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?
Tim says
Just a quick update re Quick Quid, they have sent a settlement off to my adjudicator (without her prompting!) however Im not sure what to do, im a little loathe to accept.
I had 4 loans with them but with all the rollovers a refund of all the interest payments with stat 8% interest would come out at nearly 6K.
So…. they have offered to repay all interest i paid on the last two loans £2.3k, however have included no stat interest- this alone equates to nearly £900.
Secondly I think they should at very worst refund from the second loan onwards. My reasoning is that i rolled the first loan over 5 or 6 times and then they over doubled the amount I could borrow (by which point the pay day loan spiral had really started so I did). However had they done any sort of affordability and credit checks they would have clearly seen a change in circumstance from the start of loan 1 to loan 2, missed payments, increased borrowing. I know it is the norm to refund from the 3rd loan but in this instance it is the second loan that really compounded things, an increase from £400 to £850 despite worsening circumstances. Including the second loan and stat interest its nearly £4.8k.
Thoughts anyone?
There was no gap between loans 1 and 2, I repaid Loan 1 and loaned loan 2 on the same day.
Income wise, i think just shy of 1500 at the time. So with interest my final payment was going to be £1020. So that would have left me £480 for absolutely everything else i needed to pay for the month…
Cheers
Tim
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Then I think you have a good case for saying that the second loan should never have been given. I suggest you write to the adjudicator setting out why you think the second loan should have been included and 8% interest added, hence you are not going to accept this offer.
See my new article: https://debtcamel.co.uk/interest-payday-loan-refunds/ for more about 8% interest
Lynnette says
Sunny – my resolution has just been sent through, nice big first success for me without FO involvement £744.29 written off last loan completely, and £3169.66 refund for all interest on sunny and 1 of my 1monthloan loans with the 8% interest also included and the main point all traces of loans removed from credit files!!! So over the moon right now :)
richard says
I wondered what everyone’s thoughts were on Mr Lender, I borrowed £800 and paid back a massive £2700 over 3 loans.
There are of course other mitigating factors such as the fact I had other loans at the time, but on the fact I paid almost 250% back in interest, I feel I should have a good case? This was obviously due to multiple rollovers of loans
Lorna b says
I have actually just settled with Mr lender. Have to say excellent service. I asked for statement of account received this within 24 hrs. Got my statement borrowers 350 and paid back 1050 interest. I put a complaint in and received a response back within 2 hrs. Offering me 262.50 refund. I accepted and the refund will be processed within 3 to 5 days. The girl amy was lovely.
I put my case to them and they came back on every point I made. They didn’t think I was entitled to a refund as such but as a good will gesture offered me the above . I don’t think they were trying to get out of anything as the counter points so to speak were reasonably valid.
Shaun says
Latest from me:
MYJAR-Adjudicator upheld my complaint, but MYJAR disagreed. Ombudsman in touch today, and agreed with Adjudicator. So MYJAR ordered to repay charges/8% interest- for each year on 25 out of 28 loans-dated from 21st June 2010. Also my current balance of around £650 to be wiped off and all info taken off my credit files.
(Timescale: Adjudicator took 2 weeks, then Ombudsman another 3 weeks.)
Just waiting on PAYUK, which has been with the adjudicator now for 3 weeks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Thanks – always good to hear that the lenders aren’t winning with this “lets drag everything out” approach! That sounds like it should have quite a lot of interest added as well.
Shaun says
An update on my comment above.
Day after my chat with the ombudsman MYJAR phoned me at 8.30am asking for my bank details, so they could refund me. After deducting the £600 i still owed i was refunded £1,800 at 10.30am. They also cleaned all info off my credit file. Good result! One left to go-PaydayUk, (bigger one). 4 weeks nearly with the adjudicator.
Mags says
I have a complaint with the adjudicator regarding Wonga. She needs more info from me; a credit report and bank statements covering the time of the loans.
I have asked the bank to send me the statements. The credit report is tricker as I do not have access to a printer. The local library does have a printing facility but they won’t allow access to the Experian website. I have suggested that she logs on to my account as I have the passcode, but she has refused.
She is not hopeful as the loans have been paid off and there were gaps in the lending. She says that Wonga have put forward a good case showing that the loans were affordable. To be honest, I am not hopeful that much will come out of this.
My complaints with Kapama (MiniCredit), WDA and CFO Lending that were passed to the FO have not been upheld in my favour. Very disappointed.
Still waiting for adjudicators to get back to my with complaints about Uncle Bucks and PDUK and Payday Express.
I have had success with Mr Lender (balance of loan written off), Lending Stream (balance written off), 247 Moneybox (balance written off), Vivus (interest refunded on paid off loans), Trusted Quid (reduced loan balance).
Setbacks do happen, but I am in a better position now than I was 6 months ago. Thank you for your help and advice.
Mags
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If there is a facility to print your Experian report, can you select “print to file” rather than a printer – then you can email the file on?
Peter says
Adjudicator has upheld my complaint against PDUK. They have 2 week to reply that they agree or give evidence as to why they don’t. Adjudicator expects them to agree. Does anyone know how long it takes for them to pay out once the settlement is agreed?
Thanks
Louise says
Update on my complaints so far;
QQ-upheld, QQ made me an offer of 250£, refused and they’ve not contacted adjudicator since, he has referred to ombudsman, that was Monday, I’ve no idea how long this stage will take! Any one with any ideas???
24/7 money-upheld, they refused and wanted more info. Supplied it and Still being awkward, adjudicator given them until Friday to respond, if not that will go to ombudsman too.
Confident both will be upheld by ombudsman as adjudicator seems to think it will be.
Wonga – 8 weeks up 4 weeks ago, got a response asking for 6 more weeks, which is up on 23rd June, phoned today for update, to be given a different date, they are now going by when they acknowledged so have added an extra 2 weeks on to the 6….I was going to hold out, but think I may refer to FOS this week.
PAYDAYUK – with adjudicator, allocated 2 weeks ago waiting to hear, she didn’t really tell me a lot when I spoke to her when she was allocated it.
Wage day advance- I need to refer this one to FOS too, may do that one and wonga at same time.
Kevin says
Update on my complaints;
Wonga= They asked for another 6 weeks on top of the 8 so I went straight to FOS about a week ago. Awaiting adjudicator.
Myjar= They gave me a final response within 6 weeks, claimed they had did nothing wrong but offered £91 goodwill. I refused and it’s been with the FOS for 4 weeks, still awaiting an adjudicator.
Lending Stream= Final Response around 7 weeks rejecting my claim, I emailed back to say fine I will go to the FOS…LS then offered approx £400 goodwill. I rejected and it’s been with the FOS for 2 weeks
PDUK= Asked for another 4 weeks on top of the 8. I went straight to the FOS about 2 weeks ago.
Quickquid= Final response on 8 weeks rejecting my complaint. Been with the FOS for 3 weeks.
PDEX= Only made my complaint around 5 weeks ago, not heard anything back yet.
Hoping to get around 7-9k back in total. Also have another 6 or 7 complaints to make about lenders that I used less frequently. At one time I had 11 payday loans at the one time! Fingers crossed I get the last laugh on these vultures!
kelly says
I’ve finally received my statements from Wonga. Its really surprising .. I didn’t realise how bad my borrowing was until I read it in black and white. I had 20 +loans with 10+ roll overs and £1500 interest repaid. I somehow managed to borrow up to 3 times in one month.
