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?
James says
Hi,
Anybody had any experience of 24/7 lying about loan amounts ?
My bank statements show they paid in £550 of loans and that I paid them £1100 back.
They have said I borrowed £752 and paid back £824 and have offered to refund me my interest which they say is £77 .
Mark says
No experience of lying, they would have to communicate with me in order to lie!
Had the adjudicator decision too and they have just completely ignored it
James says
Il give them a tiny bit of credit for communicating with me all be it rather slowly.
I’ve asked them to provide me with my account summary again so they can show me how they have come up with this figure of £77. They’ve only got a few days before the 8 weeks is up
Nigel says
Awful company, one of the worst. They do not really communicate at all. After initial offer of a “Gesture” payment. When I had told them I had gone to the FOS they immediately upped that offer to £495. Sorry but needs at least another 0 on the end! I am awaiting Adjudicator decision without 24/7 input as they have not even replied to him! But I fully expect they will do to delay even longer. If I was you I would go straight to the FOS now.
james says
Just wanting some advice please, need to know whether or not its Worth claiming unaffordability against The Money Shop. Got myself into such a mess aprox 3 years ago and went into TMS for cheque cashing each month it got to the stage that I was renewing the cheques each month (700.0) by paying the interest and then when the cheques had to be cashed I went in as soon as they cleared I cashed them again. Towards the end when I could no longer keep doing this (plus I had various other payday loans) I defaulted on the cheques, but I received a letter from them saying I could still go in and use their services. Would this show I was dependent on them as I only defaulted on paying them back at the end just before I ended up in a dmp.
Thank you
Mark says
Definitely complain affordability against them just don’t expect the process to be quick its 8 months and they have had the final ruling and have 3 weeks left to pay TMS were in my case non communicative.
aga says
Hi James ,yes , go ahead with the complaint ,i was extending cheques for 5 years didn’t even know how many times but adjudicator had that info And i was told i extended 120 times,omg.
I complained in February it went through the whole process , Ombudsman ruled in m favour And they have now 4 weeks to pay off ,still waiting
sarah says
Just started the process and got a reply with an offer back from mr lender after 2 days.
I took one loan out with them for £300 and rolled over twice before starting a debt management plan to pay back twelve payday lenders. This was the lowest one and i have paid back £622.47 so far leaving a balance of £6.25 remaining.
They have offered to clear the small outstanding balance and pay me £105 as a gesture of goodwill.
Should i accept and concentrate on the bigger lenders i had or send to fos???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The maximum you would be likely to get back is £322 (i.e. What you have paid less the amount you borrowed. £105 isn’t a dreadful offer, it’s hard to say how much more the Ombudsman might award.
wendy says
Hi, had my lending stream reffered to ombusman this morning,they offered me £400 first then went up to £1300 but i didn’t accept as i have worked it out roughly to about £5000,
now i just had an email from my other adjudicatior about my QQ they offered me £450 good will,then offered me £1150 now they have offered me £2800 don’t know if to accept it,think also it should be about £5000 but £2800 before xmas would be nice.
thanks for advise
Liam says
Hi All,
I have complaints with qq and P2p both with the FOS. I have agreed to settle the p2p one at the adjudicator stage and the qq complaint is going to an FO for a final decision. I have an outstanding balance with qq which is being paid back through my DMP, I understand compensation from this complaint will first be used to clear this balance. My question is, can CashEuroNet use the P2P compensation to clear the qq balance?
The final offer I had from qq was 4x the outstanding balance so it will be cleared following the final decision.
Ross says
Just an update on a relatively small complaint here but, as they say, every little helps. I took out a few small loans with Pixie Loans. They’ve come back to me, this morning, saying they do not uphold my complaint and that I had only paid £58 in interest, which they didn’t deem as unaffordable. However, they’ve offered me a goodwill gesture of £50, which I have decided to accept. It’s short by £8, of the interest paid, and then maybe a couple of quid of the 8% compound interest, but I feel it’s a fair offer and I didn’t really have high hopes on this one, because the loans were relatively small (although, in the bigger scheme of things, they were taken out at the same time as other loans). All I would say is that it’s worth complaining even to those who you didn’t pay a lot of interest with as £50 is £50 and, as the saying goes, every little helps!
