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, Safetynet Credit, Tappily:
- 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, Likely Loans, 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 – they won’t help an affordability complaint and the ombudsman never asks for them.
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;
- your 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 installment 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 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 2016, 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 2022 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
- a copy of the credit agreements for the loans if you have them. If you don’t, don’t worry, 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 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.
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?
Kevin says
Hi,
Firstly thanks to Sara for setting up this website as it has been very useful. I’ve various claims going through at the moment and actually had my first response from WDA via Curo a week before they went into administration. I had 6 loans with them over a few years and they upheld my complaint against my last loan from them which still had an outstanding balance of just under £1k so they waived that and agreed to refund a small about over the principal loan as I had repaid £40 over the £1,500 principal amount. I’m guessing it’s not worth chasing that now they are in administration? Also, the other loans they rejected the complaint against had around £2,000 in interest paid against them, is it worth sending a complaint to the FOS to ask for a refund for that? I will post anymore success I have with other firms and look forward to hearing about more successful refunds!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can’t send a WDA complaint to FOS any more.
Have they wiped your debt and updated your credit record?
Kevin says
Yes they wiped the remaining £1k on my existing loan and offered a £40 refund for the amount I’d paid over the principal loan amount which I’m guessing is not worth chasing!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well you may eventually get a rather tiny cheque but there is certainly no point in chasing it. Do make sure your credit record has been updated though.
paula says
hi iv got my reply from adj on qq they have until 14th March to agree my refund. Loan all between 2013 and 2016 and interest amounts to £1700.
i hope they accept and offer as it been a long time going.
Casey says
Hi Grant,
I’m in the same boat as you re Sunny. Adjudicator found in favour on 18th Jan and they had until 31st Jan to respond but they didn’t. I left a bad review on trust pilot too but nothing. My adjudicator has said though that the f o s is aware that sunny have severe delays in responding to them and that their internal first contact team are chasing them.
Sara, is there any worries around sunny and potential administration ? Just in view of what’s happened to some of the payday lenders recently it makes you worry ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sunny are owned by a US listed company called Elevate so there is some visibility of their financial position. In their last quarters results in January, they weren’t highlighting refund costs as a major problem, in contrast to Curo, Wageday Advance’s parent.
Casey says
Thanks for that Sara that’s good to know
paul whalley says
Hi Sara,
I had several loans with txtloan, they denied any record of this as it was 2012 and said they don’t keep their records that long. I have subsequently sent bank statements , highlighting the deposit( which just says ‘credit’) and the withdrawal shortly after which does say txtloan, the figures link , 10-14 gap between deposit and inflated withdrawal.
They have responded saying that the credit doesn’t show it is from them, I have responded saying why were txtloan just withdrawing sizeable amounts from my account then- is this perhaps a matter I should refer to the police as this appears to be theft.
Is it worth just letting the FOS resolve as I can’t get anymore information on this deposit source?
The 8 weeks is up so I feel this is just timewasting from them.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have from them? What were the gaps between the loans?
I am being realistic here – if you only had a couple of loans and there was a big gap between them it may not be worth pursing this.
But if there were more loans then I think you should send it to FOS to look at. Explain the lender is refusing to consider your complaint and attach your bank statements as proof of the loans.
Paul says
Hi Sara,
About 10 loans , one after another and all increasing in value .
I have said they have 24 hours to reply or I Will making this a fraud claim and reporting it to my bank asking to seek all monies taken not just the interest .
Are myjar always this awkward ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No they aren’t, but it may just be the txtloan database they have a problem with.
Chris says
Sara, I sent Cashfloat copy bank statements but received an email from them this morning still declining my complaint.
Their reasoning is – Thank you for your bank statements however, our decision on the matter remains unchanged. Although your bank statements show other creditors, as previously advised, a recent response from the Financial Ombudsman Service has stated to us that it is reasonable for a lender to rely on a consumer’s declaration of their income and expenditure at the earlier stages of a lending cycle.
My argument is not against loan 1, it is that as soon as loan 1 was paid, I took out another loan the same day, then did the same for loan 3. It was only when I applied for loan 4 they requested bank statements and declined me. I have argued that they should have done this earlier but they claim they followed the FCA guidelines in PS 18/19?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Send it to FOS and let them decide. Your argument is that loans 2 & 3 were increasing in value and taken out the same day as repaying one, which should have caused them to check more closely. And do point out to FOS that their reply to you that your other borrowing had fallen was incorrect, that when they replied they =either knew this wrong or they just invented it without checking in the hope of making you give up your claim.
Casey says
I’ve just heard from my adjudicator that as sunny haven’t responded to his decision it is now going to the ombudsman.
He says sunny might come back before it gets to that stage but it’s in the queue.. has anyone else had a similar experience where by sunny or loan company have come back quicker than t going to ombudsman level?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes sometimes lenders do come back and accept an offer while it is in the queue for an Ombudsman.
Link says
Hi,
I’ve been chasing TrustedQuid for a statement of account however they are ignoring me. Should I proceed with official complaint? If so how should I proceed?
Thanks! :)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How much do you remember about your borrowing – was it years ago?
Link says
It was late 2016. I’ve got most the figures here.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
In that case you didn’t need to bother with Step one at all – just send then the full step two letter and add a sentence saying you also want them to send you a full Statement of Account.
Fiona says
Sara I have a wageday complaint with FOS for over a year I guess this will be lost now although I have received an email from the creditors to opt in or out? I also have a large one with quick quid was waiting for the 6 year thing to get sorted out do you think it’s best to just settle for what I can get I can’t afford to loose out on 2 .
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“I have received an email from the creditors to opt in or out?” what exactly does this email say?
Your QQ case. So far as I know, QQ have very healthy finances and are not about to go under. I am hopeful that the 6+ year cases are going to start to move. How many of your QQ loans were over 6 years old and how many are under?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Tom has posted a copy of the email from WDA’s administrators (thanks Tom!). I have moved it over here: https://debtcamel.co.uk/wageday-advance-wda-administration-sale-morses-club/ and I will comment about the opt-in / out there.
Fiona says
Thanks as I don’t understand what I should do
Michael says
Hi, I was wondering whether or not I’d be okay contacting 247 directly about a settlement agreement.
My complaint was opened this time last year. The adjudicator ruled in my favour in November last year and asked them to arrange a refund on all interest on 9/12 loans.
247 didn’t respond and it’s gone to the ombudsman for final decision. I was told an 8 week turnaround which has now been and gone and I’m still waiting with no updates from anyone.
Is it worth just sticking out now? Or can I call 247 and try get something sorted?
Thanks you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Lenders don’t normally negotiate at this point. You could try leaving them a bad review on https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/247moneybox.com and see if that wakes them up.
Hopefully it won’t be much longer.
S K says
Hi all,
Thanks to Sara and this site my journey of reclaiming my unaffordable loans is now over. All of my loans were found in my favour and received my final payout yesterday from payday express.
Total received was almost £18000 from WDA, sunny, quid, payday Uk, payday express and mr lender. It’s been a long process which I couldn’t of done without this site. I can now breathe a sigh of relief and know never to get myself in this spiral again.
Stay positive and patient everyone and good luck with all!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well done!
