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?
R says
Hi does anyone know if LS are agreeing with the adjudicator within the 2 weeks or dragging it out as long as possible?? Any most recent updates? Thanks
Nick says
Mine was about 5 days waiting for payment from them now said up to 28days il keep checking and let you know when it lands took 7 months to get to this stage but well worth it as they said I had no case but the FOS said differently.
R says
Oh thanks I am just waiting for them to agree with adjudicator saw someone had a response from them before the 2 weeks.
Sally says
Could anyone give me any advice on catalogue credit accounts? E.G very/little woods/jd willaims
All irresponsible lenders, increasing credit limits when only ever making the minimum payment then when the minimum payment becomes unaffordable they are not interested in helping just red stamp your credit file and send it off to a debt collector. Surely they can be held responsible for these complaints like payday loans?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Indeed! See https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-catalogue-credit-card/ for how to complain. As you suggest,increasing credit limits is a key factor. These complaints are as easy to win as payday loan cases and can be very slow but sone people are starting to get big wins.
Andy says
With regards to 247Moneybox and QuickQuid is it likely they’ll have a claims portal like Wageday Advance and Wonga did?
Just going by what it says at the top of the page: “247 Moneybox, Piggybank, Swift Sterling are in administration. Send a complaint to the administrators, see the lenders’ websites. You may not get much back but this is very easy to do, just send a short email saying you were given unaffordable loans;” it doesn’t appear to mention anything about a claims portal being available anytime soon?
It could just be that you’re unsure when it’ll be available because no announcement was made by either company or they won’t have a claims portal at all. Just seems strange because WDA and Wonga didn’t take that long with a claims portal whereas 247 and QQ are.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The QQ administrators have said that is what they will do.
Wonga went into administration in August 18 and their claims portal went live in May 19… WDA was unusually fast because they had already developed the assessment software before they went under so the administrators effectively just had to switch it on.
Andy says
That’s good to know that QQ will be. Do you happen to know if 247 moneybox will have an online portal too? I was just worried that if some payday lenders that go into administration don’t have an online portal and customers can only claim manually, that I could miss the cut off date I’d need to claim by because of lack of info by the administrators.
I’ve got a feeling we could see a few more of the bigger lenders go into administration this year.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
why not put a note in your diary to check again in a month?
Paul says
Is it worth claiming against MYJAR for a gambling problem rather than affordability. At one point I had 6 active loans within 2 months . Had they insisted on seeing bank statements they would have seen this..or more to the point I wouldn’t have pursued ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, put in a simple affordability complaint, and add a sentence saying that if you had checked my bank statements you would have seen my gambling problem. Attach bank statements.
Andy says
Hi Sara,
I’ve started my claim with Peachy over 2 1/2 years i had taken out 22 loans increasing in value from £120 to £300 with a total loan value of £3970 with £847.44 paid in interest. They have responded wanting:
• Copies of your bank statements (for the period of your loan/s with us)
• Your payslips (from the time of your loan/s with us)
• Any additional evidence of your financial circumstances at the time.
I’m not prepared to send them my payslips as this has nothing to do with them and I’m questioning sending them 2 1/2 years of bank statements as my sentiment is they didn’t need this information to give me an unaffordable loan and help trap me in the pay day loan cycle. They should surely see what my financial commitments were on the credit check. I’ve also raised with them that they sent emails saying i can view a summary of the last 12 months loans on the website but this cannot be found anywhere and isnt in the help or FAQ which has helped hide the extent of the problem.
If i advise I’m not happy to send them either of these, will this harm my case? What would you advise?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Payslips are pointless if you send them bank statements. I don’t know whether they actually look at bank statements, but there is no harm in sending them digital versions, so you don’t have to pay postage. If you want you could just send statements for the period of the first few loans – say 6? – I don’t know if this will be enough for Peachy.
JGR says
I did not send payslips to peachy and they upheld my complaint directly, I simply added the below statement when they sent there automated response asking for more details.
Unfortunately I will not be sending my bank statements to peachy as part of this complaint, my bank have supplied copies but they contain sensitive and very personal information. Everything you require should be available when the checks to credit score were carried out upon application and Copies will be available for the FOS to review if required to reach out to the FOS.
Nathan says
Don’t be afraid to complain to loan companies about irresponsible lending. I made complaints against six payday loan companies and won five of them. The final one is currently with the Financial Ombudsman.
mdunlopgt2 says
I submitted a complaint to MyJar in early December, which they have just accepted. it was 4 loans over a 6 month period, the last of which was rolled into a DMP. Their statement in the complaint resolution email:
“We then looked at your overall borrowing history and credit report. We can see from loan one onwards, it appears that a pattern or chain of lending may have occurred, combined with other factors such as late repayments, early repayments and short periods between closing a loan and then taking out another (although this is not an exhaustive list).
Our Decision
Taking the above factors into consideration we have made a decision in your favour, therefore MYJAR will be upholding your complaint on the basis that lending to you from loan one may not have been appropriate.”
The amount of redress is relatively small, I didn’t pay a huge amount of interest until the last loan. Prior to initiating complaint, i owed £800. After complaint, with interest from outstanding loan removed and redress applied, I owe only £140
I might have done this via a CMC a year ago, but didn’t as this site gave me the confidence in the process to do ti myself, so thanks for all the valuable advice in here
Lisa says
Has anyone had any success with Mr Lender and know how long they take to make a refund payment. They have told me they have 4 weeks from FOS but wondering if they wait till the last day.
Mr PDL says
Yep, mine was 1 day under 4 weeks
Lisa says
Hi Mr PDL
I was guessing as much but thanks for confirming.
ME says
Hi Lisa,
I’m currently awaiting a refund from Mr Lender following an Ombudsman decision and they have said the same, 4 weeks. However, it seems that they are varying with refunds being sent as others have said they have received theirs in 48 hrs following confirmation.
Hopefully we get something through soon.
ME
Hats says
Hi,
I’ve had several successes so thank for all the help so far. Unfortunately was too late with my Piggy bank complaint and although it was accepted obviously won’t see much redress now.
Just a quick question, I had one loan with Mr Lender. Is it worth complaining about this even though it was only one? My credit file was littered with defaults so they shouldn’t have leant to me.
Thanks in advance for the advice
JGR says
Update regarding Lending Stream complaint.
Initially it was rejected for all loans I had taken out so I sent to the FOS at the beginning of December.
This was picked up by adjudicator 16th December and the decision that my compliant should be upheld provided 2nd January giving lending Stream 14 days to respond to FOS.
