Not upheld: deposit verification and account handling complaint against Trading 212 UK Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs M complained that Trading 212 improperly returned a deposit to her ISA without proper contact or explanation. Trading 212 had returned the funds because the deposit notation showed only a partial surname and initial, appearing to come from a third party account, which violated their terms and conditions. The firm sent a verification email on the day of deposit but received no response and returned the funds eight days later. The ombudsman found Trading 212 acted fairly by following their terms and conditions, sending timely verification requests, and waiting an appropriate period before returning the funds, and rejected Mrs M's arguments regarding inadequate contact and vulnerability considerations.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

Trading 212 followed their terms and conditions which require deposits to be from accounts in the customer's own name. The firm acted fairly by sending a verification email on the day the deposit arrived, explaining the name mismatch issue, and waiting eight days before returning the funds. The ombudsman found that one email was sufficient contact as the returned funds would have been visible in the original sending account, providing an indicator that the deposit was not accepted. The ombudsman rejected the argument that follow-up communications were necessary and found no evidence that Trading 212 should have known Mrs M was vulnerable.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website