Laura says
Hi Sara (again)
I’m at ombudsman level in my complaint re: P2P and QQ. My adjudicator said loans 1-12 excluding 2 and 4 were not affordable . I wrote back saying I felt loan 4 wasn’t I had borrowing with other payday lenders but my debt repayments alone not including payday loans was over £1k not including living costs or payday repayments on a £1300 wage. Obviously the payday loans might now have been onvvious to them but the bank loans and finance would be. Ombudsman has wrote saying they don’t plan to uphold my request for this loan but is it worth writing back and arguing my point about the non payday loan debt? I might not have declared full amount that but it was on my credit record or do I just think myself lucky and drop it?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it’s up to you. But unless loan 4 was especially large, it sounds as though you are going to get a good overall result, are you not?
Laura says
Yes it’s over £10,000 but I think I just feel bitter because I lost out on £12,000 from Wonga with my adjudicator going off sick case etc but thanks I’ve tolf them that’s fine leave it out
Iain123 says
My PAYDAY UK experience.
Sent the initial template in September. They responded quickly with my account history. I got back to them with bank statements and my story. They issued a Final Response after 16 weeks (at 8 weeks they said wait another 8 weeks). They made an offer for the loans within six years, which I accepted and received that money within 10 days. They said ‘unable to determine’ the 6+ year loans. I contacted Santander Head Office for older bank statements and they provided an extra three year statements which I sent to PDUK. They made a further offer which I accepted and received yesterday.
No need for a Financial Ombudsman complaint.
I believe my story backed up with bank statements provided enough evidence that lending to me was a mistake, unaffordable and predatory.
Martin says
Hi Sara,
Firstly, thank you for this site it is extremely helpful resource. Could I please get your opinion on the following complaint however ?
I lodged an affordability complaint with the FOS about Swift Sterling where I had 4 loans in 2017. The adjudicator in July last year found that the interest etc on loan 4 should be refunded. Swift Sterling disputed this and it went to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has overruled the adjudicator despite his own comments,’I have considered that XXX borrowed regularly from SwiftSterling and often took a new loan within just a few days of the early repayment of this previous loan. I think SwiftSterling should have become increasingly concerned about that pattern of behaviour. But on balance I think it was reasonable here for the lender to rely on the information XXX provided about his disposable income and conclude that the loans were affordable for him. have discovered. I don’t think SwiftSterling needed to go further than the checks it did, and those suggested that the loans were affordable. So I don’t think SwiftSterling was wrong to give these loans to XXX ‘
Do you think this is a particularly harsh stance from the Ombudsman in this case ? Is it possible to ask for a second opinion ?
Lisa says
Hi Sara I have received an offer from ptp/ quickquid today. This is 6 weeks into my complaint. The offer I have received is for 2 out of 8 loans. The 1st and 4th due to the fact of them taking up more than my disposable income. Loan 5 and 6 were taken out in the same month and were costing me much more per month than loans 1 and 4 and were rejected. I have emailed back to ptp showing them how much these were costing per month and asking them to reconsider. I must add that the person dealing with my claim has kept me up to date at all times. Loan 1 was £850 I have been offered £1616 refund plus simple interest. Loan 4 was for 800 and I have been offered £879 refund plus simple interest. Loan 5 was for 1500 I paid £3400 interest on this and was paying over £500 per month loan 6 which was taken in the same month was for £800 and I was paying £178 per month. I don’t understand how they can say this was affordable and have asked them to reconsider. Just wondered what your thoughts are on this.
Thank you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it’s good you got an offer after 6 weeks. But it sounds rather random? Was there a big gap between repaying loan 4 and taking loans 5 & 6? And what about 7 & 8?
Lisa says
No as soon as one finished I took the next one the puzzling thing is I was still paying one they deemed unaffordable when they rejected five and 6. I got a response from asking them how they decided this and there reply was quite aggressive totally different to how they responded before.
The first was march 2013 the very last was Sept 2016 but all the rest were before 2015
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you send your complaint to FOS today. Literally. You want the first loan to be less than 6 years old ideally otherwise the case at FOS can take a lot longer.
JOJO says
I think I touched on these briefly but can anyone give any advice with SNC. At one stage they give me a credit limit of £930.
At one stage I was using the whole amount every month to keep on top of other loan and PDL payments. For the last 6 months I was using and owing them circa £1150 and they took the whole lot back every month . 50% of my salary. Most months I was borrowing within hours of them taking the full payment. They knew my outgoings and could see all the other PDL , high interest loans I was taking out etc. Taking over £1000 from me is why I became reliant of having to take more and more from them and other PDL. Has anyone had any in-depth dealings with them? Any advice welcomed please.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They are often one of the easier lenders to get a refund from – precisely because they could see your bank statements. Just send them the standard complaint. If you still owe them money you MUST cancel the CPA with your bank as sometimes that have told someone complaining that their account is frozen for 30 days, then took the money at the end of that without any more notice even though they hadn’t responded to the complaint.
JOJO says
Hi Sarah. I have issues a complaint and they decline it. CPA already cancelled and I am paying them £50 month. In their final letter they said I had extra income of £930 every month (I wish I did) don’t know how they work that out. I had £2200 a month and they took 50% of that.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That sounds like a factual error – go back to them and point it out and say the complaint goes to FOS in a week if they haven’t come back with a suitable offer.
JOJO says
CPA cancelled and £50 arrangement per month being paid. They seem to think I was getting £930 a month extra into my account (Which I wasnt) salary £2200 and they was taking 50% of it which I can prove. Most months I was borrowing the full £920 back starting hours after them taking their full repayment.
JOJO says
I was also borrowing elsewhere for the duration trying not to loan from them and then end up having to take their credit line to live and keep up with pdl payments
Rob says
Yeah I did and I submitted an affordable complaint. They didn’t acknowledge it and I eventually sent it off to the FOS. After a few weeks I checked with the FOS and they hadn’t engaged with them so I followed some advice on here and left them a bad review in trustpilot. Within 24 hours they’d replied and I think about a week went by and they offered me a refund of £4500.
They removed all interest on what o owed so it left a default of £1000 which they took out of the refund. Adding on interest meant I received around £4000 back and all negative aspects to my credit file.
It’s definitely worth submitting and if they don’t respond, leave them a bad review on trustpilot. They can see all your outgoings so long as that was the account you’d used for everything. I had several accounts but SNC could see I wasn’t managing money and was gambling. The FOS didn’t need to make a judgement because SNC agreed an offer first. It did take leaving that review to move it along.
StevieC says
They also rejected my complaint although I went to the FOS who found in my favour. £2000 refund.
Anita says
Hi
Have anyone had any luck with FOS regarding loans older than 6 years?
Katie G says
Hi Sara,
First of all thank you for having this forum helping us!!
I have recently started my complaints I took out loads of payday loans with about 15 lenders but took out about 3-8 loans with each company before I moved on to another and so on… I have put in all my complaint using the templates provided.
However I received an email a few days ago informing me that WAGE DAY ADVANCE had gone in to administration. What happens now? I put my final complaint in and have another week left before its been 8 weeks. I did this before they went in to administration. Can I still take this to the FOS?
Also payday express and Payday UK have extended my complaint and are still yet to provide me with my loan information and it has been nearly 8 weeks. I feel like they may be delaying their tactics before they go in to administration.
Any advice? I could really do with the money so have been holding out especially with WDA and PDUK and Payday express as I took out around 6-8 loans each with them at the same time.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“took out about 3-8 loans with each company before I moved on to another ” the more loans you took from 1 company, the stronger your complaint is against them.
For WDA, this page is no longer relevant. Latest news will be on https://debtcamel.co.uk/wageday-advance-wda-administration-sale-morses-club/. You can no longer send WDA cases to FOS.
