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 you still owe money.
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 just because you repaid 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 solve a short-term problem. If you kept 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 ignore obvious signs of problems such as your loans increasing in size, or borrowing again soon after repayment.
How much compensation can you get?
You don’t have to calculate this. Just ask for a 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.
But if your first loan was large, or was rolled over several times you could get a refund from just one loan.
Which lenders can you get refunds from?
You can complain to lenders that are still in business, even if they are no longer lending. These include:
Lending Stream, Cash Converters, CashASAP, Drafty, Dot Dot, Fast Loan Uk, Fernovo, Fund Ourselves, Kabayan, LoanPig, Mr Lender, Moneyboat, MyKredit, My Finance Club, QuidMarket, Savvy, The Money Platform, WageMe, Wizzcash,
See this email list for payday lenders for a longer list and all the contact details to use.
If the lender has gone into administration, including CashForUNow, Piggybank, Ferratum, Oakam:
- make a claim to the administrators – there is normally a simple form for you to complete, see the lender’s website for details – but there will be a time limit for doing this.
- you may not get much cash back but this is very easy to do. A balance may be reduced or cleared even if there is no cash to distribute. And if you win the complaint any negative marks on your credit record will be removed.
It is probably too late to make claims to other lenders who gave up years ago, see this list.
For longer-term loans there are better template letters to use on other pages:
- doorstep lenders and guarantor lenders,
- Loans2Go – the worst loans in Britain!
- 118 Money, Everyday lonas, Likely Loans/Finio, Reevo, Bamboo, car finance, bank loans and other long-term loans.
Do this before, before you send in a complaint
Doing these 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.
If you still owe money to the lender, read Will an affordability claim hurt my credit record, and other questions. These looks at your options for stopping paying, the effect on your credit record etc.
If the rest of your finances are difficult, look into a Debt Management Plan (DMP) where you make one affordable payment a month to StepChange. This gets you into a safe financial position as these affordability complaints can take a long time to go through at the Ombudsman. Winning a complaint then speeds up the DMP.
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.
If your loan was sold to a debt collector you complain to the original lender. But also tell the debt collector that you are disputing the debt. It is a good idea to carry on making payments to the debt collector if they are affordable.
Start your complaint & get loan details
Find the lender’s email address for complaints from this list.
Put “AFFORDABILITY COMPLAINT” as the subject of your email:
You should never have given me these unaffordable loans. Paying you each month left me with too little money so I had to keep borrowing to get through the next 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.]
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.
Some ways to improve this
Add any other points that help you describe what happened to you. You don’t need to list the loans – the lenders knows them.
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 or when you could not make a payment, add a bit about this.
You can attach bank statements if you like, This is a good idea as these show how unaffordable the loans were for you. If you have gambling showing, this helps your complaint, it doesn’t harm it.
I don’t know if many lenders actually read what you send them. I
it’s easy to make these complaints – you don’t need to calculate what refund you should get or quote laws.
Only one loan?
The template refers to multiple loans because that is what normally happens with payday lenders.
When you only had one loan and it was large, read Refunds from large loans and use the template there.
If you only had one loan and it was small, this is going to be a very difficult complaint to win. If you have borrowed once or twice from 5 leaders, that is much more difficult to win an affordability complaint than having 4 or 5 loans from two lenders.
Waiting for a reply from the lender
This email starts your affordability complaint.
They may send the list of loans first and later respond to your complaint. So don’t be surprised if you get sent info on the loans but nothing about your request for a refund.
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 has already begun and the lender has to reply.
The lender should reply to your complaint within 8 weeks from when you send the email, not when they acknowledge it. Make a note in your diary for 8 weeks time and chase the lender up if you don’t get a reply.
Don’t be surprised if you have to wait until the end of the 8 weeks to get response – this is common.
Send your bank statements or other information?
Some lenders ask you to send them a copy of your credit record, payslips or bank statements.
Credit record – the lender can check your credit record themselves if they want. But you should download a copy of your credit record asap as the Ombudsman will ask for it. Don’t put this off, the sooner you get a report downloaded, the further back it goes which is good.
Don’t send payslips.
It is a good idea to send bank statements. But think twice about the cost of copying and postage if there are a lot. Some lenders seem to ignore them if you do send them.
Again this is a good point to get those bank statements even if you do not want to send them as they will help an Ombudsman claim a lot. You can get them going back at least 6 years even if the account has been closed.
Lender says No or makes a poor offer
If the lender rejects your complaint or offers you a small amount, don’t be depressed. You may still have a very good case!
