Have you had an email from the Sunny Administrators?
On 4 November 2020, KPMG, the Administrators of Elevate Credit International, are starting to email more than 500,000 Sunny customers who could get a refund for some of their borrowing.
The Administrators have developed a Claims Calculator to work out which loans were likely to have been “unaffordable”.
If you get this email it is because they have decided some of your loans were unaffordable.
Sunny had about 700,000 customers, so for 500,000 of them to have been mis-sold loans is a shockingly large number.
By contrast, the Wonga administrators only had to pay out to about 400,000 customers. (Although that was because not all Wonga customers put in a claim. The Sunny administrators have been fair and assessed all customers. So we know that half a million figure is right.)
The Administrators are also warning there may not be enough money to distribute if too many people make claims. Even less than the Wonga customers received.
Background to the Sunny administration
- Affordability complaints: How to get a payday loan refund – with template letters
- Sunny’s payday lending – concerns about regulatory clarity
- Kerrigan v Elevate – Sunny loses a major court case
- Sunny goes into administration
- Sunny administration – some loans written off & the rest sold to a debt collector
No refund unless you now make a claim
You won’t be automatically paid a refund. When you have this email, you still have to submit a claim for your refund, but it will be easy.
The emails are going out in batches, so don’t worry if you haven’t had one – but check your spam folder. You can still put in a claim even if you haven’t received the email.
To make a claim, log into your Sunny “MyAccount”. If you can’t do this, contact customer services on 0800 7315 444 in order to reset your details.
When you are logged in, it will say how much redress has been calculated for you and you can then submit a claim.
This applies even if Sunny had agreed to pay you money before they went under, you had won your case at the Ombudsman or if you have sent Sunny a complaint – you still have to submit a claim now.
The deadline for claims is the end of January 2021.
If you disagree with the amount calculated, you can manually submit a claim for another amount for assessment by the Administrators. As so little will be paid out you may feel there is no point in doing this.
You may only get 1% of that redress… or nothing!
You will not get the full amount of that redress figure that has been calculated.
The Administrators are warning that there is very little money to distribute – they call this “a dividend”. If too many people claim, there may be nothing:
If a very high volume of claims and queries is received, it is likely that the operating costs of responding to queries and processing and adjudicating claims will become so high that no funds will be available for a dividend to be paid to creditors.
If a lower volume of claims and queries is received and a dividend can be made, the dividend is likely to be a very low percentage of your claim… we estimate that any dividend payable could be less than 1p in the £ and that any payment would likely be made in Spring 2021.
If it is decided that there aren’t enough funds to pay any dividend, the Administrators will apply to the court for permission to donate the remaining money to a debt charity.
Of course this news could put off so many people from claiming that hardly anyone does… in which case those that do may get a refund.
Your credit record will be cleaned this month
The only good news here is that the Administrators are going to automatically clean up your credit record:
- for the first five of the loans that have been decided to be unaffordable they will remove any defaults or missed payment markers;
- all unaffordable loans after the first five will be deleted from your credit record.
This is trying to follow what the Financial Ombudsman typically did in Sunny cases where there were a lot of loans.
The credit record updates and deletions should be done by the end of November. You don’t have to do anything to get this to happen. The loans will be cleaned/deleted even if you do not put in a claim.
If there is any chance you may want to make an affordability claim in future about anything – credit card, overdrafts etc not just high cost loans – then I suggest you immediately take a copy of your credit records while they still show the Sunny loans. See Get your credit records for free for how to do this.
“Ripped off by Sunny, now let down by the regulators”
Many people will feel horrified when they see all the loans that have been assessed as unaffordable and the large amount of interest they paid on those loans.
It isn’t the Administrators fault the refunds will be so low, they are just dividing up what money there is.
It is the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) fault:
- despite the rules about checking affordability, Sunny was allowed to carry on lending;
- the FCA didn’t insist Sunny had enough capital to pay out compensation claims; and
- the FCA hasn’t provided any back-up scheme to pay the compensation. If a PPI firm went bust, you would still have received a PPI refund in full from the FSCS scheme – but that doesn’t apply to payday loans.