Email today saying Lending Stream agree with Adjudicator and to confirm bank details and redress will be paid in 28 days.
It appears Lending Stream complaints are being handled by a different group to those such as Sunny etc. and are being processed quickly at the moment. Still awaiting FOS to pick up Sunny complaint but hopefully this is next to be picked up so I can close out these issues.
Hope that helps and everyone gets what is rightfully there’s in the coming weeks/months!
sam says
Hey
did they go back to your adujicator within the 14 days they gave?
they have till friday to agree or not with min, dont know to expect a delay or not
Dean says
I had mine upheld by the adjucator at end of December and LS agreed to it, now on the 28 countdown for redress payment!
E says
They took 6 weeks to reply to my adjudicator- now on day 31 of supposed payout! Promised it will be by 10pm tonight but not holding out much hope considering they first told me it had been paid last week
Dean says
6 weeks!!How they could get away with that?? And there I was hoping they might see sense and pay me before the 28 day period elapsed! Wishful thinking on my part clearly..
I hope you get yours tonight, fingers crossed for you
Luana says
Hi did you get your payment last night?I haven’t heard many people getting the payout lately
Dean says
Did you get your payment in the end?
JGR says
Yes they got back to adjudicator within 14 days, they had until the 16th but replied on the 10th and agreed with redress on loans set out by the FOS. After initially rejecting all loans I am now due payment of just under 1K within 28 days, unless of course they drag it out but so far so good.
Dean says
Got back to my adjucator after 12 days and accepted his findings. Now on day 13 of 28 waiting for my redress payment and hoping they won’t drag it out
Dan says
I called sunny up to confirm my bank details on Friday 3pm. They said it would be 30 days for my refund and no sooner.
I left them a bad review on trustpilot and emailed Paul Balrdy expressing my dissatisfaction about the length of time. Sunny replied on TP saying sorry and to my astonishment the refund is in my account- 3 days later!!
I dont know if emailing P baldry helped but its there!!
hats says
Is it worth claiming back for one off loans? My credit file was a state so they should not have lent however as they had not previously lent to me aside from the one time is it hard to have success under these circumstances? It’s Mr Lender I am referring to. I also have a similar situation with Peachy so just wondering if it’s worth trying.
Thanks
Mike_p says
For the sake of one email it’s worth a try, but you are unlikely to get it upheld by the FOS.
I had two loans with Mr Lender about two years apart and they offered to write off the last two payments of my outstanding loan. The two FOS cases I’ve had have both said the first loan was reasonable.
Shaz says
Official response about CashEuroNet (QuickQuid) from ombudsman.
“As you may know, Casheuronet went into administration on Friday 25 October 2019. Chris Laverty, Trevor O’Sullivan and Andrew Charters of Grant Thornton UK LLP were appointed as joint administrators (the joint administrators) to wind down the business.
Unfortunately, when a business goes into administration we are required to stop considering complaints against it.
It’s now for the joint administrators to decide whether complaints about Casheuronet will be upheld – and whether the people complaining will become “creditors”. The joint administrators will also decide how much money any creditors will receive.
What does this mean for your complaint?
This means we can’t take your complaint about Casheuronet any further forward ourselves.
The joint administrators have now taken over Casheuronet’s business affairs. So we’ve let them know that you had an open complaint with us, so they can include you in the administration process – and let you know whether your complaint has been upheld and whether you’re a creditor.”
a says
anyone had dealings with cash4unow?
emailed the normal will try and respond in 4 weeks and if we cant fca guild lines 8 weeks blah blah.
has anyone has any success with them or are the complaints normally rejected and go to FOS?
chris c says
I have drawn great inspiration from this site and thank all that contribute to it, It was the collapse of wonga and the subsequent administrators contacting me about possible redress that started my claiming journey however it is this blog that keeps me going and the selfless work of Sara answering questions and offering opinion which made me think perhaps nearly losing my home and wondering what we were gonna eat for tea at night a few years was not really an ok situation and although thankfully I am more or less solvent thanks to working like a machine for a couple of years, Recently I have started to try and get some money back, Wonga was £1118 so not much after we,ll see my other half was £4780 so could be worse we had £12000 over a few years with the Maltese swift sterling so no money there unfortunately. I have claimed against LS, Sunny , Avant , next credit and provident. My Missus thought i was mad but today i have had my first bit of really good news I had a lending stream complaint for 23 loans over 4 years they rejected it all say they did all the checks etc so I went to the fos and the adjudicator has got back today and asked them to refund loans 4 to 23 plus 8% so i feel my journey has been worth my time and its quite empowering tbh. waiting on all the others except next credit who i had 3 loans with in 2014 they paid out very quickly with no hassle so props to them.
KellyE says
Hi Sara
I had complained to LS after 4 loans with them and on the excellent advice via this forum, as per everyone else, LS rejected 4/5 and was willing to pay redress on one loan (4 only), despite the loans increasing each time, a total of 1,500.00 paid in full with interest of 654.00. They offered me 141.00. I complained to FOS and received a response from the adjudicator today (13/01/20) asking if I wanted to accept the offer of 141.00, is this a normal part of the FOS process?
When I initially complained to FOS I explained I felt at the very least loans 2 to 4 should be considered for redress. As my case appears to have been picked up quite quickly by FOS (I sent my complaint to FOS in October 2019), do you think it would be worth my while to request they investigate further, I had sent all my paperwork to FOS with my initial complaint and the offer from LS?
At the time of my lending with LS, I was also lending from QQ/P2P/Amigo/PDUK/Wonga and these would have been on my credit record, yet LS are claiming I was able to afford the loans and payments. I may have stated I could afford the payments but that is because I needed the money at the time to make my monthly bills. Any advice you can give would be appreciated.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How much did you borrow in order for the 4 loans? Did any overlap? or was there any gaps on more than a months when you didnt owe LS anything?
Have you complained to Amigo?
KellyE says
Apologies it was a total of 5 loans, not 4.
Total borrowed from LS was 1500.00, a couple of gaps after between loans 2 and 3, loan 2; 3 & 5 repayments were made over 4-6 months on each loan as these were larger than one, on the final repayment of each loan, another was requested by me.
Loan 1: £100 5th May 2011, repayment completed 27th Sept 2011
Lona 2: £450 26th Nov 2011, payment completed 7th March 2012
Loan 3: £495 19th Oct 2012, payments completed 28th Feb 2013
Loan 4: £50 8th March 2013, repayment 26 March 2013
Loan 5: £470 26th March 2013, repayments completed April 2013. – refund of £141 offered
all others rejected on the basis that I stated I had 500+ disposable income.