I’m waiting to hear back from Wonga over the next few weeks otherwise I’ll refer straight to the FO.
Its definitely worth getting your statements as I had estimated around £700 interest with 10 days..
Matthew says
Hi all,
Just looking for some advise from anyone who has had a complaint in against SafetyNet?
My story is, few years back got myself into a mess with payday loans… so bad that I had to enter debt management. Also have a £4000 overdraft that never gets any lower and a guarantor loan which I’ve kept paying. Now also have numerous defaults and late payments on my credit report. Early last year was struggling a little due to my partner losing her job so applied with Safety Net (not expecting to be accepted) and they did accept me with a credit limit of £250. Now SafetyNet can see your bank account so will know about my overdraft, and all my income and expenses. Since last March they have upped my credit limit to £840 and the amount I’ve been borrowing from them has crept up so that now every month I’m borrowing the £840, repaying around £1050 on my payday and then instantly reborrowing again to see me through the month. Worked out this morning that since March last year I’ve borrowed around £8500 (including £840 still outstanding from this month) and so far repaid around £9400.
Since March this year I have been on a reduced wage (which they will be able to see) and in fact logging into my account it actually shows that my income is less than my expenditure for the last month. I did get an email from them around my paydate last month stating that they thought there may have been a change in my circumstances but for the time being it would not affect my credit limit.
I have been wanting to make a complaint against them for unaffordability for a few months now, however I feel I am completely reliant on them and that if I complain and then they take their payment on my payday and then obviously wont reloan to me then I wont have the finances to get through the following month (paying rent, bills etc).
My question is to anyone who’s complained to them before and had an outstanding balance, do they put collections and interest on hold until they investigate the complaint? Or if I complain today will they still attempt to take their payment as soon as I’m paid?
Cant believe I’m in this situation, not sleeping due to the worry of it all.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Who is your debt management plan with?
Matthew says
Hi Sara
I am with iDebtplan (Harrington Brooks). I do pay a fee for it and realise that there are free ones out there. Going to try and get statements and put in complaints against all my historic loans and see if I’m due any refunds on them and then will look to move anything that’s left to a free DMP. I only pay a small monthly amount to them so at the moment though I’m more worried about SafetyNet. With my reduced wage and my partner not working, if they take their payment on my payday and I don’t reloan i’ll only have around £550 to see me through the month to cover rent, bills etc and to be honest this wouldn’t even cover rent.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Moving to StepChange would be good :) But I was asking to see if you were running your DMP yourself. As you aren’t, I suggest you:
– call HB up and ask them to include your SafetyNet account in your DMP
– tell your bank you want to cancel the CPA that allows the to debit your account
– inform SafetyNet Credit that you have cancelled the CPA, you cannot afford the repayment and you are talking to HB about a debt management plan
Then put in an affordability complaint to Safetynet Credit. They can see your bank account, right? So they can see you are in a debt management plan and they have continued to lend! And even without that, your repeated borrowing, increasing in size sounds like a good case to me.
Adam says
I was with HB for a year or so, went to SC whoare free and was the best thing i ever did, so so simple and saved a fortune!!!
fusionx212 says
So I have been chasing the ombudsman about wonga quick quid and myjar, I would make one suggestion when dealing or logging your complaints with the ombudsman get your paper work statements and emails together and put it in the initial complaint email.
the fact the fos now allows you to complain on-line and upload files is a massive time saver.
I phoned the fos today and she accepted all of my cases was very empathetic and stated the fact I had prepared my case files, along side credit reports and statements, has done half her job for her and thinks this will give me a quick resolution.
Wonga wanted 6 weeks on top of the 8 week limits.
Any one still waiting it’s worth giving a call into the FOS and asking for an update
K says
Does anyone know how long the adjudicator takes to reach a decision? My adjudicator has received all info from me and Myjar, just waiting for the result
Miles says
Myjar made me an offer once Adjudicator got involved which I accepted as I had only had 4 loans of them and the Ombudsman normally ignores 1st 2 loans as affordable (don’t agree myself, but whatever)
So you might well get an offer
Brian says
An update on my case. Borrowed almost monthly during 2013/14 with Wonga. I had taken smaller loans during 2012 but was not in the trap at that point. Most of the loans were over 1,000, all paid back on time or even early but then usually taken out again within a few days. Anyway waited 15 weeks but got a response from Wonga upholding my claim in its entirety and saying they will refund all interest paid, all fees plus the 8% interest. Very happy with the result, just under 4,000 refunded. They said they will pay into my account within 5 working days. Thanks Sara for a great site!
Tony says
I have 4 with the ombudsman now and the fifth, quick quid asked for an extra week for a reply. The adjudicator has now changed her mind and said I should not get all loans from 2010 as they have supplied some credit check they done which did not show my mortgage arrears, debts and other payday loans. 4 of the 6 loans were after Jan 2010 and I had been getting loans and rollovers from end of 2008. She has now decided all but the last one could not have been recognised by QQ. Am a bit disappointed and did point out to her that surely the number of rollovers would highlight a concern but she didn’t change her mind again. Will still get a good result with £800 debt written off plus nearly £200?refund but debating whether to go to ombudsman. Do not want them to think I am taking the p and the lady has agreed the other 3 she has dealt with, mainly I think as they can’t provide proof of any checks being done.
Lesley says
So annoyed, phoned qq start of the week as my 8 weeks were up, only to be spoke to like an idiot and the chap saying they had emailed my final repose which I never received he then proceed to tell me that they wouldn’t resend it again and told me they had decided the loan were all affordable, so I decided I’d wait till my p2p one came then I’d see what they say and if both were rejected send them both to the Fos, so phoned p2p they “sent” my final response as well which I also never received told the same I wouldn’t get another copy of it, really quite annoyed but I’ll make sure the ajudicator knows I never received any and they weren’t willing to help
Danielle says
Strange how so many people never receive emails QuickQuid claim they have sent isnt it? With me it was also the other way around, they claimed to have never received several of my emails even though they were all in my sent emails lol… Awful company, worst I have ever dealt with. As frustrating as it is at least you have something else to add to your complaint to the FOS. I will definitely be making a point of the appalling customer service I received when I get assigned to an adjudicator.
Danielle says
Hi everyone,
I’m just wondering how much you were borrowing per month?
With QuickQuid it started with £50 then upto £400 (with top ups)
With Wonga it started with £200 then upto £600 (with top ups)
I was on a wage of £1000-£1200 at the time. I’m worried because I didn’t take the full amount that was offered (£900 with QQ and £750 with Wonga) if the FOS will see the loans I had affordable? I mean they really weren’t, I took a loan out the next day or even the same day of paying one off but because they weren’t huge amounts I am worried this go against me? Or is it more on the frequency of the loans? I took a loan every month 2011-2013.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Not taking the full amount offered helps your complaint because it shows you were trying to borrow as little as possible, but borrowing every month shows you couldn’t manage to get through to the next month without re-loaning, ie your loans were not “affordable”.
The Ombudsman may feel £50 or £100 was affordable – or at least that the lenders couldn’t tell that it wasn’t when they were first lending to you. But after you carried on borrowing, and the amount generally went up in value, they should have spotted this.
Jason says
Had a complaint with Speedy cash. I had 7 loans in total with interest of £650 paid and defaulted the last loan in to a payment plan.
