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?
40Fantastic says
My concern is that I still have active loans with LS, will they try and take all the monies owed and leave me in an even worse situation?
Mike_p says
You have a loan contract with them so there is no reason they should try and take it all. The loans carried on as normal when I complained, I had to escalate it to the FOS but I got a refund of £1400 in the end.
Maz says
Hi,
What do i do about a loan from Different Money? This is on my credit file also. I read on a page on here that they had disappeared?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
is the loan on your credit record from different money or a debt collector? Showing as defaulted? Money still owing?
Did you have other loans before that?
Dan says
Hey there,
Had an offer from Uncle Buck, I had 12 loans with them (as well as 9 rollovers). They have offered to refund loans 3-5 for around £1600, however said that due to them confirming over the phone with me my expenditure for loans 7-11 that they would not be refunding those. The first loan I had was rolled over 4 times….which I would have thought would have been a red flag in itself. I could do with the cash quickly but total interest paid on all loans was nearly £3600, thoughts on my chances of any better from FOS and any idea on their timescales?
Also am I able to negotiate an offer? Anyone have any experience of negotiating another loan or two on top of an original offer? I was thinking loans 2 and 6.
Thanks a lot.
Daniel
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How much interest did you pay on loans 2 and loan 6? Which were the other loans you rolled over? Were there any big gaps between repaying one loan and taking out the next?
Dan says
Hi Sara, full list below thanks a lot. Their offer contains incorrect figures so asked them to review the statement I received previously. (sorry if it pastes more than once it’s a bit temperamental).
I’ve actually looked back at a statement and they have missed my first loan completely from their findings and some of the interest charges are different – i will ask them to double check everything. Anyway to answer….What they claim to be loan 2 (with 3 rollovers) was £600ish in interest and charges and loan 6 was £85 interest and charges.
Product DateTaken AmountTotal Received Int& Charges Notes
Payday 07/08/2013 £250.00 £337.38 £87.38 Repaid
Payday 27/08/2013 £350.00 £139.83 £137.33 Rolled over
Payday 27/09/2013 £332.50 £149.46 £116.21 Rolled over
Payday 25/10/2013 £299.25 £133.84 £104.59 Rolled over
Payday 27/11/2013 £270.00 £121.37 £94.37 Rolled over
Payday 20/12/2013 £243.00 £327.93 £84.93 Repaid
Payday 03/03/2014 £650.00 £269.68 £237.18 Rolled over
Payday 27/03/2014 £617.50 £450.82 £225.82 Rolled over
Payday 25/04/2014 £392.50 £529.68 £137.18 Repaid
Payday 27/05/2014 £600.00 £219.70 £219.70 Rolled over
Payday 27/06/2014 £600.00 £851.00 £238.50 Repaid
Payday 01/08/2014 £700.00 £944.65 £259.65 Repaid
Payday 27/08/2014 £700.00 £254.65 £254.65 Rolled over
Payday 26/09/2014 £700.00 £944.65 £244.65 Repaid
Payday 27/10/2014 £250.00 £337.38 £102.38 Repaid
Payday 28/11/2014 £450.00 £607.28 £172.28 Repaid
Payday 22/12/2014 £400.00 £539.80 £154.80 Repaid
Payday 29/01/2015 £400.00 £496.00 £96.00 Repaid
Payday 28/02/2015 £400.00 £492.80 £92.80 Repaid
Payday 27/03/2015 £550.00 £690.80 £140.80 Repaid
Instal 06/07/2015 £850.00 £1,206.32 £356.32 Repaid
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So that’s a lot of borrowing with no gaps – a couple of months befor the last installemnt loan but that was much the biggest.
In that situation I think you are likely to get the later loans refunded if you go to FOS, even though they spoke to you on the phone about your expenses. Your expenses may not have been accurate and they didn’t ask for evidence (eg bank statements) I guess? And it certainly looks as though you had become dependent on borrowing from them.
I haven’t heard of anyone sucessfully negotiating with UB.