Do you think it’s worth pursuing?
I have put in a complaint about Amigo, although I don’t hold out much hope because they claim to have no record of me or my loan, I sent my account details and bank statements to FOS.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not a very strong complaint. The first loan was small, there was a six month gap after the 2nd loan, the 4 loan was small. You can ask the adjudicator to look at it but you may not get more.
Kevin says
Hi
I have an adjudicator uphold my complaint with Sunny.
Sunny now have two weeks to reply.
Is there anyway i can fast track this ? I read somewhere if you email a certain email payouts are very quick. But I can’t remember where the post is.
Or shall i wait for them to accept or decline the adjudicators decision?
Kind Regards
Kevin
Emma says
I think if there was a way to fast track it then everyone would be doing that. Everyone is in the same boat so I suggest sitting back and waiting for the decision to be made. It’s out of your hands.
Chris says
Hi Kevin. You need to wait for them to respond. If the disagree with the adjudicator then you need to escalate to ombudsman and that can take several months unfortunately. They’ll only pay out once they either agree with adjudicator, make an offer or after its gone through that ombudsman process unfortunately.
Good luck!
Luke says
My adjudicator said sunny had to reply by 13th October 2019. They replied late and disagreed so it went straight to ombudsman and I’m still waiting for it to be picked up so expect a long wait.
Lynn Blaney says
Can anyone advise if they have had any successful outcomes with catalogue refunds. I have just contacted Very regarding irresponsible lending and for putting me under financial strain by increasing my credit limit to a high amount. Of course rather foolishly I took advantage of this and was unable to keep up with the repayments including late fees and missed payment fees and now as a result has gone to collection agency and default entered on my credit report. Haven’t heard back from them as yet but wondering if any successful outcomes have been offered. Thanks
Carol says
I have also done one with very
I hear they are more difficult and normally dont uphold. But just take it all the way x
Paul Wakeman says
I’ve currently got complaints against Very, Simply Be and JD Williams for myself and my Partner being looked at. Business Files have been requested by the FOS so just waiting now
Steffy says
Can I please ask what template you used for the catalogues?
Thanks!
Paul Wakeman says
Hi Steffy,
I did of all my complaints for catalogue companies using the Resolver website and just copied and pasted each one, changing account numbers etc. When the 8 weeks were up I submitted to FOS via the Resolver site.
Good Luck
vicky w says
Hi
I have complained to myjar, but because it was over 5 years ago they are saying their records are now deleted. I should be able to get some info on the loans from my old bank statements. Can I still pursue a complaint that is over 5 years?
Thanks
Vicky
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes you can if you have proof of the loans from emails or your bank statements
Fran says
Hello
Sorry, I’m sure this has been asked a thousand times. How long does it usually take for an adjudicator to pick up your complaint?
Thanks so much
Fran
Dean says
It is dependent on each case I think, I had one with LS where I sent my complaint to FOS end of November, it was picked up by adjucator on 10th December, he delivered his outcome on 18th Dec and LS agreed with his outcome on 30th December. Now awaiting redress payment from them
Charlie says
Hey guys
Received my first response of a few back from Safety Net Credit…
Theyve agreed a full redress of interest etc, thus removing my whole account balance (£922) and leaving me with £208 to come back my way.
This seems like a good offer doesnt it? I was thinking would they consider paying my balance and setting up a payment plan but that would be silly wouldnt it, i could just do with abit more money at the moment.
Thanks ever so much for all your help on this site! Fingers crossed 24/7 moneybox and satsuma respond asap.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
247 Moneybox is now in administration. you aren’t going to get a speedy response from them. Do you currently owe them any money? How many loans did you have with them?
And Satsuma are one of the slowest of the slow… again, do you owe them any money? how many loans did you have from them?
Charlie says
Oh bugger. Yes i currently have an outstanding balance with them. Ive cancelled my CPA however! Same as Satsuma as well.
Ive had over 10 loans with Satsuma, as i have done with 24/7 money box as well. Is it worth giving them a follow up email or anything?
Charlie says
Hi Sara,
Could you pleaae advise on whats best to do with regards to 24/7 moneybox and satsuma? Should i give them a follow em email or is it worth waiting? Its been over 4 weeks since emailing them now.
Also could this apply to logbook loans? As ive had several now, one with Loan2Go, one with Motor Kitty & one with Varooma. All of which is defaulted a couple of times, 2 have been paid in full and onenis outstanding with Varooma.
Many thanks for everything you do!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No point in chasing.
yes you can complain about logbook loans, paid off or outstanding. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/. With the outstanding one you have to keep paying it while the complaint goes through unless you want to lose the car.
Kerry says
Thank you so much for this website if I hadn’t of come across it when I did I don’t know if I would even be here as the stress of pay day loans at a young age was becoming unbearable.
I started my complaint process around February last year to a few of my lenders (I found this less overwhelming to only do 2-3 at a time) they all came back and shut my complaint down and stupidly I left it until the almost 6 month mark until I picked it up again.
In September I really got the ball rolling and sent my complaints that I needed too off to the Ombudsman and came on here and really read through everything before complaining to the rest. My outcomes were as follows:
Safety net – cleared my balance of £900 and refunded me £750
sunny – cleared my balance off £1000 and closed my account
Amigo- removed my guarantor and refunded £2400 worth off interest (this came off my capital loan) and I am now repaying through step change
My jar – refused my complaint but the FOS held it up and asked them to refund me so my balance was cleared and I am now waiting on £170
Lending steam – same as above with a £190 refund coming
QQ – unfortunately I was too late but this is being paid with an affordable amount through Step Change
Don’t give up! The forms are long and draining but they are worth it!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
QQ – how much do you owe them? And how often had you borrowed from them before that last loan?
Kerry says
I owe them around £400 and had 5 loans in about a year.
Sarah says
Hello,
So I made a complaint to Sunny about irresponsible lending, originally back in February 2019. On 4th December 2019 I got a response from my adjudicator, he upheld my complaint and asked Sunny to refund 6 out of 7 loans. He gave Sunny until 16th December 2019 to respond. As of now, 14th January, I haven’t heard anything. Is this normal? Should I email the adjudicator and ask for an update? I’m a little concerned I might have missed an email from them, or is it normal for Sunny not to respond within the time frame?
Many thanks for all the great advice on this site. I wouldn’t have known where to start without the template letters.
Dani says
I would say yes follow it up with your adjudicator, I would of emailed them on the 17th of december if that was me.. Always keep them updated so they can deal with it sooner rather than later
Dani says
Even better phone the FOS and ask :)
Pee says
If Moneybox247 are in administration. Does that mean I still have to pay my repayments as per my repayment plan??
