Did payday loans make your finances more difficult or impossible? Those loans may have been “unaffordable” and you should not have been given them. You may be able to claim a refund of the interest you paid.
It’s easy to ask for a refund using the free template letters here. You can use these letters with any payday lender (exception – for Wonga complaints read Wonga – latest news of refunds as there are now different procedures).
These letters work if your loans were repaid early, on time, or late, or you still owe money.
There are other pages with important extra details and different templates for non payday loan borrowing, including Provident, Amigo; and large loans from poor credit lenders such as 118 Money. See the Refunds which has links to all refund pages.
The comments below have thousands of readers’ stories of the payday refunds they have been given. It is a great place to ask questions!
If the lender says No, or offers too little, this article explains how to go to the Financial Ombudsman – it’s easy and many people are getting large payouts!
Contents
What are “unaffordable” loans?
If you could only repay payday loans by borrowing again or from a different lender – your payday loans were probably “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.”
So for a payday loan to be affordable, you had to be able to repay it the next month and be able to pay your other bills and debts. If any of the following points apply, the payday lender should have realised the loans weren’t affordable and stopped lending you more:
- you often rolled loans or borrowed again soon after repaying a loan;
- your loans from a lender were increasing in size;
- some repayments were late; or
- the loan was a significant part of your income.
How much compensation can you get?
If the Ombudsman decides your loans were unaffordable, the question is when should the lender have realised this and stopped lending?
A typical decision by the Ombudsman is to say the payday lender should refund all interest after the third/fourth/fifth loan. This may be earlier if your first loans were rolled or extended a lot.
You aren’t likely to get a “full refund of all interest”, but ask for it and let the Ombudsman decide what is fair.
You don’t have calculate anything for your complaint, just ask for a full refund, see below.
Wonga and some other lenders have already written off some loans. You may still be able to get compensation if you had earlier loans that you repaid. Again just ask for everything and let the Ombudsman decide. Simple!
If you were treated poorly when you told the lender you were in difficulty, then add something like: “I would like to ask for a refund of interest and charges for all the loans I had. I would also like additional compensation for the way you mishandled my situation when I told you I couldn’t repay a loan.”
So how do you claim a refund? There are three steps:
Step One – get the facts about your loans
First take a copy of your Noddle credit report. After complaints are started, sometimes loans are deleted and you may want the full report if you have to go t the Ombudsman.
Next ask the lender for your loan details. If you know enough from your emails, bank statements, credit report, or your history on the lender’s website you can miss this out and write the full complaint letter in Step Two. But make sure you have a copy of the details on your own PC or printed out.
To get details of your loans, email the lender (see this list of email addresses for complaints) and say:
To help me explain the details, I want you to send me a list of my loans, showing for each loan when it was taken out, how much interest and charges you added and what I repaid. I understand you are not allowed to charge me for sending this information.
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. [delete this sentence if you know none of your loans were sold.]
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.
You are entitled to be sent a list of your loans within one month. This email starts off the affordability complaint – the clock is now running and the lender has to reply to your complaint (not just send a list of loans) within 8 weeks.
Step Two – full complaint asking for a refund
When you have your loan details, you can send in more details about your complaint. This is easy – you don’t need to calculate what refund you should get or quote laws.
Here is a template for you to change or add to. It needs to tell your story because everyone’s case is different.
EITHER (if you didn’t send a step one email) I am making a complaint about irresponsible lending and asking for a refund of interest on the loans you gave me.
OR (if you sent the step one email) I want to add some more information to the irresponsible lending complaint which I sent you on dd/mm/yy.
I have had x loans from you between date and date. [if you don’t have a full list give rough date eg “I borrowed a lot from you in 2013 and 2014. I would like you to send me a list of my loans, showing for each loan when it was taken out, how much interest and charges you added and what I repaid. “]
The repayments to you took so much of my wages that I had to borrow again.
For this period my income averaged 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, nappies £x. Child expenses £x Other debt repayments £x. Total £x per month.]
I could not afford these loans. When I paid you, I had to borrow again 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 my other debt repayments 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.
[Include this if some of your loans are over 6 years old: I only found out I could make this sort of irresponsible lending complaint in [April 2018]. I understand the Financial Ombudsman will consider all my loans, including those that are more than 6 years old.]
Add any other points that help tell your story such as:
- “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.”
- “After I had rolled the loan twice I was so worried about the interest that I repaid it even though this meant not paying my council tax.”
If you told the lender you had financial problems the lender should have treated you fairly. Read Payday loans: what to expect from your lender if you’re strugglingwhich was written by the regulator. That has lists of what a lender should not have done, for example suggesting you roll a loan or borrow more money. If any of these happened to you, mention them in your complaint.
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.