Can you get a refund from Provident?
Get a refund from a guarantor loan
Refunds from large loans & car finance
Mat says
I got an email from Sunny today saying they’re contacting credit reference agencies to get things like this settled also in the same email a form to make a claim for the amount of £6,648 which they think will be more around £66.48. Stings a little but better than nothing
D says
Big news got the re- dress email withpre populated claim Calculator- Anyone else? Credit records will be removed from file – thank god.
Martin says
It’s kinda hilarious to see that the financial company a few years ago was able to pay for TV ads and commercials, now barely have any money. left. Apart from added 8% to the claim, we were asking only for the interest refund (on already repaid capital). Is there any way to see the Elevate payroll records from the 12 months before they went bust?
So a question remains: where all the marmalade is gone?
Jim says
Previous poster queried “where has all the money gone?” in relation to Sunny and their TV ads etc.etc.
Well, it is possible to do searches on Companies House for them – this will give you updates on any progress with the administration process too.
It’s also interesting that Sunny (or Elevate Credit International Limited) had a parent company based in USA (called Elevate) which obviously is nothing to do with this and will carry on trading as normal! So putting two and two together and wondering where all the money has gone.
Just some figures from their latest published accounts (to to Dec 2018): They had fixed assets worth £6.4m, £9.7m in the bank, they were owed nearly £41m (presumably by people holding loans at that point in time). They owed around £4m to their “suppliers/lenders” (in the short term, i.e. payable within a year) and owed another £31m on long term borrowing. Their accounts show they had a borrowing arrangement (i.e. they borrowed the funds from a lender and then lent out to us at their exorbitant APR!) at around 15% per year. Anyway – quick Google search for anyone.
Tyler N says
UPDATE REGARDING SUNNY. Looking disappointing for redress claims.
We are currently submitting updates to credit reference agencies in order to amend customers’ credit files for loans that have been deemed unaffordable. No action is needed by you in this regard.
We are now inviting customers to submit creditor claims. Per ECIL’s records, you have submitted a redress related complaint and therefore may be a creditor of ECIL. If you wish to submit a claim in the administration, please log in to your MyAccount portal on http://www.sunny.co.uk to submit your claim. The claim submission deadline is 31 January 2021.
Please note, it is uncertain whether there will be sufficient funds to allow a distribution to be paid to unsecured creditors and should there be sufficient funds, the expected distribution rate is forecast to be very low and could be less than one pence in the pound.
There are a number of proposed decisions which we are asking creditors to vote on. A unique link to where you can vote is provided here. Votes must be submitted by 30 November 2020.
Welsh girl says
Thank you so much for this! I haven’t had an email yet but logged in to my account and have a potential redress of around £2000 however I’m not holding out hope it’s going to be that much 😂
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Indeed. You may get £20…
Pjn says
Frustrating had my case with Sunny previously go to ombudsman and everything rejected when I’ve logged in its stated my claim would have been almost £450 😩😩
Nick says
Feel extremely lucky that I made an affordablilty claim at the end of last year which Sunny actually upheld (once I went to the MD). I got about £3K refunded. Just got in there in time. Comiserations to all those who didn’t.
Lee sharratt says
I agreed to 45 pound . Why I don’t know. But there u go. Hopefully be more with icl
Emma says
Hi, I have just been onto my sunny account and did an affordability complaint. It says I am due just over £500 but will only get about £5 of that. The problem I have is I still owe the money but the loan has been sold to SLL Capital. With wonga they took the full amount off what I still owed, which I was hoping they’d do here but as Its been sold do I still have to pay it all back and only receive £5 from sunny? I hope this makes sense
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I am surprised this has happened. Was the last loan one of the ones being refunded?