Your options are to
– accept what has been offered
– try to resolve what look like errors and get the offer upped
– send it to FOS.
UB try to drag out cases at FOS so it may take a while. But some new FOS cases are going through quicker. Sorry, not much help!
Si says
Uncle buck won’t comply with FO adjudication from all I have heard my adjudicator said that they just waste time and give generic responses so it goes to full decision mine was passed Friday be in it for the long haul
Andy says
Anyone had much luck with satsuma loans ?
ME says
Hi Andy,
I’m in the same position. 8 week deadline for final response is 28th however, I believe they are trying to work to 29th as that falls in line with their first acknowledgement of my complaint.
I am hoping they make me an offer as I still have two loans open with them but the longer it has gone on with silence I am more inclined to believe they will either reject or fail to respond in time, so best get myself prepared for the FOS. Joy!
Good luck with your complaint and let us know how you get on.
ME
DF says
Hi Sara
I’ve just been contacted by The Money Shop who were also Payday UK saying that I could have been missold their loans in the past and been invited to claim.
My issue is that I was in an iva which has been completed for 18 months now. If I go ahead and claim will any money need to go into my completed iva. I know I signed to say any ppi would be given up but all that was sorted and squared away before the iva completed but would this be treated in the same way? The payday loans were not part of my IVA.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t know. It will depend exactly what you signed about PPI. Also whether the Money Shop bothers to check. If you had an IVA. And if your IVA firm wants the hassle of dealing with what may bea smallish amount of money.
Lew says
Anyone know what’s happening with avant credit? They haven’t been offering loans for a while and I’m due a decision soon from adjudicator as it’s been almost 8 months in line. Worried their going to go bust and quite confident with the evidence I’ve put forward I’ll get something
Paul Wakeman says
Yet more advice needed please! If a Company has gone in to Liquidation and has an LLP appointed is it worth pursuing a claim against the Company. The Company sold their outstanding client accounts to another small firm before going in to Liquidation and I was pursued by that company to pay off my outstanding loan (which has now been done). I had loans with the company that has gone in to Liquidation from 2005-2016 and these were continuously “rolled over”. Any advice would be appreciated. Many Thanks.
Paul Wakeman says
It was a small local lender called Batten Finance and then a few years ago they changed their name to Cash Injectors. During the middle of 2018 they then sold on their outstanding accounts to Valley Finance.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You asked the Ombudsman about this in August and were told to put in a claim against Valley Finance I think?
Andy says
Is there no way you can get out of going through a claim with a law firm {name edited] my case is going to Fos can I not just do it on my own ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not easy if you are out of the cooling off period. That claims firm isn’t FCA registered and it’s much harder to make a complaint against them as you have to go to the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
You are probably stuck with paying their high fees for just sending off a couple of simple emails I am afraid.
Andy says
Ahhh :( yeah 24% for something I can do myself , thanks again for you help
Karen says
Hi all i just thought i would tell you all
I got a letter from money shop they are paying all back untill April next year under a Scheme of Arrangement as it’s been to court to pay all back who had loans
The letter was for INVATION TO CLAIM SCHEME OF ARRANGEMANT IN RELATON TO INSTANT CASH LOANS LIMITED
I dont no if anyone else as had a letter for the Scheme of Arrangement but I did
Thank you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
thanks, these emails have just started going out to money shop, payday UK and Payday Express customers. More info on Money Shop Latest news page which is the best place for further comments about this.
Joanne says
Hi
I just wanted to see what people’s experiences of MyJar (aka txtloan) were?adjudicator has just found in my favour, hoping it’s not going to be another one for the ombudsman Queue!!
Mike_p says
They agreed with the adjudicator in my case and I had the refund in my account two days after emailing the bank details form to the adjudicator.
Beth McLeish says
Hi Mike
How long was it until MyJar responded to the adjudicators findings? I have also had a response in my favour.
