokesperson for Monzo said: ‘We’re sorry for this customer’s experience which simply does not meet our usual high standards.

‘Our support and communication should have been much better here and that’s why in addition to reimbursing, we’ve spoken to the customer and offered compensation.’

What does the regulator say about fraud?

When it comes to unauthorised payment transactions, the Financial Conduct Authority say refunds must be provided to the customer as soon as practicable ‘and in any event by the end of the business day following the day on which the payment service provider becomes aware of the unauthorised transaction.

The Consumer Duty regulation sets out the way in which firms are expected to support customers. It says it ‘does not mean that we expect firms to always communicate and provide support through each individual customer’s preferred channel, but we do expect firms to provide effective support to their customers in a way that meets their needs.

A spokesperson for the FCA told This Is Money: ‘Payment providers must be contactable at all times so people can report their card lost or stolen or because it needs unblocking.

‘While we do not prescribe which channels of support firms must offer – telephone, email, in branch, text, written, webchat and video calls – they must ensure their support meets the needs of their customers.

‘When people have been victims of fraud, we expect payment providers to look into concerns quickly and make any repayments due promptly.’

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.