Speedy cash rejected my complaint, however they said they never done a credit check and lent to me on the information i provided. They said they wasnt to know i was having troubles as i never told them.
As they never credit checked me and only lent to me on the information i provided would this have a case with the ombudsman? Is it not irresponsible to not carry out a credit check?
So far some good results:
Wageday – Full refund £492
Sunny – Full Refund plus interest – £280
247moneybox – Loan write off
Wonga – Ongoing
Kate says
Today the Ombudsman agreed with my adjudicator that QQ irresponsible leant to me and should refund interest and charges plus 8% over 4 years .. I think this is roughly £1900 so another victory against them !
Massive thanks to Sara xx
Stuart G says
Quick bit of news – I registered a complaint with Safetynet Credit yesterday (8th June). Got an email today offering a “goodwill gesture” of all of my interest paid back! Hats off to them for being so quick – if anyone has has loans with them, get a complaint in quickly! I didn’t expect any joy with them to be honest so it’s a pleasant surprise!
Mike says
After my success last week with safetynetcredit my wife who only used them decided to try and today she got the whole balance of £416 she only emailed them 2 days ago
Rachel says
Over 8 week up with and P2P offered £300 and to write off my current balance ( about £800) a good offer for this loan but considering i took 7 over 7 years alongside QQ i have rejected and sending to the FOS. Has anyone actually had any luck with P2P ?
Now have 3 with the FOS none have been assigned yet.
Suzi says
QUICK QUID
adjudicator called me today to go thru the 6 months bank statements before a decision can be made
Is this normal, i answered all the questions “Whats this for ” etc , adjudicator hoping to make a decision by Monday latest,
I had a £700 loan from QQ they loaded over £350 charges on it, passed to debt collection agency i was only paying £1 token payment a month
QQ refused to remove charges, prior to that i had £200 from them managed to re pay that one .
Interest on that was £175 , plus more on the £700 loan.
Claiming both unaffordable , bit worried about the call to go thru my bank statements
Anyone had this done to them if so what was the adjudicator outcome ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Suzi, my guess is (and it’s only a guess!) that yours may be a rather marginal claim, it’s not often that people win cases with only two loans. So it was being looked into more closely. It sounds as though your bank a statements would have shown you could only make token payments, supporting your claim,. Fingers crossed you get a good decision.
Daz says
Hi, so I’ve just seen the site and want to ask a question. I’ve had about 5 or 6 loans 1 every month so I would of payed it off then got a new one a day later from the same company this occurred every month for 6 months as could not really afford it but I new I had to pay it. stupid I know. I also had loans with other company’s at the time. I couldnt really afford to be doing this and now it’s got me in a bit of trouble. Would I be eligible to try and request a refund for this. Any comments would be great. Also does this effect you in anyway of you are successfull! Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Daz, it sounds as though you have a good reason to request refunds – repaying then borrowing the next day from the same lender means the lender should have noticed this and stopped lending!
if you are still in a financial mess with debts and not sure how to manage without payday loans, give StepChange a ring http://www.stepchange.org/Howwecanhelpyou/DMPdebtmanagementplan.aspx and talk to them about a debt management plan. You can still go ahead with asking for refunds, but these could take months and you have no idea how much you might get back, so you also need to tackle your immediate problem/
Thomas says
So, after the Adjudicator refused to uphold my complaint about Satsuma, I’ve decided to take it up to the Ombudsman. The reason they refused was because a) I only took out 3 loans, b) not all lenders use the same credit reference agencies so Satsuma wouldn’t have seen my other existing debts, and c) I hadn’t opened any brand new payday loan accounts in the 6 months up to my last Satsuma loan.
All three points are incorrect: a) I took out 4 Satsuma loans, b) Satsuma uses Call Credit and I have the report in front of me showing all my other debts at the time, including 8 defaults, and c) in the 6 months up until my last Satsuma loan I opened an account with SafetyNet Credit, 24/7 MoneyBox and Ferratum (and borrowed off each).
Wish me luck!
Gordon says
Few Points:
Text Loan AKA MyJar – Be careful when checking statement of loans, i received mine and it only showed the most recent loans from Myjar, They did not include previous loans under Txt Loan. Made my refund £500 more.
Money Shop – (Do not wait past 8 weeks) have disagreed with the adjudicator and its just been passed to an Ombudsman. Uncle buck and 118 money also disagreed with him and have also gone to an Ombudsman.
I believe the companies have some sort of refund fund from profits which they use monthly and can only give so much, hence the delaying tactics.
Money shop say owe me £2500 (Original Complaint in February) by holding onto this for longer, they can loan this money out each month and will have made the money which they pay me from someone else.
Stick with it people and do not accept stupid offers – you will regret it and there is nothing you can do after. I have with one lender and wish i didnt.
C says
Thanks for pointing this out about TXT Loan. I requested my SOA and they sent it through with only 7 months worth of claims – all in the same year. I could have sworn my loans with them spanned at least two different years so glad you mentioned this!
melly says
Hi Can anyone give me any advice on this please? Just had an email response from QQ
You held a total of 2 payday loans. Your first Quick Quid loan, loan number 3737150 was funded on 30/08/2011 in the amount of £100.00. This loan was extended once and repaid successfully on 20/10/2011. Your second loan in the amount of £600.00 was funded on 20/10/2011. This loan was extended four times. Our records indicate that you may have experienced some financial difficulties during this loan. On 14/03/2012 there was a payment in the amount of £759.30 due. This payment was not honored and the loan was ultimately passed to third party collection agency Arvato Financial Solutions. At the time your loan was passed you had an outstanding balance in the amount of £699.98.
We pride ourselves on looking after our customers by attempting to resolve any issues in a straightforward, efficient and amicable manner. Having taken all your comments into consideration, we would like to make you an offer that we believe is fair to address the loans that you feel were irresponsibly given to you.
In full and final settlement of your complaint, we would like to offer to recall your account and discharge your debt with Quick Quid, which amounts to approximately £699.98. (This would be calculated exactly on acceptance of our offer).
BUT I have just checked my paperwork and i had a total of 7 loans actually not 2
they all read as settled except the final 600 which was rolled over then defaulted so i’m not even sure what that final response relates to because the info i have is from their website from my old account log area
Any advice would be much appreciated
John C says
Melly, each time you roll over with QQ it shows on their website as a new loan with a new reference number. I borrowed constantly for 5 years and their website had a reference number for every single month, but the adjudicator told me that many of these were actually roll overs and not new loans.
I’d actually say the offer to wipe the loan seem alright in comparison to most offers from QQ, esp as you’re going to have paid around £700 in total interest across your loans, depending if you’d paid anything towards the very last one
john says
Hi all,
I currently have a complaint with wonga spanning 54 loans, The total interest paid was £9,625 and fees were £857, i have not worked out the statutory interest.
My complaint will be 8 weeks on June the 23rd. I recently phone wonga to check the status of my complaint. I was advised that my complaint with currently with the legal team, which i am now lead to believe is uncommon/unheard of.
I phoned again to ask why my complaint was with the legal team and was informed that sometimes before a final response is sent a draught is checked by the legal team and that although i could not be given a time scale they would be in touch with me soon, which i assume was in line with the 8 week deadline. I was hoping someone may have experienced something similar and can shed some light on what is actually going on.