Joanne says
Hi,
Mr Lender have until 10th November to respond to my adjudicator’s decision. I know that it’s the 8th today, but I am wondering if they will respond within time. Although, I took out four consecutive loans with them, it is the last one that the FOS are challenging. Does anyone know if they are complian with the FOS or do you think it may have to go to an Ombudsman.
Ross says
Hi Joanne,
I’m quite surprised as, from my own experience and those of others on here. Mr Lender are generally the better of the bunch. They resolved my complaint within 48 hours, knocking down a £1700 debt to £400, which I eventually settled in one payment, rather than the 2 agreed, for £326. It may be that they’re just going through the motions or something else is holding it up but, as I say, they have been the best I have dealt with, so far. I hope it gets sorted for you soon :)
Liam says
Hi,
With my Mr Lender complaint they responded to the adjudicator on day 15 and accepted his findings. I was paid out within a week.
Joanne says
Hi,
Has anyone had any dealings with Trusted Quid? I’ve complained to them and they have said that they will contact me within the 8 week bracket, however, in the meantime, their operations manager contacted me to discuss if I would prefer for them to write off the outstanding debt. I said no, but he is still pressing for this. I am now waiting for their final response…
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They are have been mentioned, not often. Some rejections, a write offs, a refunds, some with the FOS at the moment – a mixed bag.
If the outstanding debt is large and you hadn’t repaid many loans before it, a write off can be a reasonable offer. But if you had borrowed a lot before then it often isn’t.
Lin says
I was hoping someone can answer this for me it’s very embarressing. I am a working mother with a successful career, around 5 years ago when I was on maternity leave I started gambling online, never thought in a million years it would happen but I got completely addicted destroying my family and my life. I have now got help and am gradually getting my life back on track. I have taken out payday loans with around 12 to 15 lenders sometimes taking a thousand pounds out over a weekend, sunny actually gave me 3 loans over 2 days worth 800 despite me owing all of the others and defaulting, now my mind is back in reality I wonder how I was able to take out all of these loans at same time I owe thousands! Do you think it’s worth complaining or will they say it’s my own fault because of my addiction, I could access so much money from them I was getting 500 weekly and always got accepted I know people will judge and I am ashamed.
Jamie says
COMPLAIN ! The fact is they should of spotted you was borrowing so much ! Gambling is not an exscuse for them , I TO was borrowing to gamble ! But have revived full refunds from 8 loan companies ! Don’t be afraid even though it is on your bank statements ! It’s based on affordability not what you did with the money ! Chin up , your not alone , and get them complaints sent in ! …..
And don’t be ashamed !! Be PROUD you had a problem/ addiction and got help for it x
Ross says
Hi Lin, firstly, please don’t be ashamed. We all turned to payday loans for our own reasons, and gambling is not a reason to be ashamed to admit you took them or why you took them. The people that should be ashamed are companies such as the payday lenders who turned a blind eye to make a fast buck! I too did the same as you and took out 4 figure sums from the same lenders and reapplied as soon as I had paid back and they granted the loans. Also, these loans were taken in the early hours of the morning, when I was not in a fit state to make such a decision. Could you imagine walking in to a bank, under the influence of alcohol, asking for a loan and expect them to take you seriously. This is the fundamental flaw with online lending and I still believe there should be stronger scrutiny of lending and/or a cooling off period, depending on what time of day/night it is when somebody applies. Surely if somebody applied for £800 late at night, they should be able to wait until the following day? Just my opinion though. Get those complaints in, you have a very strong case. I’m glad you’re better now though :)
Steph says
Please don’t beat yourself up over this. I know exactly how you feel, with a gambling addiction you become desperate, chasing losses desperate to claw back anything. I have known times when my salary of almost 2k was gambled away online in less than an hour. I too turned to payday loans to try and pay the bills id just gambled money away for. Id never been into a bookies in my life or gambled but when its online its secretive and very very easy to get sucked into. You’ve sought help and theres no point looking back – just forward. Id go for every penny possible that you possibly can get back and maybe pay off some of your debts, which if you’re anything like me, you will still be carrying the burden.
