Hi all...
I was reading through these forums recently and found a wealth of Information, particularly @BankFodder's contributions and many others.
I was wondering if anyone can help regarding my situation - any advice is greatly appreciated.
I do appreciate that everyone has a full time job as well.
But here's the situation.
First things first:
last year, on 18th July 2022, Monzo have unilaterally decided to close my account, which I'd held for a good few years previously. They just notified me via in app messaging that effective immediately my access to the account is denied and the account is closed. Which was a bit odd- but fair enough, they have that right.
Only issue I had with that is that on the same day I had 2 Universal Credit payments go into said account. One was a payment advance (which is a loan from DWP that I am repaying over 24 monthly installments retained by Universal Credit from my benefits) and the other a cost of living supplement- totalling just over £1500.
I contacted Monzo straight away via phone and email and was promised a refund of these 2 payments within 4 weeks. I'd lodged a formal complaint with Monzo as well and was offered £30 compensation in their final offer letter (which I incidentally refused).
Needless to say that they never paid me back my Universal Credit payments, saying that because I was overdrawn at the time of these 2 payments, Monzo was taking it upon themselves to appropriate those funds to cover the overdraft on the account.
I have offered to pay the overdraft in instalments as long as I had my Universal Credit payments sent to a different account so I can live off them. That never happened so I did some research on what can be done. The CAG forum was unknown to me at the time, otherwise I would have proceeded with your members' help.
Subsequently I filed a claim on my own with Money Claims Online around August 2022 which went ahead to be allocated to Central London County Court after going back and fourth with correspondence and the motions of a failed poor mediation service.
I have today just received the second (unkind and threatening) offer from their legal team to drop legal action in return for them renouncing all threats of legal costs.
I do know my rights (namely right of appropriation and set-off of all benefits payments to be used for their intended purposes) which I cited in my previous letter to the legal team. But I'm now finding myself in a kind of twisted timeline according to which they claim I knew the account was being closed, yet I allowed the Benefit payments to be used for covering the overdraft.
Which was definitely not the case - the money went in before I had any knowledge of account closure, only for the account and access to it to be denied a few minutes later. I have a paper trail of emails and chats confirming this version as well as Universal Credit journal attesting to payment being sent and encashed by Monzo. I can attach these letters on here if it helps put things in context.
And to add insult to injury, the account is defaulted with CRA's, even though it is still subject to legal dispute. Granted, there was an extra £170 pounds left to completely cover the overdraft which I was unable to pay back due to the confiscated benefits, but I did offer to pay it back in instalments had I been refunded the means to pay it back, namely the very Universal Credit payments they took from me.
Can anyone please help as to how I should proceed in this matter?
I only became aware of Particulars of Claim needing to be filed after reading through this forum. And upon reviewing past correspondence from court, Monzo's legal buffs had previously made a motion to strike out legal action a few months ago on the basis of limited POC. However, legal claim was allowed to proceed to Central London County Court and I am yet to receive allocation of case hearing.
Let me know if I should upload any of these letters on here.
And btw I am willing to take it all the way to Court if I have any chances of fixing my DIY claim.
Many thanks again for any contributions.