The only reason i can come up with for a legal team to be checking my complaint is that they are about to send me some correspondence to decline my complaint. I will keep all posted on the future of my complaint and do help someone could help my mind lay at ease.
Kind regards, John.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi John, I think the reason no-one is replying is that no one has come across this before. My best guess is that it is because your potential refund is so large. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to refuse it, it could just mean they have an in house rule that all refunds over £x,000 have to be signed off by legal – NB I just made that up, it is a guess.
Fingers crossed!
kim says
hi everybody,
I have had my final response back from Wonga today I had 24 loans with them and repaid 1500 in interest, and they have offered me £509. 09 for only 3 loans, can anybody suggest if I go the Ombudsman will I lose the original offer or should I just accept it and run?
thanks
kim
Tony says
Kim
They offered me 3 random loans but I went to ombudsman who has now told them to pay me all monies plus interest from 2010. I would go for it if I were you. Good luck
rob says
Quick update with my Wonga complaint, I had 38 loans with them and paid back 2600 interest, they didn’t respond to the adjudicator so it went to the ombudsman, got a letter today saying that his findings are that Wonga should pay interest and charges on loans 5-38 plus 8% a year interest, it works out close to £3000 I think, I’m very happy to say the least even though it says that is the final decision, I’m still worried that Wonga will try and get out of it, what happens now? I’m going to ring the ombudsman and accept the offer, after that how long do Wonga take to pay out? Many thanks
Chris says
Hey,
When an ombudsman issues a final decision and you accept it. It becomes legally binding on the business and you. If you haven’t had a response within 4 weeks from the date that you accept the decision, refer it back to your adjudicator. Who will contact the business on your behalf to remind them of this fact. Once an ombudsman has reached a final decision it can’t be overturned even by another ombudsman. I’m going through the process of trying to claim back payday loan interest myself. But have experience using the ombudsman for an insurance dispute. FOS are one of the best public bodies I’ve used.
Hope this helps
Chris
Duane says
Advice please. I had dozens of loans and extensions from Wonga and QQ but of which continued to lend to me after I asked to be put in a payment plan. Ridiculous lending. Will this help as I’ve made this point to them. Also, QQ have sent me the questionnaire bit which I sent back last week. How long does it take for a final letter to come after this. Thanks guys
Rich says
Sounds to me you have a good case, a lot of it is about the ‘gaps’ between loans. If you had a cycle of borrowing that what just to keep up with your other payments and to keep up with these guys the lenders should have noticed, they definitely should have given you a repayment plan if you asked for one in my opinion. My advice (and I’m no expert) is get your case together, get a statement from them and in the absence of that consult bank statements, detail why you have a case so were you in hardship, were you reloaning to keep up with payments, were you mistreated by the lender examples such as asking for a payment plan, not having adequate loan detail, methods of reclaim were intimidating etc etc. make sure you have all the facts, complain to them if they don’t reply with a final response in 8 weeks complain to the FO, then they will assign you an adjudicator who will make a decision and choose to uphold your claim or not. If that fails you can refer to the ombudsman too. My advice stay calm, don’t be hasty, get the facts and don’t accept a ridiculous low offer if you need the money as the pay out could be much greater
Erika says
Hi, I want to share my situation. On 4th of April I ask for refund for Oakam (they state I have just 2 loans, they don’t think top ups is another loan, because I have loans with them from 2011 till 2016), speedy cash (about 10 loans 2010-2015) money shop (about 6 loans 2012-2014), and for my husband for money shop (10 loans 2013-105), speedy cash (5 loans from 2012 till 2015) Main reason – from 2013 I was fired, in January 2014 born my 3rd daughter and main income was just CB and MA . I don’t work till now. But all lenders gave me loans just add my husband Child and Work Tax credit (they go to his bank account, also he had loans with same lenders).
At main time my situation:
Oakam – refuse my complaint after 8 weeks (they all credit checks was good, doesn’t matter what my income from 2013 just 54 CB and I have loan with them around 3000 pound) send to FOS
Money shop – after 8 weeks ask for more time (don’t know refer to FOS or give them time)
Speedy cash – must have answer next week.
My husband situation:
Money shop – after 8 weeks ask for more time (don’t know refer to FOS or give them time)
Speedy cash – offer 1209,59 plus 8% in total 1227,66 which my husband accepted.
James says
Hi sara. Has anyone had any luck with provident/greenwoods? Got a letter saying i would have a final response in 28 days on the 4th of april. I was lending from them for years! I didnt even have a job at the start. They just fill in the application with lies so you get accepted! Defaulted on both so be good to get them written off my file!
My jar paid out all interest plus 8% within a week. Waiting on wonga, quickquid, uncle buck, safety net, and the cheque centre now. All 8 weeks up next monday/tuesday. Not confident but will wait and hope!
Zoey says
Hi
My adjudicator has upheld my complaint to Wonga. They have a week to reply. Does anyone know if wonga are likely to reply or will it more than likely go to the ombudsman? What happens next?
Also the adjudicator has just stated interest in their email and hasn’t said about the 8% will i get it as i asked for the 8% to be added in my initial complaint? sorry for so many questions.
Danny says
Hi zoey , great news wonga will just add the 8 percent when working out your return!
Mark says
Latest update re my Quick Quid complaint-
Adjudicator took on my complaint a few weeks ago now and requested an up to date credit report-got this for £2 from Experian and forwarded on to him.
Emailed last week just to make sure he had received it ok and if he was able to provide an update,replied to say that he had received it,had written to Quick Quid for further information that he expects to receive this week and hopefully will provide me with a further update.
The fact that Quick Quid offered me a paltry £250 to make it all go away does fill me with some confidence…
EJ says
Hi,
Just to update on where I am at with my complaints.
Wonga – 8 weeks was up on Wednesday and they emailed today saying it will take another 6 weeks. Forwarding to FOS tomorrow
Quick quid – 8 weeks were up on Wednesday. I emailed to chase and got a response to say they will get back to me when the 8 weeks is up. Advised it was up and have chased daily since but no response. Forwarding to FOS tomorrow.
Satsuma – complaint put in 2 weeks ago but no response or acknowledgement received.
PDUK – complaint put in 1 week ago, not yet acknowledged.
118 money – rejected complaint, forwarded to FOS and received response on Monday to say they are looking into it and will get back to me in 2 weeks so hopefully they will make contact this week.
Lending stream – had outstanding loan of over £900 and within 3 weeks of my initial complaint they had written off the loan and changed status to ‘settled’ on credit file.
Will keep you updated…..
Paul says
Hi, I send a complaint to PDUK/payday express over 2 weeks ago, but still have no response is this common or should I chase up or just go direct to ombudsman? Also I have a claim with wonga, they acknowledged me over 9 weeks ago, but I have had no final response, I also sent a follow up email, but have heard nothing, again is this normal or should I be chasing? On a more positive note I heard back from sunny after 8 weeks they repaid all my interest I had paid plus 8% interest without any hassle.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Pduk/express – you can send a reminder email if you want, but not hearing anything at all from them is normal, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/ask-refund-payday-uk-express-money-shop/. You can’t go to the FO until 8 weeks from your complaint to the lender.
Wonga – straight to the FO now. No reason to wait, Wonga may or may not make you an offer later but don’t wait weeks as you may be rejected however good your case.