Best of luck, this is a great site to guide you through the process.
Zara says
Hi Lin,
I was in similar position as you. These loan companies should conduct proper checks before easily allowing anyone to borrow. I was in a vulnerable position too. I have complained to Sunny. They refunded me with £3600.00. My Jar £1400.00 refunded.
Mr Lender is with the adjudicator as she upheld my complaint partially, 3 out of 5 loans, however I disagreed with her decision and it is now with the ombudsman. My bank statements were covered with online gambling transactions.
At some point in life we all go through our own hardships and you should not beat yourself for it. I felt like you before putting the complaints in and I guess I could only share what I have done, at least you know you not the only one.
You will be fine. You can complain.
Lin says
Thanks for replying it’s good to know I’m not alone! Can you tell me what sort of thing you put in your letter I don’t know where to start and want to get it right! Thanks again xxx
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Lin – good advice from everyone so far! You don’t need to discuss gambling with a payday lender, but for the complaints that go to the Ombudsman the FO is not judgmental about gambling, it simply accepted as a fact.
The place to start is the template letters in the article above. Just change those so they reflect your situation. You can mention you had lots of payday loans with other lenders, but the important part of your complaint is that the this lender should have realised your loans were unaffordable because you were borrowing over a long period / the loan amounts were increasing / they could have seen from your credit record that you were in major financial difficulty.
With 12-15 lenders, you may want to think about starting with a few of the biggest ones first so the whole thing doesn’t seem so daunting?
Lin says
Hi
Thanks again for responding I am so overwelmed by the lovely people here I was really nervous writing about the gambling thinking everyone would think its my own fault. I have just sent my first complain to sunny as thats the only company I have all the info I need at moment. I had 34 loans from them over 11 months totalling £5600 averaging 3-4 loans per month- I have £800 outstanding which I am paying through step change – I have used the templates and added some of my own bits, have I done the right thing going to them directly – I keep seeing the comment my adjudicator and Im wondering what that means – should I have gone through someone else? Also how long did sunny take to respond and come to the decision for you? I would rather get this resolved with them as soon as possible but thats a longshot I suppose, and with the number of loans and amounts do you think I have a case? I am clueless on all this and want to check Im doing this right? Any advise would be gratefully received :)
D says
Hi Lin, prettt much every penny I borrowed was for gambling and my bank statement was filled with on line gambling transactions. My adjucicateor said they should have asked for my statements and seen this and also seen on my credit file how much I was borrowing from others. So far I have had back,
Peachy 4 out or 5 loans £1200
Pounds to pocket 4 out of 5 loans 1550
Lending stream 13 out of 15 loans 4550
Quick quid 5 out of 6 loans £3300
Payday uk 8 out of 10 loans (about £3000 money will be paid in next week or two)
Express 10 out of 10 loans (about £2000 money will be pain in a week or two)
Some of them made small offers directly but I took all of them to the ombudsman. The adjudicator made all the above recommendations which most of the company’s disagreed with (some offered part of the recommendation) all ended up going to an ombudsman and they 100% agreed with the adjudicator.
My advice is do not settle for low offers made to you by these company’s. It will take time but take them all the way if needed.
sarah says
Ok so mr lender have also agreed to remove loans from credit file and since my inital email on the 5th November the refund is already in my account!
Only £105 but i did only have one loan which was rolled over twice so even small loans count.
Awaiting replys from eleven others.
Ally says
Advice please
Put 15 Statement requests in 10 days ago had a response off Mr Lender saying they didn’t agree within 4 days sent them statements showing Payday loans to 7 others have come back saying they agree to 2, 3, 4, 7,and 8 and have offered £761. I had worked it out at about £1500 with the interest. No-where on the letter does it say final decision.
Should I email back asking if final offer?
Also I still owe on Lending Stream and Wonga and am struggling to keep up with a payment arrangement I have set up with them were do I stand if I stop paying them pending the outcome of the complaint.
thanks in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you want to take the Mr Lender case to the FOS you need them to confirm this is their final decision. You could say you will accept if they include loans 5 & 6 as well? Was there any particular reason they left 5 &6 out, were they a lot smaller than the other loans or something?
re LS and Wonga, you could ask for your payments to be reduced, perhaps to a token £1 a month – supplying an income and expenditure statement will help with this, or if you are on benefits send them a copy of a recent benefits letter?
kenny says
ally
i was the same, i sent a counter offer in and they accepted. they were very quick from start to finnish and i had the money in 2 days.
i have to say the Mr Lender was fair and easy to deal with.
