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?
Peter says
Hi All, just wanted to ask some guidance on next steps relating to a complaint I have with the FOS and My Kredit.
Complained last April, went to FOS in June, Adjudicator found in my favour (in July) but they rejected so went to ombudsman.
Have just received a letter today from Ombudsman upholding the decision. MyKredit have to refund me all loans from 4 onwards. I was given until 5th March to accept, so have just emailed and accepted today.
What are the next steps? Can they reject the decision again? Or do they have to accept and will be in touch with me to arrange a payout? Or should I contact them direct to ask when I will be refunded? If so, how long should I leave it to ask them?
This is my first win from the Ombudsman so just not sure what happens next to be honest.
Thanks!
Laura says
Hi Peter,
Once you reply to the ombudsman saying you accept they usually pass this on and admin (decision help desk) send you a letter that you need to sign and send back making that official. Once that’s received they send that to the business and they usually get in contact with you to confirm details usually via email and then you get paid. Once you accept it’s legally binding so no they can’t not accept it! Well done
Peter says
Thanks Laura! I’ll just wait for them to contact me then. I wasnt sure if they could dispute it again.
My first win so I am pretty happy today. Took 11 months from start to finish. One down, four to go!
Simon says
Hi again
So I have about 5 payment plans in place with lenders I have just sent my first email complaints to. Should I continue paying the payment plan amounts while I wait for their responses or cancel the standing orders immediately?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If the payment plans are affordable – you aren’t having to borrow more every month – it’s usually best to let them continue.
Kanonymous says
Hi! Can anyone advise me what is the general timeframe for payout from Sunny once a settlement offer has been accepted and bank details provided?
I declined their initial offer and while waiting for my case to be assigned to an ombudsman for review, they have now backtracked and increased their offer! Still not quite as much as the adjudicator suggested but better than the original offer and I’m accepting.
Happy Friday everyone :)
Steve says
Theyre very slow, it’s worth reading the bad trustpilot reviews for more details.
Michelle says
Paid mine out within days although I did leave a review on trustpilot and also emailed their directors/customer service hope yours is quick too
Helen says
I have received a response from Safety Net Credit this afternoon and it’s good news. In a nutshell they upheld my complaint…..£1486.98 in interest plus 8% statutory interest of £53.84. They are deducting 20% from the statutory interest and paying it to HMRC meaning I do not have to declare this redress in my tax returns they said. Also they are writing off the £101.45 interest on my outstanding balance and deduct the principle outstanding balance of £780.74 from all the interest I have paid. This will allow them to close my account and discharge me of any liability to them. Also they said any adverse information will be removed from my credit file This leaves £749.31 payable to myself. Hopefully I’ll have the same success with my Amigo complaint…. Happy days though and thankyou Sara for your much valued help you have given me as if I hadn’t have come across your website I would never have had this outcome.
Rob says
Hi Helen,
What sort of duration did this take for you?
Sam says
Hi Rob,
Not Helen but I put a complaint in just over a week ago and they got back to me today advising I was successful. Seemed very quick and efficient.
Rob says
Seems strange that the reply times differ so widely.
Maybe yours was just more clear cut as unaffordable.
Helen Taylor says
Hi Rob Helen here,
I put my complaint in on 2nd January
Helen Taylor says
Just spoke to the complaints department at Safety Net Credit and they have advised me that my refund will be in my bank by the end of the day on Friday 14th February 🙂
Amy says
Can i just ask how many loans you had with them? Ive put a complaint in with them 2 weeks ago ive worked out i paid about £1800 in interest & just wondering what my chances are that i’m going to get some sort of refund from them.
Tania says
Thanks for the update Helen, it’s given me a bit of hope for my claim, which had been dashed by all the 2-4 day responses coming through. Fingers crossed I hear this week!
MG says
Hi Sara, wonder if could help please. I put a complaint into MyJar, stTing that the loans I took showed a clear pattern that I was caught in a payday loan trap. I have received a reply and wonder if I should accept it or take it further with the ombudsman for the other loans yo be considered? They have advised:
“ To put things right for you, we propose to refund the interest and charges you paid on the loans highlighted in yellow in the above table, totalling £214.00.
We will also include an additional 8% statutory interest calculated on the interest and charges that you paid to us. This amount is subject to 20% tax and this has been deducted, leaving a net interest payment of £54.96 due to you. This brings the total refundable amount to £268.96. A tax certificate regarding this payment is available should you require one.”
They agreed to the following loans:
Not upheld
2015-08-15 Loan £275 Total Repaid 301.40
2015-09-02 Loan £350 Total Repaid 425.60
2015-10-04 Loan £450 Total Repaid 536.40
2015-11-04 Loan £500 Total Repaid 592.00
Upheld
2015-12-03 Loan £500 Total Repaid 604.00
2016-01-12 Loan £350 Total Repaid 392.00
2016-03-14 Loan £500 Total Repaid 568.00
Would it do me any good taking it further for the other loans to be considered or is this the standard that people normally receive? Any advice would be appreciated.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It looks like an OK offer. If you went to FOS, FOS may think the offer is fine or they may order loan 4 to be included which would be another £92. (Earlier loans are possible but less likely.)
This is quite a personal decision, whether you want to push to try to get more (which may or may not work) or accept this as it has been easy.
MG says
Thank you Sara, it was relatively easy and a quick reply, so will probably be best to accept.
Thank you for your help and this site.
christina says
Has anyone any experience with Uncle Buck I have just taken a phone call for them asking for bank statements 30 days before loans were taken out. I currently have a payment plan with them and he asked what outcome I was looking for. I am looking for money off or current loan written off. Has anyone any experience of this?
Laura says
Have you worked out how many loans and how much interest you have paid them? It’s best to work this out rather than just accept a money off offer as you might short change yourself
Cazza says
So the FOS have come back and agreed Lending Stream shouldn’t have loaned loans 4-7 and 10-22, they have giving Lending Stream till the 21/2/2020 to respond, are they generally the same with replying to the FOS than with me so is
It likely to be a reply to them on the deadline?
chris c says
My complaint was very similar, they had until 27/1 to reply they left it until the 24/1 and agreed with the adjudicator in full. now the nerve wracking 28 day wait for redress begins good luck
Fran says
Sara, I just wanted to say a massive thank you. You and this website have changed my life!
My biggest success has been with MyJar. I had to refer the complaint to the FOS which I did on 8th Jan. It was picked up by an adjudicator nearly 3 weeks later on 28th Jan. 9 days after that (7th Feb) the adjudicator upheld my complaint and amazingly MyJar replied the same day agreeing with their findings! I’ve had just over £2k written off and have one last payment of £169 to make on 25th Feb to clear the remaining balance.
