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?
Nick says
Hi all
Just wanted to ask if anyone has any advice on how to get sunny /elevate to respond . I have had the final decision from ombudsman in March signed and sent back acceptance of there decision they say they have notified the business but no response to me. I called the customer service number and was advised to email. I have done this now twice and no response. I have added a review to trust pilot.
Was wondering if anyone has manged to get ceo email address
nick craddock says
Hi
I have today had a response to an email i sent yesterday to the ceo rmallinder@elevatecredit.co.uk
of SUNNY .
I was sent the value of my refund and asked for bank details. I sent these at a round 2pm and to my surprise the money was paid into my bank at 4pm
This was a great result after having them decline my complaint back in November 2018 had to go all the way to ombudsman.
This site has been a great help thank you Sara
Only one left now and this is quick quid was waiting for the response to adjudicator decision when they just stopped replying then went into liquidation so may get a lot less than the 3k i should have got
Nick
Dan says
Hi all
I know 1 or 2 loan cases are hard to win, but it is worth trying if u were in difficulty when you took out the loans.
I complained to cash4unow about 2 small loans i took out when i had a gambling problem and was in a PDL cycle with lots of lenders.
They responded at the last minute of the 8 weeks saying they did not uphold my complaint, but would refund interest on both loans and remove them from my credit file to settle the complaint quickly. A bit of a result – if only all not upheld results were like that. :D
Andy says
Isn’t that upholding your complaint if they pay you back interest ?
Dan says
Thats what i thought- they say they dont agree but to help expidite the resolution they will pay me. It was less than the £550 the FOS charge and it was quite clear they didnt want it to go there as they said ‘if the FOS uphold they would offer the same’
Gabi says
They are not offering to pay back the 8% interest on top of the interest you paid so this is why they are saying they don’t uphold but will pay you back the initial interest. It still might be a good offer, just wanted to point that out. If your loans were from a while ago the 8% interest can add up. However, as they are effectively wiping your loans clean, this may not bother you.
Dan says
You are correct about the 8% interest but it wouldnt have been much as the interest itself isnt much! Loans are not that long ago either. Like i said a lot less than the £550 FOS fee.
They were pretty much pleading with me not to send to FOS.
Whatever the reason im delighted and think its worth complaining if u feel you were in hardship- even with very few loans
Dan says
Hi guys,
so I have had a offer from sunny my original interest paid was 3.1k they have offered 2056 + to wipe my current loan of 130 outstanding.
Do you think i should accept this or go to the ombudsman ?
Thanks in advance for any advice
JP says
Hi Dan,
How long did they take to give you a response and how much information did you have to provide/did they request?
Regards,
JP
Dan says
Hey JP,
The full 8 weeks would have been this Sunday. They didn’t ask for any information. I didn’t provide any either.
Regards,
Dan
R says
Dan,
Just my humble opinion..
I wouldn’t look back..and take it
H says
Hi all , cash 4 u now have taken double what they agreed to take can I complain and ask for them to put money back ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes! It may also be a good idea to cancel the CPA to them and pay them yourself with a standing order in future.
H says
Thank you we agreed a payment plan but they took the max money anyway :(
Chris says
Hi Sara put a complaint in with cashfloat and has been over the 8 week mark and haven’t even received a response of any sort from them. Do I just pass it straight on t the f.o.s? Have won a number of sums from my numerous other past lenders, all because of stumbling upon your great website thank you.
Shortie says
Between 2018-19 I took out a payday loan and it snowballed. It’s ruined my credit rating, couldn’t get a mortgage with my partner and could have lost my job. I have depression and anxiety but this has escalated to a point where I have panic disorder and am on strong medication to control it.
I have complained about one lender who asked me to provide evidence of my mental health issues (they also mucked up email and a phone call so I missed some communication from them). I’ve struggled with their constant automated texts too and the debt is now about 3x the original amount.
I can’t get bank statements for my HBOS account – they’ve said I need to go into a branch but due to Covid they won’t help right now. I cannot access my statements online any more. I do have my Transunion report and from that I mapped out each month between 2018-present, the number of loans I had each month (sometimes it was as high as 5 or 6) and the total cost. I have highlighted where new loan agreements began too. I plan to send an email to each provider (noting some are now in administration) to support my case.
Can I do this without my bank statements or should I complain to HBOS? Do I even have a leg to stand on? I hope so as this has pretty much ruined my life, my finances and my relationship. Thank you so much.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I have complained about one lender who asked me to provide evidence of my mental health issues (they also mucked up email and a phone call so I missed some communication from them). I’ve struggled with their constant automated texts too and the debt is now about 3x the original amount.
who is this lender?
I suggest starting off your complaints now. You can send the bank statements at some later point.
Who are the lenders you have used and how many loans did you take from each of them?
Irene says
Hi Sara, If a payday loan has been sold to a debt company and the payday firm has gone bust, does the debt company have to show the loan was affordable if I make an affordability complaint? They are telling me it was the responsibility of the original lender and they aren’t responsible.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
who was the original lender? had you borrowed a lot from them before this last loan?
Irene says
It was Speedy Cash, I had only one loan with them
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is too late to make a claim against the administrators there. And it’s pretty unlikely you would have won an affordability complaint with only one loan anyway.
Dan says
Hi Sara
I have had a complaint not upheld by cash4unow, when I replied to them saying I did not agree with the outcome they emailed me asking for a proposal of settlement that they could consider to close the matter without involving FOS, am I right in asking for all interest to be removed then any payments I have made to be deducted from the initial loan amount plus 8% simple interest added to my payments? Is there anything I should add?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
did you just have 1 loan with them? how much have you paid to it?