Some common situations:
If you 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. Also read the Stop making payments? section in Payday loan refunds when last loan not repaid. If you want to stop payments or to offer a lower affordable amount, add a sentence to your complaint saying this.
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. Just carry on making any payments to the debt collector if they are affordable.
If you only had one or two payday loans from this lender remove the bits about borrowing more often from the sample letter.
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 to them, they won’t help an affordability complaint and the ombudsman never asks for them.
You can send bank statements if you want and you have them in a digital form, but think twice about the cost of copying and postage if there are a lot. Some lenders do seem to use them when deciding if the loans were unaffordable and it may make your case more likely to be settled with the lender without the need to send it to the ombudsman.
But 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
If the lender rejects your complaint or offers you a small amount, don’t be depressed – you may still have a good case, they are just hoping you will go away quietly!
Thousands of these cases have been sent to the Financial Ombudsman and there is a higher success rate for payday loan affordability complaints than any other type of complaint!
Should you give up or go to the Ombudsman?
Think about sending your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman if:
- the lender rejects your complaint or doesn’t reply within eight weeks;
- the refund offered is too low; or
- they refuse to consider loans over 6 years old or which have been sold to a debt collector.
Some lenders try to make your case sound bad when it isn’t. People have had thousands of pounds refunded after a complete rejection! Ignore any of these:
- they relied on your loan applications and you didn’t give the full facts – seeLender says I lied for more about this;
- you repaid some loans early – so what? this doesn’t prove the loans were affordable, just that you were trying to save interest;
- your borrowing didn’t go up every time – also 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.
Deciding if an offer is good enough
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.
Knowing how much you paid in interest helps you decide if an offer is reasonable or not. Some lenders offer a few hundred pounds to cases which eventually get ten or twenty times as much from the Ombudsman.
If you aren’t sure, 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 – this doesn’t happen.
An offer to write off your current balance may be good or it may be very poor as 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, make sure you understand and are happy with what the lender is proposing to do before you accept an offer.
It’s probably pointless if you only had one loan from a lender, not rolled, which you repaid on time. There isn’t much point in taking every case to the ombudsman.
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 the FO works
The Financial Ombudsman has a two-stage process. See What happens at the Financial Ombudsman for an overview. One reader said: They couldn’t be any nicer.
How to send a complaint to the FO
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.
Their website explains the different ways to send a complaint to the Ombudsman. I like the “do it online” option which takes you through your complaint step by step and you can attach other information, such as the reply you have had from the lender. You can add more details, for example, if you disagree with what the lender replied to you.
Put in a separate complaint about each lender.
If some loans are more than six years old, add a bit explaining why you are complaining now, not years ago. Most people knew they were in financial trouble when they were borrowing but had no idea that they could make an irresponsible lending complaint. So say how and when you found out that an affordability complaint was possible (a friend sent me a link about this, I saw it mentioned on Facebook, whatever).
What happens after you have sent a case
You will normally be contacted within a couple of weeks. If you didn’t supply a copy of your credit record and your bank statements you will be asked to send these.
You can still get bank statements even if your account is closed. If your bank wants to charge you a lot, say you need them for a complaint at the ombudsman about a payday lender and many banks will reduce the charge.
This initial contact is not when an adjudicator picks up your case and starts looking at it. That won’t happen until the payday lender has replied – typically it is between 3-5 months at the moment.
A few problem cases
- Don’t apply if you are bankrupt now or have been bankrupt in the past – any refund will go to the Official Receiver, not you.
- Don’t bother 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 or it may be sent to you.
- Don’t apply if you are in a DRO now, getting a refund may mean your DRO is cancelled!
- You can’t go to the Ombudsman with non-UK authorised lenders – the main ones were Swift Sterling and Pounds Till Payday, see that article for your options.
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 may be incompetent. A good claim involves telling your own story, not sending a standard letter!
Check out the Comments below – you could ask a question there. The comments are split into pages – use the “older comments” and “newer comments” buttons at the bottom to read them all.
Wonga refunds now they have gone under
QuickQuid – how to get payday loan refunds
PDUK, PD Express & Money Shop refunds
Gary says
Hi
I had the following back from 247;
Thanks for your email. Please be advised as per the time-frame set by FOS, this could take up to 4 weeks from 03/12/18.
In preparation for any refund, please confirm your full sort code and account number.
So my questions are;
Has anyone had this with them?
What kind of time frames generally for refund?
Am I likely to get a fully detailed breakdown as I’ve had none yet?
Thanks
CJ says
Hi Gary,
I’m no expert but that sounds like a red flag to me,
It may be worth asking them why they need your sort code and account number when they haven’t investigated your claim,
I would personally say “i will provide my SC and AN when it is necessary “
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds to me as though 247 have agreed to refund certain loans, they just haven’t yet said the exact amount of money this will be.
