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 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 just 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 this. Or work out which loans were unaffordable.
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.
Payday loans are meant for short term problems and the lender should not have carried on giving you loans, 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 have temporarily stopped lending because of Covid-19.
These include:
Lending Stream, Satsuma, Fernovo, Ferratum, Mr Lender, Moneyboat, Smart Pig, CashASAP, CashForUNow, Fast Loan Uk, LoanPig, Kabayan, MyKredit, Oakam, QuidMarket, Savvy, WageMe, Wizzcash,
See this email list for payday lenders for a longer list and all their contact details to use.
Also use these letters for the very high-cost sorts of “flexible credit”, including:
SafetyNet Credit, Drafty, Polar Credit, Tappily.
If the lender has gone into administration, including Myjar, 247 Moneybox, Peachy, Piggybank, Swift Sterling, Uncle Buck:
- you can make a claim to the administrators – there is normally have a simple form for you to complete, see the lender’s website for details.
- you may not get much back but this is very easy to do. And if you win the complaint any negative marks on your credit record will be removed.
- Sunny – read Sunny goes into administration – what should customers do? for how you can put in a complaint
- QuickQuid – read What will happen in QuickQuid’s administration for how you can put in a complaint.
Wonga, Wageday Advance, the Money Shop, Payday UK, Payday Express and other 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 on other pages:
- 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.
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.
Start your complaint & get loan details
You can 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. 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 explains why you haven’t complained before. It ‘s only an example, don’t copy it, change it so it covers what happened to you!] [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 2020 when I saw a newspaper article in the Sun/an advert on Facebook for payday loan refunds/a friend said they had made a complaint/whatever.]
This email begins your affordability complaint.
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.
They may send the list of loans sooner, and then later send the response to the complaint, so don’t be surprised if you get sent info on the loans but nothing about your request for a refund.
Don’t be surprised if you have to wait until the end of the 8 weeks to get response. A lot of lenders are really slow.
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.
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.
Some 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.
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.
Send bank statements if you want, but think twice about the cost of copying and postage if there are a lot. 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.
Rejected or 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 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 – this includes Mr Lender and SafetyNet Credit. 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.
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 if you think you paid a lot more than that in interest. Some lenders offer a few hundred pounds to people who 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.
- 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.
Don’t 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.
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. 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 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.
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.
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.
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
Will you get a refund from Mr Lender?
How to complain about a guarantor loan
Eve says
Hi –
A quick question – how I get credit reports for Credit Karma & Equifax – FOS is asking for copy
Sara (Debt Camel) says
See https://debtcamel.co.uk/best-way-to-check-credit-score/ and get the statutory reports for TransUnion and Equifax.
Dave R says
Question for anybody that’s had pay day loans “supressed” from their credit reports by a lender. I understand that other companies/future lenders searching on your report would not be able to see the supressed information – but can you still see it on your report yourself? I’m waiting for this to take effect with ELEVATE on my Transunion reports. Will probably push back and try and ask them to remove entirely like Experian have done but am just wondering…
Cira says
Hi Sara I have noticed a default from different money limited from 2016 – I have tried Googling but can’t find anything about them at all do you know if they changed name?
Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They were previously called My Mate? But they went bust a while ago.
Cira says
Hi Sara thanks – would I not be able to do anything about that default if they have gone bust? :(
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you think it is wrong, you can ask the credit reference agencies it is showing on (check all 3, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) to “suppress” the record.. Say you are unable to ask the lender to correct it as they no longer exist.
When a record is suppressed no one else can see it.
If the CRA refuses, send them a formal complaint and take the case to the Ombudsman.
Cira says
Hi Sara I’ve just realised I actually ended up paying the balance to united kash (debt collector on behalf of them – could I send my complaint to them if different money are nowhere to be seen?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
if there is a default on a credit record where the creditor is Different Money corrected, it is not going to be any help at all to complain to a debt collector they used at the time. The debt collector was an agent of Different Money. They were nor responsible for maintaining Different Money’s credit records. You need to go to the Credit Reference Agency.
Lynne says
Hi Cira sorry to jump in. I was contacted recently by someone called United Kash who said they were acting on behalf of different Money. I took out the loan in 2014 with no contact since so it came as a surprise. I’ve changed address and also email my address since then so I’ve no idea what methods these people use to track people down but I’ve complained to them about their harassing way.
Cira says
Hi lynne thank you! I will try them & hope you get yours sorted too! X
KGLA says
Hello Sara
Thank you for this site I have found it invaluable sorting this out.