Can anyone advise???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
do you have a complaint in with them?
Pee says
No. They went into administration before I could do it.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have from them before this last one still owed?
Pee says
Sara it was a lot. About 15 or so. Do i have an option??
Sara (Debt Camel) says
one option is to email them a complaint now at customer.services@247moneybox.com, just say how many loans you had and ask for a refund of the interest as the lending was unaffordable. Add that you will not be making any further payments to your current loan with them until they have assessed your complaint as you have been told you will have the right of set off between redress for unaffordable lending and the balance owed.
And cancel the CPA with your bank so they cant take any more money.
I can’t predict how much hassle you might get from the administrators if you do this.
Pee says
Thanks Sara. I’ve nothing to lose. So I’ll give it a go. I’ll let u know through this page how I get on. Cheers.
George says
Hope someone can help me.
I have sent off the templates to all the lenders : Amigo, Sunny, Satsuma, Drafty, Very, 118. (You can see obviously I am bad with money)
I will await the responses now but was just wondering what will happen or what to expect really? Amigo is for 9000, currently sat at around 13,000 outstanding even 2 years later of huge payments. 118118 is at 1900 which is now frozen, Very and Drafty both at 1200 currently frozen, Satsuma at 1200 Currently frozen and Sunny at 600 currently frozen. I have made numerous payments to these and they have been extended etc for more money.
Can anyone help by telling me what to expect for the results of these? Drowned in debt and hoping that I can squash these debts and work towards getting these paid off.
Thanks in advance.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Amigo, did you use the template for guarantor loans?
George says
Yes I did use the template. Amigo is obviously the biggest worry as was paying 370 a month for almost a year and a half and all that happens is the debt goes up…
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You need to keep paying Amigo while the complaint goes through or they will go after your guarantor. You can reduce payments to the rest to a more affordable lebel.
Chris says
Hello,
So I’ve had a complaint against Mr lender for irresponsible lending. Today I received a letter saying my complaint was not upheld, they did all checks they were supposed to etc. My basis of the complaint from irresponsible lending as I had 4 loans, the first three were £200 and paid off, but they were about a week after finishing I took the next, my final one was for £1000.
I paid one month’s installment then fell behind and they sold it to a debt company called sll. I’ve been paying £5 a month to them.
Now they’ve ended the letter saying its not upheld, but as a gesture of goodwill they will pull the debt back from sll and only pay the capital which was like £862. Now as they’ve offered this I’m leaning more to it was irresponsible and I should take it FOS, what are peoples thoughts?
Bearing in mind, my credit file has 4 defaults already registered albeit about 4 years old.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds a fair offer to me. You may very well only win the last loan if you go to FOS as the first three loans were small. And a “refund” means having the interest removed so you only repay the balance, which is what I think Mr lender is offering here.
Chris says
If I were to go to FOS and ‘Win’ the last loan, would that effectively write that loan off, or would they just offer a refund so I only repay the balance? (Like Mr Lender) has done.
Al says
Hi guys, I have had a final response from peachy, rejecting my complaint, however saying as goodwill gesture they will take 50% off (£415.70) from the total owed £831.39, they said i had small loans and what i declared to them showed i was able to maintain loans (I am self employed). I initially had a £250 loan, which i completed and then took out a £450 loan which was topped up twice, first by £250 and then again by £200.
I have calculated that i have already paid them back extra £356.27 in interest and still have another £831.39 left to pay (although halved), I wanted some advice on whether its a strong enough case to take to the FOS and also if after going to the FOS and i lost would their current offer still remain. So sorry in advance if this sounds straightforward but would much appreciate the advice,
thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How much have you paid to the second loan, ignore if it is labelled as interest or not, just the total of your cash payments.
Al says
Hi Sara,
Thank you for getting back to me, the total I have paid in the second loan is £968.61, so far till I stopped last month,
Sara (Debt Camel) says
And they are offering to halve the balance – is that to £831, or half of that, to £417?
Al says
So to halve it to £415.70
Crissy says
Hi
Had anybody any luck claiming against safety net credit ? I started borrowing with them in 2016 and I have just added up all interest to date on credit limit of a 1000 pound to over 4500 pound ? I was in a total mess with payday loans at the time ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Lots of people have won these cases, they are some of the easiest to win as the lender can see from your bank account what a mess you are in. Do you still owe them any money?
Crissy says
Hi
I have a payment plan with them and currently owe 152 ? I was really shocked when I added up all that interest.
Can’t thank this site enough !
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you stop paying!!!
Bob says
Hi, I put in a complaint to Drafty and they rejected it within 5 weeks. So I sent more information about my outgoings and serious debt at the time and they’ve replied basically the same answer. But they’ve put this in their response:
“ However, we would like to mention that we never intend to misrepresent or follow misleading practices towards our customers whenever they require our assistance. Considering we have already provided you with the finest resolution post considering your medical condition and the information available to us for the complaint raised, our final response remains the same.”
I’ve never mentioned anything about a medical condition?? Are they just firing off generic emails and adding bits in ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Send it straight to the Ombudsman. And also reply saying you don’t have a medical condition and they appear to have sent you a reply intended for someone else.
Bob says
Do I need to tell them ? Or just send it
Daz says
Advice needed please.
I have used Safety Net Credit for the last 30 months every month, my credit limit was £1000 and I have worked out I have paid over £4000 in interest in this time.
I currently owe them £1047 and have put a complaint in and stopped paying and interest is frozen.
I’m currently in a DMP and as they have access to my bank account they would see that the biggest outgoing from my account was gambling transactions.
Currently seeking help for the gambling.
Do you think I stand a chance of winning my case?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes it sounds like a very good case, not just to get the balance cleared but to get money back to help you clear other debts.
To point out the obvious, unless you have stopped gambling and stay that way, any compensation is going to end up with the bookies very quickly… see these claims as your one chance to improve your finances, don’t waste it!
Do you have any other high cost credit in or out of your DMP?
Daz says
Thanks Sara.
Silly question but what would be a good offer from them clear balance and £500 or hold out for more?
I was doing really well but lost my mum and hit the safe destruct button. All online betting accounts closed now time to turn it around.
In my DMP are credit card debts and large bank loan and 2 small PDL debts I keep getting letters about clearing them with a 75% discount hopefully this year I can take up the offers.
Kate says
Hi guys, looking for some advice! Please
I took out a loan with LS for £1090 and the repayments were £331 for 6 months paying back £1900.
