Zopa unaffordable decision upheld

Superkitten76

Hi, long time lurker first time poster. Finally decided to tackle my growing debt situation as repayments have become unsustainable. I’ve followed advice on here (thanks everyone!) after doing the initial online forms with Stepchange, and before setting up a DMP I have stopped payments to save an emergency fund, and will be doing a self managed DMP as each account defaults

I also sent off some standard letters to lenders who had offered me credit when I had high levels of debt already on minimum payments and/or increased credit limits whilst I was shifting between cards and not actually paying off debt. To my suprise a little bit I’ve had the below from Zopa and I just wanted to know what’s peoples advice on the repayment side of things. I still have other cards/loans to default yet before I start repaying, and I was going to offer the payments according to stepchange ratios. But given that Zopa say they will not report the account anymore, does that mean it disappears from my credit report and therefore I would be better making very small token payment and upping some of the other payments once they default to pay those off sooner? 

Thanks 

Complaint Response 

I am writing in response to your complaint received 14 November 2024. I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the service provided at Zopa. Here at Zopa we take complaints very seriously as we aim to have a great relationship with our customers. However, we understand that sometimes things can go wrong.  

  

Your Complaint

From my understanding of your complaint, you are unhappy because you believe that Zopa provided you with an unaffordable credit card. As such you would like a refund of any interest and charges

My findings and conclusion

I’d like to assure you that as a responsible lender, Zopa is confident in the effectiveness of our affordability assessments for our customers. As such, I am satisfied that your application was reviewed fairly taking into account your circumstances at the time. 

Though I am satisfied that our lending policy was correctly relied on, I have reviewed the points you’ve made in your complaint, and having reviewed your application, I am willing to uphold your complaint based on the information you have recently bought to our attention.  

 

Putting things right 

You will not be able to use the credit card moving forward, future interest and charges will no longer be applied, meaning you will only pay back the principal sum of what you have spent, and we will be refunding any past interest and charges.  

For Zopa to do this we will default the contract, but rest assured we will take the appropriate measures to ensure your Credit File is not harmed. However, when we default the agreement, the system may automatically send out the Formal Demand asking for the full remaining balance which we are unable to prevent. Please disregard the demand as it is not applicable to your situation, and we would not want for you to become distressed by this.

Zopa will no longer report the credit card account to the Credit Reference Agencies, and we will also amend any past negative impact and its history.  Just to let you know, as there are multiple credit referencing agencies, it can take 30-60 days for the removal of your data. 

I can confirm the sum of charges and interest throughout the life of the credit card is £350.43.  

 To advise, our calculations in the database are done to 8 decimal places. As such, we will 

then round upwards on your monthly statement to ensure that your balances are cleared with the payments you make.  

Therefore, the sum of all interest and charges on your statements may differ from the total sum above due to this rounding.   

To accommodate this discrepancy, we have added a further £5.00 as a gesture of good will to the refund.   

We will apply the total funds of £355.43 directly to your card balance

Taking into account the refund stated above, your final balance owing is £1,028.13

You can create a plan to your affordability with our Repayments Team, which will be reviewed periodically and should any plan you agree become unaffordable, this can be reviewed sooner upon your request

Please contact our Repayments Team on 0203 770 5960 Monday to Friday 8am-8pm, to create a plan, alternately if you can confirm when it would be convenient for someone to call you from the team, I can have this arranged

fatbelly

If you are going the dmp route, just pay it at whatever your pro-rata rate is

ManyWays

But given that Zopa say they will not report the account anymore, does that mean it disappears from my credit report and therefore I would be better making very small token payment and upping some of the other payments once they default to pay those off sooner? 
Yes I think thats what it means, so I wouldnt stretch to pay more to it, but just get it cleared like any other debt.  

Superkitten76

Thanks, I'll de-prioritise Zopa then I think in order to pay more to the others and get them cleared quicker