I have had a full and final response from Lending Stream about my 6 loans, now as you will see none of these has been paid of fully as stopped making payments in 2018 as I was robbing peter to pay paul.
Their final response is:-
KGLA says
Their response is that they will refund loans 5&6
but this line makes no sense to me:-
We have worked out a net refund on these loans of £0.00 (£0.00 for Interest paid, £0.00 for Fees paid, £0.00 for 8% annual interest calculated for upheld loans, minus £0.00 for 20% mandatory tax withholding in line with HMRC regulations.)
We can see that there is an outstanding balance of £160.00. When we subtract that from the amount, we’re offering to pay you, there’s an amount which you will need to pay us of £160.00. This doesn’t include any balances that are currently being held by debt collection agencies.
Now all the loans are at debt collection agency anyway and the balances are:-
Loan 1 – 20/05/2018 – £200 – Oustanding – £107.52
Loan 2 – 06/07/2018 – £70 – Oustanding – £70.36
Loan 3 – 20/07/2018 – £50 – Outstanding – £65.40
Loan 4 – 01/08/2018 – £100 – Outstanding – £135.94
Loan 5 – 14/10/2018 – £110 – Outstanding – £220
Loan 6 – 18/10/2018 – £50 – Oustanding – £100
What do you think, I find it crazy that they gave me 5 more loans when the first one was not paid off.
I’m dyslexic so find it hard to understand but keen to get it all sorted out. I do have the money to get this paid off now but feel that I should not have to pay all this interest for there wrongdoing.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
had you missed any payments to loans 1-4 before you took out loans 5 & 6?
did you pay LS anything towards loans 5 & 6 before they were sold to the debt collector? Who is the debt collector?
How much have you paid to the debt collector for loans 5 & 6?
KGLA says
Hi Sara
Thansks for gegting back to me
I did not miss any payments before I took out loans 5 & 6, but took out loans 2-6 as was short due to the loan payments.
I have paid nothing towards 5 & 6.
Loans 1- 4 are with Lantern
Loans 5 & 6 are with Asset Collections /Perch Capital Ltd but still on credit file as Lantern.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok so you have two issues.
1) should LS have upheld any of the loans 1-4?
This is a bit marginal as they were all smallish. there is a case for saying they should have upheld loan 4, but I would be surprised if any of 1-3 were upheld if you go to the ombudsman. It’s up to you if you think it’s worth sending the case to the ombudsman to try to get loan 4 included.
2) what should LS be doing to sort out loan 5 & 6 which they have agreed are mis-sold?
What they should do is removed the interest so that you only repay what you borrowed. That would be 110+50=£160. they should either get the debt collector to change the balance to 110 and 50 or LS should buy back the debt from the debt collector so you repay the 160 to LS. Also they should remove the defaults from loans 5 & 6 on your credit records.
This may be what they are proposing to do, as they say you will owe them £160 at the end. But I think you need to clarify this with them.
Lynne says
I have found the collections agents acting for lending stream and more so uncle buck to be particularly underhand and harassing.
Mary says
Hi
Does anyone know what happened to claims made to 24/7 money box? I have gone onto the website and the redress section is no longer there but I can see that entries have been removed from my credit file.
Chris says
That’s what I’ve been wondering about too. Sarah said the redress section has disappeared because the time for people to claim is now up but I don’t know when those of us who have claims being processed will hear back from them and get paid.
Paul H says
Hi Mary,
I messaged them last week because I seen that it said that people had been told their redress amount last October to December and they had to log into their account to accept or challenge but the last contact I’d had with them was putting in a claim with their administrators and I hadn’t heard anything after that. So I asked and they said my redress had been calculated at £1100 which was the 1st I’d heard and the date to challenge it had passed (31st Jan). I did pay over £4000 in interest however after Wonga, Wage Day Advance etc and their final dividend it doesn’t make an awful lot of difference except you feel more cheated when redress amount is £3000 and you end up with about £120. Anyway they said in the email back to me that it would be between April and June when we would all hear from them next. Hope this helps.
Mary says
Thank you so much for that. I guess something is better than nothing in terms of the redress.
Lynne says
I felt the same Paul. Wonga calculated my redress at £12,800 but I walked away with £550. It was better than nothing obviously but infuriating when you think what the difference is. It’s like saying here’s what you could have won!
Jamie says
Hi all still waiting for a final response from Dot Dot Loans its the 8 week mark tomorrow. Has anyone had a upheld complaint from them?
wb says
Im looking for some advice, i had a loan with JUO a couple years ago, they sold the debt on to Shelby Finance, who have now in turn sold to Lantern .