NA says
Hi – I’ve just received a response from Ferratum who didn’t agree to my complaint but offered me £250 goodwill gesture
Loan summary is that I’ve had 11 loans over 13 months with interest totaling £769.80 (though i had many others at the same time).
I’ve gone back and said that i believe it’s not a high enough offer and that i’ll settle on £500. Not sure if this was the right move or if anyone’s had any success from negotiating directly with them?
Ts says
They offered me £500 recently, but I rejected and went with the FOS as I expect, from previous complaints, that I’ll be able to get around £2.5k. For me it was worth waiting. Plus more loans being removed from your credit file. I emailed them and told them it was way off the figure I expected and they immediately withdrew the good will offer. Will take time, but worth it.
NA says
Ferratum came back to me and offered an increase to £384.90 (50% of the interest paid). I decided to accept and they paid within 1 hour of acceptance. They also advised they would remove all negative records on my credit file. I’ll take it as a win and move onto the next!
Debbie says
Joanne, I sent MyJar complaint to fos on 15.08.19 it was upheld on 03.10.19 MyJar agreed On the 11.10.19 and I was paid on the 18.10.19 hope this helps.
Stua says
Day 14 of since ombudsman ruled against MYKREDIT and ordered redress to me but still no contact!!! I am assuming they will see it out to the end.
Livia says
Good morning guys! Does anyone know the email or contact number for fos to ask for an update on my complaint its been 3 months since the adjudicator email me saying she has all she needs to investigate my complaint and I haven’t heard anything since. I sent 2 emails asking her for an update but no reply. Thanks
JA says
Hello , The best thing to do is call the FOS on 0800 023 4567 and ask for an update.
Hope this helps.
Scott says
I got my answer from the adjudicator yesterday , the email saying she had all the information was in March, my original. Complaint was Feb 2018. So 20 months it took all in all, worth it as the adjudicator ruled in my favour for 3 big loans from 118 money. They now have 2 weeks to accept/ counter the decision.
Jordan says
Hi there, I’ve been reading through this page and comments because I have a claim with Wonga which was accepted with estimated claim value of just under £3k, Im just lost on to how to put a complaint in and what to write in the email to them so I can get best chance of getting the full claim value back? Also I have taken out loans with Myjar, uncle buck, mr lender, safety net credit aswell over the past 5 years which has caused me murder! Am I entitled to get money back from them and if so how do I go about it?? Many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Im just lost on to how to put a complaint in and what to write in the email to them so I can get best chance of getting the full claim value back?
is this for Wonga? If you have claimed and had your claim assessed, then you don’t need to do anything, you will get paid before end January BUT it will only be a small percentage. Everyone will get the same small percentage – there is nothing you can do to increase this.
Also I have taken out loans with Myjar, uncle buck, mr lender, safety net credit aswell over the past 5 years which has caused me murder!
Good news – they are all still around. So use the template letter in the article above to make a complaint if you think the loans you had from them were “unaffordable”.
The definition of “affordable” is that you could repay the loan and not be so short of money that you had to borrow again… so the chances ar a lot of your loans were unaffordable!
Do you still owe money to any of these?
Sean McKenna says
Hi Sara,
I’ve finally taken my head out of the sand and confronted my Payday problem. I’ve had them over a couple of lenders and have started to contact them. The main one I was in a vicious cycle with was MyJar. I’ve worked out I have paid £2,286.48 in interest on my loans with them. Whilst I had loans with them I also had loans with other payday loans, credit card debts and was deep in my overdraft.
What are the chances of me getting any of this money back?
Thanks for all your help. Your website is extremely helpful.
Cj says
I was roughly he same with my jar…I was heavily overdrawn lots of other lenders to..I sent letter to my jar and they denied my request saying they had lent responsibly so I took to the fos and they upheld my complaint …my jar paid out just over 2500. Shortly afterwards.so definitely worth chasing
JA says
Does any one know the rough time in getting an ombudsman after the company failing to agree/reply to adjudicator?
AQUA – Agreed irresponsible increase and refund of £750 but haven’t agreed to remove default so I asked for ombudsman view.