Gary says
Hi Sara
The adjudicator found in my favour and said they had to refund on a number of loans and they replied to the adjudicator agreeing.
Which all culminated in that email so I’m thinking you’re right I suppose I just need to sit tight and wait it out just frustrating having waited since March now we are v close to Christmas and this would help out a great deal.
Thanks again for your site.
paula says
Hi
Got appointed an adjudicator for my QQ loans yesterday.. had 5 after 2014 -2015 so in the 6 year bit.
She said £2100 in interest they looking at but wasnt able to say how long. Iv waited 6 months for an adjudicator so how long does any one have a idea on time scale now. Thanks
Tim ber says
Sit tight. Be patient is my advice took adjudicator 4 weeks to assess mine although it was 20+ Loans. And that doesn’t mean QQ will agree with an adjudicator decision. Which would mean awaiting an ombudsman which I’ve been told is a 3 month wait. I think I’m on month 10 with my claim now. Awaiting an ombudsman. But will be worth the wait.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Adjudicator decisions are usually pretty quick – a couple of weeks is typical. Though of course we are coming up to Xmas…
At the moment so far as I can see QQ are rejecting ALL adjudicator decisions to refund loans from 2015 and insisting they go to an ombudsman (read https://debtcamel.co.uk/financial-ombudsman-what-happens/ if you aren’t familiar with the two stage process at FOS). But FOS is trying to get them change their approach on these loans, so this may be resolved soon. Or not.
karen wilson says
Im in the same position
Bob says
Anyone had any dealings with Cash4unow?
They’ve sent me a rejection letter via post? Do these tend to listen to a response or are they hard work?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If they have rejected your complaint there is no point in going back to them unless you think there is something factually wrong with what they said. If they said you had 2 loans in 2015 and actually you had 5 loans in 2017, go back and challenge it. Otherwise you are probably wasting your time, just send the complaint to the Ombudsman.
African Queen says
Hello Sara,
I hope you are keeping well.
I just need your thoughts on what I can do next, if anything.
After waiting for 6 months, I eventually got the adjudicator decision asking MyJar to refund me for Loans 3-20. They were supposed to respond by the 5th of Nov. They didn’t and asked for an extension till the 27th. They have subsequently missed that deadline as well. They are not responding to any emails and the adjudicator has now referred it to an Ombudsman as they haven’t heard back either.
I am surprised that they are allowed to behave like this. It’s like they don’t even respect the FOS.
Any ideas on what to do next?
Thank you x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You could leave them a bad review on Trust Pilot https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/myjar.com. That sometimes seems to kick them into action.
African Queen says
Thank you Sara. I will. It just seems so unfair that they can treat people in this way. I will keep you updated x
African Queen says
Hello Sara,
Just wanted to give you a quick update.
As you advised, I posted a bad review on Trust Pilot. They responded with a standard response referring me back to their complaints department. I then emailed complaints@myjar with the title of Trust Pilot review. Within 15mins, I received an email from their Compliance Manager saying that they are processing my redress payment and it will be in my account before the end of business tomorrow. I have asked them for a breakdown as I never received one and also confirmation that they will remove all negative marks from my credit file. I live in hope that they will come through on their word. I can’t tell you the number of emails I sent them pleading for a response and it is such a shame that it takes a bad review for them to get their act together.
I just wanted to say thank you and let anyone else who is in the same position know that there is light at the end of the tunnel xx
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Success!
Becs says
I send my first complaint email to QQ (and all of the others – there were A LOT) in May 2018. I had an email from the adjudicator saying that she sent her view of my complaint to both myself and QQ on 26 October. They refused to agree with her findings (I have worked out that the amount of interest I would be entitled to would be approx £5k+). This has now gone to the Ombudsman (27 November). The adjudicator has said that if I would like to add anything further, that I would need to do so before 11 December (I feel that she has all the information she needs). Despairing, but all you can do is wait and hope!!
I am still waiting for an adjudicator to be assigned to the cases against Avant Credit, Lending Stream, Everyday Loans, Sunny and PayDay UK (I know that there is no chance of my Wonga complaint being looked at now).
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There are at least 3 types of cases where QQ is routinely rejecting adjudicator decisions:
1) if there are any loans of 6 years
2) if there are very long chains of loans
3) if some of the loans are after 2015.
Any idea which, if any, of these apply to you? How many QQ loans did you have and how many are being refunded?
Avant Credit and Everyday loans – these cases are normally going through quicker than payday loans, have you been waiting long? Your Wonga case will have been sent back to the administrators.
C says
Well done for getting it through the first steps with adjudicator though.
Mine for QQ was sent to FOS on March 1st and no indication of an adjudicator after 9 months of waiting.