I know Juo have gone under, but i did receive a redress, whilst in administration. What id like to know if anyone could help is, receiving a redress obviously means this loan was unaffordable and irresponsible. however im still paying Lantern. Is there anyone i can email to find out if this loan should still be paid and how i go about it?
The issue is i have had a couple of loans in the past with WagedayAdvance, which fall under the same company, so not sure which side company was a void loan as such.
Just wanted to find out if this juo loan is now void as such?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s hard to guess if you don’t have the emails from the Wageday Advance administrators any more. They would have said which loans were unaffordable.
The administrators normally called back the loans from Shelby that were unaffordable. So as yours wasn’t called back, it may have been that your redress was for payday loans not the Juo loan.
Wb says
Ahh ye I see. The juo loan was actually removed from my credit report, which makes me think it was unaffordable and irresponsible. Or is that just simply because the complaint had gone bust?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sorry, I can’t tell. And now it is too late to ask the administrators.
hugo says
have you actually paid off the Juo loan? If you have not it will be with perhaps Lantern or Shelby Finance.
Wb says
I’ve got about £300 left to pay through lantern, my issue is if that loan was deemed unaffordable, then am I obliged to pay this.
I’ve emailed lantern for information regarding it.
James Burry says
hi
had a loan with Pounds to pocket couldn’t pay it (£1200)it was sold to p.r.a group paying agreed 1 per month, just paid a one-off sum £445, and has been written off by p.r.a group today, also put a claim against casheuronet for irresponsible lending what would be my rough redress if upheld
Sara (Debt Camel) says
so the total amount you have paid to the 1200 loan is 445 and the rest is written off?
James Burry says
yes that’s correct P.R.A group agreed to write off the balance
so roughly what would be my readdress through casheuronet if upheld?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
zero. You haven’t repaid more than the amount you borrowed.
James Burry says
but doesn’t irresponsible lending comes to play?
no credit checks ccjs overdrawn etc
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes but the redress for irresponsible lending is that you are refunded the interest you have paid. You haven’t paid any at all.
Hugo says
You have to pay all debts. If you have sent in for a redress from Juo then this would of been used to pay off current liability first. Was a customer of wage day advance and had a claim in for 2280 £ I saw 50£ of this. Which is a joke. Oh well don’t use pay day lenders rip off merchants
Wb says
Ye I was thinking more along the lines of because the loan was removed from my credit report. Does this mean it was unaffordable, to which I only have to repay what I borrowed rather than the interest aswell? As I believe if it was solely what I borrowed then it should be cleared by now and any outstanding payment should be wiped off.
Thanks for your reply.
hugo rogers says
no it does not. If you had applied in the administration you might of got £50 but they would have to decide what redress should be paid. Unfortunately this was missed as claims are now closed for Jou or were back in January last year. I recieved my meagre pay out in April 2020.
Alan says
Just had email from Experian about my manual dispute for quickquid, if anyone is waiting for quickquid to remove the info from your credit file you should try a manual dispute if you want it removed faster.
“I am writing regarding your recent dispute raised over Casheuronet,LLC (Account started 18/05/2018).
I can confirm that this account’s information has now been removed from your credit report, and our standard dispute statement has been removed with it.
This will be reflected on your report when it next refreshes after the amendment takes effect.
I hope this information helps you, and please let me know if you have any further questions.
Kind regards,
Experian Ltd”
Lynne says
In regards to quickquid I registered my interest in redress on their website some time ago. Over the years I had borrowed repeatedly from them and usually a high amount (£1,000 each time). The problem I have is that the email address I used when I was a customer is no longer valid and now when I try to log into their website it just says incorrect details. I can’t choose forgotten password as that will generate a new one to be sent to the email address that doesn’t work. I’m worried that they’ve tried contacting me about my redress and they’ve not been able to get hold of me. Does anyone know if they’ve started paying out? I don’t know what to do about letting them know I’ve changed details.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you phoned them?
This sort of question is best asked on the QQ administration page https://debtcamel.co.uk/quickquid-casheuronet-administration/
Lynne says
Thanks. Apparently you have until 14th March to update your bank details but as I say it won’t let me in even with my basic information such as postcode DOB and email address. I’m going to have to ring them.
Lynne says
Their message comes up as this, despite the fact I’ve tried different emails and addresses.
We’re unable to match the information you provided to an existing customer account.
Please remember that we match you based on the information you supplied when applying for your loan. You may need to use an old email address, postcode, or phone number that you are no longer using.