Dan says
It was 1 loan at £400 interest took it to £658, current balance is down to £427
Loan was taken out 31/01/2019 and added to my dmp
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So it looks as though you have paid 658-427 = £231 to the debt? SI that right, does it take into account your DMP payments?
If it is right, then if FOS upheld this, they would reduce the balance owed to 400 – 231 = £169. They wouldn’t suggest adding 8% interest on.
Dan says
Yes dmp payments included add up to £231 repaid so far, I thought the FOS would have suggested adding 8% interest to the £231 but I know now not to say that in my email to cash4unow, thank you for your advice its really appreciated
Jade says
Hi Sara,
I first posted on this page in Jan 2019, and I wanted to let you know that…
In May 2019, the Financial Ombudsman upheld my complaint about Lending Stream for 1 of 4 loans. All interest and charges were waived and they removed info about this loan from my credit score, and I paid of the balance in instalments last year.
With regards to Sunny, it went to the adjudicator who ruled in my favour on 10 of 13 loans. Sunny emailed me this morning and I have just sent them my bank details for them to refund me just over £1,400. Hopefully it will be paid soon and my credit file will be updated (I’ll keep an eye on that).
I still have some way to go to get out of debt. I have a credit card, loan and overdraft all with NatWest / RBS that were sold on to PRA Group; an overdraft with Nationwide; and a Barclaycard (this last one will be paid off by this time next year).
But I wanted to let you know my success so far, and to thank you for all your advice.
With best wishes,
Jade
Stevo says
Received today from Uncle Buck customer care…. We are writing to confirm receipt of your payment which was received today.
Your Uncle Buck loan has now been repaid and your account with us will now be closed.
The ombudsman upheld my complaint with them the day before the went into administration…. Funny enough ( inserts rolling eye emoji lol)
I’ve emailed back seeking clarification in the matter, as ling as the default is removed from credit file I’m not overly fussed on how much I’ll get back in the end from a claim in the region if about 1700.
Anyone had anything similar or shed some light on this as I’m not expecting a speedy reply from them.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sounds like they have applied the right of set off to the balance and the award from FOS. If there is any refund left over, you will end up getting a small percentage of that when the administrators distribute to unsecured creditors.
The default should be deleted at some point.
Jade says
Hi all,
Just wanted to add that I received the payment from Sunny in my account today (for those of you wondering how quickly they make the redress payments).
Also, I made a typo in my comment above – it was the Ombudsman who ruled in my favour.
Best,
Jade
Jason says
Hi Guys,
Just going through what refunds I’ve had what’s pending etc but I will be honest I find it hard to understand. I got this before administration last year and I’m a basic rate tax payer can I claim any of it back?
Redress of Interest & Fees paid in £6,662.43
Trouble & Upset Awarded
Debt Written OFF & Any Previous Settlement Payments £0.00
Total Gross Redress Paid to Consumer £6,662.43
total interest paid before 8% £5,444.01
8% amount £1,218.42
20% Withholding £243.68
Total Redress Paid to Consumer LESS WITHHOLDING £6,418.75
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes:
8% amount £1,218.42 – this is the gross amount tax has been deducted from
20% Withholding £243.68 – this is the tax deducted
You can probably reclaim £200 of that, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/ppi-payday-refund-get-back-tax/ for how.
Paul says
Hi Sara
I have had my complaint against Sunny upheld by the ombudsman thanks to this site. My question is how long do Sunny have to pay me my redress after I confirm acceptance to the ombudsman? Many thanks again for all your advice on the site.
Paul
Luke says
I’m in the same position, when I accepted the ombudsman’s decision I got this reply:
“Thank you for your email dated 8 April 2020 letting us know you accept our final decision on your case.
Because you have accepted our final decision it is now binding on both you and the business. We have asked the business to contact you directly to finalise this matter.
Normally we would expect the business to contact you within four to eight weeks of the date of this email. However due to the current circumstances this may take longer. We appreciate your patience with this.”
My question is if sunny do enter administration do they still have to pay me the full amount as it is now legally binding?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, if they enter administration you are an unsecured creditor owed this amount.
nick craddock says
Send ceo an email i did and was paid out next day
rmallinder@elevatecredit.co.uk
Andy says
Is there talk of sunny going under ?
JP says
Hi all,
Just to give an update on my Wizzcash claim, I submitted in 02/04/2020 and got an offer 17/04/2020
I have accepted the claim but let’s see how long it takes to get the money credited to my account!
Regards,
JP
JP says
UPDATE:
Refund received this morning. Wow the whole process was quick!
Zee says
Hi Sara,
My complaint against peachy and satsuma was not upheld.
I have raised my complaint to the FOS however now I am reviving letters that I owe them money.
What are my options here?
Thanks
Zee
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how many loans did you have from each of them?
Zee says
1 loan each
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Peachy is in administration so you can’t take that to FOS. You can ask for an affordable payment arrangement if you still owe a balance.
The satsuma loan – unless it was large, there isn’t much point in sending it to FOS.
Zee says
Hi Sara,
I would need to pay them?
It has already been escalated.
Thanks
Zee
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes – unless you can win an affordablity complaint.
Gabe says
HI all. I have a payday loan with Lending Stream. I need just 2 more payments to make . So i got a new debit card now .Just gonna update my new card details , but you unable to update new card . Every time says unsuccesful try again later. I tried this for a week , nothing.
Tried to call them and automatic message only says we are unable to take any calls .If you like to make a payment press 1.
So i press and its says we are unable to take any payment try online …. and it hangs up.
Email them no response just keep sending letter that they keep adding late fee paments please pay now.
And after they the email address stopped working.
Later i got an email from a different address that sayng pay now or use live chat. LOL. there is no live chat options there.