I failed on some payments and in total paid £800 back.
I still owe £1300 and set up a repayment plan of £250 for 6 months
This works I out I’m paying back £2300 in total.
Can they to do this? £400 more interest!? When they know already I was struggling.
I’m not too sure what I can do or even I’f I can do anything. I know I was the one who agreed to it in the first place so I just feel a bit helpless.
Any advice would be great :)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Was this your first loan from them? What date was it taken?
Scott says
Hi Kate,
From my calculation of your figures, you are paying back £2100, (£800 already paid and £1300 still to pay)
Total payable is capped at twice what you borrowed, so that would be £2180 in your case.
Scott
a says
Hi All,
so SNC has come back to me and said i will get my final response before my next payment is due which is the 24th jan but the 8 week timeline is 30th so on week six and hoping for the best.
quick question my uncle buck case has been with a adjudicator since the 4th DEC i have chased early Jan and they said they are still investigating and will get back to me shortly however that was 2 weeks ago and its been 8 weeks since my case was picked up has anyone else has this? should i chase again or wait a couple more weeks? also my satsuma case is still with the fos has been since may 2019!!!! does anyone know how long this was take to get picked up?
JA says
Unclebuck were very slow at responding to my adjudicator so this might be the case with yours aswell. Mines now in a queue for an ombudsman unfortunatly.
stevo says
UB seem to be sending everything to ombudsman, surely the ombudsman must loook at this, realize they are playing games/ stalling for time and make them deal with the obvious cases rather than dragging it all out. My adj said redress on loans 3-9, UB came back and offered redress souly on loan 8…. Lol… Sent it to ombudsman in December and like everyone else, now on for the long wait.
mar says
this is the same for me also, case has been waiting for an ombudsmen to review since early september
Beate says
Hi, how do I save credit report in credit karma.? Can’t find that option anywhere. Or do I just screenshot them?
Thanks
SS says
Hello all
Thank you so much for this forum its been a life saver. So far I have had refunds from 118 money, ferratum and Satsuma totalling £2.5k which has gone a huge way to paying off my debts.
Lending Stream have agreed to the adjudicator to refund me another £1,300. I am currently on day 10 and I could really do with the cash. Are they always slow to pay? Anyone get paid before the 28 days? Anything I can do to speed things along?
Thanks again!
Mike_p says
They are often slow to pay, my refund was paid on day 26. There’s nothing you can do to speed it up really – if you ask them for updates or they just ignore you until they’ve paid and then reply to say they’ve done it.
SS says
Thanks that is what I feared. It just seems a long day until payday and waiting for this and wonga to pay out is a bit frustrating. I need to learn some patience!
Mike_p says
Yes it’s very frustrating, especially as when they give you a loan they are able to transfer the money in 90 seconds. Unfortunately the FOS allows them 28 days and they delay it as long as they can.
Neil says
Hi SS,
Can i just how long it took to get your refund Satsuma once they mad an offer?
Thanks
SS says
Actually not too long. They went just under 2 weeks over the time given by the adjudicator to come back on his decision so made me an offer on 16th Dec. Paid out by cheque in the post which I got on 30th December – so 2 weeks from accepting to having the cheque in my hand, which considering Christmas post was also a factor was great. I think I may be one of the lucky ones though…
Dean says
Once I accepted their offer, satsuma made payment within 2 days for mine by cheque.
Rob says
Hello Everyone & Sara,
Just out of vague Curiosity, will the 24/7 Moneybox Administrators being doing a mis-sale review similar to Wonga & WDA? I’m not perticullary bothered if they do or not, but it seems like every other “Payday/Short Term” Loan company is doing one.
P.S. Sara you have the patients of a saint, I’ve been reading the Wonga Chat and I would have lost my mind by now if I was monitoring that chat session.
Thanks
Rob
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what do you mean by a “miss sale review” ?
Louise says
Hi. Amigo loans have closed my complaint because it has been over 6 years since I applied for it, it was settled over 3 years ago. They emailed saying they have no record of me or my loan. I have a statement from them though when I paid the loan off.
What do you advise? At the time of applying I was on a zero hour contract!
Claire says
My loan was over 6 years I sent it to the FOS after Amigo rejected it. My adjudicator has sent his final response to them yesterday. I hope this helps, persue and persevere
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can definitely go to FOS as you have all the details of the loan on the statement.
Michelle says
Hi everyone I’ve finally managed to resolve claim with sunny and now waiting on the refund. Just wondered do they pay anytime of the day, do you get an email first? I expect them to drag it out as long as possible though
Ciaran says
Hi Michelle, I currently have a case with the FOS regarding Sunny. Did they accept the adjudicators decision in your case?
Michelle says
Hi ciaran no they didn’t agree with adjudicator and originally offered a very poor amount. It took many emails going back and forth with different offers before they agreed to one that I was happy with. I could have got more going to the ombudsman but didn’t want to wait even longer and also with the risk of them going into administration like the rest. I hope yours is resolved soon.
Ciaran says
They made me a poor offer which I’ve rejected, now in the queue for the ombudsman. Maybe they’ll come back with a revised offer.
Michelle says
Hi ciaran from another thread on this site ombudsman waiting time 12-18 months? So if you want to try and negiotiate you can do. I emailed the ceo of elevate/Paul baldry etc the never replied but my case got turned around quick
Dean says
Sunny paid mine on day 28! No email notification, the payment was made into my account.
Ciaran says
Did they agree with the adjudicators decision in your case?
Dean says
Hi Ciaran, Mine was based on the offer they made which I accepted, didn’t get to FOS, as they upheld a few Loans and I got back almost £2000 which I was very happy with tbh.
sam says
Hi Sara
i have dealt all my complaints via email and emails with the FOS.
LS emailed me back after myself chasing saying they have gone back to my adudicator and they need to confirm if i accept their offer or not.
but i need the FOS to reply to myself and them.
It is okay to call my ombudsman and chase them, or best to just wait?
Beth McLeish says
Hi Sam
My LS complaint has been dealt with by a CMC, however I have phoned FOS on numerous occasions for updates etc. They will be speak to you. Beware though, Lending Stream are extremely sneaky and will swear that they haven’t received a response from the FOS, even though it has been sent, and they will not start the 28 days of the payment time until they have received it. I ended up on the phone to LS to make them double check their inbox to confirm receipt, as 3 hours after FOS had sent it, they claimed they hadn’t received it! They won’t even let you forward it on to them, just deliberate delaying tactics! Unfortunately you have to be VERY persistent, but it will pay off.