So so happy. Thank you!
chris c says
I have had a complaint with sunny about affordability turned down which I kinda expected had two loans and ended up paying them off at a nominal fee back in 2016 whilst getting my credit file I was shocked I have always worked and my file had 2 defaults. i noticed sunny have defaulted both these loans every month since 2016 and they have agreed they are in the wrong and offered me £50 and compensation, do you think this is a fair deal or should I go to the regulator
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not untypical for credit record error compensation. It’s not FOS’s job to fine firms for making errors but to compensate people who have lost money because of errors. I suspect you might find it hard to quantify any losses caused by the sunny mistake.
chris c says
Ok I,ll take my £50 and run then especially as they have agreed to rectify my file in the next 6 weeks thx
Gemma says
Had some good news yesterday, I out in a complaint against Mr Lender they dismissed it so went to the Ombudsman who upheld loans 1-6 7&8 weren’t upheld as there was a break in lending. Mr Lender didn’t accept the adjudicator decision so it went to the Ombudsman in July2019. Yesterday the Ombudsman upheld and I am now due back approximately £1600.
Chris c says
That’s great it’s good to hear people’s successes as well as frustrations
Ciara says
Hi I sent a complaint to satsuma and received an email saying they are looking into and if I have any other evidence I have ten days to send it. I have signed up to credit karma but have no idea how to send or save my credit report. Can I send it by email to them? Also what other evidence could I send? I’ve had loans with them going back to 2016 which can be seen on my credit report.
Chris c says
Credit karma have recently updated their website so it’s a bit of a pain downloading your closed loans, the way I do it is to open each loan individually and if your using Chrome click the 3dots in the top right corner and select print then select save to pdf. I then normally compress them all to a zipped file which is to email. It’s unfortunate that the old credit karma website has been changed but once you have it all saved you can use it over and over again.
Laura says
But did you have other loans at the time ?of so that’s great evidence! I just screenshot from my credit report and attached it that way but I’m not very technical! Also bank statements aswell I sent showing expenditure was more than income
Gemsie says
Thanks to your amazing site I put a complaint into Safety Net and had worked out the interest from them to be £2690. I still have a balance owing to them and they have came back and offered to wipe the balance of £1186 and include a payment of £750 along with wiping my credit history. Do you think I should accept this offer? Or try to see if I can get it all back? £1936 does seem like a good offer?
Laura says
How long did it take them from you sending them an email til them making you an offer?
Laura says
Has anyone winning payday loan refunds also had bank
Loans and challenged this? I’ve one all my cases except one credit card but I also had 5 bank loans taken out during a period of massive PDL use. Been reflecting on everything and if the PDL companies have been wrong to lend them was the bank the same? Anyone any experience or is it a waste of time?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Laura,
the affordabilty rules apply to normal bank loans, not just expensive high credit loans. What matters is if the repayments were affordable for you. If the lender was your bank, then you can also argue they should have seen from your bank statements what a mess you were in, especially if there was gambling or you were always in your overdraft.
Use the template letter over here https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-large-high-cost-loans/ for this sort of complaint.
C says
Are UB still taking all adjudicator decisions to an Ombudsman?
Gill says
Hi C
Uncle Buck accepted my adjudicator decision. It was only £300 ish right enough. The payout got delayed because it hit Christmas holidays but then they did a 24 hour bank transfer early in January.
C says
Thanks for your reply. Mine would be about £700. They went through a phase from what I remember of making every decision go to an Ombudsman. Will see what they do with mine
leanne says
Has anyone recieved a refund from lending stream?.. after a long journey with lending stream via FOS they have finally said they are going to refund me £*** but to no timescale, i have mailed them today so await reply but just interested to see if they drag it out…
*Thank you sara-Fantastic site 👍🏻
Mike_p says
I had a refund from them. Once I’d told the adjudicator I accepted and had confirmed bank details lending stream sent me an email saying the payment had been initiated and would be made within 28 days of the date of acceptanc. II received it on day 26. It seems their 90 second transfers only work if there is something in it for them!
L says
Hi can anyone give me timescales for MYJAR. The ombudsman has agreed to uphold both loans despite the adjudicator disagreeing. They have until the 17th Feb to provide any additional information etc
How quick are MYJAR at getting back to the ombudsman and how long from agreeance until I’m likely to receive the redress in my bank? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This is quite an unusual situation with the ombudsman upholding your case after the adjudicator rejected it, so I am not sure many people will have been in exactly that situation.
L says
I was surprised too and it was only 2 loans one for 1000, the other 1500
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Those are BIG loans. I am very pleased the Ombudsman has upheld them.
Rach says
Anyone had a look with satsuma
I’ve send them and email about unaffordable loans
On the 17th Dec and still no reply or anything I send another email to chase it up and still nothing
What should I do next
Sara (Debt Camel) says
so it’s 8 weeks on Tuesday? I should send the case to the Financial Ombudsman then. Satsuma are VERY slow and often don’t make good offers, so i wouldn’t delay hoping they will.
Mike_p says
They took 13 weeks to give me a final response rejecting my complaint, so I’d escalate it to the FOS the minute the 8 weeks is up.
Nick MB says
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, I spoke to them on Friday and they have advised they are looking at complaints from between September and November.
Funny enough, when I rang on the Monday they advised they were only about 4 weeks behind.
I genuinely think they’re going to go into Administration, and are delaying/rejecting so by the time the Ombudsman works through the backlog then they will be in Administation.
chris c says
I would say that would be unlikely Satsuma are the online branch of provident aren’t they? Provident is still going as far as i know unless you know something i don’t.
Nick MB says
When I’ve spoken to them last Monday the lady advised that everyone was in a meeting, so unable to discuss anything in detail. They’re also advising they are inundated with irresponsible lending claims.
Yes, Satsuma are basically Provident online. Although if Wonga were able to go under, it really wouldn’t surprise me with anyone else.
Chris the Fist says
I hope that is not the case. My adjudicator gave them until the 29th Jan to respond, and heard nothing since. They have had two reminders, and need to respond by this Thursday, otherwise its off to the Ombudsman. Kinda hope they reply and agree soon so it doesnt have to go to Ombudsman, but I suspect a long wait. My complaint was raised in September initially, so I would’ve expected they should be meeting the adjudicators deadline.
Mike P – what was your satsuma story? Timelines, amount etc?