Moneyboat – adjudicator upheld 2/2 loans but moneyboat declined with no reasoning according to my adjudicator
Quickquid – adjudicator partially upheld but haven’t heard a response from QQ in over 4 weeks.
JC says
I was advised by my adjudicator that in extreme circumstances it can take anywhere up to 9 months. Depends on a variety of factors including the queue of cases your claim has ended up in, complexity of the case, response of the lenders etc etc. Some people have been lucky enough to move to ombudsman stage in under a month. I’m afraid it does seem to be a case of “we’ll get to you when we get to you”.
Gotta give them their credit though, they must have thousands and thousands of claims to deal with, it’s not like they’re making frivolous decisions of who gets the last custard cream. These are decisions around the legal and fair practice of the financial lending industry. Keep up the good work FOS!
C says
Uncle Buck want me to phone them about my complaint. Has this happened to anyone else? I’m dubious about ringing them.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes they often ask. They aren’t that nice to deal with. i suggest you reply you would rather correspond by email.
Jordan says
Regarding the Wonga part thanks you cleared that up for me!
I have used the template and made a complaint to Myjar, Mr lender, SNC and Uncle buck this afternoon. Yes the loans was unaffordable most definitely, I am still paying 25 a fortnight to SNC and have roughly £275 outstanding. All of the loans went to recovery agencies because I couldn’t keep up the payments etc
Also how do I go about getting a adjudicator if I need one? And what does FOS stand for?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
FOS is the Financial Ombudsman Service. There your case is decided by someone known as an adjudicator.
But for now, just wait for the lenders to respond to your complaint.
Mandy says
Hi just looking to see what everyone’s experience is with safety net credit. Complained to them kept me waiting until very last day of 8 weeks they rejected my complaint. Now received decision from adjudicator ruling in my favour. Do safety net usually accept the adjudicator decision or do they make it go to ombudsman? Any advice be appreciated
Robert says
Has anyone had any success with Cash 4U Now or not at all?
What is the chances of going to FOS? I have had a decline but they offered to give me a discount of £60 off my outstanding loan balance. I had 3 loans in a year.
I asked them to write off my balance but they are refusing to.
Stu says
I had 4 loans in succession with them and they rejected my complaint. I took it to the FOS and an adjudicator then an ombudsman have looked at it and said 3 out of 4 loans were unaffordable.
Marie says
Hi guys
I’ve made a complaint about Satsuma to the ombudsman, regarding a loan I took out with them for £1200.
Before they issued the loan, they did ask me for my payslip to confirm I had sufficient funds to pay for the loan.
Do you think the fact they did ask for that will mean I lose my case? Because they made some effort to see if I could afford the loan? Even though I couldn’t and it wasn’t substantially more than I’d taken out with them before?
Thanks
Marie
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So they verified you income – but did they verify your expenses? What would they have seen if they had looked at your bank statements?
Marie says
Hi Sara
If they looked at my bank statements they would have seen I had several other pay day loans out.
I filled in the usual affordability check, but they didn’t check my bank statements.
Do you think I still have a case?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Probably! it will depend on the numbers on your bank statements. I think this is worth going to the ombudsman about – it is a very big loan. You aren’t wasting their time.
Mrs Darcy says
Evening Sara,
You asked me to let you know about my sunny claim, so Sunny gave me a full offer of all 29 loans while I was waiting in the FOS and a week later they deposited £9,500 into my back account !
Im in total shock but very happy.,
Many thanks for everything
R7one says
Few questions about getting refund(s).
I’m currently in a debt management programme with Stepchange, can I claim refunds on the loans in this? I assume they’d go towards paying this off or the difference reduced?
There’s probably a lot of companies that I’ve borrowed from previously over a constant period over 2 – 3 years on a varying basis (It got to the point where I was borrowing from at least 7 companies +4 from one company) – as someone above said, should some of these companies have checked my credit file for all these payday loans?