Do you have all the loan information from PDUK & Express? It’s hard to say what to do with these cases. They do seem swamped at the moment and some people are getting good offers by waiting it out (unlike WDA where the good offers never seemed to appear…) But if you don’t get a good offer at 16,18, 20 weeks you will wish you had sent the case to FOS at 8 weeks.
Iain123 says
Payday Express, Payday UK and The Money Shop took 16 weeks to supply a Final Response. They said they were busy.
Ross says
After a long wait (Aug 17) I’m starting to see progress on my QQ complaint. The adjudicator wrote to QQ 2 weeks ago giving its view on the 6 year rule. QQ didn’t respond by the deadline, so I chased the adjudicator last Wednesday who advised they had requested an extension to the 14th March. Yesterday I received an adjudicator decision (a different adjudicator) of all the loans including the over 6 year ones (i assume QQ have accepted the 6 year decision). QQ now have until 21st to respond on the decision of all the loans. Heres hoping the it will soon be resolved. I was supprised that in less than a week it has progressed to the loans having been assessed. Will keep you updated.
Mike says
Hi Ross
Your last few weeks sound the same as mine. I to had one adjudicater you wrote to QQ about looking at the 6yr+ loans and gave them until 22/2. They didn’t respond to adjudicater who said she would be in touch when she heard something. Yesterday got an email from another different adjudicater saying he was now looking at my complaint. How quick did he complete his assessment and get back to you?
Cheers
Ross says
I don’t even know. I heard last wednesday they had an extension and yesterday I got the adjudicator decision I received no communication between. Good luck with your case.
Cee says
Hi Sara,
I submitted a complaint to 247 Moneybox for irresponsible lending on the 21st of feb and they got back to me on the 25th with a breakdown of all my lending and my outstanding balance which is due the 13th of this month. This recent loan which was taken out should have never been lent as my credit file already showed up to 8k debt with 4 other lenders which i quickly highlighted to them. After submitting my complaint I checked my 247 money box account and it says ‘loan in default’ what does that mean when the loan is not due yet and where do I stand ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Can you afford to make the next payment?
Cee says
I cannot as I will not have enough money to last me until my next wages are due which will be in April.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Then cancel the CPA with your bank to make sure they can’t take the money.
When you have got past the date you should have paid, they could record a missed payment on your credit record – it shouldnt turn into a default for several months. And if you win your affordability complaint any negative marks should be removed.
Cee says
I will cancel today, when I raised my complaint they had frozen the interest on the loan and put in as in default but not understanding what thats actually meant to mean?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If they had already frozen the interest and put it in default before you put your complaint in, this hasn’t changed. If they did this after your complaint went in, then they have just added a marker to your account saying that interest isn’t going to be added any more, however long it takes to resolve the complaint and that you aren’t making the normal payments.
Cee says
Hi I just received a reponse off 247 stating that they cannot redress because I have an little outstanding balance which they quickly froze the interest on as soon as I lodged my complaint… which I think they are just using as an excuse not to refund me anything. However they said they would clear the outstanding balance and remove any negative markers on my credit file which seems to be a common practice for them instead of issuing refunds.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have from 247 before this loan you defaulted on?
Cee says
7 loans from them in the space of 3 months.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So that is probably a poor or very poor offer – unless the last loan was MUCH larger than the previous ones. So let’s look at the numbers. How much did you borrow and how much interest did you pay for each of the previous loans you repaid? Please list in oredr – loan 1 £x borrowed £y interest, loan 2 etc
Then the last loan – how much did you borrow? how much if anything have you paid to this?
Tom p says
Hi
I have received an offer from PD exp after going to FOS. they agreed and have come up with a figure of £1510 redress- i accepted this 2 weeks ago sent my bank details atc. Anyone know how long they normally take to pay out?
Iain123 says
About ten days. They send paperwork to their ‘treasury’ department on Friday and it goes in your bank Monday or Tuesday.
Give them a call on 01903768769, prepare to hold for 30-45 minutes.
tom says
thanks Ian – i will give them a try today
Erica says
How long are The Money Shop taking to come back with a final response? I know they have 8 weeks to reply but I have just phoned them and my complaint is in the final stages apparently? Originally emailed them my complaint on the 1st Feb.
Sophie says
Quite a while. I sent them my complaint at the beginning of December and only got a final response yesterday.
Iain123 says
16 weeks. At eight weeks they said they need another eight weeks.
Had to wait, no point going to the FOS without a Final Response.
Erica says
Thank you both – looks around the middle of May then hopefully.
SUSAN says
Hi,
Re: Sunny
My complaint to Sunny (July 2018) was not upheld so it’s now with the ombudsman.
Tooday I recieved an email offering settlement a reduction of 80% of outstanding balance if I pay by 5th April. I need to telephone them to discuss it. I have spoken with FOS who advise me I am still waiting for review by adjudicator but they will try and speed this up for me given the timescale from Sunny.
I am tempted to either contact Sunny and renegotiate or just leave it with FOS as this feels like a guilty offer from Sunny! I am not in a position to repay the money anyway at the moment and I am currently paying a minimum of £1 per month.
What are your thoughts?
Best Wishes,
Susan.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I doubt it is a “guilty offer” – it’s more likely a routine settlement offer Sunny are making to anyone with a balance owed for more than some length of time.
I’m not sure what you have to negotiate with if you don’t have the 20% sitting in the bank? And letting the FOS process carry on will also mean that your credit record gets cleaned up if FOS think the last loan is unaffordable.
Robert says
Hi, i currently have an affordability complaint in with peachy.
They have gotten back to me, and told me that they will be freezing interest and recovery activity for the duration of my complaint.
However, they go on to state that they won’t be collecting my upcoming payment and that my account may go overdue.
Im wondering what this means for me? I have the money to pay them back, but as usual it will leave me short this month. Should i make the payment on time, or wait until they get back to me on with their final response? (They state in the email that this will be no later than 60 days)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You should NOT pay them if it will leave you short. You have to get out of the payday loan trap and that means stopping borrowing so you also have to stop making unaffordable repayments.
Cancel the CPA with your bank. Peachy may well not take the payment but get yourself safe.
If you want you can offer an affordable amount to start chipping away at the balance. You won’t be worse off doing this if you win your complaint as the extra you have paid will be refunded.
Yes your account goes overdue. If you win the case that doesn’t matter as any negative marks on your credit record will be wiped. If you don’t, you can then make an affordable payment arrangement (if you haven’t made one already) and at least you are free from the cycle of payday loan borrowing and paying all that interest in future.
Katie says
Hi Sarah, I’m in the process of complaining to a few payday loan companies, PaydayUK(themoneyshop), QuickQuid and Sunny.
I had an offer from PaydayUK of around £2,000 for 5 loans borrowed between July 2012 and August 2013, but I also had a previous 13 loans with them between September 2010-June2012, they have so far said they’re unable to determine if these were lent irresponsibly, and have requested a copy of my credit report which I have requested through the post from equitable. But also a number of bank statements from 2010 to 2012, I no longer even have an account with the bank I had then and with it being 9 years old at least I’m not sure I’ll be able to get any? I am going on branch next week as the call centre has been unable to help. What would your advice be on this, if I can’t get these statements am I best accepting the offer of £2,000 and just settling that the older loans can not be looked at.