I’ve excluded all loans over 6 years and only had repayments in 2015, as the last loan was taken in December 2014. However, there is £9k of interest in that 2012, 2013, 2014 time period. So I’m not hopeful it’ll get sorted at adjudicator level with QQ’s current track record.
Hope it’s sorted for you soon. All the best.
Susan Delaney says
Hi Sara
Please can you explain this a Final Offer from Pounds to Pocket (first one I have received after nearly 4 months still waiting on 4 others). The jargon they use is very confusing.
“This offer represents the interests and fees you have paid us on loans we have upheld, plus 8% simple annual interest on those interests and fees, minus 20% tax withholding (on the 8% simple interest) to be remitted directly to HMRC on your behalf. If you have any outstanding balance with us at this time, we will first apply the redress towards the balance and any remaining redress will be paid to you as a cash refund
● Interest and fees eligible for refund: £ 281.44
● plus 8% statutory interest £ 60.01
● less 20% withholding £ 12
● Total Owed to you £ 329.45
——————————————————————–
● Total Waiver Amount: £ 185.88
● Total Refund Amount £ 143.57
——————————————————————–
● Total Outstanding balance after the redress: £ 0
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have with P2P? Is there a balance outstanding on the last loan? How many loans have they offered to refund and does this include the last loan?
Susan says
Hi Sara,
Wow thank you for your fast response. I had 4 loans with them (one of my less borrowed from companies). They have listed that loan 1 is out of their jurisdiction (8/9/2012), no reason given for loans 2 and 3 just says not upheld they were issued 19/7/2013 and 24/1/2015. My last loan is with Payplan (dmp) and there is only approx. £200 left to pay on that one and this is the one the final offer letter refers to.
Thank you for responding.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, were the first three loan smaller than the last one? Were any of them rolled or topped up a lot?
Can you give the details about your last loan – what did you borrow? how much if anything did you pay to P2P? How much have you paid to Payplan? What is your current balance at payplan?
Susan says
Hi Sara,
The first 3 loans were for £700, £800 and £200. The last loan was for £1000. Topped up once with one of the loans. Paid via Payplan so far £930.18 and Payplan statement states an estimate outstanding amount of £213.46.
Thank you
Susan says
Do you think I should accept this offer and what does it mean?
Lisa G says
Advise please… has anyone had this?
I raised a complaint with Payday Express. They rejected. I asked them to reconsider considering the FOS said they would look at cases older than 6 years… (this was within a week or two of getting my final response from them).
They came back to me and said “based on your statements and circumstances, I think you are in time to make a complaint”. By this point I’d already raised a complaint with the FOS (the reference number was at the top of that response).
They asked for bank statements to reconsider. I sent those.
A few weeks on and I have received an email to say that they can see I have raised a complaint with the FOS and unfortunately it’s not possible for me to both proceed with the FOS and ask them the review my complaint further.
They have given me 2 options: either drop my case with the FOS and they will review my case, or continue with my FOS investigation.
This seems weird to me because they knew I had logged an FOS complaint when they asked me for further details, the FOS reference number was on the email! Shouldn’t they still be able to review my case even with a compliant logged?
I’m confused? What have other people done?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you reply that they knew you had complained to FOS weeks ago and you think they are being unreasonable – you will happily withdraw your FOS complaint if they revise their offer.
Lisa G says
Thanks Sara, I’ll do that. I was thinking something similar but didn’t want to jump the gun in case I was wrong!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well I’m not saying it will work. You can’t make them look at it again.
Lisa G says
Very true! I’m happy to argue my case with them as far as I can whist sitting back and waiting for the FOS… I’ll keep you posted.
BMWS1985 says
My Claim with Quickquid is currently with an Adjudicator. He is asking me for bank statements relating to 2014 but I’ve shown proof on loans older than this with QQ and sent him a complete summary QQ have sent to me. He is saying he can’t look at these loans without QQ’s permission and they have said no? The overwhelming majority of loans are 2010-2012 so potentially I am going to be offered a much smaller refund than I could be entitled to? Anyone had experience of this?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Go back to him and refer him to https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/payday-decision-lender-C.pdf and https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/payday-decision-lender-D.pdf.
Also explain how and when you found out you can make an affordability complaint (see https://debtcamel.co.uk/fos-time-limits-payday-loan-refunds/ for more about this) and say you want all your loans considered.
Donna says
Hi
Has anyone had any success by sending Uncle Bucks to the Ombudsman for loans over 6 years?
Regards
Donna
CJ says
Hi Guys,
The period for myself or the business to give anymore information about my case came to an end about a week ago,
Has anyone recently had this happen to them ?
If so how long was it between that period finishing and the Ombudsman sending out the final decision ?
Thanks in advance
CJ
CJ says
Correction **
The period for myself or the business to give anymore information about my case came to an end about a week ago as they had sent out a provisional decision,
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Was this provisional decision from an adjudicator? Or is your case at the second “ombudsman” level?