Ross says
I’ve had an offer from Payday Express to settle my complaint for just under £400, as they say they have upheld my complaint, but are only refunding 2 loans which were rolled over 3 times. They state in the letter that I had rolled over 15 loans in total, but disregard the first 2 ‘as per FCA guidelines’. My question is, is it worth letting the FOS take a look at this? Also, if I do send it to FOS and the FOS agree with PDEX’s stance, would the original offer still stand? I believe that the interest from all of the other loans would dwarf the £400 already offered.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sounds worth going to the FO. Payday Express has it seems set its own criteria that it shouldn’t roll a loan more than twice – which is true, but that isn’t what you were complaining about. They also shouldn’t have continued to lend to you for such a long period as they should have realised the loans were unaffordable.
I don’t remember a case where the Ombudsman has told a business it doesn’t have to refund where it has already admitted it made a mistake.
Ross says
Thanks Sara,
As much as the £400 was tempting, especially in the run up to Christmas, I have decided to send it to the FOS. At the very worse, I will just end up with them saying I should accept the £400 offered. At the other end of the spectrum, the amount could be much larger. I think some of these companies like to make these small offers in the hope that ‘dangling a carrot’ will make people cave in and leave it at that. It’s £400 I don’t have today, so I’m not missing it and it’ll be interesting to see what an adjudicator and/or the FOS makes of it. Will keep you updated.
Ally says
Hi Sara
I took your advise from here and walked into my local The Money Shop and asked for a statement at first he ladies said you don’t have an outstanding balance so that drops off the system. She then asked when I wanted them back to and I said oh I think its 2011, she explained that was easy as thats on the old system, the new system fitted end 2014 wipes everything clear once paid.
5 minutes later 12 pages and 123 cheque extensions later have my statement start April 2008 to June 2013 £1849 interest the least one rolled was 3 months the max 8 months in 2 consecutive groups.
When you go in ask for a Customer Transaction History report (all records)
Between Payday UK Payday express and The Money shop they were lending me more than my wage every month and they said they credit checked me?
I spoke to Mr Lender said not paying me the statutory interest so off to the FO we go.
Ross says
Update
Finally got a response from ombudsman today regarding my wonga case he agreed with adjudicator and has told wonga to pay from 2nd loan onwards! Made up just waiting on wonga now hopefully not to long but i guess a few more weeks isnt so bad after waiting 6 months
Adjudicator also went in my favour with quickquid case and they had today to respond to him but havent so not sure what happens next
All in all very happy and could be just in time for christmas! :-)
Mike says
Hi all , I accepted an offer at adjudicator stage from lending stream (2 loans for £509 +interest) and they have all my details, anybody else had this happen? And if so how long did it take you to get paid?
Great site!
K says
Hi, does anyone have any experience of how long Wonga take to pay out after accepting Adjudicators decision? I know they allow 28 days….
Mark says
Hi K it was 10 days for me with Wonga
Funnily enough I accepted a PDEX offer today through the adjudicator, just under £2k
Anyone have experience of how long they take from this ?!
Money shop are on day 11 of their 28 to settle too, but that one went all the way to ombudsman who ruled all interest and charges +8% from May 2010 ! Should be roughly £4k
Sara I am making a donation once either of these has been received and thanks again
craig says
Hi Mark,
how long did it take for PDEX to make an offer through the adjudicator?
my adjudicator gave them till 1st Nov but has extended it till the 14th and if haven’t heard it will go ombudsman
Cheers, Craig
Mark says
Hi Craig,
It took quite a lot of chasing to be honest with you.
The adjudicator issued decision on 30th September, this was not replied to so another letter was sent to say it was going to final decision.
I phoned PDEX on 0800 280 2548 to discuss this, that phonecall made them realise it had taken a long time. The chap actually said to me that it was way past their internal deadline in terms of response. the following day I received an offer from them.
