Did your payday loans cost so much when you repaid one you had to keep on borrowing?
You can get a refund of the interest you paid on unaffordable loans.
It’s easy to ask for a payday loan refund using the free template letters here. The letters work if your payday loans were repaid or if you still owe money.
This article covers everything you need to get started. It’s simple, easy, free and many people are winning large payouts.
The comments below this article have thousands of stories of the refunds people have got using these letters. It is a great place to ask questions!
Contents
What are “unaffordable” loans?
Was a loan affordable because you managed to repay it? No! If paying a loan left you so broke you had to borrow again – from the same lender or a different one – it was unaffordable!
The regulator says:
“the borrower should be able to make the required repayments without undue difficulty, whilst continuing to meet other debt repayment obligations and reasonable regular outgoings.”
That means a payday loan is only affordable if you repaid it on time and you could still manage to pay your other bills and debts.
Payday loans are meant to be used to solve a short term problem. If you kept rolling a loan or repaying one then getting another loan soon after, the lender should have stopped lending to you.
If the loan was small and it was the first loan or second loan from a lender, the lender may not have realised the loan was unaffordable for you. But it was irresponsible lending to just carry on giving you more loans.
Many lenders ignored even very obvious signs of problems such as your loans increasing in size or borrowing very soon after repayment.
How much compensation can you get?
You don’t have to calculate what a fair refund is or which loans were unaffordable.
Just ask for a full refund from the lender and see what you are offered. This is simple and it works well.
The Financial Ombudsman has seen tens of thousands of payday loan affordability complaints. A typical decision by the Ombudsman is that the payday lender should refund all the interest you paid interest after the third, fourth or fifth loan.
This is because payday loans are meant for short term problems and the lender should not have carried on giving you loans. This may be earlier – from the first or second loan sometimes – if your first loans were rolled or topped-up or were very large.
Which lenders can you get refunds from?
Use the letters on this page to make an affordability complaint to most UK payday lenders, see the email list for payday lenders. The larger lenders include:
Sunny, Lending Stream, MyJar, Satsuma, Mr Lender, Ferratum, CashASAP, Moneyboat, Smart Pig.
Also use these letters for the very high-cost sorts of “flexible credit”, including:
SafetyNet Credit, Drafty, Polar Credit.
But the process described here – complain to the lender and then send to the Financial Ombudsman if the lender says No or gives you a poor offer – won’t work if the lender has gone bust:
- 247 Moneybox, Peachy, Piggybank, Swift Sterling, Uncle Buck are in administration. Send a complaint to the administrators, see the lenders’ websites. You may not get much back but this is very easy to do, just send a short email saying you were given unaffordable loans;
- QuickQuid – read What will happen in QuickQuid’s administration for how you can put in a complaint.
- the Money Shop, Payday UK, Payday Express – all part of the same group – read Money Shop – Latest news for how to put in a complaint about them.
- Wonga, Wageday Advance and lenders who gave up years ago – it is now too late to make a complaint about these lenders, see this list.
For longer-term loans there are better template letters to use here:
- Provident,
- Amigo and other guarantor lenders,
- 118 Money, Everyday Loans and other high-cost large long-term loans.
First, before you send in a complaint
Doing these four things now will make your life easier later.
Get a copy of your TransUnion statutory credit report and keep it. After complaints are started, sometimes loans are deleted and you may want the full report if you later have to go to the Ombudsman. Don’t get an Experian or ClearScore report instead – many payday lenders don’t use those. (It used to be advised to get a Noddle/CreditKarma report but it is now hard to download that as it won’t show closed loans.)
If you can log-in to the lender’s website and see your loans, take a copy of them as sometimes they vanish when you complain.
If you still owe money to the lender:
- unless you can afford to make this month’s payment without borrowing again, cancel the CPA to the lender at your bank. Otherwise the lender may take the money and you will be in a mess.