CJ says
Hi Sara,
This was a provisional decision from an ombudsman
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Great – then it should only be a couple of weeks unless the lender has come back with extra arguments.
Hope this was a good decision for you!
Joe says
Hi Sara,
Thanks for all your help. Came across payday refunds by accident – had over 100 loans with Wonga, QQ, P2P, Satsuma and Lending stream – all sent them your complaint template and hada response from QQ today for £603! I have refused this and sent it to FOS because they’ve had nearly £5K off me – waiting to hear on all the others, but so shocked with the first offer I didn’t think they would say yes – but QQ did only uphold 1 out of 12 complaints. Thank you sara and good luck everyone!
Daniel says
Hi Sarah,
Just looking for a bit of advice. I had a case with LS that the adjudicator found in my favour – defaults to be removed and £147 refund – this was agreed by both parties 35 working days ago and still nothing has happened. I have been in touch with LS who are now saying that they cannot locate ownership of two of the loans however they are working on it and will be in touch with me in due course. What would you advise? Surely they can’t have just lost all my personal details relating to two loans.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
were two of your loans sold? Do you know who to? Have you been making any payments to those debt collectors?
Daniel says
There were 4 outstanding loans that were sold to ACI (Asset Collections & Investigations). These however seemed to be couple together so rather than 4 smaller loans they’d morphed into one bigger loan and one smaller (Approx £600 & £200) rather than them all being at around £200. I had been making payments to ACI up to the point at which I complained, I then informed ACI that an investigation was ongoing and that I would not be making any more payments. LS have said that they are liaising with ACI on the matter but I still don’t understand the ‘can’t locate ownership’ side of things, surely they must know who they sold my details to.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This does seem unusually incompetent, even for Lending Stream :(
Is it just the 4 loans that were sold that are being refunded? I was wondering how there was a figure for a refund to you if LS haven’t had the details from the debt collector about what you have paid? Or is it £147 + the amounts you have paid to the debt collectors to be refunded?
Daniel says
To be perfectly honest with you Sara I couldn’t tell you. The way it appeared to have been sold on made it almost impossible to fathom however vague calculations in my head led me to believe i’d be due a refund of around the £150-£200 mark so this seemed correct. In the initial complaint stage with lending stream they have all the information to hand as they offered to remove all interest & charges along with payments that i’d already made to ACI which left an owing balance of £103 – I refused this on the basis that they hadn’t taken into account the 8%. So as of February this year they were allegedly aware of the loans and amounts etc. yet now it is an issue. Just unsure as to where to turn with it all.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So what was the adjudicator’s decision?
What the loans were sold on for is irrelevant to what you get back. What matters is what you borrowed and how much you repaid to LS and later to the debt collector. None of LS’s interest calculations matter.
Daniel says
The adjudicator came back with a response that said loans 4-9 were lent irresponsibly. Lending stream offered via FOS a total of £445.59 -split between interest/charges, fees paid and the annual interest. However they state an outstanding balance on £298 thus leaving a refund of £147.59 to me along with removing adverse information from my credit file. This was accepted.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Do you want to see if those numbers are correct for loans 4-9? or did you know LS was offering less than the adjudicator said and you were happy with that?
Daniel Canning says
I’d love to say I could figure out the numbers, it is just all so ridiculously complicated with how they have sold the loans on and how much interest they had added up to that point. By the time it came back from the FOS with a possible refund of £147 I was quite happy for the whole thing to be done with, especially with the adverse information being removed from my credit file – the 4 outstanding loans currently being defaults on my record.
Jen says
Hi Daniel, Sara put in another complaint to LS, tell them you want compensation of £50 per default on ur credit record as they have not fixed it in the time they agreed with the FOS, if they don’t respond go back to adjudicator and tell them what you have requested, fix credit report & compensation. Happened 2 me and adjudicator said they agreed to compensation & fix defaults, I’m still waiting on the loans being closed tho defaults off now, just put in 3rd complaint to close loans & compensation,as still say open & false info on report, gd luck
Sar says
Hi Sara
I have had a final response of 247moneybox who have said they are not upholding my complaint as they feel they did the proper checks etc. Though they have said as a goodwill gesture they will clear any negative defaults on my credit file. My question is I paid all my loans in full and on time (10 loans in 10 months I would pay 1 of and get ANOTHER the day after) so there wouldn’t be any negative defaults on my credit file would there as they where paid on time and in full? They should know this if they looked at my complaint properly shouldn’t they?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You have just been sent a standard reply.