Mike_p says
I had four loans – not a huge number but I thought it was worth a shot after getting refunds from other lenders with a similar number of loans. They took 13 weeks to give the final response – I escalated to the FOS as soon as it got it 8 weeks but I haven’t heard from the adjudicator yet.
MnM says
I raised my complaint last July and went straight to FOS at 8 weeks. Only just been picked up by the Adjudicator last week. Long wait I’m afraid.
Chris the Fist says
Still no reply from Satsuma for me. Adjudicator will send to Ombudsman this week if they hear nothing.
I spoke to Satsuma myself yesterday, and they had all the info along with the adjudicators decision, but then just said they cannot give a timeframe as they have such a backlog. I asked if they knew what had been decided by FOS and had that on file along with when they were supposed to reply by, why they hadnt. The satsuma employee just said he couldnt give any info and they only deal with it when it is handed to them. So looks like im off to Ombudsman for another long wait.
jonwain says
Not sure if anyone can help
I had many loans with the cheque centre some years ago and they were definitely mi sold to me how ever they went in to administration sometime in 2017 i have recently found out that they have now reopened. Where do i stand on making complaints ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“Cheque Centre” is now a just a front page for a loan broker. It has no connection with the lender that went into administration and they won’t take complaints about the old loans. I think it is too late to make a claim to the administrators, if you want to check this, talk to the Financial Ombudsman.
jane says
I sent a complaint to Satsuma on 14.01.20.
I received an e-mail today saying they are sorry they haven’t been able to resolve my complaint but they aim to have completed their investigations within the next 28 days.
Will have to wait and see if this is accurate or not.
I will send to the FOS after the 8 weeks if no response received.
D says
I applied for a refund of interest for several loans taken out with Lendingstream. It was dealt with by the FOS and a settlement was agreed. However the Insolvency Service had an interest in the redress due to having previously been made bankrupt in 2011. The payment ws sent to them on 04/02/20. I was discharged from bankruptcy in 2012 but had a BRU until July 2016. I took one loan with Lendingstream in 2012 and all the others were from 2013 onwards. The Insolvency Service told me they only had interest in the first loan, however they are now telling me that they could potentially keep more of the redress payment due to what restrictions I had on my BRU. I can find nothing that states they would be entitled to any refund of monies for loans that were taken out after my discharge. Can they do this?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
were the LS loans for more than £500?
mark says
hi
has anyone had any luck with likely loans ? is it worth pursuing as my loan was included as part of going into an IVA ?
thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
When did your IVA finish? Who was the firm?
mark says
its currently still running
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Then winning an affordability case would not speed up your IVA or reduce your IVA payments (except in the unusual case where your UVA payments will repay all your debts plus IVA fees in full).
Any refund would go to your IVA not to you.
mark says
thanks and iva was with creditfix
Sara (Debt Camel) says
who it was with only matters if the IVA has finished, your hasn’t so it doesn’t matter.
Crissy says
Hi after 12 months of waiting finally got a reply today from the adjudicator advising that safety net credit agree with them and they will refund £5707 ! Worth waiting for ! Good luck to everybody !
Adam says
Excellent news, how come it took so long with safety net? Heard quite a few people say they’re pretty quick at getting back. Interested to know as I have a claim against them myself.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
they are fast with many complaints but mystifyingly sometimes reject good ones. So send your to FOS if you don’t get a good offer.
Adam says
Thanks Sara, only sent mine on the 3rd feb so not heard anything yet. Just anxious as the amount it could be worth could really help out right now.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
cancel the CPA to them with your bank and do not plan on getting a refund back from them soon. If one comes quickly, great, but you cannot rely on this happening.
Sarah says
Hi Sara,
Just wondered if I could ask some advice? I have a complaint in with my jar, a couple of large loans over a period of a few years that were repaid. They’ve asked for bank statements and payslips, I don’t really feel comfortable sending several years worth of statements, payslips I’m not too worried about. Am I obliged to send this?
Thanks in advance,
Sarah
Elliott says
I sent them bank statements they got back to me and wiped my remaining balance of £220 and gave me £51 refund all in about 2 weeks of the complaint can’t fault them on that front
Sara (Debt Camel) says
it’s your choice, I think they do sometimes look at them and they can help your case
Sophie says
Thought some readers may find this useful – I have a claim in with The Money Shop for 16 loans. I defaulted on the last one and it ended up with BW Legal. I’ve been paying them for the last 18 months, and have £367 left. Money Shop sent me this today
“Good afternoon
As part of the Scheme of Arrangement, you will remain liable for any outstanding balance on your loan until you receive your claim outcome. Only if it is decided that your loan was irresponsibly lent to and your claim is upheld will you maybe given the opportunity to off-set your redress claim from your current outstanding balance and have your credit file deleted. Until this time, collections process will continue and ICL will continue to report to the credit agencies. We are currently in talks with Prac Financial/BW Legal to confirm options.
Many thanks,
Instant Cash Loans
Sophie says
I’ve asked BW Legal not to take any more payments until my claim has been investigated and the outcome from the scheme communicated. They have not responded, or acknowledged my email but begrudge sending them anything else as the redress if and when we get it, will be no where near what we are truly owed.
adam says
Yep I’m not holding my breath, reading similar stories has given me too much hope I think! It wasn’t until I found your site that I went back and saw just how much I’d borrowed over the years. I paid back over £4,000 of interest!
Will let everyone know how I get on if I get response anytime soon.
DM says
Just wanted to give some hope for anyone scrolling through the forum responses. Finally had my sunny £5.7k land at the weekend. Took full 8 weeks to respond and 28 days for payment. Have paid £5.5k off credit cards and booked a night away in London for my wife who had to put up wi my financial ruin for the last 15yrs. Bonus, kept chasing 118 118 money on e-mail as outside the eight weeks and they are wiping off £1.7k of interest of £2.6k outstanding which has been sold to debt management company. Would like to know advice if it would be better to pay the balance off from my credit card to the debt management company ( and stop default on credit report this month) or have a lower balance on credit card which is less interest per month as debt management company are not charging interest ?
Anon says
Naw buzzing for you OP. Brilliant news and I bet a great nights sleep ensued. Hopefully I can have a cracking tale to tell like that. Really just begun my journey. I’m hoping I get a straightforward sort out from them rather than a complete run around to delay the inevitable. Not much of an idea about what to accept or refuse though, kinda hoping I get a ‘No’ straight off the bat so an adjudicator can say, ‘you’re owed this’. Do you mind me asking what the total of the loans where?