I always avoided phoning the payday company as I thought it couldn’t move it a long, not saying it will always work but in this case it certainly did.
K says
Thank you for this. I accepted PDEX before adjudicator and it only took them 3 days to pay once acceptance letter signed!
Mark says
Has anyone had the moneyshop pay out earlier or at all once told to by the ombudsman or is it always the full 28 days… Really need to hear some recent positive payouts from instant cash loans this final stage of waiting is really the worst it feels like I’ve won but won nothing that they are still in control….
I decided to give them a poor review on trust pilot was really the least I could do.
linsa says
I am in the process of complaining about irresponsible lending to my son over a period of approx. 1 &1/2 years . About 17 in total . I have been making the payments of what I could afford for 3 years . FOS have advised I need to wait for 6 to 8 weeks but one of the companies have started another barrage of letters and sent loan to a recovery company just as the complaint was made .This is all very distressing.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You aren’t under any obligation to pay your son’s debts. If the payments you are making aren’t affordable, I suggest you stop! You (or your son) can reply to the lenders and any debt collectors that you have complained about the loans being unaffordable so you dispute the balance owed and you would like them to hold any aenfocement action until the complaint is resolved.
DaveD says
sorry if ive put this in the wrong place, e mailed one of my many payday loan creditors. i know its my fault but i got these debts when i was manic in a bi polar episode. anyway, i asked for my details and they have e mailed me sayonh its been sold on
what do i do?do i put my request directly to the paydayloan company even though they have told me otherwise
While your loan account xxxxxxxxis being dealt by a 3rd party Debt Collections Agency named Credit Resource Solutions, Lending Stream has transferred its title and interest in the outstanding loans you had with us (reference numbers xxxxx and xxxxxx) to Motor Mile Finance limited on 25th November 2014. You must have been contacted by them regarding the same account and would have also received a formal notification of this transfer from them through post or email.
please help as its making me feel very anxious
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Dave, sorry you are feeling anxious, you have put your comment in absolutely the right place.
Lending Stream needs to consider your affordability complaint. The reason they have been able to tell you to go away is because you have asked for your loan details not put in an affordability complaint. What you have to do here is to reply to LS with your version of the complaint letter in Step 2 in the article above. If you don’t know the details of your loans, just say what you do know, for exampled “I borrowed several times from you in 2013.” Also add at the bottom of the complaint letter that you want them to send you a full list of your loans.
Come back here if they reject this again or don’t reply in 8 weeks or make an offer you think is too low,
Have you ever had a letter from Motor Mile Finance? They are particularly poor at admin so you may not have. In fact they are so bad that the regulator is making them write off some people’s loans! If you haven’t heard from them, I suggest you ignore them for a while – this isn’t usually a good idea, but as you are disputing the debt with Lending Stream it should be OK for a few weeks. If you have heard from MMF, you need to tell MMF that you are disputing the debt with lending Stream and ask them to hold any enforcement until this is resolved.
If you are finding this stressful, could you try thinking of it as just tedious admin and take it one email at a time?
Here is one woman’s story of how the Financial Ombudsman helped her get the interest removed from a debt which she incurred in a bi-polar episode: https://debtcamel.co.uk/bi-polar-debt/. Every case is different but I hope this will encourage you that there is help out there.
Angie4 says
I’m so pleased to find this site!
My story is similar to many. I had consecutive Wonga loans from August 2011 to December 2013 when the account began to be managed via Stepchange. The outstanding balance written off by Wonga in November 2014.
I requested my old bank statements for this period (which was free) and worked out how much I’d borrowed and repaid until the loan was managed via Stepchange whilst awaiting the actual figures from Wonga.
7 weeks later I got an offer from Wonga which was higher than I expected! I still hadn’t received the loan statements from Wonga at this stage but I was very happy to accept the offer.
Within a day of accepting the offer I received statements from Wonga of all the loans, charges and interest.
What I hadn’t appreciated was that after the account began to be managed by Stepchange, Wonga had added neatly £700 in charges and unrest.
I’ve accepted the offer and hopefully the payment will be received within the next few days.
Thank you to the people responsible for this site and all those that have commented on these pages.