- read the Stop making payments? section in Payday loan refunds when last loan not repaid. If you want to offer a lower affordable amount, add a sentence to your complaint letter saying this.
- if you have a lot of borrowing at the moment, read Escape from the payday loan trap which looks at how a debt management plan can help you.
If your loan was sold to a debt collector you still complain to the original lender but also tell the debt collector that you are disputing the debt. Don’t skip this bit or a debt collector may go to court. It is a good idea to carry on making payments to the debt collector if they are affordable.
Step One – start your complaint & get loan details if you don’t know them
Find the lender’s email address for complaints from this list.
Then send your complaint email. Put “AFFORDABILITY COMPLAINT” as the subject:
You should never have given me these unaffordable loans. I am asking you to refund the interest and any charges I paid, plus statutory interest, and to delete any negative information from my credit record.
[delete this sentence if you know what all your loans were.] I know the difficulties your loans have caused me but I no longer have all the loan details. Please send me a list, showing for each loan when it was taken out, how much interest and charges you added and what I repaid – this will enable me to assess any refund you offer me.
[delete this sentence if none of your loans were sold.]If a loan was later sold to a debt collector, please inform me of the date of sale and the name of the debt collector.
[Only put this bit in if some of your loans were more than 6 years old. This is a paragraph saying why you haven’t complained before. Change it so it covers what happened to you. This is an example, don’t just copy it!] [I didn’t know that the lender was supposed to check that I could repay the loan without having to borrow more. I only found out in November 2018 when I saw a newspaper article in the Sun/an advert on Facebook for payday loan refunds/my sister told me about affordability complaints/a friend said they had made a complaint/whatever.]
This email starts off your affordability complaint.
The lender has to reply to your complaint within 8 weeks from when you send the email, not when they acknowledge it. That 8 week clock has started ticking… don’t be surprised if you have to wait until the end of the 8 weeks to get response.
Step Two (OPTIONAL) – send more details
When you get your loan information, you can send in more details about your complaint if you want. You don’t have to do this, your complaint is already underway.
I don’t know if many lenders actually read what you send them. But it’s easy to do – you don’t need to calculate what refund you should get or quote laws.
Change this template so it tells your story.
I have had x loans from you from [2015 to 2016].
Paying you each month left me with too little money so I had to keep borrowing to get through the next month.
For this period my take home pay was about £x a month.
[Include the following details if you know them, but if they varied a lot miss this out My living expenses were roughly: rent/mortgage £x. Council tax £x. Utilities and bills £x. Transport costs £x. Clothes £x. Food, toiletries etc £x. Child expenses £x Other debt repayments £x. Total £x per month.]
You should have realised from the number of times I borrowed that my debt problems were getting worse. It was not responsible to continue to lend to me. [Add more details eg how often you borrowed or rolled loans if you know them, how the amount borrowed generally went up etc]
[Include/change this if your credit record would have shown big problems: My credit reports would have shown all my other debts and problems including late payments/defaults /CCJs/debt management.]
You should never have given me these unaffordable loans. I am asking you to refund the interest and charges I paid, plus statutory interest, and to delete negative information from my credit record.
Good ways to improve this
Add any points that help you describe what happened to you. And delete any bits that don’t matter to you. Some examples:
- “I took out another loan with xxxx to pay you.”
- “Sometimes I borrowed to pay the rent and then had to top-up to get money for food.”
- If you weren’t treated fairly while you were borrowing add a bit about this.
Don’t worry that the lender will say you should have cut back on your living costs, just put down your normal expenses. You don’t need to include evidence about your expenses.
Should you send credit record and bank statements?
Some lenders ask you to send them a copy of your credit record, your payslips or bank statements. This is mostly to be difficult – the lender can check your credit record themselves if they want.
Don’t send payslips – they won’t help an affordability complaint and the ombudsman never asks for them.
You can send bank statements if you want, but think twice about the cost of copying and postage if there are a lot. Depressingly most lenders seem to ignore them if you do send them.
