Payday loan refunds – how long till a lender replies? pays out?

When you get a payday loan, it arrives very quickly… so why does it take some payday lenders so long to pay out refunds for unaffordable lending? Especially as a few lenders are very fast?

Thousands of people have left comments on the main How to get a payday loan refund page on the progress of their claims.

This article summarises recent comments about the large and mid-sized lenders, looking at:

• how long lenders take to reply to your complaint
• whether they include 8% statutory interest
• and, when a refund is agreed, how long it takes for a refund to be paid.

It also gives an indication as to whether it is worth trying to negotiate when a lender has rejected or made an offer which is too low… You should always go back to the lender if there is a fundamental error e.g. they have the wrong number of loans.

But is it worth bothering if they have just made the wrong decision? For many lenders, you are just wasting time and mental energy as the lender doesn’t listen – send your complaint to the Finacial Ombudsman (FOS) straight away.

 

Don’t forget…

Your case is an individual one. You may get a good result quickly from a lender who has a reputation for being difficult. Or you may have a good case rejected by a lender that other people have found fair to deal with – that doesn’t mean you are wrong and it’s a bad case. The ombudsman is agreeing with customer complaints in 68% of payday loan cases!

So seeing what has happened to other people is interesting but it doesn’t really help you decide what you should do. The main payday loan refund page describes the whole process, including if you should take a case to the Ombudsman and how to do it. That page is the best place to ask questions… and also to say how your case is going!

The big three payday lenders – all gone bust

Wonga

Went into administration end August 2018. You can no longer submit a complaint. See Wonga refunds after administration – latest news for up to date information.

Quick Quid  & their other brands, Pounds To Pocket and On Stride

Went into administration in  October 2019. The Administrators will set up a page to let borrowers send in complaints but that hasn’t been done yet. See QuickQuid goes into administration – what will happen for the latest news.

Payday UK, Payday Express and the Money Shop

In July 2019, Instant Cash Loans, that owns all these three brands, announce it was closing and setting up a Scheme of Arrangement to limit the refunds to it has to pay. See Money Shop to close – the implications for refunds for its 2 million customers.

The mid-sized payday lenders

Lending Stream refunds

Lending Stream is so bad at complaint handling that I’ve written a separate article: Lending Stream’s poor and slow complaint handling. The only good thing is that people are getting large refunds in the end via the Financial Ombudsman.

Response time – They often respond fairly quickly by rejecting the complaint. Many people are told they had what sounds like an absurdly high credit score so ignore this. Sometimes they don’t say this is their final response, and if you ask if it is, they don’t reply – in this case, send to the Ombudsman at 8 weeks.

Worth negotiating? No. I don’t think they read anything you send them.

Do they add 8% statutory interest? No.

Do they accept adjudicator offers? They often do but sometimes they are very slow, if they go beyond the time the adjudicator set, leaving a bad Trust Pilot review sometimes speeds things up!

Payout timescales – Very slow. they say 28 days, then they take a few weeks to verify your bank details and announce the 28 days starts from that point. Tell your adjudicator if this happens. In summer 2019 some readers reported they were blaming Brexit but that now seems to have stopped – Lending Stream says it never happened.

Also check the numbers on their calculated refunds – sometimes they get the interest and charges to be refunded wrong. Weirdly it always seems to be less than you should get, not more…

Mr Lender refunds

Response time – usually in the first few weeks. Often they send a template reply to you complaining that you have sent them a template complaint!  If you get this, just reply that your complaint started on dd/mm/yy and if they don’t respond in 8 weeks you will be sending it to the Financial Ombudsman.

Worth negotiating? Definitely. They seem keen to reach a sensible settlement directly, so if you think extra loans should be included, argue your case.

They also get upset if you post a bad Trust Pilot review and try to resolve the issue with you.

Do they add 8% statutory interest? No, but people are often happy to settle without this.

Payout timescales – a few days.

Myjar refunds

Some Myjar loans are very large. If you have these, you can win a 1 or 2 loan case at the FOS – the usual guideline that 1 or 2 loans cases are very hard to win doesn’t apply to these big loans.

They usually ask for bank statements and payslips. Forget about payslips – pointless. I’m not sure they read the bank statements, but if you don’t have them this is a good time to get them so you have them ready to go to the Ombudsman. If you only had a few large loans it’s more important to send bank statements.

They used to refuse to pay on loans over 6 years old. But in summer 2019 they have written to some people who accepted a settlement on loans under 6 years old with an additional refund for the older loans.

Response time – replies used to be in the 8th week but in late 2018 they started asking for an extra 2 weeks (10 working days) at the end of 8 weeks.

Worth negotiating? They seem to have an automated decision process that does NOT follow what the Ombudsman would do, so you may get made an offer on a lot fewer loans than you should. Some people have had success at getting one or two extra loans included in the refund, but if you don’t get an answer within a week send the case to FOS as you will probably get a lot more that way.

Do they add 8% statutory interest? Yes usually. If you didn’t specifically ask for it in your complaint, go back to them and they will add it.

Do they accept adjudicator offers? Often, but they can be slow if they go beyond the time the adjudicator set, leave them a bad Trust Pilot review, it sometimes speeds things up!

Payout timescales – erratic.

Peachy refunds

They often ask for bank statements and payslips. Forget about payslips – pointless. I’m not sure they read the bank statements, but if you don’t have them this is a good time to get them so you have them ready to go to the Ombudsman.

Response time – usually reply in the first four weeks.