Andrew p says
Thank you so much for all the advice on this website. I used the template to email wonga 6 weeks ago and got an offer yesterday of £3450, which I am ecstatic with. It is a little less than I might get if going to ombudsman (possibly £4500), but as I never thought I’d ever be able to make a claim, I’d say im happy to put a line under that unhappy part of my life.
Thanks again!
kenny says
sally
i was the same, i had cash going out all over the place, friends and family. atm transactions the lot
they just need to get an understanding of your spending. remember the more they know, the easier they can come to a decision. don’t worry if they ask you questions, imo it means they are doing a thorough investigation.
MR says
I complained to Quick Quid about unaffordable payday loans they had given to me and unauthorised payments taken by them from my bank account. They offered £380 in settlement which I rejected and complained to the Financial Ombudsman Service. They were extremely helpful and efficient. Even before the adjudicator appointed to the case had made any decision on it, Quick Quid increased their offer to £2,900, plus £300 compensation for the way they had handled my complaint. Great result and well worth pursuing.
Sarah says
Well done – QQ didn’t offer me any payment when i initially complained, they only offered 2 out of the 12 loans and now the adjudicator has told them they must refund all 12. I’m still waiting for their final offer before it’s off to the ombudsman. Quite along journey now as it’s been with FOS since June!
Jamie says
Hi im new to this forum but im hopeful ill get the help i need. Ive set the ball rolling about getting my refund from 2 companies (PaydayUK & Wonga) i have sent them emails complaining as i dont have a list of loans i took with them, but there was lots from 2011-2015. Just wondering what to expect back from them when they reply and how long it takes overall to get a decision? Thanks in advance
Angie says
Hi Jamie
I emailed Wonga on 16th Sept, received an offer on 31st Oct which I accepted (followed by the loan statements on 5th Nov!)
Just waiting for the money to be paid into my account within the next few days ?
Ross says
Just an update where I am with my complaints;
Pixie Loans; Only paid £58 interest on relatively small loans. Rejected complaint but offered £50 goodwill gesture. Taken & closed.
MoneyBox 247; Offered £75 goodwill gesture after rejecting complaint. Rejected offer and was offered £450, after stating would go to FOS. Taken & closed as not far off interest paid.
Payday Express; Offered £400 to settle complaint on just 2 loans which were rolled over more than twice, even though they clearly stated in their letter I had rolled over 15 other loans. Offer rejected and sent to FOS.
Payday UK; Complete rejection of complaint and no offer made. Complaint sent to FOS.
Satsuma Loans; Complete rejection of complaint and no offer made. Complaint sent to FOS.
Lending Stream: Complete rejection of complaint and no offer made. Complaint sent to FOS.
MoneyBoat, WageDay Advance & Safety Net Credit all still being investigated. Update from MoneyBoat & WDA to advise they’re still investigating. Safety Net Credit being very quiet and not even chasing payment. Hmmmm
Wonga; Update today to say that they’re still considering my complaint and hope to have a resolution in the next 4 weeks. On the one hand, I’m encouraged that it’s taking longer, as they may be gathering all of the information to make an offer and haven’t made a simple and fast rejection. On the other hand, they may be preparing their defences to make a rejection. Let’s wait and see.
I was rather daunted when I first started this process but, with the kind help & encouragement of my friends on this site (especially Sara), I feel energised to deal with companies who have taken more than their fare share of people’s pennies. Time to reclaim what’s ours.
Keep fighting people :)
Emma says
I was wondering if anybody has had the same situation with Wonga that I am in. I have taken out 51 loans in just over 3 years. Had top ups on 29 of them and sometimes up to 5 top ups. In total my basic loans were just over £8,000 but my top ups came to £13,000! I have paid £3,500 in interest.
They have come back to me and said they don’t uphold my complaint. I thought I had a very good case! I have referred it to the FOS but worried now they will agree with Wonga as wouldn’t Wonga over at least something if they were in the wrong?
Any advice would be appreciated.
EDIT – Emma was later offered £3200 by Wonga in January. As her total interest was about £3800 she thought that was fair and accepted.