Congratulations again!!
CB says
Hiya,
Satsuma have responded with they are still working on my complaint, however they havent done it in the required timeframe… shall i send it to the ombudsman to potentially speed things up or could waiting out for satsuma to come up with an offer be more suited? I have 6 months to refer it to FOS.
Also 2 of my complaints havent sent back an acknowledgement of complaint yet after nearly a months, is it wise to send them a follow up email just as a friendly reminder?
Thanks!
JA says
I would just send it to the FOS the second there 8 weeks is up, You wont get an adjudicator for a good few months anyway and during this time you will be able to send the FOS any information like credit file, bank statements etc. If satsuma get back to you while you are waiting for an adjudicator and you’re happy with the offer you can cancel the need for the FOS to look at your complaint.
Jackie says
Does anyone know the situation with Nextcredit ? I have an outstanding complaint with them but they seem to have disappeared. The account has been changed to closed on my credit file but they have also added a default this month.
chris c says
I had a complaint with them late last year and it took them less them a month to uphold my complaint and pay me.
DLG says
Put in a claim to Lending Stream, initially through Resolver but they name you apply direct. They took the 8 weeks (to the day) to respond but gave offered me a settlement of £5,200. I gave no doubt I could get more through FOS, however after the debarcke with Wonga whereby I am getting approx £360 of what I was due I gave decided to accept before they too go under! They say payment within 28 days but I fully expect them to take it to the wire.
chris says
Out of interest, how many loans did you take out with them?…
i am currently waiting in the 8weeks which ends on the 14/02/2020, i am hopeful to receive something in the region of £1000 for 10 loans ranging from 2012 to 2015
chris c says
I had 23 loans with l/s between 2015-2018 and it went to the adjudicator who came back with 4-23 in my favour l/s agreed and am now waiting for £3800.
jojo says
SNC agreed with my ajudicator redress, wiping £500 ish owed and payment of £1400. they have offered to wipe negative data from credit reports going back to the date my adjudicator upheld the complaint from which suits me as this was one of my DMP creditors. I just need to agree now back to the adjudicator which i will issue them an email accepting. What happens then do i need to write to SNC and give them my current bank details? How long should the process now take?
George says
Hi Sara, Drafty have come back to me but only supplied the information and not a response to my claim. What shall I do now? Shall i send it straight to Ombudsman or respond with asking for a response first?
Thank you!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Reply saying thankyou for the information and you await their reply to your complaint which will be sent to the Financial Ombudsman 8 weeks after [date you sent it to them].
George says
Thank you Sara! Will do that now.
Ciaran says
Hi, does anyone have an idea of the current wait times for an ombudsman.
Thanks
Laura says
I just waited 8 months from adjudication to ombudsman last week but it can be quite random from my own experience
Chris the Fist says
It does seem that way, also with being assigned an adjudicator. I only waited around a month for one for my Satsuma claim, however people have been waiting months (and still are) for one. for the same company. Not sure how they prioritise these to be fair.
Matt S says
Hi all,
A few years back I made affordability complaints on everything from payday loans, to bank overdraft, to guarantor loans…. receiving back the best part of £20k. Best thing I ever did and all thanks to Sara and DebtCamel.
On my Credit Report now I still have 2 defaults. 1 from Pounds to Pocket form 18th February 2014 which should drop off this month, and the other from Cash4UNow from mid 2016. I have never made a complaint against Cash4UNow as it was a single loan, however it was taken out while I was already in debt management, with numerous defaults, massively in debt and with a severe gambling problem.
Looking at it now, it would be amazing to get this default removed and have a clear, blemish free credit report (rather than having to wait another 2 and a half years for it to drop off on its own.
Is it worth making a complaint against this one loan?
Cash4UNow were actually by far the worst company to deal with at the time, threatening me with court action for lying on my application (basically I ticked a box which said I wasn’t in debt management when I was), and constantly calling my work number despite numerous requests not to.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Probably not.
But great set of results about the rest!
Matt says
I had two loans with Cash4UNow and put in an affordability complaint, which they rejected. In the rejection they offered me £100 as a gesture of goodwill. However, the removal of a default was more important to me and so I dealt with them directly and they agreed to remove the default also.
They were actually pretty straightforward to deal with and actioned it very quickly.
Definitely worth speaking to them.
Mary says
Firstly Thank you to this page i am in the process of all complaints! In the process of taking sunny to the FOS as in 2 years i had taken a total of 40 loans and they have refused! However Ferratum being the latest one with a quick response of 2 weeks they have offered me a refund of £155.65 as a goodwill gesture. I had taken out 13 loans with them the highest being around 300 and lowest 50, I’m unsure if i should accept or take this further? Thank you in advance for the help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Do you know how much interest you have paid Ferratum? Were your loans pretty much continuous or were there some big gaps between them?
Mary says
I can’t seem to find how much interest i have paid. They were continuos, sometimes i would pay back early and then take another one out.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Then tell Ferratum you would like to consider their offer but you need them to send you a list of your loans showing how much interest you have paid on each loan.
Without that you can’t tell if this is a great offer or rubbish!
Mary says
Ive had a response and the total interest i have paid across all loans is £435
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well the offer isn’t dreadful but it isn’t good either. You don’t normally get the first few loans refunded if you go to FOS. You could reply that you think you would get a lot more by going to FOS but in the interest of a speedy settlement you would be happy to settle for a compromise of £250. Or whatever amount you feel would be fair.
Mary says
They have said in the email offering £155.65 was their full and final offer and if i reject it would be withdrawn so could i still negotiate with them? Would it be withdrawn if i write back and say i would settle for £250?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I have never heard of a firm withdrawing an offer just because you are trying to negotiate a better one, it doesn’t sound very likely. The worst that would be likely to happen is that they will say we have told you are offer, you can accept it or go to the Financial Ombudsman.
EDIT Mary reported the next day that Ferratum had accepted her offer to settle at £250
A says
Just want to update all on the progress I have had.
Safety net credit: settled with them £150 balance wiped off and £1297 paid to me.
Mr lender one loan- balance wiped off and credit file updated.
Cashasap: went to FOS and upheld 117 balance wiped off and £219 paid to me.
Uncle buck: went to FOS they agreed to refund £537 back to me in 6 days and £170 balance wiped off.
Cash4unow: settled with them complaint sent 5 weeks and they are refunding loans 4-7 balance of 17 wiped off and £519 to be refunded with me within 7 days.