It is easy and free to send your case to the Financial Ombudsman where many thousands of people have won their payday loan complaints, despite being rejected by the lender.
Give up?
Some lenders try to make your case sound bad when it isn’t. People have had large amounts refunded after a complete rejection!
Just ignore any of the following comments, they do not mean you have a weak case:
- they relied on your loan applications and you didn’t give accurate 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 – if you only had one or two small loans that is true. But if the loans were large or you kept borrowing, they should have looked more closely;
- some loans are over 6 years old – the Ombudsman will look at these even if the lender says they won’t!
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 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 it if you think the lender should have realised a lot of the other loans were unaffordable;
- an offer to write off your current balance may sound convenient … but it may be very poor if you should get a refund as well;
- 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 large. Here is one single loan case that was won even though it was an instalment loan and the borrower had a good income. And another single loan 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. When you aren’t sure, send the complaint to FOS. This is free and easy to do – let FOS make the decision.
How to send a complaint to FOS
Put in a separate complaint about each lender.
Don’t wait until all your lenders have replied before sending the first one to the Ombudsman!
FOS’s “complain online” option is easy and takes you through your complaint step by step.
You can just copy what you said in your complaint to the lender. You can add more details, for example, if you disagree with what the lender replied to you.
If some of your loans were over 6 years ago, tell the Ombudsman when and how you found out about these complaints. For example:
“I knew the loans were causing me difficulty in 2018, but I thought this was my fault for being bad with money. I didn’t find out that the lender should have checked the loans were affordable until June 2024 when my brother told me about these claims/I saw an advert from a claims company on Facebook/I read an article about these claims” – change this so it is right for your case!
Things to attach:
- the reply you have had from the lender.
- bank statements if you have them. Ideally 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 TransUnion Statutory credit report
- if you dont have the credit agreements, FOS will get them from the lender.
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 FOS 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.
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.
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!
More help
You can ask a question in the comments below – you may get a reply from someone who has been in your exact situation.
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.
Card & catalogue affordability complaints
Can you get an overdraft refund?
Could a Debt Relief Order help you?
MK says
Hi Sarah £25 each per month.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you ask them to reduce that while you are in such difficulty
Jamie says
Hi I sent my Moneyboat case and quidmarket case to the ombudsman on 21/09/24 and received a email back on 30th saying my Moneyboat one had been received but nothing yet on quidmarket ? Does this mean quidmarket won’t be taken further or ? Thanks a lot
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, it will be looked at. Ask FOS if you are Worried.
T P says
Hi all,
I have noticed two default on my credit file from 2020. The name on the default is Perch . When checking my emails it seems MyJar sold my debt to Perch. And another one from Provident.
During the period I took the loans out I was in a very bad financial situation and feel the loan was unaffordable. I recently won an affordability complaint with another loan provider (from the same period) after escalating my complaint to the financial ombudsman.
I have looked at both MyJar and Providents websites but both have gone into administration. I can also see that they had time scales on when a complaint had to be in by which were a few years ago.
Am I still able to submit an affordability complaint either directly to MyJar and Provident or the financial ombudsman? I am not too bothered about and financial redress I am just wanting the negative markers removed from my credit file.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance :)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, it’s too late, the lenders don’t exist now and the Ombudsman won’t take the complaint.
The defaults will drop off in 2026. If you dont Make a payment arrangement with Perch there is a danger they may go to court for a CCJ.
T P says
Hi,
Thank you for your response.
That’s a shame that I can’t lodge a complaint :( Debt have been paid off I was just hoping I could get them removed before applying for a mortgage.
I also have a defaulted car finance agreement from the same time. I am currently paying back £50 a month but have an outstanding amount of £3500. This is currently with the financial ombudsman and I hope to have a positive outcome.
When looking online it seems mortgage lenders want defaults to be over 3 years (this is coming up to 6 years in August 2024 where it will be removed) and to be paid off over a year ago.
I am in a position to pay this outstanding amount off but haven’t done so as I was hoping I would have had an outcome from the financial ombudsman by now.
I am unsure if it better to just pay it off so the year since settlement comes around sooner or should I hold of clearing the loan until an outcome has been given?
From my calculations I have paid £4500 to date, I owe £500 to cover the cost of the car (not including interest) and the remainder of the £3500 debt would have been the interest.
Thanks again.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you settle this as soon as possible if you can do this without borrowing more money. Thai won’t affect your affordability complaint (that is a rest on your position at the time you took the finance out) but it will put you in a slightly better position if you don’t win the case and have to apply for a mortgage with the default on your record.