Sunny – it’s nice to get one easy result! How much did you get back?
yvonne says
thank you for all your advice on this page. It has been really useful and just wanted to let you know how I am getting on after finally deciding to complain to my payday loan companies about affordability issues. I had approximately 10 -12 payday loans over a space of 6 months borrowing off different companies to pay other companies off and suffered as I didn’t want my family realising how much trouble I was in. My arguement with these people is that if they had used Experian Or Equifax as a credit reference rather than callcredit they would have realised that I had a default on my credit file and numerous searches for loans from other companies and should not necessarily been too keen to lend. Anyway after finally being able to stand up to these companies, I can let you know that i have sent complaint letters off to 5 of the companies and so far have had replies from:
Pounds To Pocket – Waited the 8 weeks for a final response and they have recalled the debt with no outstanding balance.
Quickquid – Offered to reduce my debt by half which i have told them i won’t accept considering pounds to pocket and quickquid are the same company and I borrowed from both of them at the same time. Waiting on a response otherwise will be passed to Ombudsman.
Payday UK/Express – Had loans with both these companies within a week of one another and still waiting acknowledgement.
My Jar – With Ombudsman and waiting on decision.
Opos (minicredit) – They would not uphold my complaint so will be passing this to the Ombudsman.
Peach Loans- Sent a complaint to them on the 10th of June and had final response on the 13th June to say that they would write off the debt.
So there is light at the end of the tunnel and would just say to people to not give up.
Libby247 says
Hi all,
Firstly I want to thank Sara for this website if I hadn’t googled back in January I would never have thought this was possible xx
I had loans with 5 companies all lending/rolling over for a consistent period of 18 months eventually ended up in DMP as could not sustain it any longer.
Complained to all 5 –
Txtloan (my jar) – I found were by far the easiest they refunded 3/4 of the loans 3 days after complaining – £2700 received.
Sunny – waited until the final day of the 8 weeks – £1780 received.
Wonga had the 8 weeks + 2 weeks + 4 weeks and refunded on the last day of the final 4 weeks – £3390 received.
I now have 2 with the FOS –
Lending Steam – by far the worst I have dealt with they have fabricated information and been extremely ‘bullying’ throughout. Complaint has been with the FOS for 7 weeks, they have failed to respond to any FOS requests, yet I am receiving emails from them every day referring to the complaint received from FOS ‘requesting’ I accept their final offer which was for £250. I have not responded to any of these emails and have forwarded all to the adjudicator. They have until tomorrow to respond to the adjudicator. £2800 + 8% ‘expected’.
Quick Quid – have been frustrating as they just never respond to anything! I did not get a final response from them and took to the FOS after 9 weeks. They have however responded to the FOS who have now ruled in my favour for Quick Quid to pay back interest and charges on ALL loans, they have 1 week to respond to this. I fully expect them to dispute this and for it to go to an Ombudsman. £3700 + 8% ‘expected’
I have the same adjudicator for both cases with the FOS and she has honestly been fantastic. She has advised if Lending Stream fail to respond by tomorrow they too will be instructed to refund interest and charges for ALL loans.
It has been a long drawn out and at times frustrating process but I would urge anyone who has not yet complained to do so now.
I don’t yet know the timescales once the decision has been made by the adjudicator, I would expect Lending Stream and Quick Quid will try and drag it out as long as possible. I will post back once/if I actually receive the funds.
Good luck to all xx
Lilly says
Hi There,
I have also been unfortunate enough today to receive the normal final response from QQ. They have offered me £150 for all of my loans from 2012 – 2015, these included two repayment arrangements due to financial problems, £7500 borrowed and just under £4,000 paid in interest. I have just placed my complaint online now with the ombudsman, and I just wondered do I need to reply to QQ’s final response email, letting them know I do not accept it and that I am passing the complaint on? Or do i waiting to hear from an adjudicator etc? Thank you!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, you don’t need to let them know. If they had made a half way reasonable offer – 2k say, it may have been worth going back to them and saying why you think it should be higher. But I wouldn’t bother to waste your time after such a low offer.
Mark says
I was writing to update that within a week of complaint 24 7 have come back to me to offer a write off of my loan – £300
I have rejected this, so lets see. I had 10 loans in 11 months, and a large proposition went in to default. Roughly £7000 paid back in that time which I would assume without a statement would be 40% interest, no gaps in between at all.
Daniel says
Hi, just thought this might interest some of you. I accepted an offer from my jar for a refund on 9 of 21 loans. This was for £850 in total, I accepted this offer because at the time it seemed like a lot of money and I really needed it.
Looking back now and after reading this page I realised maybe it was to low so decided to go back to them and explain even though I accepted there final offer I was not happy still as I had had time to think about it.
I kind of expected they would reply and say their offer was final and I had excepted it so it was to late and this is exactly what they did. I then replied again giving a bit more detail as to why they should reconsider and that I was going to go to the ombudsman which would be lengthy and costly.
They have just replied to me offering another £350 which I accepted, I suppose the moral to this story is just because you have accepted an offer in the past because you needed the money quickly it’s not necessarily to late to go back and suggest it was not enough and your reasons why you feel like this and why you had to accepted in the first place.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
MyJar are definitely one of the better lenders for actually listening to what their customers say and thinking about what is fair. I’m not sure you would have got this response from many other lenders, but well done for persevering!
Richard says
QQ just offered me only £150 I have turned it down and gone to the Ombudsman as I had over 30 loans with them month after month.
On the other hand Wageday Advance just offered me today just over £3600 and it will be in my account tomorrow. (I told them that I had at least 8 other payday loan companys at the time, which put me into a large amount of debt. I had to borrow 7000 pounds of my other half, also I told them they shouldn’t of lent me that amount if they could see I was borrowing every month to keep my head above water.)
Plenty other companys to go.
Rachel says
I found WDA good to deal with they seemed to have looked at my account in detail, the money was in my account the same day in the afternoon, good luck with the others
Michael says
Hello everyone!
Been a stalker of this forum for a fair few months now, just want to say how brilliant it is, and a big thanks to all the contributors!
Unfortunately I got into the PDL loans trap. My own fault, although a lifelong disability hasn’t really helped me. (I do feel this is something PDL companies should ask at the application stage, just like high street lenders would do)
My main 3 complaints have been with Sunny, QuickQuid and Wonga. All complaints were sent off at the end of February on the same day.
I have had differing results and customer service!
Sunny upheld my complaint within the 8 weeks and compensated me the full amount asked for plus the 8 percent. Pertect!
Wonga and QuickQuid have been less than helpful.
QQ responded at 8 weeks declining my complaint, whilst Wonga asked for a further 6 weeks….I let them (wish I hadn’t now!) but they too disputed it.
Don’t despair though! I shall go to the ombudsman!
As soon as they declined me, I went to the FO for the QQ complaint. This was at the start of May. Wonga will be going same route tomorrow.
I was just a bit concerned about my progress with the FO in regards to the QQ story.
Nearly 6 weeks on I have had very little response from them. Communication, yes, but I believe my complaint hasn’t been assigned to anyone yet.
Is this sounding normal? What kind of time span have people on here experienced in terms of first contact with the FO and payout.
I appreciate they are very busy, just like to have an idea of the length of progress.
I feel I have a very strong claim for both…my refund with Sunny for exactly the same reasons should have been alarm bells for QQ and Wonga surely!