I normally suggest sending outright rejections to FOS straight away. But 247 do sometimes change their minds, see this comment from someone a couple of days ago: “I had exactly the same response from them and after email ping pong with them for a week, managed to get a full refund. My tactic was to keep putting pressure on them in return which statements such as “can you confirm this is now your final response please so that I can now confidently escalate this to the FOS, I don’t wish to keep discussing this, my pattern of borrowing and credit history was evident enough and therefore i wish to transfer this to the next level without further delay”
i had 3 different offers, all of which i kept rejecting with responses like the above and then they settled in full :)”
So you could push back and say given your chain of loans for 10 months, borrowing the next day after repaying the previous loan, you are confident the Ombudsman will uphold your case, but to avoid the delays you would be happy to settle now for a refund of the interest on the last 7 loans. Give then a couple of days to reply, if they don’t send the case to FOS.
Simon says
Hello,
They did the same to me but after me going back to them on the third time they agreed to refund me the interest of 3 of the 7 loans so keep trying!
Sar says
Hi Simon
I sent them a email yesterday saying I don’t except the offer and that I am confident that I will win my case if I take to the FOS. They sent me a polite email back today saying that they are going to send my email over to the payments team (I have asked for interest of loans 4 – 10 to be refunded) and to thank me for keeping the dialogue open. Said they will get back to me as soon as possible. I am quietly hopefully I was expecting them to come back with a flat out no as so far I have sent of 7 complaints and 5 have come back with not upholding complaint (including 247) am still waiting on 2.
Sar says
Hi Sara
I have had my final response of sunny today as well (they are coming in quite fast now!). Sunny are not upholding my complaint they have said they have done all the checks etc. I have sent it to the FOS now but is it worth trying to negotiate with sunny? I really thought I would get a offer of them as 22 loans in 7 months to me is not responsible lending?
Elaine says
Hi Sara
I have spoken to Paydayuk and my complaint is still needing to be looked at .can they just sit there and say this?
I hadn’t had a response since 23/10/18 which was the 4 week mark.
I put in my complaint 23/9/18 they have said I can send to fos.
Are they just trying to make it harder and a longer.
Can I just keep pestering them or do you think just go to fos
Rob says
Elaine, if it helps at all, I submitted claims for both Payday Express and Payday UK on the 12 Sep and still no final response. 8 week deadline, email received, said they needed another 3/4 weeks. That additional extended time period is up within the next week. I am not hopeful that there will be any sort of response even then. I suspect they simply have not got the resource to process the volume of complaints that they are now receiving.
GM says
Same with me. Complaint initially sent on 07/09, then at 8 weeks they asked for another 3 to 4 weeks and still no outcome at the end of that extended period. Its now 13 weeks and they emailed me a few days ago saying that due to the sheer volume they haven’t been able to process the claims in time. I’ve sent the complaint to the FOS last week, but if they PDUK/Express/Money shop are this slow with customers complaints, it would also take ages to deal with the FOS. Complaints are flooding in and I feel that they might go under the same route at Wonga. They stopped lending, so revenue in and they might not want to invest in more staff.
Elaine says
Thanks Rob
I will send my complaint to the fos.
I agree they are snowed under with complaints
I will update this site if I hear anything
Laurence says
I’ll be into week 15 with Payday UK next week. They are clearly so bogged down with complaints that they just have no change of meeting the deadline.
No clue when I’ll get final response.
Get your cases into the FOS to at least get the clock ticking
Becky says
Hi everyone,
So after the ajucicator giving 247 an extra week to reply to her finding they have agreed with her…..yay! She has now requested a breakdown of their offer so hopefully it wont be much longer now.
Ryan says
Sara,
I’ve had communication with wonga & Pounds2pocket. Wonga refuses my offer per month & states I must pay in full.
Pounds2pocket have offered to wipe £400 of my current loan but I’m rejecting that, they are still sending me letter saying they’re defaulting my loan & next step is court?
I emailed satsuma 6 weeks had no acknowledgement or reply but had 3 letter saying they will take me to court if I don’t respond to the calls or get in touch & pay.
Where do I stand?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you made affordability complaints to Wonga, P2P and Satsuma? At what stage are these complaints?
Ryan says
No not done one with any, I offered to pay £50 per month on the template letter above I sent, wonga rejected saying they want full, satsuma haven’t acknowledged the email & Pounds2pocket never said yes or no but still send letters? Not sure what to do.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK so these cases are all different.
Wonga, how many loans did you have from them before this last one? How large was the last loan and how much if anything have you paid Wonga to date for the last loan?
P2P – if you have rejected their offer, have you sent the case to FOS and if so have you told P2P this? did you borrow a lot from them?
Satsuma I suggest you email them saying you are waiting for their reply to your complaint dated dd/mm/yy and in that complaint you made a payment offer of £50 a month. How many previous loans did you have from them?