Mike_p says
I’m no fan of Lending Stream but it can take a while for correspondence to make it’s way through anyones system. When I had a complaint with them the date they told me the acceptance was received matched the data my adjudicator told me she sent it, but it took them a few days to be able to confirm that.
sam says
Hi Beth
Okay i will call and chase them to see if they have.
Dont like to be rude and keep chasing if they are busy.
i will ensure they have it dont worry, then i will be counting down the days!
thanks!
MnM says
Hi Sara
I have a complaint in currently with Payday Express. I understand that we won’t be getting any updates until later in the year. However they have sold my debt on to a debt recovery. Where do I stand with this? I have emailed the debt company explaining that I have a complaint with them but they sent another message today and not even acknowledged my email. Should I set up a payment plan and pay it? I have had no letters, email, communication from PD Express to say they was going to do this.
TIA
Emily says
Hi,
Please could you help me work out the simple 8% interest on my refund? Total interest was £525.
The dates were:
1. 11/10/2017- 02/01/2018 borrowed £350 and paid back £525 (£175 interest)
2. 05/02/2018- 16/04/2018 borrowed £350 and paid back £525 (£175 interest)
3. 20/04/2018- 24/08/2018 borrowed £350 and paid back £525 (£175 interest)
Tia x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what does the lender say?
Emily says
They haven’t responded as yet, but just wanted a rough idea.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
£60?
Emily says
Hi Sara, just an update. FCL consumer finance didn’t agree with the adjudicator, so will be going in the ombudsman queue. Just hope it doesn’t take too long to be looked at. Is the ombudsman likely to agree with the adjudicators findings? Thanks, Emily x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
oh this is Smart Pig – they are a pretty small lender. Overall Ombudsman agrees with adjudicator in 90% of cases.
Emily says
Hi Sara,
Just wanted to let you know that the ombudsman disagreed with the adjudicator and has not upheld any of the three loans. I’m so disappointed! Thanks, Emily x
sam says
Hi Sara
im not stupid but working out the 8% on all my 36 LS loans on loads of different dates is giving me a headache.
would someone like LS get it right and no need to check?
a says
well you just do the 175 Interest and work out 8% on that. which is about £14 and then per year so top loan will be 2 lots of 8% and the other 2 will be 1 lot of 8% and work it out from there.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes they usually do now.
Rob says
Hi Sara,
Just after some advice please.
I have over the last few years rid myself of the payday loan nightmare thanks largely to your help on here. However i have been trying to help a friend of mine possible start claiming refunds himself for payday loans he has had and currently has. He has told me he is currently in a DMP with step change and has one outstanding loan with Peachy which is not included in his DMP. He has said he is not sure if he can complain about Peachy as he has continued to lend from them while he has a DMP. He has had about 18 months borrowing from Peachy and has been topping up and re-borrowing – the usual signs. He has said that Peachy did not once ask for any proof of bank statements or payslips etc and originally approved him for £200 and now he has borrowed upto £700 over 9 months.
Does he have a case to complain to peachy saying he is in a DMP and they didnt ask for any proof of income etc? or will they turn round and say he has lied on his application? I wasnt sure where to go with this particular lender.
Thank you
Rob
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes he can complain – as ever he may not get a refund for the first few loans but as he continued to borrow, they should have looked at his credit record and bank statements and seen what was happening. He should also probably contact stepChange and ask for the current loan with them to be added to his DMP… along with any other debts he has built up. They won’t love this, but they know it happens and are often prepared to help out once. he can tell them he is making an affordability complaint.
Rob says
Excellent, i will get him on the case. I didnt realise he could add debt to his existing DMP
Thank you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
well he can (and should) ask. It’s not an automatic right.
Nick says
Hi Sara,
I have drafted a letter of unaffordability complaint to payday lenders and hoped you could take a look and tell me if you would add anything in or take anything out in your opinion. I just wanted to tell my side of the story or do you think it is worth keeping it simple amd blunt with these companies?
I will send it in a couple of messages as it won’t fit as one whole.
Thanks in advance
Nick says
I have had the above account since [insert date] but believe it was mis-sold to me. My finances and personal situation were not sufficiently checked to make sure I’d be in a position to pay back the loan.
Loans were issued to me when I was already heavily committed to a large number of other lenders (at some points in time up to 10 or 11 different lenders and other loans/debts outstanding) which should have been apparent with thorough checking of my financial status.
I am experiencing severe financial difficulty and have been borrowing from multiple payday loan companies whilst I have significant debts elsewhere on loans, an overdraft, credit cards and priority bills to pay.
I have had to take out 3 other large value loans with a Guarantor lender to cover loans that I was unable to repay and subsequently has left me in crippling debt.
I have also had to borrow vast sums of money from family members and friends to cover repayments and settle unaffordable loans I could never have made payment for.
Nick says
Sadly, I also took out multiple loans that I could not afford in order to gamble in an attempt to pay off existing unaffordable loans and if you had checked my bank statements you would have seen this.
I am currently seeking help and advise to stop my gambling and have not gambled since the beginning of 2020.
I enclose copies of my bank statements dating back to when the first payday loan was taken out and any related documents. These statements show each and every payday loan I have received from your company and the severity of my financial status whilst being given unaffordable high interest loans.
The large monthly transfer to a separate account is shared between myself and my partner and is used to facilitate the payments of monthly bills, rent, council tax, food and other essential living expenses for our household.
I have also enclosed copies of these separate bank statements.
You should never have given me these unaffordable loans. I am writing to ask you to refund the interest and any charges I paid, plus statutory interest, and to delete any negative information from my credit record.
This refund will aid in the start of me repaying the large amounts of debt I have accumulated in recent years.
I look forward to your response within eight weeks, otherwise I won’t hesitate to take my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That all sounds good to me.
Vee says
Hi Sara
Does anyone have an up to date email address for FOS?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
do you have a complaint in already?
Vee says
Yes . Need an email to send them documents in.
Thanks
Josh says
Anyone have any experience with following up with Sunny after they disagreed with the Adjudicators decision, upholding 1 of 18 loans over a 14 month period. Total repayments almost £5k.
I have been told today it could be up to 9 months for an Ombudsman to pick the case back up.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you added up how much interest you paid? Knowing the total repayments doesn’t really give you much clue about possible refunds.
I don’t think previous experience means much as so much has changed in the last year. If you want a complete guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sunny decides at some point it has to fall into line and accept FOS decisions. I think you are being quoted a “worst case” by FOS at 9 months. But perhaps I am being too optimistic.