Emma says
I’m not sure how to check that? It just took me straight to how much I was due.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, I suggest you phone up customer services and ask them why as you have had redress calculated this hasn’t been used to offset the balance owed. Be persistent.
Emma says
Thankyou I’ll ring them tomorrow. Because its sold to SLL Capital though do they have power to do that?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, a lender can always buy back a debt.
Emma says
well ive been on the phone to sunny and got nowhere. Basically all ill get back from the £558 is a couple of pounds and they will not take the amount off my debt as its with SLL Capital now. Seems quite unfair as the loan was unaffordable and I shouldn’t be having to pay it. Basically its not their problem now as it was sold on
Rich in the boro says
When I log in to my account it says they can’t offer me a loan but can pass my details on to another company who might be able to help!
Have emailed them for assistance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Is there not a link to page to put in a claim?
Andy says
£6k odd it’s saying my potential claim is and I’ll get max of £60 Back. That is mental that this company has got away with this.
Dan says
Hi
I logged in this morning to see that I they were not considering my loan as unaffordable as the claims calculator didn’t indicate this . I fail to see how this is possible given that I had taken out other payday loans at the time of my application and the loan was for £500 , I also entered into a debt management plan shortly after taking out the loan in 2014 . I really need to get this loan removed from my credit files as it’s the only creditor who didn’t default during my DMP , it’s currently showing as settled on my report after they wrote of the loans this month .
I’ve submitted a manual claim as this was an option when I logged into my account but I’m not holding out much hope .
Dan
Sara (Debt Camel) says
£500 is very marginal to win a one loan complaint at the Ombudsman.
The problem really for you is that they should have marked the loan as defaulted in 2014/early 2015 – if they had, it would be dropping off soon. that is what you need to push for really, not for the loan to be upheld as unaffordable.
Dan says
Hi
That’s all I want I don’t really care about the refund it’s the late payment markers on my credit files that are what I need removing . I have made complaints to them in the last few months that the loans should have been defaulted and they refused to add a backdated default to 2014. They have now said in their webiste and In the email that they sent today that they are handing the management of the accounts to the credit reference agencies if amendments need to be made . I can’t see how the credit reference agencies will be able to make amendments though without consent from sunny ! This is taken from their website :
We have transferred the control of maintaining any remaining records to the credit rating agencies, as we will not be maintaining these records going forward. Any further queries regarding entries on customers’ credit files in relation to ECIL loans should be raised with the relevant agency directly.
Regards
Dan
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, then you can complain directly to the CRAs – which CRAs show this loan?
Dan says
All 3 unfortunately ! I’ve raised Experian and Transunion today will do the same with equifax tomorrow . I’ve just never heard of credit reference agencies being given the power to amend entries on credit records ! Very bizarre .
Regards
Dan
Sara (Debt Camel) says
oh they can, but they normally won’t, passing the buck to the lender. But here the CRA has a duty to ensure the info that is recorded about you is accurate, and if Sunny won’t correct it, they should.
Shane says
I got an email but account says they dont owe me anything and cant find out the amount of past loans, think I tried to apply before and was turned down as it was before they were taken over or something, not sure if I am thinking of the same company or not, but know I did have loans with them in the past, not massive amount, hundreds rather than thousands so probably not worth anything even if they are wrong.
Shane says
Ahh wrong email, they now say the amount is £297 so should maybe get £2.97, I’ll try not to spend it all at once if I get it lol
D says
Sara – I have rang up, here is some additional info. Whilst they provide you a redress amount. They dont specify exactly what loans that this relates to. You have to email in and ask. Could it be some loans are not included in the redress calc? It may take some time for them to conclude what loans are deleted, i sincerely hope all are removed.
Craig says
Difficult one to swallow for me this. I repeatedly complained with Sunny back in 2017, unfortunately due to ongoing personal issues I missed the cut off to take to the ombudsman. I tried to re complain after this point but they wouldn’t accept it. Just logged in and £3500 redress amount, likely to get a measly £35. I guess there’s some positives to take – I had an outstanding amount of £529 which had been frozen since my initial complaint in 2017 – I was emailed a couple of months ago to say this was being cleared and no further payments required along with all history being removed from credit file.