THESE PEOPLE ARE UNREACHABLE. Scammers ?
What shall i do , Ombudsman ? Please help, thanky you.
G . Peace.
Jack says
Thank you so much for your help. I received Ombudsman decision that upheld loans 6 to 44 with Sunny. Total turnaround time for the whole process from start to finish was about 11 months but patience is virtue. I got just over £3k back. Sunny are cheeky and emailed me last minute offering about half of this but they had already made it drag on so long and this was not a great offer so waited for Ombudsman decision which came a couple of weeks later. It got escalated to Ombudsman in October.
Mr CD says
Hi
I wonder if I could get some advice. I’ve just had my claim rejected by lending stream for 25 loans I’ve had with them since 2016. Not pretty reading but details below. They have stated that all if these were affordable based on checks and the information provided. Should I still proceed to the Ombudsman on the basis that it was continued borrowing?
£200.00 April 14, 2016
£300.00 June 12, 2016
£260.00 Aug. 10, 2016
£300.00 Oct. 13, 2016
£70.00 Oct. 22, 2016
£660.00 Nov. 4, 2016
£110.00 Jan. 5, 2017
£540.00 Feb. 1, 2017
£350.00 March 24, 2017
£790.00 April 7, 2017
£250.00 June 8, 2017
£430.00 Aug. 7, 2017
£250.00 Sept. 6, 2017
£400.00 Nov. 9, 2017
£700.00 Jan. 2, 2018
£250.00 March 10, 2018
£550.00 March 29, 2018
£490.00 May 26, 2018
£280.00 July 18, 2018
£50.00 Aug. 22, 2018
£380.00 Aug. 30, 2018
£420.00 Oct. 13, 2018
£390.00 July 1, 2019
£130.00 July 25, 2019
Appreciate your feedback
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you send it to the Ombudsman to look at.
Karen H says
Mr CD & Sara
I’ve received a reply at last this morning from Lending Stream after 8 weeks + coronavirus excuse! I’d already put in a complaint to Ombudsman but waiting to hear back.
Email from LS today listing 27 loans I’d had with them over 2 years but no redress. Glad I had already moved it on to Ombudsman.
Sonya says
Anyone else met with deafening silence from Lending Stream?
Luke says
Good afternoon,
I have a question about refund decision from MYJAR.
They only upheld refund for last 2 loans, just want to get your advice whether others shouldn’t be upheld? (especially starting from the 2nd one issued in Feb 2019)
Table with loans / dates and repaid amounts:
Date Issued Date Closed Loan Amount Total Paid No of payment
11/11/2018 29/01/2019 £300.00 £413.41 3
07/02/2019 20/03/2019 £300.00 £380.72 2
30/03/2019 01/07/2019 £600.00 £949.72 3
06/07/2019 02/08/2019 £500.00 £594.84 2
10/08/2019 28/08/2019 £400.00 £454.00 1
31/08/2019 25/11/2019 £500.00 £738.66 3
Sara (Debt Camel) says
(I have deleted your second comment as it didn’t seem to add anything)
I would say refunding just 5 & 6 is not generous. You would be likely to get back loan 4 by going to FOS and possibly loan 3. Loan 2 is pretty unlikely.
Obviously that’s without knowing anything more about your case… but it’s very rare to get the second loan refunded unless the amounts are large. the 3 loan however is twice as large as the first two, so you can argue that should have made myjar stop and think.
Luke says
Thank you. I added second part with details as I don’t know how much dates / days between matter in the decision.
I replied to them asking to explain why they upheld only last 2 loans as there was the same pattern in previous loans and they were taken one after the other. I also had loans from other companies at that time.
I haven’t sent bank statements / payslips to them though. I don’t have payslips as I don’t have an electronic version for last year, but will wait for reply and maybe send my bank statements – not sure if that helps.
Thank you again,
Luke
Sara (Debt Camel) says
you don’t need payslips if you have bank statements and your wages show on there.
Large gaps are a problem but you obviously don’t have any.
FOS is looking for the point at which a lender should have made further checks. This is often after the third or 4th loan.
You can argue that should have been after the second as they were all in quick succession and the third loan was £600 which was twice as large as the other two, suggesting your problems were getting worse not better.
But FOS may say after the third loan.
It’s possible they would agree with Myjar – it’s not a dreadful offer.
R says
Hi Sara,
Just got word back from Sunny and they’re not upholding my complaint on 21 loans and only willing to waive off my outstanding default balance as a gesture of goodwill they say..
By sending it to FOS will the outstanding balance be put on hold or can they pass it on to a debt agency?
Also could you please help clarify on the credit file for FOS.. will credit karma do and is the latest one used?
Thanks for you help in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes sunny can pass the balance to a debt collector, but why do you care? most debt collectors are a lot nicer to deal with than Payday lenders!
FOS only needs to see your current credit record.
Marie says
Hi Sara
The FO got in touch today to say that Uncle Buck has gone into administration and can’t help me with my complaint. The adjudicator had upheld my complaint but uncle buck didn’t agree with the outcome, so it went to the ombudsman to decide.
I still owe about £400 on my loan and don’t feel I should have to keep paying it when the ombudsman said I should be refunded for all of my loans, which was well over £1000 in interest.
Have you got any advice on what I should do? Uncle Buck keep harassing me everyday and it’s just exacerbating my anxiety.
Thanks
Marie
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Tell UB that you have a good claim for redress which is worth more than the balance you owe so they should be set off. And that you won’t be making any payments until the administrators have determined your claim.
Marie says
Thanks Sara I will
Marie says
Hi again Sara
I also have a complaint with Loans2go because of their ridiculous interest on my loan. I stupidly took out a £200 loan and they want me to pay back £1200 altogether.
