Zopa Bank Balance Transfer Credit Card...Useless !

Chrisblue1962

I obtained a Zopa Bank credit card with a balance transfer facility for six months at 0% in November 2023. I tried to do balance transfers from both Vanquis Bank and Aqua cards but both said "We don't do business with Zopa" and refused to process the balance transfer transaction despite Zopa Bank being a UK registered bank. Zopa is no longer a peer-to-peer lender. I also tried to do a balance transfer from Capital One, which also failed. I took this up with both Zopa and Capital One who blamed each other for the balance transfer transaction failing. I complained to Vanquis but they refused to process the balance transfer, this has now been escalted to the Financial Ombudsman. The Zopa app through which balance transfers are requested is useless as it just repeatedly says "Oops, we have a problem" - in short, useless ! Any ideas?

Chrisblue1962

Apologies should read "...this has now been escalated to the Financial Ombudsman."

danthemoneysavingman

Zopa appear to be failing the "treat customers fairly" requirement of banking by not stating those other providers that refuse to deal with them in this regard.
The ombudsman will deal with this but your BT requirement will still not be met - their timescales are usually extensive.
Zopa should want to avoid the complaint going there as they have to pay an immediate 600 or 900 charge, so am surprised they are not doing more in the B2B space to get this resolved, not just for you but for all (potential) customers.

Best of luck but you should look elsewhere for now and consider my words for your complaint - DYOR etc.

All the best

DullGreyGuy

danthemoneysavingman said:

Zopa appear to be failing the "treat customers fairly" requirement of banking by not stating those other providers that refuse to deal with them in this regard.
The ombudsman will deal with this but your BT requirement will still not be met - their timescales are usually extensive.
Zopa should want to avoid the complaint going there as they have to pay an immediate 600 or 900 charge, so am surprised they are not doing more in the B2B space to get this resolved, not just for you but for all (potential) customers.

Who accepts their money and doesn't is totally out of Zopa's hands and unless they do a test transaction everyday they equally would have no idea if the counterparty have changed their views or not.

I'd agree with the OP's original approach that the complaint is with the banks refusing the funds and not with Zopa.

The ombudsman fee is not the boogeyman people seem to think it will be. 99% of the time businesses will stick to their principles and pay the FOS fee rather than incorrectly pay the customer something the FS company doesn't believe is due. It would be a highly slippery slope if a FS company had a policy that any demand for £500 or less should be paid out rather than let any such complaint go to the FOS

Dobbie1999

Had exactly the same issue with both Barclaycard and Lloyds Bank CC, refusing balance transfers from Zopa. Very much hid behind the vague T and Cs and like the OP states, they both opt to blame each other. Barclaycard couldn't give me an answer as to why, which I found the most frustrating. I'd be more accepting if they just said "we don't deal directly with Zopa because...", rather than the comment I got which is "it's an automatic process, so it's not a decision made by a person" - surely a person sets the algorithm or ticks the box that says "do not accept Zopa"...

Lodged a complaint with Barclaycard, but I think that was more out of frustration at the time the transfer wouldn't go through, so not sure I'll make the effort with the FOS.

pencakes26

Also had this issue - only signed up for a new card for the purposes of a balance transfer. It would just be helpful if they said who they did and didn't accept for this, it's impossible to find out, they only reference Barclays partner cards as ones they don't accept transfers from. I guess businesses can work how they please but it's just a bit frustrating. 

ManyWays

edited as I didnt read the thread properly!

Barkin

ManyWays said:

There was a FOS decison against Zopa on exactly this last year https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-4357429.pdf

That's not exactly this same scenario though, is it?  In fact, it's exactly the opposite.