Many thanks for your time…look forward to hearing your responses!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
getting a good offer from Sunny and a rejection from QQ is all quite common. Wonga is just so erratic, some people get good offers, some people get sort of OK but could be a lot better offers, others get a rejection.
Timescale at the adjudicator is tend to depend on how quick the lender is to reply – when a complaint arrives, the FO tells the lender and waits for their response – when that come you go into the queue for an adjudicator. If nothing comes after a couple of weeks, i think they add you to the queue anyway.
Victoria says
Can anyone share their Lending Stream experiences, time scales ect? Thanks in advance
Kelly says
Hi Victoria,
Lending Stream came back to me after three and a half weeks and offered to clear my outstanding balance (which was only low) however I accepted as I had only had two loans with them and the first fell out of the six year window. Overall I found them quite efficient.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They often seem to write off an outstanding balance very easily. But they can be much more difficult about refunds.
They often say your Experian score was good, say 650, when you know it couldn’t possibly have been anything like that.
One person says they told the ombudsman that his disposable income was £400 when they had never actually asked for any expense details at all back in 2011, so they couldn’t have calculated this at all.
Samantha says
Hi I need some advice, I have had loans with wonga, satsuma, sunny and lending stream. I emailed all for statement of accounts and only had a helpful reply from wonga. Do I need this to pursue a claim or can I use information from my bank statements – such as the dates I borrowed and how much, plus the dates I repayed and work out the interest I have paid from this. Looking through my statements has been quite a shock, a lot of returned direct debits and hundreds of pounds of borrowing and repaying on pay day. I felt that these were more important to pay so sacrificed things like car insurance and phone bills. Thanks for any help you can give.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Info from your bank statements is a great source, if you have that you can certainly put in a good complaint now as you can say how often you borrowed from that lender (both the actual number of loans and the frequency).
The easy thing is just to say “I had 8 loans and 4 rollovers in period of 15 months”. That’;s fine, it’s all you really need to say.
If you can add more detail, it may help: “The loans I had were generally increasing in size: 200, 250, 200, 400, 400, 500, 400, 600, 660, 400, 750 as my financial situation deteriorated and at the same time the gaps between the loans tended to decrease: 6 weeks, 3 weeks, 5 days, 7 days, 3 days, 8 days, 2 days, 1 day, same day, 2 days”
It’s good to check info from your bank statements against a statement of account form the lender, to see if anything is missing from the statement (!) and also to see if you have missed anything as it’s easy to miss a line in a pile of bank statements. But you can do this later, just get your proper complaint in!
Aga says
Hi Sara and everyone :
I received my final response from PD UK:
My Assessment:
As a new PaydayUK customer you completed an application for credit on 14 December 2010. You confirmed your personal details, including your net monthly income. [general stuff]
Following our final checks being completed the loan sum of £300.00 was deposited to your chosen bank account on 14 December 2010. This left you with a repayment of £375.00 due on 26 January 2011. You opted to defer the repayment of this loan on two occasions by paying the contractual interest and a partial repayment. The loan was then settled on 30 March 2011 with a payment of £262.50.
You obtained two further loans from PaydayUK; a £450.00 loan on 6 April 2011, and a £320.00 loan on 1 March 2012. You elected to defer repayment of these loans a total of sixteen times. We attempted to take payment on 29 August 2012 to settle your final loan, however, were unsuccessful and therefore, your loan defaulted. On 5 October 2012, you asked us to aid you in repaying your outstanding balance. This was agreed and, from 5 October 2012 to 28 November 2012, we received six loans totalling £255.86. As no default interest or charges were applied, this payment was sufficient to settle your loan in full. No further borrowing has been agreed with you.
My Conclusion:
[general stuff]The information available to us indicated that you could afford your loan repayments.
Given that you have provided information upon each application which has been confirmed as being accurate it is apparent that at no point prior to your loan defaulting had you informed PaydayUK that you were in financial difficulty. PaydayUK does not have any control over your financial behaviour, spending habits or relationships with other lenders. Your loan agreements have stated to contact the business if you believe you are in financial difficulty, and when contacted about this PaydayUK would have acted responsibly in helping your repay any outstanding balance and limited your access to any future loan deposits until such a time as this was suitable for you.
You allege that you had to obtain further credit in order to repay you loans with PaydayUK. It should be noted that PaydayUK does not have any control over a customer’s financial behaviour, spending habits or relationships with other lenders. Your financial behaviour, including your decision to apply for the loans is your own responsibility. You were under no obligation to apply for credit facilities with PaydayUK.
I can conclude that I am unable to uphold your complaint on this occasion.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So from the loan and roll over numbers it sounds as though you borrowed most (possibly every?) month from Dec 10 to July 12, defaulting in August 12.
Payday UK should have recognised that your constant rollovers indicated you were in trouble. A responsible lender would have declined to rollover and offered a repayment plan instead. Off to the Ombudsman with this complaint I suggest!
Jimmy says
This is very helpful, thank you very much for all this information, can i ask do you think that the fact my house was repossessed while my payday loans where happening (2011 – 2013) enough proof that those were unaffordable or do you think i should provide more information. I am asking because be account with HSBC has been closed since so i am not sure how easy it would be to get hold of statements during that period.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
House repossession is a good sign your finances were a disaster! You may need to get old bank statements if a complaint goes to the Ombudsman, but it can be done and cross that bridge if you come to it.
Jimmy says
Hi Sara can i ask you another question sorry things keep coming up as i am preparing my companies, one of the payday companies CFO who does exist for purposes of collecting loans but no longer trading has offered me a redress of 1,200 but according to their letter is based on the compensation for threatening communication and not treating me fairly when couldn’t pay them. They are have not address the fact that the loans where unaffordable (I haven’t complaint to them yet about my loans being unaffordable) the interest of the loans is in excess of 3k plus interest. Should i bother with that one? I think the compensation amount should be in addition to returning the interest but then my expectations might not be realistic what do you think?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Realistically this money may well reduce the compensation you can get for an affordability complaint, but if you have paid £3,000+ in interest, I think it’s worth proceeding with an affordability complaint. I suggest thinking of this £1200 as an advance payment :)
A says
Hello many thanks for this site, I’m just looking for some advice. I have an ongoing complaint against quick quid for continued loaning 2011-2013 until I entered a dmp, waited the 8 weeks then received an offer at 10:30pm on the last day for £150 (which qq thought was fair and honest). Disappointed, off the fos I went, assigned an adjuctor who requested credit report and bank statements. I got hold of these and received a phonecall saying quick quid has offered £633. I said I would think about it meanwhile I reviewed my bank statements and worked out I paid upwards of 2.5k interest and my credit report shows 2 ccjs. I sent the information in an told the adjudicator I reject the offer. A few weeks later adjudicator wrote to me saying he suggests qq refund all interest from the second loan onwards with 8% interest on top. Needless to say qq came back and rejected the proposal however they have upped their offer to £1833. This is very tempting but im just worried if I let it go to the ombudsmen for a final decision, the outcome may change. This has been a long drawn out process complaint began start of December and the mental stress is tough. Any opinions appreciated.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
it can feel a very stressful procedure, I know. I don’t think you are risking anything taking this to the ombudsman level – not only is the adjudicator on your side, but I think the “worst” the Ombudsman would do would be to say they think the QQ offer is fair.
So worst case you wait another month or so and get the QQ offer. best case is probably getting an extra £1,200 or so?