118 money still on going with lender
Cash converters still on going with lender
Satsuma just been assigned to adjudicator
Peacy just been assigned to adjudicator
My jar awaiting financial ombusmen
Wonga- went bust
Wage day advance- went bust
247 money box went bust
Amigo written off 13500 off my balance and 1774 left to be repaid.
I just want to thank you Sara so much for this site I couldn’t have got the above balances wiped off and amended on my credit file with you and this site I’m extremely grateful. Now I can start saving for my mortgage and not have to worry about what was my disaster of a credit file.
Elliott says
Brilliant stuff!! Hope you don’t mind me asking I’ve had an offer this morning from safety credit net off £500 I’ve accepted there offer how long from your experience do that take to pay the refund and update your credit file? In the email it says they will send me out a final response letter???
Laura R says
I am still waiting to hear from safetynet. How long did it take them to get back to you with an offer? I got the email to say they were looking into my claim on the 29th Jan. I have heard they don’t take very long
Tania says
How long was it since you made your initial complaint?
A says
6 weeks for invesigation payment within 7days so all and all 7 weeks
Anon says
Hi, if you don’t mind me asking how long did SNC take to get back to you with an offer? Thanks :)
Elliott says
I complained on the 15 of January and heard back this morning with there offer just trying to work out if they said the final response by email or letter
A says
They pay normally 7 days one Friday and credit was was updated within 30 days
george says
Hi do you mind me asking how long it took for Amigo to get back to you with there decision and did it go to FOS?
I have my complaint in but noresponse as of yet. How much did you take out in the end as I have 9000 loan with them and paid about 10,500 altogether already with 12000 outstanding still.
A says
Hi George ,
I had 5 top ups to 9500 I submitted my complaint and they rejected this.
It sat with the FOS for a while and because of home issues the FOS sped this up investigated in one week and responded to me on Friday told amigo they had 1 week to respond they agreed and refunded within 2 weeks all and all about a year.
Also my balance was 13,000 I paid about 8k off so I only have 1777 left to pay now instead of 13k.
George says
Thank you so much for letting me know! It sounds very similar to my situation.
Do you mind me asking how much you had paid off before you got this offer to get an understanding of what might happen if I win my case? Yesterday I had an instant response from Amigo once I mentioned the anxiety and depression that the debt has caused and the Doctors notes included and seemed to give them a kick in the right direction, so hoping for good results but I have 12,000 outstanding and already paid 10,500 so I am wondering how much I might be able to actually wipe off if the response is good!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Questions about Amigo are best asked over on the guarantor loan page: https://debtcamel.co.uk/how-to-complain-guarantor-loan/.
You won’t be able to tell much from what happened to someone else.
B says
Some advice please. Firstly, does anyone have a personal email account for any of the management at Fernovo loans?
Sara -withdrew from loan within 2 weeks. The lady i spoke to kept saying “Yes i’ll settle the loan for you” and i kept stating “to be clear, i am not settling a loan, I am withdrawing from the agreement – there’s a big difference” she kept disagreeing with me and saying there wasn’t any difference and that it was now settled. I pointed out that since i was withdrawing from the agreement, it shouldn’t appear at all on my credit file at all.
1 week later It appears on my credit file as settled. On the 12th of Jan i emailed in a complaint, and to this day i still haven’t even received an acknowledgment. After a change of mortgage rates, my mortgage company then contact me to say that the product i applied for is no longer available and would therefore need to re-apply. I did so, and it’s now declined due to the loan. Contacted Fernovo & spoke to their complaints manager, explained all of the above & she basically said “You’ll need to wait 8 weeks for us to respond, that’s the time-frame we have by law” I explained that this isn’t a affordability complaint, its a mistake they have made and she said it didn’t matter, i needed to wait in line. I stated it was preventing my mortgage and once again she said “Sorry about that, but there isn’t anything we can do”
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well you can try morisso.taieb@quidie.co.uk but they are correct that they do have 8 weeks to reply to ANY complaint. there is nothing special about affordability complaints.
B says
Thanks for your response Sara and the email address
I know the complaints process, my point wasn’t that they should deal with mine quicker because it’s not an affordability complaint, my point to the lady as that it was an admin mistake on their side that can be resolved in a matter of seconds as appose to a thorough investigation that an affordability complaint entails and that given the impact that this issue was causing, I would be grateful that they resolved their error quicker than the 8 weeks. It’s been 4 weeks already and I’ve not even received an acknowledgement
Laura says
It might be in your best interested to send via email a request for a copy of the phone conversation incase you need that later down the line. Good luck
Laura says
This is in regards to Lending Stream. I filled in the form on their website basically pasting the email I sent to everyone else.
They replied to me today with all my loan details, 15 in total – I didn’t realise I had that many.
However they did not mention my affordability complaint. The email said that I could reply to them so I did saying that I still want to make an affordability complaint. I know I need to wait 8 weeks, but do I go from when I filled the original form in on the 28th Jan or from today’s correspondence?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
from the 28th Jan, that started your complaint.
Sarah says
Hi looking for some advice I have an affordability complaint with 247 money box and they have just put a new 6 year marker on my credit file , my question is can they do this while in dispute, iv spoken with active security and they were hopeless couldn’t answer me straight 😥
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what do you mean by “a new 6 year marker” – a default?
Sarah says
Hi sara. I have a mark on my credit file from a default in 2014 ends next month after being on record for 6 years now they have put another on sorry not sure what there called
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, they should NOT have changed the default date to be later. I hope you have a copy of a credit report showing the earlier date.
They are in administration which may make it harder to get them to listen to what you are saying, but I would start by emailing customer.services@247moneybox.com or call 0207 183 8078
If you win the affordability complaint the loan will probably be deleted anyway.
Ash says
Can you do irresponsible lending complaints on credit cards like Aqua?! Or is it only payday loans? Thanks in advance.
JA says
Yes you can , see https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-catalogue-credit-card/
Con says
Hi Sara/Guys
Had a successful offer from Safetynet which I accepted. In most people’s cases how long was it before they paid into the bank?
Thank you Sara for all your help and resources, it’s been a great help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Bit of a random question, but if anyone here has had a “persistent credit card debt” letter in the last 6 months I would be very interested to see it. Just reply Yes to this comment and I will contact you about it.
B says
Yes, happy to forward you the email
A says
I’ve had emails not heard from them in months now they chasing all the time
Calum says
Hi Sara,
I have had one from Marbles in the last few weeks. It only has a limit of 600 and i have been slowly trying to clear it. Had it for about 2-3 years.