Michelle says
Hi josh my experience has been quite good. Originally had no offer went to fos and they didn’t agree with adjudicator, so I managed to negotiate an amount I was willing to accept with Sunny accepted on Tuesday in my account today. As Sara said you need to look at the interest you paid. I had a figure in mind that I was happy to accept, depends if you are willing to wait longer? There’s no harm in asking them To consider a different offer.
Josh says
I paid £1500 interest as I often took out further loans with Sunny and lending stream to pay off older ones.
LS agreed with the adjudicators view and refunded 11 of 16 that were around the same period.
Sunny has offered to refund £100.
I remember reading comments a few months ago saying it may be worth emailing the MD for elevate and see if he will get Someone to look into my complaint. Have little idea what to put in the email though.
Michelle says
Hi Josh yes I emailed the ceo and Paul baldry just sent a summary of my complaint how disappointed I was that it wasn’t resolved and could they look into it. I never got a reply direct from them I sent numerous emails. Also try leaving review on Trustpilot. I think in my case it worked, I was always polite but persistent. Good luck
Jo R says
Hi Josh,
I rejected my offer on 19 September 2019, received a response on 20 September 2019 to say that it was in to be reviewed by an Ombudsman. I have emailed a couple of times to be told that it is still in the queue and telephoned last week to be told that it is still in the queue so four months at least for me.
Michael says
Hello,
I paid my safety net credit account off in July
I put a complaint in around 6 weeks ago
Just checked my credit file and it’s now showing on there as an open account.
Anyone had this before or no why?
a says
Hi Michael,
i had two account with SNC and they re opened my old account on my credit file 1 week after submitting my complaint. no need to worry i think they have reopened it to take a look at your account and investigate your complaint. im on week 7 now for SNC awaiting response.
a says
although must say that i am very disappointed with SNC they have been known to resolve complaints in two weeks!! i would rather get my response sooner if they are not going to uphold my complaint rather than the full 8 weeks to be rejected and to be sitting with the fos for a year :(
Mat says
Just a quick update. Day 27 of waiting for lending stream refund and called today. Update was to say they would pay on Monday but refund was made 20 mins after call. I would recommend if you are over 3 weeks to get in touch with them.
sam says
Thats good Matt, i will do that then!
i have just started 28 days today so will call in 3 weeks time!
Livia says
Hi Mat that is great news! Did they send you a email saying they deposit the money in your account? Thanks
Dean says
Thank you for the update Matt, I am on day 21 of 28 so will call them tomorrow. Did they email you to confirm payment was made? Thank you
CM says
I have 3 loans with Lending stream for 780 that they gave me in the space of a month.
The monthly repayments are 240 over the next 6 month.
I won’t be able to afford these repayments.
I am goin to contact LS. Has anyone been able to negotiate repayment plans with LS?
Take away the interest payments??
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Put in an affordability complaint using the template in the article above if you think these (and previous?) loans were unaffordable.
Include a sentence saying you want to make a lower affordable payment arrangement. And cancel the CPA with your bank so they can’t just take the money and leave you short – you are not “asking” them to be able to pay less, you are “telling” them.
CM says
Thanks for the assistance, I have done this.
I will let u know the reply
Glen says
Peachy loans have replied already, 3 loans.They want bank statements and payslips back to 2015 do I have to provide them ? This is part of 5 companies I’m going to have a go at
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Payslips, no.
Bank statements no but it may help if you do. With only 3 loans Peachy is very likely to reject with no evidence about unaffordability.
And the chances are some of your complaints may need to go to the Ombudsman, so thus is a good time to assemble all your bank statements for that if you don’t have them.
Peter says
Hi Sara, Just wanted some advice on a case i currently have with the FOS please.
I had around 45 loans from Ferratum over a 4 year period and paid them almost £4000 in interest. Complained to them in April last year and was offered £500 which i refused. Went to FOS in July. This was picked up in September by the first adjudicator. Over the next 2 months I was asking for updates and adjudicator said that he was waiting on the case file from the business. Anyway, mid November, I receive an email from another adjudicator saying they are taking over my case. The first guy just vanished.. :) (I think he probably found a new job) Anyway, then the new adjudicator then goes on holiday for two weeks. Another email on 12th December from a 3rd adjudicator saying they are now taking over my case. Not sure what happened to person number 2!
I have emailed the new adjudicator 4 or 5 times and rang twice (left voicemail) but no reply. I am really in the dark as to what is happening here. Also with the claim being a large one, I am concerned about Ferratum going bump in the meantime.
My questions: If a business is deliberately being obstructive and not sending in case files, is there anything the FOS can do? And also, do you have any thoughts about what I can do, to try and speed up the adjudicator into making a decision? I know they are under pressure and do a great job, but I really feel like this one is dragging out.
Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think you should ring the general FOS number 0800 023 4567 and say you want to complain that you aren’t getting any replies from your adjudicator. At the moment you don’t know if Ferratum have supplied the case file or not.
Peter says
Thanks Sara, I will try that.
I feel like I am pestering them but have to do something. They are generally very helpful and I know they have a lot on their plate. But this is my largest claim and it is really getting to me now. I think it being with an adjudicator for 4 months is pretty sufficient to come to some sort of decision.
Thanks again :)
Em says
Any one else religiously read the Ombudsman decisions for cases from the same lender as their own outstanding ones?
I’ve been following the Sunny decisions for a while now (Submitted my complaint in Jun 2018!! 44 loans total) and I’ve noticed that Sunny seem to have upped their ‘push back’ at Ombudsman level recently. Most notably the below two arguments seem to be cropping up on a few decisions:
(‘It’ refers to Sunny)
In the absence of indications of financial hardship, it doesn’t think that it should
change its approach to assessing applications after a certain number of loans.
There’s no good reason to give more importance to the number of loans a customer
has with them than with other lenders.
No idea what this means (if they’re pushing back for more lenient regulation are they planning on continuing to trade in the UK? Or is this a last ditch attempt to try and recoup costs before they withdraw – all speculation!)
Anyway, just thought it was interesting to note!