Jamie says
Hi there, I took a got a £1000 loan from salary finance when I couldn’t get a loan anywhere else.(paid from my wages before I get them) I had numerous other payday loans ongoing during this period- there final response said this- At the time of your application, we relied on data from Experian, and said I didn’t have any loans apart from aug- 2021
Our decision-making process is designed to be thorough and responsible. Although we did not request three months statements.
After receiving your complaint, we requested and reviewed your bank statements from May 2023 to October 2023. These statements revealed the presence of various payday loans and short-term lending during that period. However, these loans were not visible on your Experian credit file at the time of your application. This is likely because some lenders, particularly payday and short-term loan providers, may either choose not to report to Experian and report to a different credit bureau, such as Equifax or TransUnion. Or may not report to credit reference agencies at all. As a result, we were not aware of these loans when assessing your application.
So basically they’ve not upheld my complaint because they couldn’t see on Experian that I had any loans ?? I had – 7 I was currently paying on my bank statements that they’ve now saw. They’ve said their loans helped me as if I used it to payoff others I would benefit. The whole £1000 loan was basically gambled and was useless to me. Do I have a case for FOS ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
What would your Experian report have shown? You can check by getting a statutory report for free, see https://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/statutory-report.html
What is the interest rate on the salary finance loan? Have you sled them for a payment arrangement?
Jamie says
24 months at 29.9% and I’ve had a lot of loans sorted recently for unaffordability, my Experian only shows 20 closed accounts and isn’t showing them all for some reason ? And payments are fine now this is my last loan left but this is because of getting all the others sorted out and getting refunds etc.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
does the Experian show any payday loans?
Jamie says
Ticktock loans responded. On 19/04/22 you were granted a loan of £300 to be repaid in 3 monthly instalments.
On 21/07/22 you repaid a loan.
On 29/07/22 you were granted a loan of £300 to be repaid in 3 monthly instalments.
On 13/10/22 you repaid a loan.
On 22/03/23 you were granted a loan of £300 to be repaid in 3 monthly instalments.
On 22/06/23 you repaid a loan.
On 31/08/24 you made a complaint about irresponsible lending.
They’ve offered me £50 and to delete all loans from my credit file.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There was a big gap between the 2nd and 3rd loans. You may well not won a complaint at the Ombudsman
Lane says
Thank you thank you thank you. I got myself into an awful cycle of payday loans and completely fell into depression about the state of things. After reading all of this and the comments I decided to email them affordability complaints – it’s only been a day and fund ourselves have already agreed to refund all of my interest and remove negative information. I can’t believe it, £500 back in interest on a £500 loan that I had to pay £1000 back. Guessing the others won’t be as easy but it’s a huge start.
H says
I would really appreciate help on this, i have had an offer from Fund Ourselves in which they upheld half my loans loans 8-19 total £1800 in interest paid but not loans 1-8 which total £1400 interest. During this time i was making more then they had on record, however, i had other payday loans and had issues with gambling so most of the money was gambled. I was never asked for bank statements which would showed this, some of my payments to them were late and some i paid the loan back early from gambling wins or another loan. Is it worth taking to the Ombudsman or to accept their offer? Also, if i took to ombudsmen is there a chance there original offer would no longer be valid and i wouldn’t get any refund if ombudsman does’nt agree loans 8-19 should be upheld? thanks really appreciate your help.
Info of amount borrowed on loans not accepted:
Loan 1 £250 16 june 2021
Loan 2 £220 1st Oct 2021
Loan 3 £200 7TH Feb 22
Loan 4 £300 6th March 2022
Loan 5 £100 21 March 2022
Loan 6 £500 26 March 2022
Loan 7 £1250 25 June 2022
Sara (Debt Camel) says
did you ever have several loans running at the same time?
do you know what interest you paid on 6 & 7?
H says
Loan 6 I paid £339.30 and loan 7 was £720 in interest. I had another 3 or 4 loans along with this one and alot of gambling transactions during this period. Would I lose their offer if I send it to ombusmond?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
In theory the Ombudsman can make any decision … in practice with a long string of payday loans and an offer on the later ones FOS will often take the offer as the starting point and see if any earlier ones should have been included.
Just including loan 7 would be a big improvement.
You could also go back to Fund Ourselves and say you think FOS would say more loans were unaffordable, but in the interest of a speedy resoltion, you would be prepared to accept their offer if they extend it to include loan 7 as well.
H says
Ok thanks I’m going to try this and see what they say
H says
Hi Sarah
Thank you so much for your help!