Some people feel these are personal and they don’t want to send them to a payday lender. If you don’t want to send them, tell the lender you will send the Ombudsman any information that is needed.
Step three – go to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS)
If the lender rejects your complaint or offers you a small amount, don’t be depressed. You may still have a very good case, they are just hoping you will give up!
Instead you can send your case to the Financial Ombudsman. This is easy and free.
Tens of thousands of these cases have been sent to the Financial Ombudsman where there is a higher success rate for these affordability complaints than any other type of complaint!
Give up, negotiate with the lender, or go to the Ombudsman?
Some lenders try to make your case sound bad when it isn’t. People have had thousands of pounds refunded after a complete rejection! Just ignore any of these comments, they do not mean you have a weak case:
- they relied on your loan applications and you didn’t give the full facts – see Lender says I lied for more about this;
- you repaid some loans early – this doesn’t prove the loans were affordable, just that you were trying to save interest;
- your borrowing didn’t go up every time – irrelevant, what matters is that you kept borrowing;
- you had a good enough credit score or they didn’t legally have to check your credit record.
- your loans are over 6 years old – the ombudsman will look at these even if the lender says they won’t!
Will a lender improve an offer?
You may be wondering if you should go back and try to get the lender to give you a better offer. Most lenders won’t do this, but a few may if you make out a good case. For example if they have offered to refund loans 6-12 you would be happy if they included one or two more, you can say why you think loans 4 and 5 should also be refunded. See When and how to negotiate about payday loan refunds for more details.
A good enough case to go to the Ombudsman?
If you don’t know what to do, ask in the comments below this article. Accepting an offer settles your whole complaint – you can’t change your mind later.
Don’t worry that you will lose a small offer from a lender by going to the Ombudsman – this doesn’t happen.
Some points to think about:
- if you are offered a refund on only a few loans, don’t accept if you think you paid a lot more than that in interest. Some lenders offer a few hundred pounds to cases which eventually get ten or twenty times as much from the Ombudsman.
- an offer to write off your current balance may sound good … but it may be very poor if you should get a refund as well, see Refunds when you have a balance owing for details and ask in the comments below if you aren’t sure.
- if getting defaults or late payments removed from your credit record is important to you, are you happy with what the lender is proposing to do? Don’t assume your credit record will be cleared if the lender didn’t mention this.
One or two loan cases are hard to win at the ombudsman. It’s probably best to give up on one or two loan cases unless:
- the loan was rolled or topped up several times; or
- the loan was large. Here is a single MyJar loan case that was won even though it was an instalment loan and the borrower had a good income because it was for £3,600. And a single loan Sunny case for a loan of £1,000. You can win cases for smaller amounts if the repayment would have been a large amount of your income; or
- you still owe money.
Don’t delay too long – there is a 6-month time limit after a lender rejects your complaint to send the case to the ombudsman.
How to send a complaint to FOS
Put in a separate complaint about each lender. So you don’t have to wait until all your lenders have replied before sending the first one to the Ombudsman.
One reader said: They couldn’t be any nicer. Caroline Wayman, the Chief Ombudsman, says:
It’s really OK to phone up and say, ‘I don’t think it was fair.” It’s not court; you don’t have to turn up with your ‘heads of claim’, you don’t have to write a fancy letter. Tell us your story and we will do the rest.
I like FOS’s “complain online” option which takes you through your complaint step by step.
You can just copy in what you said in your complaint to the lender. Add more details, for example, if you disagree with what the lender replied to you. Include a paragraph about having only just found out you could complain if some of the loans are more than 6 years old.
Things to attach:
- the reply you have had from the lender.
- bank statements if you have them. Ideally you want statements from 3 months before your first loan until the last loan was repaid or you defaulted on it. This strengthens your case, showing how unaffordable the loans were. You can still get bank statements even if your account is closed – if you don’t have them, start the process of getting them now, don’t wait until FOS asks for them.