Akram says
Hi Sara, all,
I sent off claims to about 11 different lenders and today I received a call from Mr Lender. They said that they would pay me back my interest on loans 11 & 12 (£580). Personally I think the other loans should be included as there was no gap in lending and if they bothered to check my bank statements or credit report they would have seen I was up to my eye balls in debt. Before I reject or negotiate with them, just want to check if you or anyone knows their current predicament? I’d hate to take this all the way only for them to go into administration and get close to nothing.
Thank you in advance!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
would you like to list the loans sizes in order: 200,250,175,300 etc ?
So far as I know Mr lender isn’t under particular pressure at the moment. And they DO negotiate, so it’s worth deciding what to go back and ask for.
Akram says
Hi Sara,
Thanks for the quick reply, i havent been sent my summry of loans yet but from my bank statements and emails i’ve recorded the below loans:
1. 09/08/2010 recieved £300, paid back £455 (interest £155) paid loan back on 24/12/2010
2. 19/05/2014 recieved £233, paid back £287.50 (interest £54.50) paid loan back on 30/05/2014
3. 30/05/2014 recieved £483, paid back £640 (interest £157) paid loan back on 30/06/2014
4. 02/02/2017 recieved £500, paid back £884.67(interest £384.67) paid loan back on 24/07/2017
5. 25/07/2017 recieved £450, paid back £831(interest £381) paid loan back on 20/12/2017
6. 20/12/2017 recieved £1000, paid back £1,903.67(interest £903.67) paid loan back on 21/06/2018 (paid back early so interest is less)
7. 03/07/2018 recieved £200, paid back £281.12 (interest £81.12) paid loan back on 27/08/2018 (paid back early so interest is less)
8. 24/09/2018 recieved £1000, paid back £1,873.58 (interest £873.58) paid loan back on 24/04/2019 (paid one month only interest and also paid loan back early so interest will likely be less)
9. 24/04/2019 recieved £200 paid back £320.23 (interest £120.23) paid loan back on 24/06/2019
10. 24/07/2019 recieved £750 paid back £1369.33 (interest £619.33) paid loan back on 07/01/2020 (paid back early so interest will be less)
Akram says
I think i am missing one loan as the lady said Mr Lender would pay out on loans 10 & 11. However i am going to push for loans 6 to 10 as i think i stand a good chance of winning those as the amounts were one after another and at the time i had a CCJ, defaults and quite a few loans. What do you think?
Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think a refund from loan 6 looks like a good offer from you to settle this. If it went to FOS you might get 5 back as well.
Akram says
Thanks Sara, it was only 10 loans in the end and Mr Lender came back and added in loan 8 to loans 9 & 10. The offer amounted to £1242. I accepted the offer as didnt want it to drag on and i can use that money to pay off existing debts and have a little left over for the wedding fund! :-) 1 down, 10 more to go! haha
Thank you for this website, would never have claimed if it wasnt for you :-) will keep you posted about my other claims andhave to say Mr lender were very friendly with me and quick to look into the issue.
Christopher says
Sent off for irresponsible lending to my jar last week and they offered me £900 out of a possible £3200.is this a good offer or should I refuse
Sara (Debt Camel) says
you paid £3200 in interest? Then £900 doesn’t sound like a good offer does it… especially as 8% statutory interest should be added.
How many loans did you have? over what period?
Christopher says
That’s with the 8% interest. 30-03-18 £900 lent and loan charge £401.76
10-06-18 lent 2400 charge £1237.
23-11-18 lent £725 charge £517.
26-03-19 lent £925 charge £848.
Sorry total interest was £3003.76.
They actually paid me back for loan no 4 plus 8%. But reading your reply I’ve refused offer so just see what happens now.
Christopher says
I think I’m entitled to loan no 2 as well as loan no 4
Rob says
15 affordability complaint emails sent on 31.01.20..
Ferratum were first to reply with a £900 balance wipe and £350 refund!
Fingers crossed the rest follow suit!
Adam R says
Sent mine to ferratum on the same day as you, they seem to dragging their heels with me (probably because I don’t owe them anything)
Ian says
I had a similar thing to you, they wiped 1400 debt and £140 goodwill gesture, despite them saying that they weren’t irresponsible! :D
Eve says
Hi Sara
When is Elevate going to publish their results? Shouldnt that be February? I’m waiting for my complaint to be picked up by adjudicator, and I’m starting go get a bit worried.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It was last night. Although there were some grumbles about complaints (https://seekingalpha.com/article/4322986-elevate-credit-inc-elvt-ceo-jason-harvison-on-q4-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=8), these were about not about the cost of paying refund but the shape of their business going forward. Quote “This is not a situation where rising complaint expenses are impeding our ability to generate a profit, but rather our ability to come to an agreement with our regulator related to both new and existing customer affordability assessments in underwriting. In other words, which new customers can we acquire? And how often can we lend to existing customers?” And they seem to be expecting these discussions will take quite a while.
So it doesn’t sound from that as though there is much danger of Sunny going under like QQ and Wonga anytime soon.
Eve says
Thank you for coming back to me.
That’s good. I’ve lost recently with Piggy Bank, 247 and Swift. From what I have seen I should get back about 1300 pounds from sunny, so fingers crossed.
SAM says
Hi I have been in the cycle of taking payday loans for many years. Thank you so much for this page, it has been really helpful. I have already made complaints about lenders who I used a few years back. I am still taking loans from various lenders every month e.g. satsuma, cashasap, MYJAR. Am I able to send in a complaint about these even though I am using them currently or are affordability complaints only for historic loans? I take these loans each month to pay other payday loans and cover other debt. Many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You should complain to all your current lenders now!
And you have to stop borrowing, so cancel the CPAs to the lenders with your bank and tell them you have to have an affordable payment arrangement. That is the only way out of the payday loan trap. Complaints can tKea very long while to go through. You can’t rely on them being quick, so you need to stop borrowing now.
SAM says
Thank you much appreciated. I think there about 7 different lenders I have used over the past year but no idea how much I have had off of each. I’ve had to burrow money from family members to pay them off and then i couldn’t afford to pay them back so i have had to keep taking loans and then taking other loans to pay those one off if that makes sense. I am worried that whilst I am in a real mess, it looks affordable for me on paper. Will this be an issue? Thank you again
Sara (Debt Camel) says
All you can do now is get payment arrangements in place and start the complaints and see how they go.
The ombudsman is used to looking at real messes :)
Borrowing from family to repay a loan does not mean it was affordable.
SAM says
Thank you you’ve really assured me. Appreciate all the work you’ve done here, you are helping so many people.