I’ve already paid back £500 and complained to them about their horrendous interest and my financial difficulties, but they haven’t upheld my complaint and I’m just wondering whether I should bother going to the FO with everything going on right now?
Can you please advise? I’m feeling so overwhelmed and stressed.
Thanks
Marie
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Why not send it to the Ombudsman? You have nothing to lose and may have a lot to gain.
paul says
Morning
On Friday it will be 8 weeks from my original complaint to LS, i received an email on 27/03 delaying by a further 8 weeks due to Corona. Is it worth me emailing them notifying them that they have till friday to respond or i will be sending it straight to the FOS? are they justified in asking for an extension?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
no point in reminding them now, you either will get your reply by Friday or you won’t, a nudge now won’t help.
If you don’t, then I suggest sending it to FOS.
Ben says
Hi Sara,
Looking for some informstion. I raised complaint with uncle buck who have gone into administration. I understand the redress will now be miniscule, which doesn’t bother me too much – although id like to know how to apply for the redress anyway, as they informed me they can no longer issue a final response?
Mainly, I’d like to understand that if I do this, can I still get all the negative information removed from my credit file ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You have a current complaint in. It is likely the administrators will treat this as a Claim in the administration. If not, they should tell you you need to submit a Claim.
It will then take many months before that is sorted but if the loans are found to be unaffordable, they will be deleted from your credit record then.
Do you still owe a balance?
JP says
Hi Sara,
Some advice please….
I have now closed all loans with various lenders and submitted my complaints. The one area I’m unsure of is sending complaints during an active credit line.
With Ferratum I have a £1000 limit of which I still owe c£800. I have raised a complaint with them however will this lead to Ferratum applying a default marker or putting me on some sort of plan?
I am happy to keeping paying as I expect the limit to be cleared by end of July but conscious that my complaint along with my outstanding balance could have an impact on my credit file?
Regards,
JP
Sara (Debt Camel) says
if you keep up normal repayments they have no right to put a default marker on your credit record or put you on a payment plan. No one has had this problem.
shaun says
Morning I recently got knocked back from my complaint with avant but having success with other complaints I just wanted to see if worth taking to ombudsman?
Loan #134927
APR 39.79%
Total Payments received – £1,056.11
Applied to interest – £56.11
Applied to principle – £1,000.00
Loan #175827
APR 45.4%
Total Payments received – £1,592.70
Applied to interest – £592.70
Applied to principle – £1,000.00
Loan #134927 – 7th Sep 2015
Loan #175827 – 23rd Dec 2015
With there only being 2 loans am not sure.
But the 2nd loan I paid nearly £600 interest on.
I had other payday loans and a very large NatWest loan.
Would be worth following up?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes I would send that. Those are large loans. Avant should have looked closely at your credit record and seen all your other borrowing.
Sean says
Well 8 weeks point has passed yesterday for sunny(decision not upheld), everydayloan(no reply), drafty(god knows what is happening with them) and still no final decision on George banco. Had some luck with Ferratum however good will of £65 which accepted. Drafty are really starting to grind my gears as they are still trying to take payment!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how many loans did you have from Sunny?
send the everyday loan, drafty & George Banco cases straight to FOS.
Have you cancelled the CPA to Drafty with your bank?
Sean says
They have said 9 in there report however from my credit file it’s 12. Totalling just over 3k and paid nearly 4K back. Would have been more but borrowed again to pay off etc..
The bank has said they will try but can’t guarantee it will be blocked
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Then send the Sunny complaint to FOS too.
Your bank has to cancel the CPA. Not “try to”.
Liam says
Hi all,
I’ve had many successes apart from the obvious ones, lending stream, Sunny etc. I became disillusioned and couldn’t be bothered to chase with the FOS, but now I’m thinking I’m not letting these folk get away with it… what excuse can I use to defend that 6 months has passed?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
None.
(I am assuming you would have said if you had been seriously ill or there was a real reason.)
George says
Hi Sara
Had an affordability complaint response from PiggyBank, I know they are doing or gone into administration, I was sent a final response for the 5 loans which I paid in 6 months. Their refund claim is 213.29 not sure if this is correct. How can I check this please. I also am waiting for other lenders to get back so I can apply the same method to calculate this.
Many thanks
George
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what did the response say, was it upholding all the loans?
George says
Yes, they gave the breakdown of the past borrowing and a note to say they are in administration.
Haven’t replied back yet they were very fast to reply back tho with the final response, they are waiting for a confirmation email. I can send the breakdown Of the amounts to shed a light on this if it helps!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you added up all the interest you paid on the loans?
George says
Yes it adds up to 201.56
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Then if the loans were pretty recent the amount sounds right – a bit of 8% interest has been added.
You can’t assume this will happen with other complaints. It’s more normal to get a refund after the first few loans – sometimes 3 or 4, depending on if there any big gaps in the borrowing and how large the loans are.
Your complaint is stronger the more loans you had, the larger the loans are, if the loans tended to increase in size, if there were only samll gaps between the loans.
Mandig says
I had a complaint with Peachy about payday loans. They finally replied with an offer yesterday (not a lot but something), which I accepted.
Today they have replied:
‘We are happy to hear that you have accepted our assessment of your complaint.
Please be informed that Adam Stephens, Gilbert Lemon and Henry Shinners of Smith & Williamson LLP were appointed as joint administrators (the “Administrators”) of Cash On Go Ltd on 5 March 2020. The Administrators are working with the Company to facilitate an orderly wind-down of the business.