Would I have to inform my DMP? I would guess if most of them were successful I’d be able to pay it off in one go (being the responsible thing to do?)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Being in a DMP is a great position to make these claims, as you aren’t under immediate finacial pressure so you can wait for lenders to reply and then send any poor offers or rejections to the ombudsman.
If you get a refund from a lender where you currently owe a balance, the refund is used to reduce the balance. If you have already repaid the debt, the refund goes to you. You can then use it to make settlement offers to some of the debts still in your DMP if you want. But this is up to you, you don’t have to tell StepChange.
Turtle says
Little mention re myjar. They didn’t reply in the 2 weeks set by FOS. It took another few days beyond this.
They made an offer in line with the adjudicators recommendation, I accepted this yesterday and today the payment has been received in my bank.
They have been a pain with credit record entries (which records will take a little while to vanish) but the payment process has been swift.
Beth says
Thank you very much.
Stu says
Received an email today from Cash4uNow asking for bank details regarding my complaint that went through the ombudsman and I am getting £735 back. Great result. Let’s see how long they take to process the payment!
Dan says
Update so far, first emailed multiple companies I had payday loans with on 31/05/2019.
Ferratum – 3 or 4 loans, disagreed with me but offered a £250 goodwill gesture (only paid them around £400 in interest anyway so accepted.
SwiftSterling – 1 big loan of £990, despite paying them around £900 I still owed them just over £1000 which was interest, they disagreed but offered that as long as I paid back the remaining £90 they would write off all the interest, accepted!
MyJar – 6 loans with them, around £2800 in interest paid, they rejected, sent to FOS and had a response last week that apparently MyJar did make me an offer for loan 5-6 which were the biggest ones, total refund £2034, I’ve accepted this.
Sunny – 49 loans with them over 3 years continuously, offered me 37-49 (£2,100), sent to FOS, reply back this morning confirming they’ve now asked Sunny for the information. If I get loans 10-49 it’s £5,200 so fingers crossed.
QuickQuid – Only 2 loans with them, only interested in the 2nd loan which was for £400 and defaulted on after one missed payment in a payment plan.
Last but not least Wonga dating back to 2012, email from them confirming I should be owed £13,400 in rebates, be happy with £500 now but importantly it’s over 60 loans they’ll be removing from my credit file.
I now have no Payday loan debt and no credit or store card debt and can finally start moving forward after stupid decisions in my early twenties, thank you so much to this site!
Jonny says
I have a complaint with sunny, original complaint to sunny was made this time last year as they didn’t uphold my complaint, went to FOS end of December, picked up by an adjudicator on 3rd July, he found in my favour loans 4-14, sunny again didn’t agree to this and it was sent to the ombudsman at the beginning of August and I’ve been waiting since then and haven’t heard anything, expect to be made to play the long game with sunny, they have been by far the worst to deal with for me!
Sean says
Hi dan, good to here. How long ago did you start this process?
Dan says
31st May 2019 mate, pretty much all of them came back to me on the 26th July (deadline), taken another 3 months for the FOS to start properly investigating.
Stopped taking loans out in December 2018 to start getting on top of everything then suddenly came across this site, would never have thought I could get anything back without it.
VI says
Sara,
I have got outstanding balance with a lender. I had 9 loans over 2 years period. A couple of them were £1000 or more. I had loans with other lenders and I am in financial hardship. Lender rejects to put acc on hold while this case will be with FOS asking to set up a monthly payment. My question is can I cancel CPA for the time while case is with FOS. Can they take any action against me while this case is under investigation?
So far I have paid interest on previous loans totaling the amount I have outstanding.
Simon says
Adjudicator ruled in my favour with pounds to pocket and gave them until yesterday to respond, looking at today’s news I’m just aswell forget this.
stephen says
ive just seen this, quick quid on brink of collapse
https://news.sky.com/story/biggest-payday-lender-quickquid-on-brink-of-collapse-11843783
another one bites the dust, administrators must be making a fortune out of these companies
Mark says
Is Quick Quid and P2P on the verge of collapse? Doesn’t look good.