Amelia says
Hi Sara,
I just wanted to say thanks for your advice. I was with safety net from March 2016-August 2018. I complained at the end of jan and they offered to clear my outstanding debt and half my interest of £1500. I’m sadly still in finically difficult so although it’s tempting to for the full redress plus interest I accepted and without your clear guidance and advice I wouldn’t have got so far so thank you. I’ve also contacted my jar, amigo and Hsbc and will do the same for my other payday lenders and catalogues (and will negotiate or go to the ombudsman if necessary) So thank you for your help and getting me out of the payday loan cycle.
Charlie says
Hi,
I have quite a few outstanding loans and due to recently becoming unemployed I’m really struggling to keep up with payments. I am currently paying £100 a month to satsuma, £100 a month to myjar and £53 a month to Sunny. I have 2 outstanding loans with Satsuma, 1 with myjar (previously had one also) and 1 with Sunny. Although with Sunny they’ve allowed me to take out 25 loans with them in past 12 months. My credit score is incredibly bad due to being in a really bad financial state the past year. I cant afford my repayments anymore and I don’t know what to do from here and would very much appreciate any advice you could offer me. Thankyou
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I can’t imagine how you can pay them without borrowing more – which would be a disaster. So the first thing you need to do is cancel the CPAs to the lenders with your bank. Get yourself safe!
Then tell them them all you have lost your job (send sone proof eg an email, or screenshot of a universal credit application), ask them to freeze interest and say you will be unable to make any payments for the next few months until you have another job. Don’t be pushed into paying what you can’t afford.
Also do this with credit cards and non payday loans. Do you have any priority debts? See https://debtcamel.co.uk/start/priority-debts/? Or guarantor loans?
Then when you are safe you can think about making complaints to payday lenders. Sunny is an obvious one. But also Myjar and Satsuma if those loans were large ones.
These complaints can take a very long while to go though so they don’t solve your current situation. That why you have to stop paying now.
Mike_p says
Satsuma are horrendous when it comes to irresponsible lending complaints but they were very helpful when I had to set up a payment plan.
Ian says
Is there a page for people who are still waiting for a PPI payout from Natwest/other banks? I had a letter from them last year saying I had a few hundred quid due to me and needed to sent a form back with my signature on it. They said it would take up to 28 day from receiving the form to payout and I sent it back mid December. Still haven’t received and when I phone up they can’t give a timescale due to the size of the backlog. Very frustrating stuff. Anyone else had anything similar?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
PPI is best covered on a PPI specialist forum, eg https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/reclaim-ppi-other-insurance
Ian says
Cheers Sara!
Mary says
Update on my claim with ferratum i had posted yesterday! Thank you so much for your help they have agreed to £250 and should be with me in 48 hours.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well pushed!
Susan B says
Safety net credit.after my affordability complaint have reduced my balance of £500 to £170.this is a refund of interest and charges. Very quick responses within 2 weeks
Kat says
Hi, I have this morning had a response from Mr Lender.
Borrowing history:
June 2018 500.00
July 2018 750.00
Oct 2018 1,000.00
April 2019 1,000.00 801.12 outstanding
They have partially upheld my complaint and offered to write off the balance on my last loan and refund me £92.72 – I have paid back £1092.72 on this loan. £848.55 of this was interest charged. They have admitted that further checks should have been made on my final loan, hence their decision. I am confused trying to work out the figures – does this sound right? I think I am going to argue that the October 2018 loan should not have been given for the same reasons but I just wanted to be sure regarding this last loan. Thank you!
Anon says
Hi, how long were you waiting before you received a reply from Mr Lender?
Kat says
Hi Anon they took 8 weeks, but they write to you rather than email back. Good luck!
JA says
It does sound right as you have paid them back the capital of £1000 + £92.72 which they are refunding. There was a break between lending so not sure if they would uphold the oct 2018 one but nothing to lose by trying!
Shelby says
Thanks Sara for this brilliant and informative page. I would have never have known that I could complain and appeal pay day loans. I started following the progress of the Wonga refunds after being approved in the redres using your forum. I have then since logged complaints to 12 x other lenders for the pay day loans taken between 2014 – 2016. Safety Net Credit have approved a refund of £109 for 2 x loans taken out. Sunny have rejected but I have given them a chance to review with further information and documentation to support my claim (also waiting for Ombudsman decision). I have received other generic responses from the other lenders – just awaiting their review before the 8 week deadline. The templates are a brilliant guide and help to people like me who didn’t have a clue on where to start! Good luck to everybody going through the same process.
Ian says
I just got a reply off MyJar, wiping out my debt with them and a refund of £194 (inc 8%) had 4 loans with them, £100 a pop over two months, they also waived the interest on an outstanding loan of £200 and closed that down too. I’m happy with that!
Also, fair play, I emailed on the 24th Jan and got a reply today, so just under 3 weeks.
3 down, 5 to go…..
mark says
I emailed them on the 14th January in regards to 57 loans and havent offered me anything yet. I’m guessing they dont do them in an order then…
Well done though.
Anon says
It’s so nice to hear some success stories this morning! I’ve just passed week 2 since my complaints. Nice to hear that MyJar have only taken 3 weeks for you, obviously may not be the same for everyone but gives some hope :)
Michelle says
Yes they resolved mine in 3 weeks too very impressed refunded and removed from credit file in 4 weeks. Good luck
Amy says
Wow thats really good! I put a complaint to myjar on the 28th jan only had 3 loans with them one for £350 one for £300 & one for £900 so really hoping for something back!
Ian says
thanks to this site I’ve had some really good results, everyone stick to your guns!!!
Jane says
Hi Ian.
Do you mind me asking over what period you had your loans.
I also had 4 loans with then. 2 at £200 and 2 at £450 taken out one after another and they rejected my complaint even though I also had loans with Sunny, Satsuma and Peachy at the same time.
Ian says
Hi Jane,
Here’s the details they sent me:
Loan ID Date Issued Date Closed Loan Amount Total Paid
07/06/2014 14/06/2024 £100.00 £120.00
26/06/2014 04/07/2014 £100.00 £120.00
05/07/2014 17/07/2014 £100.00 £120.00
1612310 2014-07-17 £200.00 £350.00
the reason mine apparently got (partially) approved was that they were so close together. Sound like you were in a similar situation, I would push to the FOS if I were you. Good luck!!
mark says
Hi Ian,
All 57 of my loans was from 2011-2014 and they stated that they didnt have any records of any ones loans that was older than 5 years, I see that yours was from 2014.