Your claim has been agreed and you will now be considered an unsecured creditor of Cash On Go Ltd for the value of the amount specified in that Final Response Letter. This means you will be entitled to participate in any distribution of the cash remaining in Cash on Go Ltd, once all assets have been sold or realised and the secured creditors have been paid. Please be aware that the payment you receive is likely to be considerably smaller than your accepted claim amount. This is because it is expected that the total value of all accepted claims received will exceed the money available to be shared out amongst the unsecured creditors.
Currently, we do not have a date for the payment of any unsecured creditor claims. We will contact you as soon as we are able to provide any further updates.’
No mention of this in the original offer yesterday. Is this new?
Marie says
Hi,
I am gathering the evidence that the FOS have asked for with regard to my Sunny complaint. I have everything that they have asked for but the only thing I am not sure about is the credit report. I have got my free report on Credit Karma but I can’t see any way to download this. Also what information from the credit report should I send? The Sunny loans show in my closed accounts but I take it they will want to see all of the finance that I had at the time so do I need to print every section of the report and scan it in? That will be lots of pages!
Any advice would be great! :-)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes FOS need to see it all. It may be easier to just download a free TransUnion statutory report, see https://www.transunionstatreport.co.uk/CreditReport/AboutYou
Marie says
Thanks so much Sara! I’ll try that instead.
Lewis says
Good Afternoon Sara, I finally received a response (Sunny) They have ‘partially uphold’ my complaint, offering to pay interest on only loans 21-27, incl statutory interest and removal from my credit file.
– Took out 27 Loans with Sunny totalling £6300 plus £5,600 interest
– Same Period: 10x Wonga loans in 2016 and 3x Wonga in 2017, 2x Credit Cards in 2016 and utilised over 80% of Credit
Sunny Decision:
– No evidence of financial detriment to you as you were never in arrears and you repaid these on time. No evidence on our customer system that you were experiencing financial difficulties or having problems managing your money
– We conduct affordability and creditworthiness checks for each and every loan application. Whilst we see you have taken a number of loans with us we are confident, based upon our checks that these were affordable.
– However, based on our review of your repayment record and the overall pattern of your borrowing, we consider that it would have been prudent for us to have contacted you before we granted Loan 21 to discuss your financial circumstances and determine whether continuing to lend to you was sustainable. We therefore agree to partially uphold your complaint in relation to Loan 21 – Loan 27. Offered £1111 and to removed loans 21 onwards
Lewis says
I want some advice on how to proceed, as I just want ALL payday loans removed from my credit file, gaining a refund in not my primary objective. I find it hard to believe that they would have to wait until Loan 21 to realise that I was entering a cycle of payday loan debt. How do you suggest I should challenge?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you send the case to FOS they are likely to agree with you that it should have been obvious you were in a cycle of payday loan debt well before loan 21. Whether that is from loan 4 or 10 or 16 may depend on the loan sizes and whether there were any gaps in the lendeing. So you are likely to get a much larger refund but it could take somewhile.
There must be some chance that Sunny goes into administration in the process. There isn’t any sign they are in immediate trouble though.
But say FOS order a refund from loan 7. It doesn’t normally suggest that loans 7 onwards are deleted from your credit record. It may just say negative marks should be removed. Occasionally it comes up with a later date and says all loans should be deleted after say loan 15.
So although going to FOS may well get you a larger refund, it may not result in any more loans being removed from your record at all.
Sunny aren’t generally responsive to negotiations. You can try offering to settle for some larger number of loans, but if you say many more they are very unlikely to budge.
Lewis says
Okay you raise some valid points thanks. Do you know what typical time frames are when applying to FOS?
I anticipate i shall respond to sunny asking them to reconsider and provide a transunion credit report as supporting evidence to highlight that i was in a cycle of payday loan debt earlier than the 21st loan they have suggested. Hopefully this will urge them to reconsider and offer refund on a few more loans.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Being realistic, I think you should suggest a number of extra loans if you want them to even think about it. And that number should not be large.
Leanne says
I had a similar issue with Sunny, I went back and forth with further evidence and they dismissed my entire complaint (i had 20 loans in 9 months!) – I referred to the FOS and had an adjudicator response last week saying they find in my favour from loans 7 – 20. Pending on sunny’s response (they have to the 5th May)
Sunny are awful at complaints, I’d refer to the FOS.
Lewis says
Hi Sara.
Just to provide an update. I asked to reconsider all loans from loan 15 to 27, and remove these from my credit file.
This was duly accepted today with a revised full and final offer.
To anyone else reading it’s worth attaching a credit report (I did for Experian and Equifax) and being thorough in your demands by backing with sufficient evidence!
Can’t thank everyone enough for this group! Finally debt free for the first time in 8 years…
Now to have a lockdown drink :)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well done – I think you deserve that coffee :)
Michael Rivers says
Hi Sara, I have just heard from Provident in regards to the adjudicators assessment. They were supposed to reply by the 3rd of April but even the ombudsman couldn’t get a response from them. They have agreed to return the interest etc on 16 of my loans. Just reading the problems people are having with nearly all the payday lenders it seems to me that they wait until the last minute to answer any complaint as there is very little we can do about it. It’s a shame there is not a ruling body that can make these companies toe the line and be more helpful. For many years these companies have taken advantage of people that are vulnerable because of circumstances. I also wonder why so many go into administration when they were charging such high interest , where did all there profit go ???
Michael R
Jane Y says
Yes indeed. Had another email thanking me for my acceptance and will pass on details for payment. Have you had any dealings with Avant Credit?
R says
Avant declined my complaint, as well as the adjudicator and then the ombudsman. It was all a bit odd, as it sort of mirrored my LL complaint, which they upheld.