Simon says
Looks like it, Sky News reporting this as a matter of days
Turtle says
Wow. Quite unbelieveable.
There will be people here stung and denied what’s rightfully theirs by Wonga, Moneyshop AND QQ/P2P by the sounds of things.
I myself have already been denied £13k by these lenders going bust. They were very happy to make me squirm for the interest payments yet didn’t stick around when they owed us. Horrific.
Dean says
Hi all.
Just an update. My adjudicator complaint was rejected by sunny on 16th august and went to final decsion. I have just recieved final decision from ombusman today. In my favour like the adjudicator did originally. Loans 6-47; sunny loans offered me 25-47 and did not budge. Ombusman said it may take 4-8 weeks for company to get in touch and new baby 16th december hoping it may arrive by then but with past experience with sunny not confident. Good luck all, was long wait but got there in the end.
Simon says
Hi Sara
I have been offered a figure by 247 moneybox which is in my opinion a 3rd or less of what I should get, my case has yet to be picked up by an adjudicator. I’m thinking of accepting in case they go under. This has so far happened for me with Wonga, The Money Shop, Wageday Advance and now probably Pounds to Pocket.
Just wondering what your thoughts are.
sam says
anyone know how sturdy lending stream is? I am waiting on my £3k but still a couple months away.
Mike_p says
They seem to have slipped from paying out within the 28 day limit to exceeding it citing “technical problems”. I don’t know if that’s a sign they are in trouble or if they are just trying to make things even more difficult for people.
Gary Robertson says
I have an outstanding loan with onstride, shall I keep up repayments as it looks like they are in trouble ? I’m struggling to meet the next payment as I am having trouble with my car
Iain123 says
Contact them and ask, bad as they are they can sometimes suspend or reduce a payment.
Adam says
Had decision from ombusman final decision took 3 half months from adjudictaor rejection to final decision. They have given sunny 4-8 weeks to contact me. How long until they usually and how long after will i be payed.
Thanks
Terry nicholls says
Sam, LS used the full 8 weeks to the day with my claim, accepted without going the foc, made an offer that i was ok with, told me it would be paid 28 days after i accepted offer, it was paid 28 days after they acknowledged my off, so 30 days and i was paid out
Alex says
I’ve had my response from The ombudsman and loans 5 to 8 have been upheld with Quickquid, although this was ten loans in total if you include top ups.
Can anyone please explain how the 8% interest is calculated on a loan that has been topped up?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
there was news story on Sky today saying QQ is going into administration. If this is confirmed, it will be bad news for you as you will only receive what may turn out to be a small percentage of your refund.
KD says
Hi Sara,
Be interested in your thought on the QuickQuid administration rumours? I’ve just accepted an offer from them which will take 28 days for them to pay me, I’m assuming if they go into administration within that time the offer goes out the window?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
probably. But there are different forms of corporate insolvency in Britain and although I am not optimistic, there isn’t much point in speculating now. We may well know more in the morning as their US parent publishes its quarterly results late tonight.
Jed Brown says
Quick Quid offered me a refund which I accepted around 40 days ago … They haven’t paid ..
Will I be at front of queue !?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Unless you are paid before the administration starts, the answer is No. The only priority creditors are employees, secured creditors, and the Administrators fees. everyone else – including the Finacial Ombudsman who must be owed millions – will get paid the same percentage at the same point in time.
Richard Philp says
Payday loans
I appreciate if customers have been missed sold too, encouraged to roll debt etc. But surely they need to take responsibility for taking out these loans. The UK has a very big financial sector but it will decrease if claims management companies keep finding ways to reclaim money.
The APR of these loans look really high because it’s such a short term, but consumers are conditioned to look at APR’s to compare deals. But if a friend in the pub said “I’ll lend you £100 but you give me back £120 at the end of of the month. You’d probably say ok. But if he said I’ll lend you £100 at 1500% APR you’d tell him no chance.
Unfortunately consumers get told they can do this so more and more people do it.