They often make an offer quickly. It’s often the first you will get if you are making several complaints and some people say Yes then later realise it wasn’t a good one… so ask on How to get a payday loan refund if you aren’t sure how good it is.

Worth negotiating? Some people have had additional loans included in a refund when the first offer was too low but you may have to push hard with several emails describing your situation.

Do they add 8% statutory interest? No. But if you go back and say you will accept their offer if they add it, they sometimes do. And sometimes they say they will if you send banks statements – a bizarre waste of everyone’s time.

Payout timescales – 14 days.

Safetynet Credit refunds

VERY large numbers of these complaints are being won either directly or at the Financial Ombudsman. they could see your bank statements so they had no excuse for continuing to lend if you were in a real mess.

Response time – Whilst you are waiting, make sure you have cancelled the CPA with your bank as SNC have a bad habit of waiting 30 days then collecting all the money, even though the complaint is still ongoing. Usually reply in 7th or 8th week but some people get quicker responses.

Worth negotiating? No. They often make a good offer but it’s not reliable. I can’t predict who will get a good result easily and who will have to go to FOS.

Ignore their lengthy comments that they are not a payday lender, that you are just using a template letter (so what? they are using template replies!), that they credit checked you (they may have done but then ignored it!), that your income was fine (haha). They should have seen from your bank statements that you were reliant on borrowing from them – send the case to FOS.

Payout timescales – fast.

Satsuma refunds

Some Satsuma loans are very large. If you have these, you can win a 1 or 2 loan case at the FOS – the usual guideline that 1 or 2 loans cases are very hard to win doesn’t apply to these big loans.

Response time – they are incredibly slow, often asking for more weeks. As they don’t often make a good offer, I suggest sending your complaint straight to the Ombudsman at the 8 week point.

Worth negotiating? No.

At the ombudsman: again they are very slow to send the case file over and to reply to adjudicator decisions. Their trust Pilot reviews are so dreadful it isn’t worth leaving them another poor one!

Payout timescales – often very slow.

Sunny refunds

Sunny now have an automated decision-making program that appears to refuse to refund any loan in the first year and after the first year if there is a break for more than a couple of months they stop refunding there. This is NOT what the Ombudsman does. Most people could get MUCH better offers by going to FOS.  See Sunny concerned about lack of regulatory clarity – really? for my thoughts on this.

Response time – usually in the 7th or 8th week.

Worth negotiating? No. Only exception if the refund offered is OK but they haven’t mentioned deleting the credit card record – if this is important to you it’s worth asking them to do this rather than have the case go to the Ombudsman.

Accept adjudicator decision?  Sunny are very slow to reply to the adjudicator, often reject complaints and sometimes come back with lower offers. Leave them a bad review on Trust Pilot if they don’t reply to the adjudicator in time or make a lower offer then the adjudicator, reject a case with a lot of loans.

Payout timescales – 30 days, sometimes plus a few more :(  Again leaving bad reviews on Trust Pilot sometimes speeds things up a bit.

Uncle Buck refunds

They normally ask people to supply a credit report and bank statements. I suggest not doing this as they rarely make good offers and can be unpleasant. Tell them to consider the complaint on the basis of what they know.

They use a template reply which sometimes gives bizarre results eg  saying a gap between two loans of less than a month is a long time. In general their offers are often poor, FOS cases seem to be going through quickly so send a poor offer or a rejection straight to the Ombudsman!

Their replies can seem quite aggressive, suggesting you lied. People are winning these cases at the Ombudsman and Uncle Buck hasn’t done anything about their allegations of lying.

Response time – in the last few days of the 8 weeks.

Worth negotiating? Sometimes they will agree to refund an extra loan. But if the offer is very poor, save your breath and send it straight to FOS.

Trust Pilot reviews: If UB is ignoring a decision by an adjudicator so you are told it has to wait for an ombudsman, trying leaving them a bad review on Trust Pilot. This has worked for several readers.

Payout timescales – it used to be 28 days, now some readers are reporting less than a week.

 Wageday Advance refunds

Went into administration in February 2019. You can no longer submit a complaint. See Wagdeday Advance refunds after administration for the latest news.

247 Moneybox refunds

Response time – 247 Moneybox now seems to often ask people quickly what they would see as a suitable settlement. This is your chance to propose a compromise you would be happy with. If you just say you want a full refund, then that’s fine, but it’s not going to speed things up. If you had say 12 loans and the first 3 were all small, you could be realistic and reply that in the interests of a quick speedy settlement you would accept a refund on loans 4-12 but if the case goes to FOS you will be asking for a full refund.

Send cases straight to the ombudsman at 8 weeks if they haven’t replied. They are also slow to send the case details to the adjudicator and sometimes ignore an adjudicator’s decision.

Worth negotiating? Possibly. Some people have succeeded saying they will accept the offer if it is changed to include 8% statutory interest. But they may ignore your emails. But some people have had an offer after they have told Moneybox 247 that the complaint has been sent to the Ombudsman.

Payout timescales – They were very slow, sometimes not paying out within the allowed 28 days after an Ombudsman decision. Also they sometimes don’t correct people’s credit record as they agreed to, so make sure you check your to see that it has been done.

MORE RESOURCES

There are a LOT of articles about payday loans refunds on this site. If you have one of the following situations, read up about it:

• Refunds where you still owe some money – some write-off offers are not nearly as good as they look!
• Payday lender says I lied
• How gambling affects payday loan complaints
• Some reasons payday loan complaints are rejected by the ombudsman.

I am closing comments on this article as questions are best asked on the main payday loan refund page . More people will see your comment there so there is a better chance of someone being able to answer your question.