As far as QuickQuid and Sunny go, they have both said they feel I have not been lent to irresponsibly, so I am in the process of making a complaint to the FOS in regards to these as I continually rolled the loans over or at the very least borrowed almost or every month from them. Sometimes in the same month. Any advice would be appreciated. Or if anyone has had anything similar.
Thanks
Katie
Sara (Debt Camel) says
First your credit report. Get a Noddle credit report, it’s free and it is likely to show more payday loans than other credit reports.you can download it if your are using a desktop or laptop. Send th S to FOS with your first complaint and it will be shared for the other ones.
Yes try to get your old bank statements next week. Make the decision later if you can’t – no point in trying to decide until you know the facts!
Iain123 says
Katie
Payday lenders operate differently when it comes to refunds. Firstly, TAKE THE £2000 TODAY. SIGN AND RETURN THE DOCUMENTS ASAP. YOU’LL GET THE MONEY IN ABOUT TEN DAYS. Taking this won’t affect the 2010-2012 loan complaints. ‘Unable to determine’ just means the ball is back in your court. Santander Branch staff told me statements only go back 7 years. I accepted this for a while, then got a brain wave. A polite request to Head Office produced another three years statements which was crucial for my complaint. If you can’t get old statements take it to the FOS anyway.
I had a similar response from Sunny and QQ, so complained to the FOS.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This may be possible, but I would want PDUK to confirm in writing that you can accept the 2k and still carry on with the 10-12 complaints.
Iain123 says
Give them a call on 01903768769. The wait is about 30-45 minutes.
Iain123 says
The Money Shop, Payday UK and Payday Express come under Instant Cash Loans umbrella.
They produce the same type of Final Response. The categories are ‘Funds Lent Responsibly’, ‘Unable to Determine’ and ‘Agreed Funds Lent Irresponsibly’.
‘Funds Lent Responsibly’, take it straight to the Ombudsman. ‘Unable to Determine’ means you need more information, preferably bank statements – you can take it to the Ombudsman as well. ‘Agreed Funds..’ will be accompanied by a request for bank details.
I ccepted their offer, received my money, and have ongoing complaints with the ‘Unable to Determine’ loans.
Other lenders, like H&T, don’t operate this way. They make it very clear accepting an offer cancels any ‘undetermined’ loans. So I refused H&T’s offer and sent it to the Ombudsman.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I am just saying that I think it’s better to get it in writing.
Katie says
I did already ask them if they would still look at the previous loans if I accepted the £2,000, and this is the response I received:
“You can proceed any way: either (1) send us the second acceptance and then provide your bank statements when these are available, or, (2) send the additional information, receive the full outcome on your case and only then provide with acceptance(s).
I would advise you to chose the second way, because in case you chose the first, so if after bank statements reviewing you receive a new response letter which you not agree with, unfortunately, the FOS will not review this matter because you have already accepted an offer in full and final.
But if you anyway want the redress to be paid before any additional information supplying, the time frame is around 15 days from the date you send your second acceptance form.”
So basically if I accept the £2,000, and an able to obtain statements etc for the previous 13 loans, if they do not deem them to be unaffordable I cannot send it to the ombudsman. But to be honest, I’m not sure I’ll bother with those ones anyway seen as they’re 9 years old. I’ll maybe just wait until Tuesday and see if I can get the statements before accepting anything.
Iain123 says
“”… would advise you to chose the second way, because in case you chose the first, so if after bank statements reviewing you receive a new response letter which you not agree with, unfortunately, the FOS will not review this matter because you have already accepted an offer in full and final”
I did not know that. I’m surprised, no place did it say this is full and final if I accept. My complaint is with the Ombudsman, so they’ll refuse to look at it, when they get around to it. I’ll keep the forum updated when I find out.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well let’s see what happens. You can complain if ICL do object to FOS looking at it as this wasn’t made clear to you.
Katie says
Sara, I did also have another question, relating to PDUK, I didn’t pay that off so it was sold to a debt collection agency – BW Legal or PRAC, I think I owe around £200 still as I pay £30 off of this a month, where do I stand with them, seen as PDUK have admitted irresponsible lending on the loans they sold to this agency? Can I contact them and tell them this? Is there anyway they will write it off and also delete from my credit file? Or is it deemed completely separate? Thank you.
Sharyn says
Hi Sara,
I’ve had a final response from PDUK deeming my loans affordable I had three with them and rolled over 25 times in total I replied and asked them to reconsider due to other lenders on my statement Wonga and Swift sterling and they have come back today stating the same that my loans were affordable. I’m looking to appeal again because the first credit report I sent to them only showed my payday loans 2 times on my file I’ve since signed up to Totally Money and it showing 20 times with PDUK. Do you think it’s worth appealing again with the new evidence also are they responsible for removing those entries from my credit file?
Thank you for your advise on this.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How old were these loans? Where did you get the first credit report you sent them?
Sharyn says
Hi Sara,
The loans are from 11th March 2013 to 11 August 2014. I got my first report from clear score :).
Sara (Debt Camel) says
oh yes, ClearScore is useless for payday loans, hardly any payday lenders report to Equifax.
As they haven’t offered you anything, I doubt you will get a good result by asking them to look at this again. They normally ask you for bank statements for any periods they are prepared to reconsider.
Also the first pf your loan is only under the 6 years limit now by a couple of days! So I suggest you send the case to the Ombudsman today if possible. If the first loan is more than 6 years old, the FOS case may be a lot slower.
Iain123 says
‘Rolled over’ 25 times is unaffordable lending and should be refunded. Take it to the Financial Ombudsman. 6-9 months wait time but something to lo.ok forward to at Christmas
John says
So despite numerous calls n emails from the adjudicator to PDUK and an extension of 2 weeks 🙄 they have still failed to respond, so now been told it will go to ombudsman for a final decision 😤😤 so frustrating however they have another 2 weeks to respond 🤷♂️ Before it goes in a cue for the ombudsman will look at it
tom says
John – I was in the same situtaion with payday express – the adjudicator gave them another week and they responded in my favour, i am currently awaiting the payment. I also have one with PDUK (same company) and that is waiting for them to respond. Dont get stressed they wil come back to you.
I think people do not realise how swamped all these PDL companies are and the FOS for that matter
Chris says
I have had 54 loans with Lending Stream over the past 3 years and currently have one loan now outstanding. I went through periods of having six loans outstanding at a time and once one was paid off, I reborrowed on the same day or day after. I also had other loans from payday lenders and have complaints with all them.
I submitted a complaint to them over irresponsible lending and also supplied copy bank statements. They are due to give me a decision by 5/4.
How has everyone found them, should I expect my complaint will got to the FOS? Or has anyone received good offers from them
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They have a reputation for being very slow and not making good offers. But let’s hope they do in your case – 54 loans in only 3 years is a LOT.
Emma says
I had several loans and tried submitting a complaint to LS to no avail as all emails bounced back. I found this site where I took Sarah’s advice and forwarded all the information to FOS and low and behold received an email from LS stating they had received from FOS and that was the 2nd of February so giving them to the 2nd of April and then contacting FOS again if I don’t hear from them . I think they hope that people will give up as they are notoriously bad. Hope you get the outcome you want. This site is great for advice and supporting others
tom says
Chris – In my expiereince with LS you will be waiting a long time and then they will try and fob you off….. dont get disheartened they are certainly the worst of the PDL companies
Ian says
Hi Sara
Myjar partially upheld my complaint in September for £270 for only 1 loan but rejected the other 13 as they were over 6 years old and consequently I rejected their offer and sent it to the Ombudsman.