Jo says
Drafty (a part of Lending Stream) complaint upheld by adjudicator early March, they were given til 27th March to agree/disagree. I had email communication with them on the 17th March about their DCA conduct (terrible) and they put at the bottom of the email they had provided their response to the FOS – they had not, this was a lie! The adjudicator emailed them again and gave them til the 9th April to rely, they didnt do this either! My case now awaiting an Ombudsman to review it – how are they allowed to ignore the FOS (not even have the courtesy to come up with some excuse and ask for an extension or something) but simply ignore two dates? I have emailed them directly myself too, nothing in return. From Trust Pilot reviews they appear to be ignoring many people. They are affected by COVID-19, I get it, it slows the process but surely it doesnt account for their current state of ignorance. They are not the only company or person affected by the COVID-19 situation, I am affected as are millions of others. Any suggestions – negative TP review doesnt impact on them either.
Jane Y says
Did they get back to you in the 8 weeks? Mine is now a week over that.
R says
Yes, they were quite quick with me. However, that was well before all of this pandemic business started off. By the way, Likely Loans have come back to saying, basically, they’d already scheduled my refund to go back to an HSBC account they held on file. Thankfully, this account is the correct one but wouldn’t you think that, for a refund of £3k, you’d definitely want to check the account details are correct first?
Jane Y says
That’s good news! Yes you would think wouldn’t you. Avant just say it’s still being investigated so trying to stay hopeful.
Dan M says
Hi Sara
I have had a Mr lender complaint not upheld, I had 3 loans
£200 repaid total £382
£400 repaid total £765
£300 balance outstanding £427,
They have however as a goodwill gesture agreed to remove the outstanding balance of £427 so I will not owe anymore, have they offered it because if the FOS went in my favour the refund of interest plus 8% would be more than the outstanding £427? I’m just curious as I will probably accept the goodwill rather than pursue it through FOS
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s very unlikely you would get more by going to FOS. Mr Lender probaby want to avoid the FOS fee.
Dan M says
OK thank you, I have accepted the good will gesture
Ross says
Sunny/elevate credit rejected my claim, went to FOS and adjudicator is saying that I shouldn’t have been given loans 4-7 has there been any people who this then gets rejected again and has to go to final decision from FOS?
Sean says
Finally got in touch with drafty seems like their online chat is working. Asked them about my complaint as it has gone over 8 weeks and due to current circumstances they say it is now going to take a further 8 weeks. Off to the FOS I GO
Carol says
I had similar offer from Sunny on 20th April of £1025 refund and was informed payment made in 14 days if accepted. This was in relation to loan numbers 13 onwards. My original complaint email was sent on 22nd Feb..I never sent any bank statements or additional information
Emily says
Hi Sara,
I am in the process of starting to send off various unaffordable complaints for my partners loans, credit cards and catalogues. The majority of them are with DCA’s and been around for many years. My question is when complaining to Littlewoods, I have had two separate accounts with them, would I complain about both in one email, or would I need to do two separate emails? Tia x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can send 1 email. The best template letter for catalogues is on this page: https://debtcamel.co.uk/refunds-catalogue-credit-card/
GH says
Hi has anyone had any experience claiming irresponsible lending redress from Cashfloat? I have taken out 4 loans with them between July 19 and Jan 20. I’ve successfully had redress from other companies so know how to go about my claim. Just wondering if they uphold etc or have people had to use the ombudsman service. TIA.
Dan says
I complained about 5 loans when was in a debt cycle with PDLs and had a gambling problem. They rejected complaint. Adjudicator upheld loans 4 and 5 and they again rejected that so its been in queue for an ombudsman almost 3 months now
They and quidmarket have been the most difficult lenders for me. Pretty much all others either upheld themslves or agreed with adjudicator
H says
Morning Sara I sent a message on one of the pages but i can’t find it It was re buddy loans and general affordability so I’m unsure if anyone has replied x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
here is your message, in the guarantor loan page https://debtcamel.co.uk/how-to-complain-guarantor-loan/comment-page-28/#comment-361116
Holly says
Hi all , I have just received this from money boat in reply to my complaint
Should it transpire that information provided by you at the time of application was false or misleading, we may register this attempt to gain redress falsely as a first party fraud with CIFAS the fraud prevention agency. To learn more about fraud and understand your rights please visit cifas.org.uk. Any fraud marker may affect your ability to obtain credit with banks and other lenders in the future.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That is their standard, unpleasant, reply. A few lenders do this – so far no-one has reported having any problems when they carry on with their complaint at the lender or send it to FOS.
Mike_p says
It might be worth you asking CIFAS if Money Boat are able to do this. I asked them if lenders could do this as a general enquiry and they replied asking me to forward any correspondence so they could investigate.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Personally I wouldn’t waste any time on this. MB are just hoping this statement will make some people drop their complaints.
There are a LOT of reasons why a loan application may not have been fully accurate, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/.
Leanne says
I got exactly this and a really condescending reply to my complaint. Packed it off to the FOS – even if I get nowhere it’s cost MB £550 in FOS fees.
Holly says
I’ve never had a reply like that before !!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
it depends which lenders you have used. Uncle Buck often did.
Dave L says
Worry not I had that reply from them, three days later they turned down my complaint, then when I offered a compromise of writing off my balance and deleting the negative information from my credit file, they snapped my arm off and accepted it five minutes later.
H says
Interesting ! Do you mind me asking how much your outstanding balance was??
Dave L says
Wasn’t much only £70, original loan only £250 and just the one loan
George says
Hi
Just wanted to clarify about refunds from payday loans. Is it just the refund of interest and 8% flat rate. How about if you paid them all off and it’s been 7 months now does it matter with that in mind as far as the calculations go?
Cazza says
Does anyone know how I can actually speak to some at Lending Stream?
I had a successful claim with the FOS and received my redress on the 19th March; however, the redress was reduced as two loans were being settled.