Aga says
I am over the moon!! this is from Speedy cash :”Adding interest to this refund, at 8% per annum, gives total redress of £2,403.04. This offer of redress is made in full and final settlement of your complaint.”
I can pay off one of my credit cards!!!
Nigel says
Hi,
Could you help with this please, it may be a long message. I had 9 loans with WageDayAdvance starting:
14 February 2015 for £130 and repaid in 01 April 2015 due to a Deferral.
The next loan was taken out 10 April 2015 for £280 and paid in 29 May 2015
the third loan was for £400 on the 31 May 2015 and deferred on 30 June and July 2015 and paid in full on 03 August 2015.
Fourth loan was taken out for £400 on 03 August 2015 and paid 31 August 2015.
Fifth Loan was taken out for £170 on 15th September and deferred on 30 October but fully paid on 01 December 2015.
Sixth loan was taken out for £400 on 01 December 2015 and deffered on 31 December 2015 and paid on 01 February 2016.
Seventh loan was for £355 on 01 February 2016 and paid 01 March 2016.
Eighth Loan was for £400 on 01 March 2016 and paid on 01 April 2016
Ninth loan was for £400 on 01 April and is still in Arrears at the moment as i put in a complaint after seeing this site.
i got a reply Friday stating there willing to partially repay all interest +8% Statutory from December 2015 which totals £374.60 and use that to clear my debt with them, is that an acceptable offer?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not a bad offer, but it’s not great.
i suggest going back and saying that ” Thank you for your offer. I have just looked at the figures in detail and I fwould like to ask you to reconsider this as I don’t think it has taken everything into account.
I had to defer my first loan because i couldn’t afford to repay it. I then borrowed again, more than twice as much, only 9 days later. The gap between loan 2 and loan 3 was only 2 days and the amount had gone up again. And I then I had to defer this loan twice.
I think you should have been able to see i was in trouble when I applied for loan 4 the same day that i cleared loan 3. On this basis I suggest that you should be refunding all interest plus 8% statutory interest from 3rd August.”
JP says
An update had a great response from Wonga took a while but just over £6000 no FO.
On other had had payday uk and payday express (not) after 17 weeks offering £85 and £150 claim nothing wrong even though payment plans to get out from both and loaned every month total interest £1000 from each – these are already with FO so shall wait.
QQ also with FO offered £250 almost £6000 interest with roll overs etc
This site amazing love comments xx
Adami says
Just to give everyone an update:
I put a complaint about QQ last year, according to the decision maker in FOS, QQ are putting an argument up saying the did the check credit checks, based on the income declared and expenses, but what the FOS decision maker has agreed with them okay the small loan of 100-200 could be considered as affordable or manageable and large loans of 500 plus were not. I was a person with really bad credit history. I have decided to accept this because QQ will argue and in the end you could end up getting 0. therefore my advise although other lender may give up and concede but QQ is a bully and will take you all the way to the Ombudsman even further according to the FOS decision maker. My opinion I got 900 including the 8% interest will be in the account in 28 days as opposed to 2000
Suzi says
To Sara Debt Camel & All
I called FOS today for a update on my QQ case and was told they wrote to the business asking the following-
All interest/fees to be removed from the principal loan i took it out in 2012, leaving me to re pay the remainder approx £690 it was £1056.
Removal from my credit file.
i was paying them £1 a month token due to my dire financial situation. my situation is no better now.
I was really hoping for the entire balance to be written off as leaving me to repay @ £1 a month for the remaining £690 will take for ever for this unaffordable loan that was passed on to a debt collection agency after i requested QQ remove fees/interets but they refused.
Please can you advise me on this
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Had you had previous loans from them that you repaid?
Of course if you get back some cash from your other larger claims, you may be able to offer a full & final settlement on this QQ balance.
Suzi says
To Sara Debt Camel
Yes i had a smaller loan of £200 that i repaid , i had the letter today from FOS saying they wrote to QQ asking for them to remove charges & interest plus any token payments i have made , after all of this is deducted it leaves me to pay £512.80
QQ have until 24 June to reply,
The FOS also said all loans to be removed from my credit file
If i offer a Full& Final and it were to be accepted , i guess that would not be shown on my credit either ?
Gordon says
An update RE QQ and FOS
The adjudicator has not upheld any parts of my complaint.
The reasons are that between August 2012 and present, I had 5 loans and a flex credit account. The adjudicator was satisfied on the 5 payday loans part that
“QQ […] completed credit checks, the results of which it was happy with. Given the amount of money you were requesting I would say that the checks completed were adequate. […] all of which were repaid on time or early, so there was no reason for Quick Quid to have had any concerns.”
This is partly is annoying. The payday loan parts were up to £300 at a time, with rollovers and top ups – especially in the earlier days.
On the FlexCredit account – this is what I find most annoying for the reasoning of not holding up any part of my complaint.
“This is a facility which allows you to borrow up to an agreed limit which then needs to be repaid within 10 months. Again Quick Quid completed checks which I would consider adequate. […] This was longer term lending and you would’ve only needed to repay 10% of the balance each month, which gave you more flexibility. Looking at how you used this facility I can see you used it regularly and repaid it within the month.”
The limit was £900 on a wage of £1400 for the period of the Flex account. Looking back at my record, I did use the FlexCredit every single month from July 2013 to April 2015. But yet this is affordable and responsible lending? The only reason the FlexCredit account was revoked was due to the new FCA regulations on affordability that came into force.
The conclusion is [..] given the information that was available to Quick Quid and the checks it completed [The Adjudicator] cannot say it acted irresponsibly by providing you with loans.
I have 2 weeks to respond and I will ask for this to be passed to the ombudsman.
Any advice on what to respond with?
Bearing in mind along side QQ, I had PDUK, Quid, smaller PDEX, Wonga and Lending Stream, provided the FOS with a full breakdown on each lender and a summary of all together in a spreadsheet, various credit reports showing defaults ect
Thanks
Bob says
Hi Gordon
I’m probably going to be in the same situation, mine is with the adjudicator at the moment but not heard anything yet.
In my complaint I made the point that the day I had the payment taken I was often withdrawing straight back up to my limit again, after some months they increased my limit by an extra 800 to 1200. I was also self employed and my wages were an estimate which was never achieved in the end as my business failed, I personally think the loan was a way of them offering a facility without having to check your details each month as if you were applying for a new loan each month they would have. They basically was able to skip doing regular checks and was easy money for them. If it was a longer term loan then it surely should have been more affordable ie lower interest rate and also should have ended after 10 months but instead it kept offering new lending each month when a payment was made and was able to continue for nearly 2 years.
I would be interested in what Sara thinks on this for me and Gordon? My total interest was nearly 4k
Are we likely to get nowhere because of the type of loan we had?