My query is… Since myjar have now consented for the FOS to look into loans over 6+ years old, would it be worth emailing them on the off-chance to see if they come back with a “revised” offer on these loans now, rather than wait for an adjudicator to pick it up? Surely it would be best for both sides as it’s been over 6 months now with FOS.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can try – I haven’t heard of anyone succeeding with this, let us know how you get on.
JULIE MCLAREN says
Hi Sara,
Would you know if Peachy/CashOnGo are typically paying claims within 2 weeks? I am using a law firm/claims company. They sent my acceptance to Peachy on 13/02/19 and i would had hoped for a response by now. I have tried to contact the law firm to discuss but all they say is “We will contact you when we have had a response.” I am more than happy to contact Peachy myself but i have agreed for the law firm to act on my behalf.
Also, they are pursuing Lending Stream for an embarrassing amount of loans over the years. I still have outstanding loans with LS that are due to complete May 2019. I presume i still continue with the monthly payments although very tight. My husband and i have to re-mortgage in March 2020 and i do not want my credit file to get any worse by not paying LS. About £500 left to pay.
Any advice is gratefully accepted.
Many thanks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They used to be a pretty quick payer but I haven’t seen anyone leave a comment about how long their payout took for a while.
Of course your claims company should have explained your options for the Lending Stream balance, but they know very little about how these things work in practice :(
If you stop paying LS or offer a more affordable monthly payment, that will probably show as late payments on your credit record. But if the last loan is decided to be unaffordable, the negative remarks will be removed. If your complaint is good that is what you should expect to happen but I understand why you are nervous. Will the Peachy payout be large enough to repay the LS balance?
LS are very slow and do not normally make good offers. If your claim is large, you are probably going to have to go to the Ombudsman to get a reasonable result.
You may well find it hard to remortgage in March next year as you will still have had payday loans showing on your credit record in the last year. You MUST go through a broker, not direct to a lender. Whatever happens, you must NOT take out another payday loan!
JULIE MCLAREN says
Thank you Sara,
Yes i will be using that payment from Peachy to ensure my LS balance is cleared.
With regard to how long Peachy have been taking to pay, it appears looking at the emails sent by the claims company i had today, the claims company had not sent my acceptance when they originally claimed they had (13/2/19). Looks like it was only sent minutes after i contacted them last week! Peachy have replied that they will make payment within 2 weeks so i have all things crossed!
Thank you for your advice. No more payday loans for me. Getting out of the trap and intended to stay away.
Ross says
Hi Sara,
I have 4 complaints currently with FOS.
The first one was picked up by an adjudicator and she said that satsuma done nothing wrong by lending to me.
I stressed fully what being in this cycle meant for me and that I was having to borrow from others to pay for outstanding loans.
She has passed this to an ombudsman but I’m wondering is there any hope of them overturning the adjudicator decision?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes it does happen.
How many loans from satsuma? Were they large?
Ross says
The satsuma loans were £700 and £800, the 3 my jar loans where roughly the same so not huge volumes of loans but for higher amounts.
The other two complaints are for sunny and lending stream are I had just over 40 loans each with them.
I suppose I always thought I had a better chance of refund with the latter two but if FOS are rejecting 1 my fear is they reject them all using the same decision method.
Thanks for replying.
Gill says
A summary of my situation and a question. –
Last August I sent letters of complaint about Wonga, Quick Quid, Ladder Loans, Lending Stream, Uncle Buck, Myjar, Peachy, Safety Net Credit, Payday UK, Pounds to Pocket, Wageday Advance and The Home Loan. Interestingly at the time I had various others reject my applications such as Sunny. Total interest paid was around £15,000 in 2 years. The first two were the biggest lenders. Also had debt with Swift Sterling but I’ve written that off as it’s time barred byMaltese Ombudsman. Only got one paltry offer of £59 from Lending Stream.
Went to FOS and had my first adjudicator decision on Peachy to refund interest on charges on third and largest of 3 loans, I think about £400. I had asked them to look at bigger picture, described above, because the Peachy Loans were relatively small. I wasn’t sure if I’d get any outcomes at all as my monthly income at just over £2k was high at the time, higher than it is now even though I’m managing fine now. But my outgoings were big because of debt spiral and dependency on PDLs. My mental health at the time wasn’t good, I had problems in my relationship. So I’m pleased they’ve taken all that into consideration rather than make a judgement. And I hope it is a good sign for my other FOS complaints about the bigger loans.?
Question is do Peachy/Cashonthego usually agree with the adjudicator and if yes how long do they take to pay out?
Thanks to this brilliant website and Sara in particular.
Gill says
Hi Sara
It turns out that I paid about £400 of the £500 loan with Peachy before it was handed to a debt collector. So no interest actually paid on that third loan on which the adjudicator upheld my complaint – she didn’t realise this either. No one chased me for this and my credit report shows it being settled at the time it was handed to Motormile (Lantern). So I’ve gone from expecting interest to be paid back to owing them £100! A bit strange and also disappointing.
The adjudicator has picked up my ladder loans complaint. Principal loan of £1500 over 18 months from Jan 13 and at least £3700 paid back. Exorbitant interest. I’ve just ready that the parent company was supposed to get in touch with those who had loans a few years back but I don’t remember seeing anything. Sara do you know if they’re still agreeing redress on Ladder Loans?
Thanks
Chris says
Hi, I have received a response from Mr Lender this morning regarding my affordability complaint. They have rejected my complaint as they claim to have undertaken all necessary checks.
However, as I had an outstanding balance of £230, they have agreed to waive this as a gesture of goodwill. I have never been in arrears and accepted this offer.
One payday lender down, 6 to go !
Sara, many thanks for your info, you are a great help
Nick says
I had a very similar offer from Mr Lender, and when I informed them I didn’t have arrears they said they found that I was correct and magically changed it from writing this off to giving me this arbitrary sum of money. If you didn’t have any outstanding balance left and haven’t accepted it finally yet, I would email them back to say that. I don’t know what kind of game they are playing but it seems they try and tempt you with what seems a generous offer on the outside
Jack says
Has anyone had any success with Drafty? I’ve been waiting a year for FO decision.
StevieC says
They are so slow to deal with. I made my complaint in June, rejected almost instantly. Picked up by an adjudicator in January and found in my favour. Despite missing the decline they have now agreed. This is where it gets particularly annoying. Despite agreeing to clear outstanding balance, I continually get e-mails, texts etc regarding the non-existent outstanding balance. I have tried to contact them numerous times although the left hand has no idea what the right is doing and they almost admitted as much. 3 weeks since the decision was agreed if no further forward by then I will contact the adjudicator again.
Erica says
I have just received my bank statements from the Halifax for my old closed account dating between 2007-2009 when the account was closed. I would imagine that The Money Shop will request these at some point – is it worth me forwarding them on now?
Andy Bowen says
Hi Erica,
Can I ask how you went about ordering your statements from Halifax? I’ve tried going into branch to order some for a closed account between 2010-2011 but they’ve been unable to track down my account details.
Erica says
Hi Andy
I was literally passed from pillar to post because I couldn’t locate my old account details. Eventually I spoke to collections who were able to give me my sortcode and account number – if you cannot remember your sortcode and account number and your account went to collections at all I suggest calling them on 0333 556 5733. I had to go through security questions and this took a while because the account was registered at an old address. As I said, there were able to locate my account details but were not able to get into the bank statements and suggested I called the complaints team.