- a copy of your Credit Karma credit report.
What happens after you have sent a case to FOS
You will normally be contacted within a couple of weeks and asked for a copy of your credit record and your bank statements if you haven’t sent these. If you have sent these on one complaint, then when you complain about a different lender they will use the ones they already have.
After this initial contact, your case will wait for the lender to send FOS your case file and then wait to be picked up by an adjudicator who will make a decision on it. That won’t happen until the payday lender has replied – typically it is between 2-5 months at the moment.
If you are still making payments to the lender, tell the lender you want to reduce these to an affordable amount. This will make waiting for an Ombudsman decision much less stressful for you.
The Financial Ombudsman has a two-stage process. Most cases are settled by the first “adjudicator” stage but about 10% go to the second “Ombudsman” stage, see What happens at the Financial Ombudsman for details.
A few problem cases
Don’t ask for a refund:
- if you are bankrupt now or have been bankrupt in the past – any refund would go to the Official Receiver.
- if you are in an IVA, as refunds will go to your IVA firm not to you. If your IVA has finished the refund may still be sent to your old IVA firm.
- if you are in a DRO now, getting a refund may mean your DRO is cancelled!
Need some help?
If you need help to complain, go to your local Citizens Advice, they will help for free.
Don’t use a claims management company. They are expensive and often incompetent. It’s easy to do this yourself and you can ask questions below and get replies from other readers who have done this.
Ask for a refund for large bad credit loans
Why is Sunny making poor offers?
More refunds for Amigo loans
Chloe says
Hi Sara
I am still struggling to contact 118 about a refund that they owe me. Do you know if there is anyway to get hold of them?
Thanks
Joe says
Hi all, just recieved an email response with final outcome from sunny, they have refused to uphold any claims. They said it was affordable. I had paid interest of £1166 on all loans. I believe it wasn’t affordable. They have sold it to s debt collector which I am still struggling to pay nearly 2 years later. I’m not interested in the money as such more my credit score. What should I do now? Give up or?
Joe
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Send the complaint to the Finacial Ombudsman! They are upholding a VERY large number of complaints about Sunny.
Joe says
Okay thankyou I have emailed the ombudsman
Kat says
Some good news about Peachy for those that put in their complaint before they went into admin. They have now wiped my remaining debt balance, so I now owe them nothing! They said I was entitled to a £216 refund and as a good will gesture they have also wiped the remaining balance, not much an extra £30 or so. No doubt if they were not in administration I would have got more from FOS but I am just glad it’s over!
Hello.ello says
Hello!
How long does LS usually take to respond to adjudicator decision? And do they normally accept their decision? Also does the adjudicator normally let me know the decision as soon as LS has responded?
Thanks for the help
Shaun says
Sorry it’s not a helpful answer but I have the excact same question. FOS got back to me today saying lending stream should make it right in my favour for 6 of my 9 loans. Sent them a letter etc. Was wondering the same as original question. Chances of it getting all accepted and payed out?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
LS accept a lot of adjudicator decisions – I hope this includes yours.
RS says
I have just received my redress payment from My Jar so they are working if anyone wanted to know. I accepted my offer from them last Wednesday, sent them back the completed form the same day and have received payment today. Sunny should also be paying me today but so far nothing from them despite leaving a negative comment on trust pilot and emailing them. Does anyone have an alternative email address for them?
Once again thank you Sara, for the sake of sending a quick email, I have had a lot of success so far. Satsuma and 118 to go but think they will be going to the FOS.
RS says
My payment from Sunny has just been received – 14 days as promised from receipt of my bank details.
Pj says
Good to know, Monday is my day 14 and I’m getting nervous!
RS says
Hi Pj, the payment didn’t go in until about 6.00pm so don’t expect it to be there first thing in the morning. I was starting to have doubts too!
Pee says
Got my 8 week redress decision today from CASHASAP and accepted it. Have received payment into bank account on the same day. So if anyone else awaiting decision they are still processing refunds.
