Appalling service from Zopa Biscuit a/c

BTB43

I opened my Zopa Biscuit a/c about a month ago, in order to get the savings accounts that go with it. I left £1 in the Biscuit a/c and used my debit card just once.
Last night I moved £1100 from the savings a/c to the biscuit a/c and instructed  them to pay it to someone for building work done. I then notified him this was done.
This morning I got an email saying the payment was pending and might be for 48 hours while they checked into it. So I had to tell the builder this and that was embarrassing.
Then I tried live chat - dead as a doorknob. Then I rang and luckily quite quickly got put onto someone in charge of checking the payment. He did some more checks and has now released the money.
I've wasted a good hour doing all this and am very angry still.
Moral of this story - use one of your main more established bank accounts to pay anything over £50. Zopa aren't really a bank (they borrow Barclays for their "bank account").
I now need to go for a cold shower before I simultaneously combust.

Isthisforreal99

You do realise this could have happened with any bank?

BTB43

Funnily enough it has never happened to me when using Santander, which is the account I usually use for this sort of payment.

Isthisforreal99

BTB43 said:

Funnily enough it has never happened to me when using Santander, which is the account I usually use for this sort of payment.

Which does not mean you will never encounter this issue with them.

ColdIron

IME Santander are one of the worst for withholding payments. Perhaps you have a long standing history of adhoc payments with them which you don't with Zopa. They are just trying to protect your money. Would you feel happy if they paid it and you couldn't get it back or would you be posting that they were reckless?

As above all banks, and Zopa are a bank, can pend payments. Certainly not worth getting angry about

eskbanker

BTB43 said:

Last night I moved £1100 from the savings a/c to the biscuit a/c and instructed  them to pay it to someone for building work done. I then notified him this was done.
This morning I got an email saying the payment was pending and might be for 48 hours while they checked into it. So I had to tell the builder this and that was embarrassing.
Then I tried live chat - dead as a doorknob. Then I rang and luckily quite quickly got put onto someone in charge of checking the payment. He did some more checks and has now released the money.
I've wasted a good hour doing all this and am very angry still.

Just to be clear, the Payment Services Regulations require that Faster Payments must be completed by the end of the working day after the one in which they're initiated, so if you set up a transfer after hours on Thursday, the regulatory requirement is that the money reaches the recipient by the end of Monday.

Obviously many such transfers, especially between direct participants of the FP system, will be much quicker than that though....

Ayr_Rage

Chill!

As above, I've had payments put on hold with Santander and Chase, even when paying into accounts in my own name with other well known banks and institutions including those I have paid previously.

If you have paid Mr A Builder with a transfer to a personal rather than business account thank Zopa for being vigilant.

Hopefully they did a good if you used their personal account but that's a different potential can of worms.

ColdIron

Ayr_Rage said:

As above, I've had payments put on hold with Santander and Chase, even when paying into accounts in my own name with other well known banks and institutions including those I have paid previously.

Chase are quickly climbing up my table of pointless pending payments. To date all but one of them have been long (ish) standing standing orders. Accounts all in my name for unvarying amounts. At least it's easy to sort out and speak to a real person

BTB43

I made the transfer to a business account in the name of the builder's business and this was verified online by the bank before I went ahead.
There aren't many checks banks can make anyway I would have thought. The real issue is that it is still too easy for people to set up fraudulent businesses and bank accounts. That's the area that I don't believe is being policed properly.
From reading other peoples' comments I assume that banks are less restrictive with their "security" measures if you regularly pay large sums to other accounts in your name and/or builders.
I personally have never had a problem with Santander, which of course doesn't mean I won't in future, but as long as my payment profile remains the same with them I think I will just use that account to pay large sums from.

friolento

BTB43 said:

Zopa aren't really a bank (they borrow Barclays for their "bank account").
 

Tell us more. I thought Zopa is a British digital bank (originally a peer-to-peer lender) that now offers savings, loans, credit cards and current accounts as a challenger to traditional banks. AFAIK, Zopa operates independently and is not owned by Barclays, or any other bank. As a challenger bank, Zopa actually competes in the same retail banking space as Barclays and other retail banks do. What have I misunderstood?

ColdIron

BTB43 said:

I made the transfer to a business account in the name of the builder's business and this was verified online by the bank before I went ahead.

That's Confirmation of Payee. It's to ensure that the name of the payee matches the details you entered. Useful to avoid transposition errors or some scams

From reading other peoples' comments I assume that banks are less restrictive with their "security" measures if you regularly pay large sums to other accounts in your name and/or builders.

Yes. Banks are understandably coy about their security measures but a very common one is to see if your activity is within, or way outside of, a pattern of behaviour that they can establish. Your Zopa history will be pretty thin

Not sure they make an exception for builders though