MR says
Emma – don’t worry! Many payday lenders (including Wonga) will reject your complaint outright – hoping you will just give up, irrespective of whether or not you have valid grounds to complain. Well done for referring your complaint to the FOS. They will look impartially at your complaint and if they agree that Wonga was at fault, they will uphold your complaint (whether in full or in part). Many lenders (especially in the past), failed to carry out the proper affordability checks or follow the correct procedures. There is every chance that you will have success with your complaint.
Daniel says
Hi guys!
I’m currently in process of fact finding, going through my bank statements and I’ve got probably daft question, but I just want to be certain.
Is bank planned over draft considered as a loan or is taken into account when making claim against payday loan companies?
I’m asking only because often when I applied for a payday loans it was obvious it will put me on my overdraft or I was already on it and this was ongoing for several months.
Thanks,
Daniel
Sara (Debt Camel) says
An overdraft isn’t a “loan” because there are no fixed repayments. But if the only way you could repay a payday loan was to use more of an overdraft, then this is taking out mor credit and shows the payday loan was unaffordable.
Kg says
Thanks for this….i completely forgot i was in my overdraft for 98% of my time from before my first payday loan and onwards onwards. Was up to and over my limit on numerous times.
Suzy says
Sara ( debit camel ) victory just had email from ombudsman signed to agree with findings They are refunding all but first 2 loans
The complaint was started in May. It too about 4 weeks with the Ombudsman level. x
Ruth says
Hi all,
So I have some updates!!
First being from one month loan, I only took one loan with them for £700 and although they don’t feel they did anything wrong and not upheld my complaint, what they have done however is say I was on the wrong “product” so, as a gesture of good will will refund the additional amount I’ve paid. Refund of £1235. Result, but has anyone had an offer from them and know how long they take to pay out?
Payday uk and payday express- no correspondence received with 8 weeks, next day straight on the phone to FOS
QQ- did acknowledge and sent me a questionnaire to complete 8 weeks up, no response – now with FOS
LS- rejected complaint but did offer to write off balance- I rejected now with FOS
WDAdv- claim rejected- now with FOS
TF- FOS sent complaint to liquidators
Provident credit- complaint rejected- now with FOS
Stick with it people, I’m sure a lot of these payday loan companies hope that if they reject your complaint that you will just go away!!
L Gorman says
Cash converters update
I have had an acceptance from Cash Converters after the Adjudicator ruled in my favour.
Loan 3 to 11 in my case. Interest plus 8 pct pa.
Took a while – Complaint raised to Cash Converters in May 2016. Declined after 7 weeks.
Fos – August 2016
Decision – November 4th 2016.
—–
Also Morses – formerly shop a check.
complaint sent september 2016. Handled by them and interest written off. Did not uphold complaint but wrote off interest and wiped remaining nominal debt. I had paid back 90% of capital.
Jade says
I currently have a complaint with the Ombudsman regarding a number of Wonga loans. I’m probably about 25 weeks into the process so far, and I was waiting for the final decision from the Ombudsman. I’ve received an email today stating that the ombudsman are looking at payday lending cases where a redress scheme is involved, and theres not a timescale for a resolution, so my case is on hold pending their discussions and a resolution. Has anyone else had this? Any ideas how the outcome may be affected? I had one loan partially wrote off and have been offered a refund of interest on another loan. Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Jade,
a few people have mentioned being in this situation. It is happening to some people (but I’m not clear which) where they have had some previous redress / write off from the payday lender and they are making an affordability claim that includes the loans where there was redress.
There is nothing you can do except wait for this to be resolved – it is the Ombudsman trying to work out how to decide these cases fairly as far as I can see, nothing wrong with your particular case.
Dani says
Hi everyone,
Just to give everyone an update. Wonga have paid us £7800 between myself and my husband without going to FOS. Sunny cleared balance of £155 but I only paid £131 so very happy with that.
QQ- went to adjudicator- they have until 21st November to respond. They have advised that QQ pay interest and charges from loans 7-12, remove them from my credit file and also add 8% interest so we shall see what they say. Any advice on 8 % interest would be great, how do they work it out?