Accident claims.
PPI
Payday Loans.
What’s next
This will be an epidemic that will cripple our country.
Mike_p says
I might have thought the same as you at one point but for various reasons I got into a payday loan trap. I don’t claim to be entirely blameless but the companies involved definitely took advantage of the situation – Lending Stream for example let me have 6 loans at once when it should have been clear to them that I had become reliant on them. The fact that the financial ombudsman upheld my complaints means that the lenders acted irresponsibly.
The good thing about this site is that people can be open about their problems without being judged and can get some very good advice about getting themselves back on track as a result.
Adam says
Has anyone won complaint with sunny at final desiciom stage. I would like to know what happens now and how long until final desicion to contact from sunny and payment. Been going long time and want over. Hoping soon but sunny drag out everything and in dire finicial situatiom. Thanks
Ts says
For me, Sunny came back and disagreed with the adjudicator. But I accepted around £2300 rather than going for more months at the ombudsmen for an extra £800 or so. I’ve rejected other offers recently so this was enough to just get some money here and now. Sunny took 5 weeks to respond to the adjudicators 14 day time line, and then they paid me in 10 days.
James says
Hi Sara
With the latest news on QQ, does this mean other lenders, for me namely provident .. could do the same ?
Thanks
James
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Provident is a HUGE British company, market capitalisation over over a billion pounds. It also owns the Vanquis credit card and Moneybarn car finance.
Andrew says
Richard I agree. I have had ups and downs through life. Redundancies, illness etc. and I have had to borrow money. But I have always paid it back and never blamed anyone else for this. There are occasions people need a small loan to help them get what they want, and this may be more than once or twice. I often hear people bragging about them taking out a small loan and then complaining expecting to receive thousands back! All that will happen is that these companies will say it is not worth the hassle and cease trading. What will happen then. Proper loan sharks will raise their heads. This has been proven in other countries. Would you prefer a regulated lender or an illegal one? I agree if a company has lent irresponsibly, lending again and again over a long period of time, but when people are bragging about claiming for a handful of loans, that they have requested, to help them out, this is wrong. Please tell me where the money will come from when more of these companies go, because your bank won’t help. We are turning into a country that just wants to complain and sue for money.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“I often hear people bragging about them taking out a small loan and then complaining expecting to receive thousands back! All that will happen is that these companies will say it is not worth the hassle and cease trading. “
That is a very long way from what is happening at the moment. QQ would be very happy if lots of their complainst were this sort of vexations complaint. They aren’t. The Ombudsman is upholding the large majority of these complaints.
And when the wonga administrators have assessed the complaints they have been sent, they have decided more than 400,000 are valid with an average value of £1,200.
Very poor lending practices by Wonga, QuickQuid and other payday lenders has been widescale for years.
Chris says
To Andrew Not looking to get a free cash out. Before you rush to judge, remember that the redress is a RE-payment of money already paid. Nobody wins here. Most of us HAVE wanted to take responsibility for these debts. In my case, I have repaid the loans. It simply turns out that I shouldn’t have had to. Now, I am not going to get justice and am £25000 poorer. Not quite sure who benefits from that, are you?
Louise says
Hi Sara,
I had 2 loans with Pounds to Pocket and the 2nd was topped up. My adjudicator has decided that only 2a (the top up) should not have been given.
I’m trying to work out how much I’d get before I decide.
It was for £1670 but £670 was to settle previous loan. I made payments of £2530 in total against the top up.
I dont know whether they will say the loan amount was £1670 if it’s the only one they’re refunding and work it out against that – or they’ll say the loan amount was £1000. Any idea?
Thanks
Louise says
I’ve just read the news :(
Gg says
Hello,
Bit of an odd one here. Mr Lender have an old address registered for me and I am not keen on sharing my personal details now with them. They have said they sent their final response letter to this old address and will not disclose to me what the outcome is via email as “it is our company policy that all of our final response letters are issued to our customers via postal service.”