GS says
I made a complaint back in January, they offered me £1198.68. I worked out I was probably owed about £2, but I accepted the £1198.68 for fear of them going under like Wonga and the rest. Very, very glad I did as they paid up just in time for my birthday, in April. I feel for everyone who are putting their claims in now, and I urge you to put claims in with every unaffordable loan you’ve ever had! Before it’s too late!
Good luck, everyone.
daniel says
£5,400 potential redress claim, I always knew I should have pushed harder with refund claims from Sunny.
On the brighter side (in large thanks to your wonderful website Sara) I did get claims back from wonga / payday etc. and am now in a far better position. So much so, for what it’s worth I checked the option to donate any proceeds I might get to a charity.
Keep up the great work Sara, you make a huge difference to peoples lives when they really need it.
Lee says
Hi Sarah I have an email from sunny saying they owe me £2600. I know I won’t get this but my debt with them was sold off to another company and I still owe the debt approx £460 can I get this written off now
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good question. – I suggest you ask customer services.
Who is the debt currently with?
LEE HODSON says
The company is sll capital , they bought from Sunny
any idea how I can find out wether I can stop paying to sll capital as they got the debt now
Emma says
I have the same problem. Phoned sunny and they basically told me I still have to pay SLL Capital and its not their problem. Not sure what to do now
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Lee and Emma,
the administrators say they will not be buying back the debts from SLL. because it would not be a good use of their limited funds.
I suspect there is no way you can challenge this.
BUT if you ask the administrators to give you a letter saying that the loan sold to SLL has been detemined to be unaffordable, then you could try putting in a complaint to SLL and asking for the interest to be removed from the balance. That doesn’t get you a refund from the previous loans, but may help with the outstanding one?
Nick Harbinger says
I was offered £800 a few weeks before they went into administration as a result of irresponsible lending, when I was really entitled to at least £1500 and had the FOS fighting my case. Before I could even reject the offer the rug was pulled from under us.
Re-applied yesterday and the calculator (based on the 1p in the £ assumption) suggested that I’d get £4.00 (Four pounds!) which is hilarious.
That’s business, I guess. At least there won’t be any more people taken in by their bright TV ads, friendly website and shady lending practices.
Paul says
£9351 in my email, not proud, but i must be one of the highest. £93.51 offered, but will obviously be less or even nothing at all. I’ve just got to accept that now, even though i was already going through a claim with them for several months. I’m more bothered about the loans being removed from my credit file as it’s stopping me getting a mortgage. From the amount they’ve quoted me, they’ve deemed EVERY single loan i’ve been provided as unaffordable, spanning multiple years (crazy i know!). With all of them removed, i won’t have any history of payday loans on my credit file, so this is massive for me. The email isn’t clear as to when this is going to happen –
“Where the Claims Calculator has assessed loans as unaffordable, we have requested that amendments are made to customers’ credit files by the credit reference agencies. This activity is being performed irrespective of whether a customer has actually submitted a complaint/claim or not. ECIL has provided information to the relevant credit reference agencies so that they can make the amendments. It may take the credit reference agencies several weeks to process the large volumes of data and therefore customers should not expect updates to be seen before 30 November 2020.”
So i don’t need to do anything then? and hope they will disappear on my credit file soon? for other companies (Wonga as an example), this was only done after the whole process was completed.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You don’t need to do anything. The administrators are telling the CRAs this month but it may take a while for them to show up on your credit reports.
D says
Paul how did you work out the redress equals every loan. Is it the interest or loan taken out you totalled up? I have circa 5000 figure quoted but my borrowing was totalling circa 10k. I’m exactly like you its killed my credit file over the years!
Paul says
I just know that my total borrowed plus interest is less than what they’ve quoted me, so the extra must be the interest. it says something in the email about after the first 5 loans, they will delete all the others.