They have never administered the closure of these and today I have been contacted by a debt collection agency, I am pulling my hair out as I have sent countless emails, every time I try to call you can’t actually talk to anyone and if you try to web chat it’s automated.
Gabi says
The only way I was able to contact them in the end was through the live chat on their site. They have a chat bot that, if you are persistent with, tries to eventually find an agent for you to speak with. It will say they are too busy for a while but keep persisting by either asking over and over again to speak to an agent or closing off the chat and coming back to it later and trying again. I got through to an actual agent after about 20 minutes of trying to be connected then waiting and trying again.
Pee says
I tried live chat too and spoke to someone almost instantaneously. Earlier today so they are working.
Cazza says
I did manage to get through in the end but all she could do was raise another ticket. I’ll wait until tomorrow and see if I have a reply as she said it would be fairly quickly but I don’t have any hope really.
Cazza says
And still no reply and another email and TXT from the debt collection agency. Lending Stream are truly a disgraceful company.
Ross says
Has anyone had their adjudicator decision refused by Sunny?
Paul says
Hi Sara
I sent the claim email to Mr Lender 10 weeks ago and haven’t had a reply. I thought they should have replied within 8 weeks? Do you think I should just send again??
Thanks a lot
Paul
Sara (Debt Camel) says
have you had anything back from them at all?
paul says
I’m in a similar position, I’m at 7 weeks now and nothing back from them. Not even a confirmation email to acknowledge my complaint. Sent 3 emails to various addresses. Will be escalating at the 8 weeks stage regardless.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Paul & paul,
If you have a record of having sent an email to Mr Lender and have had no response and no email bounce-back to say it was undelivered, then I suggest you send the case to the Ombudsman at 8 weeks.
Paul says
Thanks
I never heard back at all from them and had to triple check i had definitely sent it in the right way to the right place and I’m confident I did.
I will look into the ombudsman option.
Cheers again, stay safe
Dave L says
Had some more positive news today, had made a complaint to moneyboat – they did not uphold my complaint, but after some further communication they have agreed to write off my outstanding balance which was in my DMP so one less debt to pay off and they will remove my negative markers on my credit file.
cyrilv says
So – final complaint to Ombudsman against Sunny not upheld. Ok, fair do’s, it wasn’t for want of trying, it was a bit of a long shot anyway, and at least it lies as “satisfied” rather than “unpaid” or “defaulted” on my credit report. But the question now remains; would it be worth my while offering the DCA that took on the assigned debt from Sunny an F&F offer, and if so, what percentage? Around £550 was owed of which around £200 has so far been paid.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
the debt is presumably showing as “unpaid” to the debt collector? if not, it will soon be added… it’s hard to guess how much a debt collector will accept as a F&F, it depends on your circumstances.
cyrilv says
The £200 or so has been paid to the debt collector, not to Sunny, and monthly repayment instalments are ongoing. I don’t have a huge income, the DCA will see that from the income & expenditure form they have from me. Was possibly thinking of offering 15%, they can then haggle…
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How large are the monthly payments at the moment?
cyrilv says
They’re getting £7 every month from me via standing order and have been doing so since November 2017.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So if you are thinking of affecting £50 to settle it that sounds low as they will get that much in 7 more months anyway…
cyrilv says
So, what would you say would be a reasonable percentage or sum to offer them as a F&F, given they’ve received just over £200 of this £550 now?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There is no clear answer but it’s not really relevant how much you have paid – it’s what you can afford to pay and how much they are getting if they don’t accept your offer. Would you take £50 now or prefer to carry on getting £7 a month?
Timbouk says
Anyone heard anything about redress from Wage day advance? I believe payment is by the end of May ?
Dave L says
I have a redress I’m waiting on with them as well haven’t heard anything as yet but hopefully as it’s KPMG will be handled better than GT have handled the Wonga administration, to be fair though wouldn’t be difficult.
Sarah Louise Tansley says
Funnily enough I emailed them Wednesday and all they said was I’ll be paid between 5p and 5.4p in the pound for the amount of the redress claim by 31st May. No new info really!
Joseph says
Sort of embarrassing to post but maybe worth a shot for someone else. Cut a pong story short, I’ve been arguing with GT about my Wonga refund I hadn’t got. Turns out I had. 2 months ago !! Kept searching in transactions for ‘Wonga’ but when I searched WFD (or something similar) – I was actually paid on 14th Feb I just didn’t see it. A little foolish of me but an easy miss I think haha
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Oops! Thanks for the report, if you had a complaint in at the Insolvency Service Gateway, please let them know you are withdrawing it.
Ed says
After putting off the advice in this page I decided to finally try and make complaints to around 7 pay day loan lenders starting with Sunny.
I just received my reply from them after 7 weeks they say they are not upholding my complaint and this is their final response. I had total of 37 payday loans over a period of 19 months – no gap in lending and this is confirmed by their email. They say no payment was ever more than 10% of my monthly salary (which would mean I was earning in excess of £5000 per month so clearly they are out by about 5x)
They sent me a very detailed response of they check my credit report each time etc etc and they are satisfied they had no reason not to lend – how could they not see that I was in a spiral of payday loan lenders borrowing from one to repay another.
They mention (I do agree with this) that the total payments over the 19 months I only repaid roughly 25% interest in top of the capital which is far lower than their usual customers. They also say there is no outstanding balance which is not true I have debt collectors for 3 loans.
I am disappointed that despite the very detailed response it is clear that they have not properly looked into my account. I would of settled for easy option – write off outstanding and remove negatives from file – but they as this is their final response I will have to escalate and wait potentially another year.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you reply saying it is not correct that you have no balances – list what they are – and say you will be happy to settle if they write them off otherwise your case goes to the Finacial Ombudsman.