Martin says
So Peachy and Uncle Buck have both went into administration. Is there any sense in sending affordability claims to the FOS now?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
cases are being won every day! It costs nothing, so why not?
Lindsay says
So, I am on day 19 of 28 waiting for my Lending Stream refund. I have emailed for an update but to no avail. Getting worried because I could really do with them paying it sooner rather than later🤨. Patience is not one of my virtues! Anyone else in a similar situation with Lending Stream?? Thank you
Tania says
I keep getting emails from them saying they have extended my complaint to 16 weeks despite me accepting a settlement 13 days ago and they won’t acknowledge that I have accepted it. The last email was addressed to me by surname only. They are useless.
Rachael says
I’m on day 19 with LS. They did email me back when I accepted to say they had received my email and that the refund had started and would take 28 days from the email…..heres hoping!
Lindsay says
Fingers crossed😊
Timbouk says
I’m hoping we are in the same batch! Seems quite a few people had redress offers on the same day. My 28 days are up on Easter Monday so hoping for something this week?
Does anyone know if lending stream does it as a transfer or a BACS payment ?
Tania says
Well, that’s a worry, as I’m 14 days since I was offered/accepted, and can’t even extract an acknowledgement from them, so my 28 day wait perhaps hasn’t even started?
rennes99 says
Hi all, hope everyone is keeping well.
How are people finding complaints with the FOS for Sunny at the moment?
My adjudicator found in my favour a while ago, and give Sunny until start of March (1 month!!!) ago to respond.
I have no idea if they have or not because my adjudicator’s ignoring me too…. 5 very courteous emails enquiring about whether Sunny has responded to them, and zero back. Are the FOS operating at full capacity at the moment? And are Sunny just taking the proverbial?
Not sure how I can move this forwards without help from either!
Luke says
Sunny won’t reply or will disagree. It will go to final ombudsman. I’ve been waiting since October 2019 they had the 13th to respond and disagreed.
Timbouk says
I am on day 18 with LS. I believe people with outstanding complaints have been emailed to say it will take longer which is understandable in the current climate. However I can’t see why an already agreed payment would be delayed. Maybe the above poster was emailed by mistake as they had already agreed to the settlement.
Lending Streak told me I should receive payment within 28 days and at this point I have no reason not to believe them. If you are still within your 28 days then I can’t understand why people are continually attempting to contact them at a time they are really busy and adapting to working remotely.
However if I reach Day 29 with still no payment turn I will attempt to contact them.
JA says
Hi Sara – With whats going on as of current do you know if the FOS are still operating?
I’m waiting for my likelyloans complaint to be picked up Sent june 19 and two cases sent sept 19 for ombudsman review.
Don’t know if its worth me ringing or just waiting because of whats happening atm.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They are now all working from home. And people are getting decisions through. Here is one about likely Loans case from a couple of days ago: https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/comment-page-13/#comment-357899
Helen says
Hi Sara,
I have an open loan with Uncle Buck. I owe about £240. I have just noticed today that they are administration and have immediately put in an affordability complaint. Hoping that ultimately, the loans will be removed from my credit record in the administration process. I know i wont get much rebate. I have had around 6 loans in the past, ranging from £200-£500. Payments are currently £84 a month and so are affordable. Do i continue on with them?
Also, My Adjudicator ruled in my favour at the FOS with Satsuma months ago but they have still not replied to my adjudicator with a decision about whether they agree! He has sent 3 chaser emails and today told me that he”s preparing my case for the Ombudsman. Do you know roughly how long i will have to wait for the final decision? So fed up of Satsuma, its been a very long & difficult process
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how large was this last loan & how much have you paid so far? the previous loans, were there any large gaps between them – the time from repaying one loan to taking out the next?