Nathan says
Been here for months now and I would like to say thank you Sara for such an informative and helpful website.
Not sure if I’ve just got lucky here but I’ve just received a refund today from Sunny for £241.90 and prior to this £600 outstanding balance written off too. I had 9 loans altogether totalling £3000 but considering they’re in adminstration and the worry of receiving 1p to £, its not turned out too bad.
Good luck to the rest of you that are waiting.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
you have received a cash refund?
Nathan says
It shocked me too but its in my bank account already.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Were you making payments after the administration started?
Nathan says
So Sunny went into administration in June and my last payment was the end of September which I’ve just checked equals the amount I got back in cash. Why have they done that?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Because they owed you money at the start of the administration for the mis-sold loans. This is a return of the money you paid rather than a refund. But good to get it back!
B says
Hi,
I think i may of had the same, I had a bank giro credit made to my bank this morning, I’ve got no idea what it is or who its from, just says bank giro credit and a 6 digit number, was this how yours was paid as i’ve been racking my brain to work out what the hell it is
Nathan says
Yes this was how mine was paid. I wasn’t sure either at first until I searched for the number in my emails and realised it was a complaint reference number.
B says
Just checked and its what I paid them in September :)
Jane says
They had agreed with the ombudsman £3,500 and a week later they go bust had an offer of £35. . I now have a settlement figure from lending Stream of £4,500 I suspect they will be next
Iain123 says
Any news on how much the administrators are getting?
Will this affect The Money Shop pay out? Once the administrators realise they can get away with paying nothing what’s to stop them trying it on with TMS?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The administrators fees are in their Proposals and will be updated in the 6 month report.
No this won’t affect TMS.
RJ says
Checked the website, they anticipate £8 redress for me! More interested to see if the loans will disappear from my credit file, 42 over 3 years! Stuck in a circle. I’d rather they cleared my file than gave me £8 to be honest!
Sharon says
Hi All,
Anyone else had this issue please?
I had agreed a redress amount of £2064 prior to Sunny going into administration. I have just logged in and my redress amount is much less, £586. I would have thought they would use the original amount, I do realise we will only get a few pounds if anything but don’t understand why it would be so different, tia x
Sharon says
Hi Sara,
Are you able to advise please? Sunny have suggested submitting another claim, I just don’t understand why both amounts would be so different, any ideas? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t know, you have to ask Sunny. But if they have suggested you send in another claim, why not do that?
Sharon says
Thank you, will probably have to so I can be sure all the correct loans are included if they remove them from my credit file x
Anthony says
Hello All,
Just before they went under I was offered a settlement figure to clear 3 loans I had with them. The loans were passed over to ACI who I have e-mail the offer from Sunny but they have not gotten back to me and just send texts/e-mails asking for the whole figure.
Does the settlement offer from Sunny stand?
Thanks for any advice in advance.
Anthony
Sara (Debt Camel) says
legally the offer doesn’t stand. But it’s well worth making the offer to ACI. You could ask them to call you about this: https://www.assetcollections.uk/appointment
Anthony says
Hello Sara,
Thank you, will do.
Anthony
Zoe says
Hi
I’ve submitted my claim with Sunny and it came back with a potential redress of £4299.39. I know I will only get pennies on this and wished I’d put a claim in a lot earlier.
What happens to any outstanding balance that Sunny sold onto a debt agency? As these debts are now deemed unaffordable?
I’ve tried contacting them and offering a lot less to pay this up but they are not willing accept it.
I’m wondering if I should be writing to them and these debts should be cleared. I don’t know where I stand with this.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The loan which was sold – how large was the loan when you borrowed it? Have you made any payments to sunny or to the debt collector for it? what is the current balance?
Zoe says
Thanks for coming back to me. It was 4 loans with sunny and I’d advised I could not make the payments and this is when it was sold to SLL
The loan amounts are £209, £473, £66 and £360.