I called the number for complaints on 0800 072 9779 and raised my complaint. They said that they would try and get this information but didn’t know whether they would be able to.
I have just received my bank statements in the post and it took about 3-4 weeks in total.
There is a telephone number on the letter which is issued from the ‘Copy Statement Unit’ and that number is 08457 26 36 46.
I’m pretty sure if I managed to get statements between 2007-2009, you will be able to get yours.
I have also requested a Subject Access Request which should be with me by the end of next week.
Hope this was of some help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, they may only ask for some statements, so just wait and see.
Katie says
Hi Erica, how long did it take them to get them back to you? Did you have to go into your branch to get these and was there a charge? I’ve been told I have to go into my bank next week to see if they can help obtaining mine from 2010-2012, that’s Lloyd’s bank though, fingers crossed they can
Erica says
Hi Katie
It took about 3-4 weeks from submitting the complaint. I did go into my branch first of all but they were not able to locate the closed account and that is when they told me to contact collections.
I did not have to pay for the statements so fingers crossed you wont have to either and Lloyds make it easy for you to be able to get them.
Katie says
Thank you :-) yes, fingers crossed they’re helpful and I am able to get them even though my account with them closed several years ago! As it’s the only way PDUK are willing to look into my other 13 loans with them!
Bill says
Anybody had any luck on getting bank statements from Santander, tried by phone and by branch for statements 2007 to 2009, alls I get Is over six years is the maximum, sure I seen somebody on this side who received statements over six years?
Bill
Kelly says
I could view 7 years back via my online banking and contacted Santander for the earlier ones. They sent me statements back to 2009 but they had no statements any further back than that. I think it’s hit or miss, they don’t have to keep them over 6 years but sometimes they remain in archive longer.
Iain123 says
A polite request to Santander Head Office produced an extra three years worth of statements.
Lorraine says
Hi All,
Can anyone please advise me.
I have recently put in 2 unaffordable complaints with Satsuma and Uncle Buck, I still have ongoing loans with both, I have emailed them to make a payment arrangement with them while this is ongoing…..my question is: has anyone had any success with these? what are they like to deal with?
any help would be appreciated ;-)
Thanks
J says
Hi Lorraine
I claimed against several including UB and, to be fair, they were probably the best and easiest to deal with. I was polite but firm and they seemed to respond to that; I did have to talk with them on the phone on one occasion and the lady I spoke to was very helpful indeed. My claim was around £2000 and they offered £1800+ without it needing to go through the whole FO process. They paid within a week.
So my advice would be to communicate with them, be totally honest and you may get a decent result relatively quickly. Good luck!
J
Sarah says
Hi Sara
I have received my 1st response of the FOS about my complaint against lending stream. They have not upheld saying they believe LS did the right checks etc I only had 3 loans with LS 1st 1 for 100 2nd for 600 and the 3rd for 100. They were all within 1 month. I had at the time loans with 247 and sunny I only paid 82 pounds interest on the LS loans as I paid them off early. My question is it worth going back to the adjucator saying about the loans I had with other lenders? I was also gambling at the time as well which she would of been able to see on my bank statements that I sent in. I am unsure what to do as I think it was only 3 loans and not a lot of interest really but the 600 pounds loan to me was unaffordable but then I am worried that they might also not uphold any of my other complaints as my loans were unaffordable due to me gambling and borrowing of other payday loans.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You don’t normally get a refund on the first few loans unless they are rolled or very large. Gambling makes it harder for the lender to see that a loan was unaffordable. Sorry, for £82 this one doesn’t seem worth pursuing.
Did you have more loans from some of your other lenders?
Sarah says
Hi Sara
I didn’t think it would be worth pursuing I had 22 loans of sunny in 6 months 5 loans of uncle buck in 7 months and 4 of my jar in 3 months. Thanks for getting back to me. This site is amazing and has helped me a lot
Sue Atkinson says
Hi,
I have just come across this with payday loan lenders and had a situation that started last July 2018. I was back to backing with payday loans 9 companies in total just to try and keep my head above water. In the end I just had to stop and pay the bills to keep a roof over me and my children’s head. Some of these have now sold the loans to debt recovery agencies and I’m now been bombarded even at work with continual phone calls and emails. I’m looking at going to step change as this is making me ill. I can’t face ringing these companies to even sort it out but at the time they never even asked my outgoings and it just snowballs in such a fast time your in a position out of control. The amounts of intranet I’ve paid is unreal.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Going to StepChange is an excellent idea – that is what I recommend here: https://debtcamel.co.uk/help-payday-loan/.
How much do your non payday loan debts add up to?
Katie says
Sara, I have a question, relating to PDUK, I didn’t pay that off so it was sold to a debt collection agency – BW Legal or PRAC, I think I owe around £200 still as I pay £30 off of this a month, where do I stand with them, seen as PDUK have admitted irresponsible lending on the loans they sold to this agency? Can I contact them and tell them this? Is there anyway they will write it off and also delete from my credit file? Or is it deemed completely separate? Thank you.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You need to ask PDUK to deal with this as part of your complaint. If they have said this loan is unaffordable, they are probably planning to do this but you need to phone up and make sure exactly what is happening.
R says
Hi, i successfully won a claim against Quick Quid last year, due to gambling and a plethora of other loans it was deemed unaffordable. Stupidly my problems have returned and I turned to Pounds to Pocket (same company who are now OnStride) and I owe these guys £2k after large top ups. I also have 5 other payday loans. Do you think that the fact that P2P lent to me in the first place after my successful claim about unaffordability to QQ is enough to claim against these guys?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
oh dear. Have you now stopped gambling again? Are you getting any help with this?
You should certainly include in your complaint that QQ were aware you had had a gambling problem before, therefore they should have taken extra care when checking a new application from you. But this was quite a big break. And of course you also have to prove the new loans were unaffordable. You may want to use the template letter over here https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/ as it works better with a small number of large loans than the standard payday loan letter.
J says
Hi Sara,
Im in the early stages of appealing against QQ for a number o payday loans – all of 6 years old. As part of the SAR request they have provided me with details of the loans I took out – circa £2k in interest.
At about the time of my original request they emailed stating that as part of a data cleansing process they were going to delete historical data over 7 years old which would in effect remove any data they held for me.
So as im in the process of a payday loan dispute am i entitled to stop them from doing this?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You now have a statement of account for all the loans I hope?
j says
Hi Sara,
yes I have the statement that QQ sent me. Just wondered if they delete their records if it would impact any future dealings – especially if they don’t offer redress and I have to go down the FOS route.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is an interesting question… the English common law maxim omnia praesumuntur contra spoliatorem (“all things are presumed against a wrongdoer”) should apply.
If that legal maxim is followed, the fact that QQ had deleted data would mean that the assumption is that they hoped to gain by this so the data they have deleted would hurt their case… so it would be favourable for you.
BUT I’m obviously not saying that FOS will definitely follow this line, I am just saying that is the line the courts often take when someone has disposed of evidence.
In practice this may matter less to you that you may expect. QQ never seem to have kept detailed records eg what your credit record said at 05/08/2011 when you applied for your first loan. They may say “we can see wh checked the record and it was within our acceptable lending criteria” but they won’t have the details. What matters for these old cases is very often the repeat borrowing – and you have the evidence of that.