John C says
QQ didn’t even address my flexi loan when I placed my complaint, nor did they send any detail on this to the adjudicator at the FOS who did uphold my complaint on the information she had on payday loans (from loan 30, which is when I complained from). Because of this I was able to accept the QQ offer on the proviso that it only covered up to October 2012, and raised a new complaint with the same adjudicator for the flexi loan that ran from August 2013 to December 2014 (but was still paying off till July 2015). Its been with them for a few weeks, but looking at what I paid, my flexi loan was at a max for the majority of the time, so if the payday loans were upheld, then I would hope the flexi loan would be too. I paid over £6k interest on the flexi loan. QQ eventually got back to the adjudicator last week, so i’m waiting to see what comes of it
For note I had to get all my payment info for the flexi account from my bank with dates of amounts paid in and out. The info isn’t on QQ’s website, and all they sent me was an email that had a start and end date (that wasn’t correct as they said December, but I was paying back till July) and an amount borrowed and paid back (which again was slightly different to what I could see on my bank account)
Gordon, you always have the option to pass up to the Ombudsman so I would do that. Sounds like you have all your info together, so have a case to put to them. And a decent one at that! The amount of people that are sending cases to adjudicators with only half their case prepared, surprises me
Kez says
Hi Sara,
WDA has finally got back to me today after waiting 11 weeks for a response!
Background:
I had 6 loans in total.
My first 2 loans were taken out and paid back in full each following loan was requested and agreed for a increasingly higher amount and within days of the full balances being paid.
The gap between the first 3 loans was always less than 5 days each time
3rd loan was taken on the 01/11/2010 repaid on 30/11/2010 and then my fourth loan was agreed on the 01/12/2010. I deferred the loan payment due on the 31/12/2010 and made full payment on the 31/01/2011.
5th loan was agreed on the 01/02/2011 – this loan was deferred until September 2011 when it was paid in full.
My final loan was agreed in February 2012 for an increased amount and a balance remains outstanding.
WDA have agreed to waive all interest charges from loan 6 meaning only the principle balance of £580, they will reduce this by £450 which i have already repaid.
Does this sound like a fair offer?
Also, if i were to reject the offer take it to the ombudsman and they do not uphold my complaint will the offer from WDA still stands?
Thanks,
Kez
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you go back to WDA and say that because of the very short gaps between the loans and the increasing size of the loans, you feel they should have refused your 4th loan and you would like a full refund from that point.
craig says
Success with Cheque Centre (who were dealing with The Loan Store account i had) – on 8th week of complaint paid back all interest on the 8 loans i had with which wiped the balance of the 8th which was still outstanding. One of the easier ones to deal with :-)
Sally says
Hi. I’ve just got my statement of accounts back from wonga. It says I had 5 loans. From August 11- Jan 12
August £167 paid back £263 over 26 days.
October £200 pb £316 over 8 days
Dec £200 pb £252 over 30 days
Jan 16th £100 pb £106 over 1 day
Jan 24th £200
top up £60 2nd Feb,
top up £100 2nd Feb
Top up £50 3rd Feb
total £410 pb £124.90 they wrote off the rest.
Is it worth trying to get a refund on all or just the last one? My credit file would of shown defaults on other things as I was struggling then with other bills.
I’ve copied this over as I think I posted on the wrong forum.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I’m not sure you are going to get anything here :(
Your last loan was £410 and you only paid c.£125. The Ombudsman normally expect people to repay the amount they borrowed, so the fact that W wrote off the rest means they have effectively already given you a “refund” of 410-125=£285 on your previous loans (see https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-write-off/ for more details if this seems confusing.)
This refund of £285 is generous for the previous 4 loans which were pretty patchy (there was a month gap between loan 1 and 2, and between 2 and 3. And loan 4 was lower than the previous ones.)
Lilly says
Hi There,
Just a little update, I know I find these really interesting myself, so thought others may too.
I have placed 8 complaints in total with the following, PDUK, Sunny, WONGA, QQ, MYJAR, MrLender, 247MoneyBox and WDA.
So far, out of the 8, I have received back 4 final responses all within the 8 week period.
Mr Lender – Wrote off my outstanding debt of £1800, and I had only paid around £900 in interest on all loans previous, so I took this as a good outcome.
My Jar – Refunded me £400, I had only paid around £850 in total interest, so deemed this as fair.
Sunny – A full refund of all interest paid £1718.61 (I borrowed £5603.12 and repaid £7321.73) 8% interest totalling £286.25. and also, my outstanding balance of £597.10 was written off.
QQ – Sadly along with everyone else, I was offered £150. (I borrowed £7585 and repaid £11,423) So I have sent this over to the FOS now and just waiting for it to be assigned.
Still waiting to hear back from – WONGA, PDUK, 247Moneybox and WDA.
I hope I can update with more soon, and look forward to reading everyone elses updates also.
Zoe says
I am currently in the process of claiming against 4 payday lenders:
Wonga – 10 loans over 12 months (9 repaid, 1 defaulted but was written off)
PDUK – 12 loans over 12 months (11 repaid, 1 loan defaulted and showing on my crediy report) Awaiting response as they are within 8 weeks time frame
Ecashwindow – 3 loans over 5 months (1st repaid, 2nd rolled over for two months, 3rd defaulted. Awaiting response as they are within the 8 weeks time frame
Peachy – 1 loan at the end of a year of constant borrowing from multiple lenders. Was totally desperate and borrowed this to help repay other lenders. Complained and received an email back from Peachy accusing me of fraud! Now with the FO.
What are my chances of getting any good news from these lenders?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Wonga – sounds like a good claim but the amount you get is likely to be reduced because of the write off you already had.
PDUK – repeated borrowing, definitely take to the FO if they reject
Ecashwindow – hopefully uou will get some of the outstanding balance written off.
Peachy – you aren’t likely to get much back from 1 loan. If the adjudicator doesn’t uphold, then unlikely to be worth taking to the Ombudsman.
Zoe says
Hi
The wonga one I paid out a total of around 8k not including the one they wrote off.
PDUK acknowledged my complaint t today but was a standard response. Reckon total I paid to them was around 5k not including the default on the last one I didn’t pay. They won’t send me a statement of account so am guessing on total spend here.
Ecash have sent me a statement of account then so far have ignored my complaint
Peachy is just a punt but it’s already gone to FO so will see. I got this loan right at the end of all my borrowing. I defaulted on all of them the following month. My equifax and experience report clearly show how out of control my borrowing was by that point.
Also found our that Myjar and Valour registered defaults against me but only on equifax so I’ve complained to them too today.
Soph says
After initially complaining to Quick Quid on the 20th JANUARY today I accepted their settlement offer via the adjudicator.
I had 23 loans with them on one account and defaulted on the 23rd loan in February 2012. They then lent to me again on a new account in June 2013. The second account had three loans of £100 and the third was defaulted.
They have agreed to remove the two defaults from my credit record. They are also refunding interest on the last 9 loans before the default plus 8% as well as refunding interest on the two loans on the second account. However they are deducting £600 from the refund total in order to repay the final loan.
It doesn’t look like I’ll be seeing very much back in my bank account but my credit report will look a little cleaner at least. Has anyone had any recent experience of how long they will now take to give me a figure and make payment?
Kim says
Hi,
This forum is fantastic. I managed to get hold of my bank statements from 2010-11 when I had loans from wonga. It was a while ago and I was only 20 and very naive. I was on a wage of £700 per month. They gave me loans totalling £2982 in less than a year even allowing me numerous loans per month before I even made a payment. They were taking all my wage for me to request further loans for half the amount due to interest. I paid back £2482.84 and had to stop paying I just couldn’t manage it. I believe that they wrote off the remaining due to there issues recently. I have sent them an emailing detailing all payments made and all funds requested. I was so surprised going back through my statements as what they allowed me to request. I have requested a refund on the interest I was charged and any extra charges they included. I hope they respond soon.
Thank you very much for this forum and templates I found them extremely helpful as I would not have known where to start.