Ed says
Done exactly that thank you for your advice
I hope they can see sense in responding I just want the bad marks gone
Is it right that the company would be charged a fee for any complaints being escalated to ombudsman regardless of outcome or am I making that up?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is right but pointing that out will not make Sunny more likely to settle your case.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I hope you have also complained to the other lenders? Doing them one by one will be painfully slow!
Ed says
Not yet but this wait has give me the incentive to just get the rest done this evening.
Started with sunny as I had 30 odd with them
Hoping for result with lending stream as they were almost as bad and they took out a CCJ (now paid but not within the time limit to clear off record). Wish I knew or this site back then.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
For Lending Stream you should include in your complaint that you want the CCJ set aside – that is the legal term for cancelled.
Dan says
Hello. Has anyone heard had any recent correspondence from the FOS regarding ombudsmen decisions?
After Elevate (Sunny) disagreed with my adjudicator back in November 2019, my case was referred to an ombudsmen for a final decision. I’ve heard nothing since. The current pandemic will add some time delay Im sure, but I was curious to see if anyone was else was in a similar situation before I contemplate emailing them.
It’s been over a year since the initial complaint was made, this is the last case I have to resolve!
Steve prince says
Hi,
I wonder if you could possibly advise me at all please? I wrote to sunny to bring about an affordability complaint regarding a total of 52 loans from Aug 2019 to Aug 2020 on 3rd March 2020.as of today’s date(26th April 2020)i have not received any form of reply or response from them and it will be 8weeks on the 28th April since i wrote.i sent the letter of complaint via recorded delivery and i can see that it was signed for by someone within their company two days after i sent it.
Of course i do completely realise the situation of the country at the moment with covid 19 but do you think i should give them longer than the required 8weeks to respond to myself under the circumstances or do you think i should immediately write to them again asking for a response as i have not received one as yet or do you think i should be referring my case to the financial ombudsman due to no response.
Any advice anyone could please offer would be appreciated and welcome.
Hope you are all well and healthy.
Many thanks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think you should send your complaint to the Ombudsman at eight weeks. Sunny rarely make good offers so why give them longer as you case will very likely have to go the Ombudsman anyway.
Good luck, that is a lot of borrowing!
Stephen Prince says
Hello,
Thank you for your very prompt response and advice.
Could i please ask for a little help in how a go about referring my complaint to the ombudsman please as i haven’t done anything like this previously and i am a little unsure as to how i should do it and what i need to put in writing to them(and supply them with)should i include a copy of my original letter of complaint and loan reference numbers within my referral to the ombudsman?
Thank you again for your help and wishing you all the best.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
See the “How to send a complaint to FOS” section in the article above these comments. You dont have to give all your loan details.
alan p says
hi i have a similar complaint with sunny in which they haven’t responded to the adjudicator at the fos . My case handler had told them loans 4 to 25 should not have been given , now this is being passed to a ombudsman , how long will this take and are they likely to come to the same decision ? Any reply would be great as I’m new to all of this .
Stephen Prince says
Hi again,I’ve just done a total of all 52 payday loans i had from sunny over the 3 year period quoted and they total £7700!!!
After the 28th April i do intend to follow your advice and reffer my case to FOS on account of having no response at all from sunny but i just have one quick question please:should i at the same time write another letter to sunny notifiying them that due to their lack of response i have now contacted the FOS regarding my complaint? Would you recommend this at all or not?
Thank you again for your help
Sara (Debt Camel) says
you don’t have to tell them, but why not?
Stephen Prince says
Thank you again for your prompt response it is very much appreciated.
I must be honest,your opinion mirrors my own thoughts,i kind of feel like telling them that i am referring it as a kind of one-upmanship in respect of them ignoring my initial complaint and also it may bring there attention to it a little more urgently,maybe i don’t know? Thank you again for your help and i will advise at a later date how it is going
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I very much doubt they will pay any attention to it.
Stephen Prince says
Hi again sara
I have logged in and got a karma credit report online and the loans are clearly visible on there but do you have any idea as to how i can get the off there to send them to the FOS as I’m struggling to find how to download it as a file due to its sensitive nature
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Try getting the Transunion statutory credit report, same data, less pretty, easier to download: https://www.transunionstatreport.co.uk/
Stephen Prince says
Thanks again for the advice
How do i get the FOS to be able to get access to this information now that i have it please? I’m sorry if im not great with technology and don’t really understand it nor do i have access to a printer to print anything off(even if i knew how to)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You should be able to download it as a pdf file which you can then email to FOS.
Dave L says
Anyone had any dealings with Onstride although I only had one loan with them for 800 I have paid £1244 so far and it is included my DMP with nearly £300 outstanding. I am aware that they are in administration but am getting no response with regards to my unaffordable lending complaint.
It concerns me that if they do find in my favour I will end up with a percentage of what I am owed so am wondering if I am better off stopping my payments to them until they let me know their decision. And can I appeal to the administrators if they don’t find in my favour.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It concerns me that if they do find in my favour I will end up with a percentage of what I am owed so am wondering if I am better off stopping my payments to them until they let me know their decision.
that is exactly right.
The problem is that isn’t clear if you will win your case. It is only one loan but it is largish.
can I appeal to the administrators if they don’t find in my favour.
There will be an appeal mechanism. But if your loan falls outside their criteria for deciding a loan is unaffordable then you are unlikely to win.
Dave L says
Thanks Sara I guess I’ll just have to keep chasing them for a response got a couple of weeks til my next dmp payment is paid to them anyway
JA says
Hello all,
Has any one had a case been assigned to an ombudsman recently? Been waiting since September for two to be picked up after the companies disagreed with adjudicator.