Gill says
Hi
Do Peachy normally agree with adjudicator decision?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
no one has commented recently on this – can you come back and say what happens to your case?
j says
So one of companies I sought Payday Loan refunds for was 1 month loan (now Sunny). I had a final outcome reply sent within the 8 week limit period offering to pay back the interest in full. Not bad considering the loans were all over 6 years old. We are only taking a few hundred pounds but Im happy with the response.
I doubt I will have the same level of success with PDUK, PD Express and QQ at the first time of asking – but fingers crossed.
Sharper says
Good Morning,
A very big thank you to Sara for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Last year I became trapped in a cycle of debt (payday loans, credit cards etc) mainly due gambling.
I submitted an affordability complaint to the pdl organisation at the beginning of February. I have received a couple of replies- Sunny are not upholding my complaint (15 loans in 4 months) will send it to FOS. Ferratum gave me a £100 good will gesture (only had 3 loans with them and spent roughly £180 in interest so happily accepted and they cleared all the loans off my credit report). Whilst checking my report to ensure Ferratum had cleared them off as promised, I noticed Satsuma loans had also removed all of theirs (4 loans in total ranging from £500-£2000). I haven’t received a reply from them so have no clue why they would do this. Any ideas?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It could be an error, they may have decided to refund these loans, they may be trying to make it more difficult for you to see what you have borrowed if they are going to make a poor offer…or there could be other reasons. I hope you have taken a copy of your credit report.
Sharper says
Many thanks for your reply Sara. Yes, thankfully have copies of my credit report. Will update when I receive a reply
Carla says
Hi Sara. So firstly I’ll start by saying most of my adult life I have had terrible credit. In 2016 I was able to get loans for the first time from sunny who I have a currently affordability complaint with. In total from 2016-18 I had 28 loans with sunny between £50-£350. At this point I was using the money amongst other things to gamble with although it hurts to admit it. I now no longer gamble at all and I am hoping that I will successfully win my case against sunny regarding these loans. They have sent me a spreadsheet with all my loans and in one collum I can see payments made and in the other collum is interest. I’m having a slightly hard time with it as if my calculations are infact correct I paid roughly £1800 in interest over this period. I am possibly just shocked at this and it could be that it is correct but if somebody could tell me exactly how to total my interest paid that would be great! I also have three outstanding loans at the moment with them that I have no paid anything towards since summer of 2018. towards the end of the year I took a loan from lending stream that has also not been paid off however did make three payments towards it when it was first taken out. Should I contact lending stream about this? Sunny have been great at getting back to me and advise that I will get my final outcome response by the 22/03/2019. Has anyone in a similar situation had luck with sunny without going to the FOS.
Carla
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Adding up the column marked interest sounds like the right thing to do.
£1800 in interest is £68 on average per loan. That may well be right, it depends how much you borrowed and how long the loans were for. It certainly doesn’t sound too large.
Your current three loans – how much did you borrow from each of these? how much have you paid to each of them?
If you think Lending Stream should have known you couldn’t pay this loan – they should have seen the recent defaults to the Sunny loans on your credit record as a warning – you should send them an affordability complaint and ask them to deduct the interest so you only have to repay what you borrowed.
Claire says
Hi Sara,
I sent my complaint regarding lendingstream to fos over a year ago and I am still waiting for it to be assigned to an adjudicator. Is this normal? Is there anything I can/should do?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That is bizarrely long. I think phoning FOS up every month and asking what is happening would be a good idea.
James says
I have been e-mailing the FOS every 4 weeks and finally they just replied to say my complaint against LS has been assigned to an adjudicator. I submitted my complaint in August 2018. (7 months) I feel like they assigned it off the back of my e-mail chasing them.
Laurence says
Just some assistance on obtaining old Bank Statements. Today I received statements from Natwest from 2008-2012. It has been a long 5 months of continually chasing and writing endless letters but it’s paid off – 240 pages arrived via post this morning (no charge)
Don’t give up, the banks have these and will send if you chase enough, it can be painful but we all know how vital they are for affordability complaints.
My advice, stay polite and thankful etc when requesting these.
I also obtained Halifax statements for 2011-2014 by turning up in branch and requesting (they printed them there and then for me) I happily told them they were for an affordability complaint I desperately needed to deal with. I think this helped them be so accommodating.
ClaireR says
Quick question,
I have a complaint with the FOS against Lending Stream, which I have not heard any progress on
for a while. I have an outstanding balance with Lending stream, I asked them to put the account
on hold whilst the investigation was going on with the FOS. I set up a repayment plan with them,
which I have now defaulted on as I missed 2 payments.
They have now passed this onto CRS who have bombarded me with calls and texts since the weekend.
Should i reset up a payment plan with CRS, or ignore them?
Lending Stream have not replied to my emails about this, typically.
Many thanks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Was the payment plan affordable? What is the balance, how much were you paying? And how large is your complaint – do you hope for a refund which is much larger than the balance?
ClaireR says
Hi Sarah,
I had around 30 loans with them with the majority being between 2016- mid 2017,
sometimes taking out 2-3 per month.
All in all over £5,500 borrowed, and I paid back £7,620
My current loan was for £300 taken out in October 2018
(after I had submitted a complaint to the FOS shamefully)
My balance is currently £439
Lending Stream rejected my affordability complaint which I initially sent to them in April 2018.
I sent on to the FOS in August 2018.
I have emailed FOS for an update this morning.
The repayment plan was set up to start in January this year, and although was for only
£30 a month which should have been affordable, that first payment being straight
after christmas couldnt be met without not paying my council tax or other bills,
So i cancelled the CPA with them, and they have not responded to set anything else
up, other than pass to a debt collection agency instead.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You are ashamed of borrowing in October but Lending Stream should be ashamed of giving you a loan in October!
Have you told FOS about this loan? You need to know if it can be included in your current complaint. if it can’t, you need to start up a new complaint with LS for it.
ClaireR says
I have told the FOS about this loan
I think I might email Lending stream again today
reiterating the fact, they did acknowledge that there
was an FOS complaint when they were setting the repayment plan up.
Many thanks
tom p says
Hi Claire – i am in a similar boat to you – Lending stream have been nothing but a pain in the #ss. My experience was as follows. I setup a resolver account and sent letters to all my complaints – 14 in total – 13 came back to me to say yes all registered and they would investigate – the only one that didnt was LS. i chased them they denied having received any email, i sent another and the same. After 3 months i rang up and eventually got through and they registered the complaint, inhthe meantime they had sold the debt to CRS. i rang CRS who tried everything to get me to pay of which i told them in no uncertain terms that nothing would happen until the FOS had ruled. That was 8 months ago. The case is still with the FOS and i contacted them yesterday to say they had actually received information from the business and they would be in touch
in short IGNORE CRS until LS can be bothered to recognise your complaint. when it is with the FOS ignore CRS until the ruling
ClaireR says
Thanks Tom P
A very similar situation, I will ignore CRS and let lending stream know this too.
Thanks for your reply.
Steve says
Hi Claire,
My debt with Lending Stream was passed to CRS this week, even though the FOS had written to LS asking them not to take any further action until my complaint had been resolved.
I emailed CRS and explained I had an affordability complaint raised against LS. They asked for the FOS reference number and then said they’d hold off on any action until they hear back.
ClaireR says
Thank you for that info Steve,
I will do the same and email CRS.