John says
After waiting 6 months for my Money Shop complaint to picked up by an adjudicator, it was finally picked up at the end of October and I phoned my adjudicator on Monday for an update and he confirmed that he had everything he needed and would be investigating my complaint this week .He also said that he will be going away today and had not been in the office much in the past 2 weeks but will be investigating my complaint before he goes and send the decision by email.He has now gone away again until next week and has not bothered to get intouch.I had a gut feeling that he would not stick to his word .May be he works part time as an adjudicator and I have feeling it might be after christmas that I will get a decision from him, I appreciate the volume of paperwork involved , 68 loans from 2008-2012.I dont mind the waiting as I have already waited over 7 months with the FOS for my case to be resolved but its good to communicate.
Colin says
Hi Sarah/All,
I complained to the FOS about QQ because they said my loans were over 6 years ago. I only made the complaint 2 weeks ago and today received a letter from FOS saying they are processing the complaint and waiting for QQ to give their side of the story. I have some questions for you:-
1) How long do QQ normally take to give FOS “their side of the story”?
2) The FOS said if I haven’t already done so please provide bank statements. The problem with this I told them in my initial complaint I have only been able to send them 3 bank statements as the 20 odd bank statements are from before I can download them from RBS around 2010/11/12.
Do they have to have these or can they progress without these?
3) They also ask for a credit report. When I go on Noddle to download credit report it doesn’t show the right mess I was in back in 2010 is has the current situ so how on earth do you get your credit report from 2010?
Is this possible to get and do they need this if you cannot get it?
3) is this quite a quick response from the FOS or just standard?
Cheers
Colin.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
1) a few weeks I think normally
2) have you spoken to RBS about this? you want something in writing from them to pass to FOS saying they can’t provide you with earlier bank statements. Also look for other evidence that would have been on bank statements for the earlier loans – do you have P60s? payslips? tenancy agreement showing rent? It is easier to win cases with more evidence.
3) FOS always ask for your credit report. Just send it even though it won’t help with older loans
2 weeks is normal for you to be asked to send this stuff. It is just getting your case “ready”, no-one is actually looking at it. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/financial-ombudsman-what-happens/.
karen wilson says
How long does fos take to look at claim mines just gone in?
Colin says
About a year on average, if your counting on the money soon I wouldn’t bank on it
karen wilson says
No they have just started looking at it now been in 6 months need time frame for them for looking into claim
Craig says
Had email from quick quid 2 days ago wanting my bank details for my refund, any body any idea how long it takes for them to pay out ?
Colin says
That’s good.
Please explain your complaint Craig?
Laurence says
Less than 24 hours if you ask for it to be paid straight away
Lonso says
Hi Sara
I have put in my complaint to MyJar, Wonga and Pounds to pocket, I’ve had an initial response from all 3 payday loans with statements of loans taken between 2012 and 2015. All 3 loans were defaulted between 2014-15 and I’m still waiting to hear their verdict.
However, my question is; I defaulted on a Barclays credit card (one given to people with poor credit history) which I took in 2014 and defaulted 2015. At the time, when I got the credit card (2014) i had 2 defaults on my credit history from the two of the payday loans. I went on to default on the other payday loan in 2015 and subsequently defaulted on Barclays later in 2015?
What are my chances in writing to Barclays pleading with them to kindly remove the default as I was given unaffordable payday loans which led to Barclays tempting/giving me a credit card with Unaffordable-higher interest rates?
Many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not Barclay’s fault you were given unaffordable payday loans – pleading isn’t likely to work.
If you think Barclays gave you a credit limit that was too large given your credit history, you could complain about that, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-catalogue-credit-card/. these cases aren’t as simple to win as payday loan cases, but it depends on the circumstances of your case.
Ramzes says
Hi,
I have fallen in payday loan spiral in 2016. There are only three payday loan providers where I had three or more loans but in total there will be over ten insurers. I have tried to avoid defaults but now i am in the situation where I have 2000 pounds loan with 118 and 4500 to repay. 600 payday loan with one lender 200 with another and 1000 pounds credit line that cost me 200 pounds every month. Amount of interest I have paid and still paying is extreme and this month I need to miss 3 bills. This is the point where I cant borrow more to repay. When my trouble started I hoped that I will get few payday loans and will consolidate i bank after while. But credit score didnt go up too much in last two years and i blocked myself do much i cant close month on zero.
I have contacted company who offers interest recovery for 36% and only with 3 loan providers that I had most loans. But I need someone to look at bigger picture as I was getting some loans to recover financial loss after another payday loan.
What would you advice in this situation?
I am thinking of getting in touch with each provider to set repayment plan. I need to stop paying so high interest as I will bankrupt sooner than loan will be closed.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“I have contacted company who offers interest recovery for 36% and only with 3 loan providers that I had most loans. ” That is a great pity. Not only will they take a chunk of any refund but they often do a VERY poor job for people, very slow and not giving good advice about when to take a case to the ombudsman. If you are within the cooling off period I suggest you cancel this right away and make the claims yourself.