This seems weird considering other companies have settled online. I would be grateful for any advice you can give please, Sara, although I do appreciate how busy you are!
Matt says
That is not true. Mr Lender have communicated with me only via email and they sent their final response via email also.
You should go back and insist that they provide it via email. Did you state your new address in your original complaint and direct that all communications be delivered either by email or to your new address?
Tommy says
Hi,
I have just had an offer from ferratum to waive my balance and a couple hundred pounds directly to me.
They’ve also registered a default but it appears they won’t be removing this. They said it will be shown as repaid in full, I’ve asked them to clarify but they’ve just carried on with other jargon making it very unclear.
I want the default removed I am not going to accept the offer without confirmation of the default being removed.
They’re adamant they haven’t been responsible, they also said if I complain to the ombudsman the offer will be withdrawn. I’ve won other cases I just want the default removed, i can’t believe they want to waste time like this as I’ll probably end up getting a bigger refund when I go via the fos.
I rather it be put to bed now, it’ll take 5/6 months or so via the ombudsman. Any ideas?
sam says
looks like they wont move their offer anymore.
The fos will probably get that removed but its never guaranteed. and a higher chance for more compensation if you do go to them.
but like you said, probably 4/5 months away.
either accept the offer for hwats offered or wait months for more.
Tommy says
It’s a no brainer, I’ll arrange to send to fos. The default is completely unfair. I paid installments late on 3 occasions, one even by 6 weeks and they lent me more.
I’ve won other cases.
Donna says
Hi Guys, just came across this and wondered whether it was worth bothering submitting a claim to Sunny? I’ve not borrowed for over a year, but at one stage I had 3 loans on going each month and was continuously borrowing more once they were paid. They absolutely crippled me. When logging on now, I can’t see my loan history. Is it worth starting a complaint now or have I left it too late?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That sounds a strong complaint – definitely worth a claim.
AC says
I think the FOS needs to step up their act with these lenders.
It appears that the lenders are playing delaying tactics by ignoring decisions of the adjudicators for the complaints to be forwarded to an Ombudsman.
I feel lenders should be penalized especially in cases were the Ombudsman fully agrees with the Adjudicator’s decision.
MM says
Had a good result with Sunny, with the business agreeing with the Adjudicators finding, so a redress of £5,147.46. It’s taken nearly a year to get this point but very pleased with the outcome.
Ali says
Adam,
I accepted the final ombudsman decision on 7th October, emailed sunny my new bank details ( automated response said if you are chasing payment it will be done in line with final decision) i haven’t heard a peep from them! the email from ombudsman said it was now legally binding and i should hear from sunny with in 4-8 weeks and to contact them after 8 weeks if i had not heard…so i am just waiting as well.
Stu says
Cash4uNow have refunded me £735 today and that was 24hours after sending in bank details. That was roughly 14 months in total after sending initial complaint and having to goto adjudicator and ombudsman level. They paid out 10 days after ombudsman decision so very happy with the swift conclusion.
A says
**Sunny refunds – CHECK YOUR CREDIT FILE**
Hi all,
I had success with my Sunny complaint via FOS. On checking my credit report last night I noticed that sunny loans were still there and I’d have expected them to have been removed by now so I emailed elevate at customerrelations@elevatecredit.co.uk and they confirmed that there has been an issue with their reporting to credit reference agencies. Suggest anyone who has had a refund in the past few months check your file and contact elevate if loans are still showing. I reckon 3 months since the refund is a good time to check as I think the changes can take 6-8 weeks to show.
A
sofia says
I have asked for refund from Safety net Credit, i had opened account for over a year and during this time i boroved over 15k with paid interest of 2660£ . how has anyones experience been with them? did they refunded ? did u get full refund of all interest paid and how long it took? i submitted my complain on 18th september so it is week 5 now i believe and i am still waiting they deadline to respond is by 13th nov.
Chris says
They are pretty good but you will probably need to wait the full 8 weeks. If you have a case, they tend to make fair offers and pay our promptly.