Catherine says
Hi Helen Try emailing FOS.complaints@provident.co.uk about your satsuma complaint,explain that the business failed on several occasions to respond to the adjudicator and that you want to check that they received the communication from the FOS and that a response is required as soon as possible to settle your complaint promptly.Explain that you are disappointed with the handling of your complaint and whilst you appreciate the current situation is causing problems for businesses that you need a resolution.
Has anyone else whom I passed the email above to managed to get a response?Would be interesting to hear if it’s helped anyone.
TP says
Hi Sara / All,
Im trying to rebuild my credit, currently at ‘Very Poor’ , i have 6 defaults, All of which are paid now. I cant get any credit / finance. All my financial problems were through payday loans currently going through a process with 118 to hopefully win/ remove default from my account, it is now with ombudsman. How can i build my credit going forward or is it going to take years, i have very little outgoings and a good salary so is it just time or can anything else actually be done. Thankyou all.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what sort of credit do you want, or are you just generally concerned about having a good credit record?
what are the dates of the defaults?
TP says
I will be looking for a mortgage in the next year or 2, i will have a good deposit, and i may look to get finance in the future etc, the defaults are around 7 months old and older Sara
Sara (Debt Camel) says
When were all the defaulted debts repaid?
you have an affordabilty complaint with 118 – have you also looked at similar complaints about the other defaulted debts?
what do you call “a good deposit” – 10% or 40%?
S says
Hi Sara,
I made an irresponsible / unaffordable lending complaint to MYJAR back in November 2019, regarding loans that were obtained through “TXT LOANS” approx 10 years ago. Firstly, MYJAR have admitted they have deleted all my records, and therefore the onus was on me to prove that I had obtained the loans.
To cut a long story short I contacted my bank (Lloyds) who were extremely helpful, and they sent a full 12 months of statements to cover the period in question. (The statements showed excessive borrowing from numerous lenders) and also showed in excess of 30 loans taken with “TXT Loans”, that were short term borrowing of usually £100 over a 14 day period. Having forwarded all the additional information requested to MYJAR, they have now replied sending an email stating they are unable to locate my account. I have politely informed them they won’t be able to; as they have already informed me they have deleted it. Despite numerous emails and telephone conversations where I don’t get any further than the security questions (hello you’ve deleted my records so you won’t find me!) I appear to have hit a brick wall! I have left a review on Trust Pilot (just the one!)
Is there anything else you can suggest please Sara (any CEO details or anything) or should I just send my complaint to the FOS and join the queue?
Thanks for your help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, send it to FOS.
Darren says
Hi Sara
Can I still claim against CFO lending only just noticed had a loan back to 2014 noticed they went into administration in 2016
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t there will be any money left. If this would be a big claim for you then you could talk to the financial ombudsman to be sure.
Mark says
Hi guys
Wonder if you could help me with this
I put a complaint into satsuma following above guidelines. There has been total of 10 loans 8 of which taken in the last year. They have declined to say they followed correct procedures and I can refer to financial ombudsman. I have replied back to them to reconsider is this right thing to do or should I go to ombudsman? Any advice or help would be appreciated
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well you can give them a few a days but no longer, then send it to FOS.
E says
Please could you advise how long they took to reply. I’m at 8 weeks now and they’ve not even acknowledged it. I’m going to escalate to FOS this weekend.
Mark says
I logged on the 31st January and got the response back today
I have put compliments into.other companies I used and they have already paid out and upheld the complaint (ferratum and my jar)
Is satsuma known for dragging their heels and not upholding complaints
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes. Send it straight to FOS now.
JOJO says
Hi Sarah.
Adjudicator upheld complaint against Drafty and gave til 27th march to respond. As at yesterday no response so have til next thursday otherwise will pass to ombudsman. Does that mean if they still dont respond by then I go to the back of the que again for the ombudsman?
James says
Hi all
I heard back from peachy yesterday and have accepted their offer of a redress, anyone know how long it takes for then to payout? And will i receive the full amount? Know each company varies on both things asked.