I had made some payments to sunny but not made any payments to SSL.
I did offer them £450 to pay up all the loans but they would accept this.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So the 4 loans were all sold to SLL? How much did you pay Sunny towards them? What does SLL say your current balance is?
Zoe says
I’ve logged into Sunny and I can’t see the accounts it just says these are now sold so I can access the details.
The amounts I’d put in my message is the balance with SLL.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
can you see from your bank statements what you borrowed? what you have repaid?
Zoe says
I will look back in the bank statements and come back to you. This was in 2019 so I will look online at my statements.
ElleBea says
Hi,
I’ve been advised that my total redress amounts to £2,288, which equals a possible £2.28 if there are any payouts. I’m a little angry about this as I did previously complain to Sunny, but my complaint was not upheld at that time. But I can draw a line under this.
However, for me this is not the biggest issue, for me it is the markers on my credit report. I can’t help thinking that the date for removal of markers from my credit report is somewhat vague, and this sounds like it is very much in the hands of the Credit Reference Agency as to whether this will actually happen, by 30th November. Are we to put our trust in them? I feel sure that if it was the other way around and I was a financial institution wishing to add markers to my report, this would be actioned immediately. How can we find out if this is guaranteed? I’ve called Equifax, and had no joy there.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
To be fair, the administrators are dealing with this massively more quickly than has been done in other administrations.
I suggest you check your Equifax record in early December to find out. Use the statutory credit report https://www.equifax.co.uk/Products/credit/statutory-report.html, not a third party report like ClearScore where you may not see the real-time records.
paul says
checked my experian credit report yesterday and can see about 100 loans from sunny have been removed from closed accounts. great. however, there are still about 20 still on there going back to 2016. not sure why that is? unless they are saying those ones were affordable?. will they disappear after 6 years anyway?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
the administrators say:
– for the first five of the loans that have been decided to be unaffordable they will remove any defaults or missed payment markers;
– all unaffordable loans after the first five will be deleted from your credit record.
So if there are 20 left, probably 15 were decided to be affordable, then there were the next 5 where negative marks were removed and the ones after were deleted.
The undefaulted loans will drop off 6 years after the settlement date.
Emma says
Hello,
Sunny sold my loans a few years ago, I haven’t heard from who they sold them too for a long time. I had the email from sunny about going into admin and I put a claim in on the website. If accepted does this mean that the company that bought the debt will have to take it off my file? I’m almost debt free now and trying to build my credit score I could really do with this been taken off now
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes – if Sunny delete the default, the debt purchaser has to do the same.
D says
Has anyones credit file been updated yet?
Pixel says
Hi my remaining balance had been written off so I don’t expect any money owed from previous loans however only one of my four defaults from elevate have been erased from my credit report this month. Will the others be too or how can I get these to be removed? I stupidly borrowed too much from sunny in a short number of time during university and now with dependants and a stable relationship I see how silly I was trying to buy gifts for an ex :’(
Jane Y says
Hi
I sent a complaint back in March this year and got a reply saying they were not upholding my complaint.
Today I get an email inviting me to make a claim on the portal and got a potential redress amount as per the below:
Potential redress entitlement £2,183.02
Redress payment
If you have a valid redress claim you will be an unsecured creditor of ECIL. Unsecured creditors are expected to receive a payment against their claim during the Administration, if there are sufficient funds remaining in the administration after the costs of handling all claims has been met. This will depend on the volume of redress claims and queries that are submitted. The amount and timing of any payment is not currently known. However, ECIL is very unlikely to be able to pay your claim in full and it is expected that you will only receive a partial payment (low pence in the pound) against your claim.
Illustrative payment you would receive £21.83
Surely if I am owed a redress amount now I wouldve been entitled to it back in March before they went into administration
Please can anyone advice.
Thanks
Jane
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Not sure what you need advice on? The administrators are now judging claims on a different approach, more in line with what FOS says, that what Sunny used to do.