I asked for Loans 6 & 7 to be included as I took out loans 4, 5 &6 in one month. They replied to say they have accepted loan 6 at a total of £720 which I think is a typo as loan 7 is £720. So a total of 2,530.60 as final offer if I accept. I am happy to accept loan 7 onwards. On my original complaint I did ask for statutory interest to be included too but they have ignored this in all responses, shall I ask about this again or just accept their offer of loan 7 onwards. Thanks again
Sara (Debt Camel) says
clarify exactly what they are refunding and the total – better to get this sorted properly
H says
Thanks Sarah, they confirmed it’s from loan 7 and added statory interest so I have accepted. I have others that I am trying to pay off is it better to file a complaint when the loans are eventually paid off or while I am paying them off? Also I had 2 loans with 118 each for 1k and also a credit card for £200 with them for years but only pay minimum payment or miss payment, do I put both loans & credit card in one email or is the credit card amount too small? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That is a much better result.
Send complaints as soon as possible as this may get you out of debt sooner!
The 118 – did you already have one of the loans when you go the card?
H says
Hi Sarah, yes I am so happy with the outcome thanks to you!
Ok so I will do the ones I am paying off still also, so do I email and then continue paying monthly instalment till I hear back? I also have around 8 credit cards but they haven’t given me an increase iv had them for years and only pay minimum payment then use them so they have always been maxed out amounts ranging from 200 to 1250. Do you think these are worth emailing about? With 118 I have the credit card for years first always maxed out then given 2 loans after. Trying my best to get out of this debt mess iv put myself into thanks!
melanie graham says
What on earth is happening with Piggybank administration? It’s taking an age to progress
Mike Butt says
I think it’s safe to say we aren’t getting anything! The administrators are spinning it out to line their pockets
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No one should be expecting any pay out from this.
GRACE CROSSAN says
Can anyone help? FO found Bamboo had lent irresponsibly however they are now chasing me for original loan through Sheriff Court, can they do this?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Did they reduce the balance after the FOS decision?
Ruth says
FOS have said they can’t look at my complaint with Zopa as I’ve timed out of 3 & 6 year limits and have said: “first loan was settled by early repayment on 11/03/2018, meaning that after this point Zopa Bank Limited caused you no further losses relating to this loan. As a result, I feel that this is a reasonable trigger point for awareness.
The second loan defaulted in February 2020 and the debt was sold. I feel that this is a point when you reasonably ought to have become aware that Zopa Bank Limited had caused you a loss in relation to this loan.”
I’m guessing that’s the end of the process now?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
was the early repayment of the first loan by the second loan?
do you have your bank statements back to when the first loan was taken out? the second loan?
do you still owe a balance to Zopa or to a debt collector that bought it?
Ruth says
No, but I did borrow money to repay the first one early (not through Zopa, but I did share my bank statements to show this).
I have bank statements from October 2017, which was 1 month before the start of the first loan.
I owe a balance to a debt collector that bought the 2nd Zopa loan, which I pay through my DMP with Stepchange.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So as the first debt was cleared over 6 years ago and it was not part of a continuous string of loans from Zopa, there is almost no chance that there will be refund on that.
What was the date of the second loan? Whan did you complain to Zopa?
Ruth says
The 2nd loan was 20th July 2018 and I complained around October 2024… I didn’t find your articles until around a month before and had no idea about affordability complaints or that there might have been something wrong with the lenders before that point, sadly.
Jon H says
Jon H here
Hello all,
Looking for some help.
I am 22 and been using loans since I turned 18. Had many many loans, gambled it all had a problem. Anyway been clean from betting for 6 months now but still had loans to pay back. Is there anything I can do to get money back from these? Mr Lender, TicktockLoans, FundOurselves, Lending stream (£1300 left on balance there), Fernovo. Any advice would be appreciated
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Use the template letter in the article above.
If you want to say for each lender the size of the loans from them in date order, it may be possible to say something about what you may get back.
Do you have other larger non payday loans?
Jon h says
Hi Sara jon here
I dont have any others lenders.
Fernovo have agreed to pay me back £125 and remove all loans from my credit file
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how many loans did you have from fernovo and how large were they?
help2getdebt3 says
I had 5 payday loans with Moneyboat between April and December 2024, some in consecutive months. They all ranged between £200 and £400, and are now all paid off (and all were paid off on time). For this reason, Moneyboat have refused to uphold the complaint I put in, however they were aware from my credit file I had other credit commitments (incl. other payday loans). Do I stand a chance with the Ombudsman?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
With 5 loans , yes, even though they weren’t large. You may only get the interest on the last one or 2 back, or none, but well worth a try