ClaireR says
I emailed CRS about this yesterday, and they responded asking for bank statements at time of loan, etc so they could put the complaint to Lending Stream!! I had also left LS a terrible review on trust pilot, and low and behold before the day was out, Lending Stream emailed to say they have instructed CRS to put a hold on the account pending the FOS investigation, and they were terribly sorry for the inconvenience caused.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Another Trust Pilot victory!
Tom p says
anyone else had any issues with PDexp paying out a redress? Its been 21 days now /
Stew sadler says
Hi all, just looking for a bit of advice really. My payday loan refund request from quickquid an p2p was denied, so i went to the ombudsman about it, as advised. I did this in July of last year, and im still waiting for a response from them. They said that they’re trying to see if they can claim back further than 6 years, but obviously im just sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for a response. Does anyone else have the same issue? Or has anyone made any progress with the ombudsman? Getting bored of waiting for a response now!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
A lot of people are in your situation. There are a few signs of movement on the QQ/PTP over 6 year cases – see some of the recent comments on this page: https://debtcamel.co.uk/quickquid-payday-loan-refunds/. So far as I can see QQ have agreed to FOS looking at some older cases, which are now going through the normal adjudication process. the more that go through, the more routine the rest will become. It will be speeded up if QQ start making offers on these older cases, rather than wait for them all to go through FOA. The regulator’s rules say a firm should learn from FOS decisions and apply them…
There is nothing you can do to speed this up.
Jack Burt says
Hi all, just wanted to say thank you for all the advice and help on this site – I have made 3 complaints with different lenders for irresponsible lending. 2 have been escalated to the FOS (QQ and Sunny)early in the year. The other was settled direct by Lending Stream.
My complaint with LS was acknowledged after 28 days , then a final decision with an offer was made after a further 30 days – £1,454 interest for 18 out of 21 loans. I accepted and was told to wait 28 days – after 14 days I left a negative trust pilot review after getting inpatient and the next afternoon the amount was in my bank account.
I urge you all to keep persisting and not to give up hope.
I have a case outstanding for sunny for interest on £12,500 for 47 loans borrowed over 4 years – so am hopeful the FOS can recoup over £3k for me
Katie says
I have just been into my old Lloyd’s branch that I banked with whilst taking out loans with PDUK, PDUK have said that they wouldn’t look at the older 12 loans over the 6 year mark if I didn’t have any bank statements or my credit report. Just popped in now and they were very helpful and have said they can get me the six statements I need between 2010-2012, for the charge of £10 which I thought was reasonable to be honest. I have to go pick them up tomorrow. To say I haven’t banked with them for around six years and the statements I needed go back to 9 years ago I’m really pleased so hopefully now PDUK will look at these loans and realise they were leant irresponsibly
Sunny says
Hi
I have recently come across this website. Like many on here I have had a lot of pay day loans over the past few years. I have always managed to clear all the balances overtime with out resulting in any defaults or any serious impact to my credit history (accounts all showing as settled on my credit report).
What would be the main reason for my complaint – shall I raise an affirdability complaint ? I have usually renegotiated my payment schedule allowing me to make affordable payments.
I have had several payday loans with WDA Mr Lender Satsuma Peachy Swift Sterling Uncle Buck.
Is it best to raise the complaint directly with the lender first ?
Thanks
Sunny
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“What would be the main reason for my complaint – shall I raise an affordability complaint?”
If you couldn’t repay a loan on time and get through the rest of the month without borrowing again, then the loan was unaffordable. If you were repeatedly rolling or repaying and reloaning, then that is probably a good affordability complaint.
“I have usually renegotiated my payment schedule allowing me to make affordable payments.” if you have renegotiated a repayments over a longer period and the lender then gave you loans soon afterwards – that is a signor irresponsible lending.
“I have had several payday loans with WDA Mr Lender Satsuma Peachy Swift Sterling Uncle Buck.”
WDA is in administration s- send a simple email not a long complaint to the administrators, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/wageday-advance-wda-administration-sale-morses-club/.
Swift Sterling – when did you take these loans?
All the others, you MUST complain to the lender first. use the template letters in the article above. Good Luck!
Sunny says
Hi Sarah
Thank you for your response.
I still have a couple of hundred outstanding with Swift Sterling which I will be clearing in the next few weeks and then my loans will be closed. I have been borrowing from them from approx 2015 to now. Would there be any problems in raising a complaint ?
I have also had loans with Ferratun from 2015 – 2018
Many thanks
Sunny
Alex says
Anyone know how long it takes to get reply from quickquid or uncle buck, I sent out complaint emails 2 weeks ago, everyone else has replied and started the process, but not even an acknowledgement from those 2
Loz says
Hi Alex,
I put in a complaint on Saturday with uncle buck – 15 mins later they acknowledge this, Today I received a telephone call from them asking me why I thought my complaint was irresponsible lending – obviously i gave them a explanation as to why, they said they have 56 days to reply, however, they said I would be hearing from them within next few weeks – so i’ll wait and see…..you checked its the correct email address?
As mine was dealt with very quickly?
Good luck :-)
StevieC says
Hi,
I just wanted to offer some info on a complaint I had with Wizzcash. Today the ombudsman has upheld my complaint after them refusing the adjudicators view. It will result in a refund of loan 3 with them for £250. Don’t give up everyone.
Dave says
Good afternoon,
Are lenders allowed to start court action when I have referred them to FOS after their final response?
Thanks in advance.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No they shouldn’t – have you informed the lender you have sent the case to FOS? Have you been sent a Letter before Action/Claim for the debt or are you just worrying about what might happen?
Chris says
I have just received a reply from Ferratum, they disagree with my complaint over irresponsible lending. However, as a gesture of goodwill, they have settled my outstanding balance of £1149.30 and are transferring me £250. Good result.
They have definitely been one of the better lenders to deal with.
Still awaiting a decision from Peachy, Uncle Buck, Myjar, 247 Moneybox and Lending Stream
Phil says
Bit of an odd one for me, I’ve used your templates for quick quid and sent the initial email requesting detail on 26th Feb.
I’ve just had a final response letter from quick quid come through. This was before they’ve sent me my info, and they then sent all the loan detail an hour after their final response.
They replied through onstride but covered off all quick quid loans and detailed a number of reasons why they felt the loans were affordable. This is despite me not sending my second email, including any detail of the loans, credit records, bank checks etc.
Is it worth me replying to their final statement as if it was the second email?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, there is zero chance of them changing their mind. But knock up a version of the Step two template and then use that for your complaint to FOS. At least you have got through this stage quickly!
Phil says
It’s really strange though, feels like a template letter from them? I’d paste it but it’s too big to post in here.
Everything they describe in their reasoning for rejecting my complaint is the complete opposite of what my account is!
I have had 15 loans with QQ from 2012 and less than 9 months in that total period where I didn’t have an active loan with them. Every loan had a repayment plan set up too as I was never able to make the extortionate initial payment. I also have an active onstride loan and was hoping we could negotiate wiping that as part of the settlement. Suppose not :-(
Also had a reply from mr lender, they rejected my complaint on the basis id used your template, they even quoted your website! They have however sent the summary now so I will go to step two and resubmit my complaint!
Jojo says
Hi I had a payment back from lending stream with understanding that they would clear from my credit file and pay outstanding amount .The final payment I received reflected this but it has not been done and this is from October 2018.Any suggestionsI have contacted LS but they useless .
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think the payment from LS was via the Ombudsman? If it was, go back to your adjudicator and explain the problem.
Jojo says
Thanks I will do