It sounds as though you have a lot of different debts. It can be hard to negotiate payment arrangements with many creditors and 118 Money are sometimes difficult. I suggest instead you sign up for a DMP with StepChange, see https://www.stepchange.org/how-we-help/debt-management-plan.aspx for all your outstanding debts.
Re 118 Money, read https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/ and put in an affordability complaint to them too.
re the lenders you borrowed less than three times from – it may still be worth making a complaint if the last loan was large or if you still owe them a balance.
Baggy70 says
I had an offer from QQ for £5400 which they paid within 24 hours after I accepted. They didnt look at loans over 6 years, but in view of amount I accepted.
Pretty quick final response, they did ask for bank statements which I didn’t have but I sent them my P60s and mortgage statements with a breakdown of my financial circumstances
cheryl says
when did you submit tge complaint?
Baggy70 says
I first contacted them 31st Oct, got the generic email and contact from a caseworker soon after. They had no defence really as I ended up in arrears with my mortgage and was payjng one loan off and getting another 2 days later and this continued for at least 6 months. Thank god those dark days are over!
Matt says
Update
QQ disagreed with adjudicators findings. They counter offered around 2k. I have rejected this yesterday as it should be closer to £9k if they had agreed with adjudicator. Bit frustrating but I’ve waited this long so can wait for an Ombudsman now. I didn’t include the loans over 6 years either to speed things up, appears QQ will do all they can to get out of paying what they owe!!
Dana says
My latest update, QQ disagreed with the FOS regarding loans post 2015, however, they offered around £2500 for the loans from 2012-2014, I’m taking this and running, the Adjudicator said it could go to an Ombudsman if I wanted but it could be a long time (7 months) until it gets seen to, I’m not risking waiting and then QQ then going into liquidation aka Wonga. I’m happy with this.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t think there is much risk of QQ going bust like Wonga – their US parent has very healthy financials and QQ seems to be doing OK too. But it if you want the money now and you are happy that is what matters.
John says
Hi debt camel
I was just looking at my ajducator decisions from 2017 against five pay day loan companies and they were all turned down on grounds that I had large sums available to me between £1000- £500 for loans ranging from £100 – to 300 , for example I had a £200 second loan with my jar and they had my salary down as £1400 and had outgoings of £400 which was as I never the case and I have just seen your Website before to argue the case of if the creditor should have seen my outgoings and said let’s check this out . Do you think I have a case for irresponsible lending ? As I went down unaffordable the first time
All my loans at the time were used to pay for gambling
Thanks
John
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No.
Irresponsible lending is a broader argument than unaffordable loans, it could be for a variety of reasons eg the lender failed to explain key features of the credit such as your right to cancel for example.
But you aren’t suggesting any of those apply, you are basically saying the loans wer unaffordable and the lender should have done better checks and seen this. So your complaint about irresponsible lending would be exactly the same as the one about unaffordable loans which you lost.
Sorry – you should have taken the cases to the second Ombudsman level in 2017. Cases with gambling are harder to win unless you borrowed consistently from the same lender. You can’t restart the cases now.
Dylan says
Hi,
Sorry this is a little off topic but I was thinking about putting in a complaint about creation finance (Currys PC World credit account). I feel they lent to me irresponsibly as I had multiple payday loan defaults at the time and the woman in the store even told us she increased my salary on the application so I would get accepted. Is this worth the conplaint / and is this irresponsible?
Thanks in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Obviously it is irresponsible lending to increase your salary. However you may have difficulty proving this was what happened. I suggest you follow the route on this page https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/ and start by sending both Currys and Creation a Subject Access Request asking for a copy of all your personal information, including any credit applications and copies of any credit record or other verification checks they did.
Laura says
Has anyone had any experiences with Sunny? The date for them to reply to the adjudicator was the 4th December and when I rang on Friday they hadn’t responded..do they take a little extra time because they are busy or will it likely go to Ombusdman?? Can they still make an offer whilst in ombudsman queue, or is usually no response an indicator that it will definitely go to the ombudsman? Thanks
k says
Has anyone had any experience with Satsuma? I had a decision from the adjudicator on the 22.11.18 and they had until the 06.12.18 to make a decision if they agreed or not and they asked the FOS for an extension which they got until the 12.12.18 i currently have an open loan with them where i pay 332 pound a month which comes out on the 27th of each month. I have spoken to them and asked if they will be making a decision before the 27th when my payment is due out and they declined to answer me. Im just wondering if they are likely to refer to the Ombudsman or accept? I just want this loan writing off which the refund i get will do and then some?