I’m confused at that they was able to send you details regarding your 5+ year loans but told me they delete all records after 5 years?
Ian says
Hi .Mark,
I’m not sure what they’re playing at with yours, I can only assume that they still had mine cos the last loan was still open?
Sara, do you have any idea why they told Mark this?
mark says
Just sent a strong worded email to them. They’ve been messing me around for weeks and weeks now, they made me chase down old bank statements from a closed current account from nearly 10 years ago for proof because apparently they’ve deleted all records of them…
Ian says
HI Jane,
Thought I’d replied to this, must’ve pressed the wrong button!
I had them over a period of 3 months? one after the other. I’m not sure why mine was accepted but your’s wasn’t. If I were in your shoes, I would refer to the ombudsman, you’ve got nothing to lose!
Jane says
Thanks Ian. I had mine over a 12 month period and reloaned each time a few days after paying the other one. I have sent to the Ombudsman so guess I will just have to wait and see what they come back with,
Litahash says
Hi – I sent my complaint re: Lending Stream to FOS for 14 loans I had taken out. An adjudicator has now come back confirming that LS should pay back interest, fees, charges and 8% interest on loans 5-14 and they have until 24th Feb to answer the FOS. What are the chances that LS will agree with the adjudicator?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
pretty good! They do in 90% of the cases.
Ash says
They agreed with mine. But they do take the full amount of days to respond. I’m now waiting for the funds to be refunded to me. Currently on day 13 out of 28. Not expecting to get it any time before then . Just hope they don’t go under by then!
Laura Turnbull says
Hi regards to lending steam I have had email back from them saying it will be 8 weeks before reply. They have today sent me a zip file of all of my loans which I can view but there has no mention of any redress or money back should I just hold on until the 8 weeks is up or email back. Or should I just go straight to the fos
Tania says
I replied to say thanks and that I looked forward to getting a final response to my complaint by 27 March (8 week deadline).
Alison says
Hi There
Just had my response from Peachy after 5 weeks stating they are declining my claim stating that I could afford it but if they looked at the bank statements I sent them they would know that was not the case and had another payday loan on the go.
I had 4 payday loans with them so don’t know if its worth pursuing any advise would be great :)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
4 loans is worth going to FOS for. How large were each of the loans?
Alison says
Hi Sara
I have copy & pasted part of their letter stating how much each loan was for
The first loan of £350.00 was taken on 12/02/2019 and the repayment was due in 4 monthly instalments
of £67.62 – £146.61 by 24/05/2019. However, the loan was topped up by £70.00 and the balance was then
due in 9 monthly instalments of £30.04 – £95.49 by 25/10/2019. However, you cleared the balance in 2
payments by 27/02/2019.
The second loan of £100.00 was taken on 15/03/2019 and the repayment was due in 6 monthly
instalments of £12.71 – £34.53 by 27/08/2019. However, the loan was topped up by £150.00 and the
repayment was due in 9 monthly instalments of £13.98 – £57.64 by 27/12/2019. The balance was cleared
in 2 payments by 14/05/2019.
The third loan of £150.00 was taken on 16/07/2019 and the repayment of £170.40 was made on
02/08/2019
The fourth loan of £100.00 was taken on 12/08/2019 and the repayment was due in 2 monthly instalments
of £46.96 – £84.17 by 30/09/2019. However, the balance was cleared in 1 payment on 28/08/2019.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think you may not have that complaint upheld. Basically the amount borrowed had been dropping every time 440 -250 – 150 – 100. That is not a pattern which suggests that the loans were causing you difficulty.
A says
Hi all,
I want to share a recent experience in case it helped anyone else. I logged a complaint with SNC back in September and received a final response where they offered £250 and to partially settle my account (£800 was outstanding). I asked them to fully settle it but they refused. I meant to send it onto the Financial Ombudsman but in the confusion of my other complaints, I didn’t.
Recently (having claimed successfully with other lenders) I emailed SNC direct. I gave them the option to revise their offer before I sent it to the FO. They responded and offered to fully settle my account and give me £750. On the advice of my other half, I asked them for £900 and they agreed. I thought I was owed £1100 based on my calculations so I was happy with this.
I can’t say it enough but thank you Sara for this website and advice. It is literally life changing. Anyone who is waiting to hear back, keep going!
Amelia says
That’s a really good result with SNC. Was £1100 your calculation for all your interest? They cleared my debt and offered me £1500 when full redress would’ve been £3k+ but I was desperate. I’m going to stay strong with my other creditors.
Adrian says
If I received a negative response from most of the lenders, saying they didn’t lend me irresponsibly, and I’ve decided not to go to the Ombudsman – Can I complain to them once again? And this time, take things further, if they reject me again? Thank you!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You had 6 months from the negative responses to got to FOS. If you are within that 6 months, send the complaint to FOS now. If you are out of time, you can’t take this further – lenders will just reject another complaint on the grounds it has already been dealt with.
Adrian says
Thank you for your reply. 6 months have now gone. Is it worth trying my luck and sending another complaint or will they be 100% rejected?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
100% rejected. Only exception is if the company has gone into administration – there you may be able to make a second claim – but you may not get much back at the end.
Paul says
Hello. I put in an affordability complaint to safetynet 2 weeks ago but I did not use the template from here. I outlined my reason for the complaint and told them I have paid back almost 4000 quid on interest alone in the past 15 months. They really don’t have a leg to stand on as they have full access to your online banking and can see quite clearly you are in a financial mess.
But my question is that if Its ok if I didn’t use the template ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Did you say the loans were unaffordable? Or just that the interest was too high?
You don’t have to use the template here but it does help if you mention affordability.
Paul says
Yeah I made it quite clear that I was having to pay my entire months wages just to clear safetynets balance for the month some times. Thanks for letting me know
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That should be fine then. I hope you have cancelled the CPA to SNC at your bank?
Paul says
Yeah I did. My balance is ‘only’ 190 pound this month which speaks for itself. I even had to open a cash builder account to move all my incoming money into it because SN would always just help themselves to however much they wanted. I’m so happy to be out of this payday refund cycle but I really hope they refund me some of the extortionate interest fees I have been charged over the years. Thanks for all your help these past few months Sara.
Mike_p says
They were terrible when I had an an active account with them – if some money went into your account they would take most of it leaving you with £50 and you’d have to borrow most of it back again to get through the next month.
If you still owe them money then tell them you need to set up a payment plan. I did that and and they froze the balance and I’m repaying it £50 a month by standing order.