JOJO says
Hi all. Not commented for a while but been reading daily all the comments. Well I am on the road to becoming debt free thank god. Got quite a few complaint with the FOS but yesterday I heard from my adjudicator dealing with the SNC complaint. I started with SNC my finances were ok so the initial line of credit being given wasnt an issue. Then my finances took a turn for the worse in 2017. Adjudicator agreed case upheld from May 2017 to my last draw October 2018. Ordered them to do the usual refund interest, delete from credit file etc……SNC have until early Feb to respond. How are they reacting to adjudicator decisions at the moment? Thanks all and keep pushing. …..me not had any kind of credit or loan for over 12 months now….broke the cycle and it’s never felt better 😊
HLTCO says
HeyI have open complaints with Satsuma, Peachy, MrLender, Moneyboat, MyJar, OnStride and Cash4unow. In addition, I’ve had an offer of settlement from SafetyNetCredit for £2,800 and they have written off my balance (£1,100) and will remove reporting from my credit file. They confirmed the money will be in my account by 24 January 2020. Uncle Buck gave me a refund of c. £400, a £300 goodwill gesture from Ferratum, a £30 goodwill from CashAsap and an acceptance from 247Moneybox to clear my outstanding balance before they went into administration luckily. Peachy and Satsuma rejected my complaint on the basis that I said I had the income to pay it – both have me an initial £100 loan and I then topped it up by £600 and £1000 respectively (I was in gambling difficulties). I have escalated these to the FOS as I don’t agree with their responses.
Just wanted to share the experience I have had with lenders so far in this process and to say a big thanks to Sara and others on here for sharing their experiences.
a says
just want to say thank you sara so much and all of you that have shared your experiences.
i can confirm, SNC have come back to me this afternoon and agreed my claim and will be paying me £1297 !!! cant believe it i had no defaults or late payments with them however they are taking the accounts off my file, also this refund is after they have taken 125 off for my remaining balance. so happy will put this towards my other debts and try and settle them now, so close to being debt free thanks to this site.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
excellent!
Debtfreein2020 says
Great news! I really dislike the way their loans operate so I’m pleased they are making good decisions with regards to redress.
They were one of the last resort lenders I used, I was desperate at the time and struggling with other debts and trying to feed my children and keep a roof over their heads. Caused me so much stress when repayments we’re taking my rent/food/bill money and leaving me with nothing so hoping they uphold my complaint too. Paid them off last year with some help from a family member.
Just out of interest what timescales are SNC on at the moment from when you put your complaint in? Are they over the 8 weeks?
HLTCO says
I had them reply within 6 weeks and upheld my complaint. A refund of £2,800 after they netted off the outstanding balance of £1,100. They said they would pay out within 7 days so waiting for that by 24 January! I had the same issue as you with regards to the auto-repayments so many times.
Debtfreein2020 says
Wow good result to start the year there, you must be so pleased and 6 weeks is a great response time.
I used to have an auto payment taken and then 10 minutes later I would have to borrow more money from them to pay my bills. Endless cycle!
HLTCO says
Definitely good response but i am; slightly selfishly, wondering whether the amount of complaints that SNC are upholding will affect whether I get paid out on mine as it is a significant amount and it seems like they have had “technical” issues with their payment system today which I heard on an automated message when I called them.
Sara – any ideas on how likely it is that those of us with complaints that have been upheld will be paid out?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There is no indication that they are in any more trouble than most other payday lenders.
Daz says
That’s a great result I’m currently waiting to hear back on my claim I’ve used them every month for 30 months and paid over 4k in interest still owe them 1000 so hoping I get a similar result fingers crossed!!!
A says
No I had response in 6 weeks and payout 24th Jan so 7 weeks all and all
mark says
Hello, I have just made my complaint to myjar. I used these years ago so many times. I also used them when they was named txtloan. Will my complaint still be okay even if they changed names? Also what are peoples success rates with them?
Kerry says
I put a complaint in on September last year for my loans over 6 years old when they were called TXT loan. They got back to me saying they didn’t uphold my complaint as they could not find my account. I sent it to the FOS along with bank statements to prove I had taken 14 loans between £100-£200. I left them a bad review as they took a while to get back so not sure if that helped but they came back offering to uphold my complaint and refund interest + 8% on all 14 loans which I was very suprised about.
mark says
Thank you for your reply. I think I took between 30-50 loans with these over the past 8 years. If they reject my complaint I will definitely go to the FOS as they clearly sold me unaffordable loans.
Abi says
Hi :)
I am in a payment arrangement with 118 money, I believe They shouldn’t have given me this loan due too all my defaults and I was trapped in the payday loan cycle, if I send them this template will if affect my payment arrangement? I dearnt send it incase they try to make things hard for me as I’m putting a complaint in
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No it won’t affect your payments arrangement.
The best template for 118 money is over here: https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/, it’s better than the payday loan one where you only had one or two large loans from a lender.
Do you also have payday loans that you still owe? Other problems debts?
Abi says
Thanks for replying, yes I do – I am slowly getting myself right and I’m currently sending out your payday templates to them, luckily Wonga have upheld my claim so a lot of those should be removed from my file soon – thankYou for the template xx
James says
Hi all
Good news after an adjudicator only suggested lending stream should pay out on 3 out of 8 loans the ombudsmen has told them to pay out on 6! they were mostly small but given they dated back to 2013/2014 it’s worth £1000 which is nice,
I’m now gambling free for 9 months, paid off all my payday loan debt last December haven’t borrowed from a payday loan in just over a year!
Now gotta clear credit cards & overdraft which this will help with!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I love it when this happens. Serves Lending Stream right for not accepting the adjudicator’s decision!
A good start to the new decade for you. Well done on kicking the gambling habit.
john says
Has anyone had any experience with cash float/western circles?
A says
I put in a complaint they got back to me within 10 days rejecting my complaint only had one loan with them that is in default so it was worth a shot
Kieran says
Hi. I had only one loan with them. They give me 500 pound which I couldn’t pay back. They then had a default on my account and now I have a CCJ on my account. In total they charged me 1100. Which is a lot for 500 pound loan. I put in a complaint but they refused so I am going to the FOS.
MnM says
Hi John
They have refused my complaint so with the FOS. Adjudicator has upheld loans 3 to 6 and awaiting on Cashfloats response. Waiting game I’m afraid.
Carol says
Good Afternoon All, I’m back.
Keep going everyone, I’ve manged to get rid of a lot of my debts so I hope you all do so.
I’m just wondering if I’ve had a claim reject (Barclaycard and Capital One credit cards can I try again. Thanks All,
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can go to FOS if the rejections were less than 6 months ago. But if you send a new complaint in, the lenders are likely to refuse to consider it if they have already responded.
Carol says
Thank you Sara, Looks like I’ll have to keep paying these two then (over 6 months) thank you. I just want to say thank you for your invaluable help previously, I’ve manged to get from 12 debts down to 4 from not giving up.
I hope all your other clients/friends keep going. If I can do it, they can. It’s not easy but one less debt is fantastic.
Keep going all. x