The most satisfying thing is paying off the debts, I have phoned all my creditors and phoned payplan tonight and got rid of 18 creditors :S
Debt total in 2013 approx 55,000 and now 5800. To anybody who is thinking about making a complaint, go for it and don’t feel guilty about it. We have realised throughout this process that yes we got ourselves into the situation but equally they did not help at all and they have not been a responsible lender. If they didn’t do anything wrong why would they pay the money back!!
Anyway thanks to everyone on here!
Twilight says
In 2008 I took out countless pay day loans with lending stream, quick quid, myjar, pounds to payday and wage day advance.
I have suddenly had them all come out of the wood work.
Some are statue barred (I’m hoping), and have used the templates to say so.
Lending stream have replied today and said I have three accounts and that they have done everything correctly.
I have only only been reminded of these (although I admit I have buried my head in the sand), when I had a court claim arrive for mmf – for a lending stream account. I have applied to extend the date for defence but not sure what to put in my defence. There are three other accounts outstanding and I’m guessing once they’ve claimed one they will apply for the others.
Any advice will be gratefully received.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
as it was long, I have turned my reply here into a new article: https://debtcamel.co.uk/court-payday-loan-debt/
Mike says
Hi,
I took out a complaint with QuikQuid in the middle of Oct and they’ve got back to me with the following:
——————————
[edited out full name and standard stuff]
Looking at your record, I see that your credit model score was never under the minimum approval threshold for any of the loans for which you were approved. For instance, on13/01/2012 you had a credit model score of 0.4081 when the minimum approval score was -0.15. Your credit model score is substantially higher the minimum approval score which shows that our affordability assessments properly ran per our internal policy.
[standard stuff]
The investigation of your complaint also considered all relevant information contained in your application. It was noted your monthly income was stated as £1299 per month. I compared your income to the average monthly repayment for each loan you took with us. From this I can see that the income you made during each loan with us was always more than enough to cover the amount you had to repay us for each loan and thus I cannot agree with you that your loans were unaffordable.
DEPENDENCY
You are claiming that you were dependent on loans. Yet if you were dependent on taking out one loan to repay the other then you would have taken out numerous loans, for equal or increasing loan amounts, and with very little time between paying off one loan and taking out the other. When I reviewed your loan history I see that excluding loans which you repaid early, you never had more than four consecutive loans (< 15 days between loans) where the loan amount increased over the prior loan amount.
In addition, the principal amounts borrowed fluctuated throughout your lending history. If there was dependency we would expect to see constantly increasing amounts in order to cover the prior loan interest and principal. There were several instances where the loan amount you applied for actually decreased from the previous loan which shows that you were not relying on one loan to repay the previous loan.
CONCLUSION & OFFER
In full and final settlement of your complaint, we offer to:
• Provide you compensation in the amount of £ 200
————————————————————————————
As you can see, I have a concrete offer of £200 or can refer it to the Ombudsman for further examination.
Should I:
a. Take the offer and forget they ever exist
b. Refer the case to the Ombudsman, but if i do this will my £200 still stand if the Ombudsman see's no further action needed?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So QQ think that a loan is affordable if it is less than your income? That isn’t the approach the Ombudsman takes – the Ombudsman seems to think you might also have to spend money on thing like rent, council tax, utilities, transport to work, food, clothes and just general living!
Most of the rest of what they have written is not a useful summary either. They make it sound as though there is something wrong with repaying a loan early – there isn’t, it doesn’t mean you were suddenly magically well off, it often means that you were paid a day or so early because of when the weekend fell. And you can be dependent on loans even if the amount you borrowed sometimes fell, perhaps you got a bit of extra overtime, but not enough to be able to manage without borrowing again.
My guess is you borrowed every month – because otherwise they would have said that you didn’t. And that this went on for quite a while. Do you know how many loans you had? And if any of them were rolled? I get the impression that there may have been a lot?
I think this £200 is another of QQ’s poor offers. People often get 5 or sometimes even 10 times as much by going to the Ombudsman, so I suggest you should try that. I don’t think we have seen a case where a lender has offered compensation and the ombudsman has said No, don’t pay him anything!
Kg says
Hi mike,
I received the exact same response. But i had increasing value for the first few loans. They didnt offer any compensation and rejected my complaint outright..
Mike says
Hi KG,
Go to Ombudsman. You’ve nothing to lose and judging by the rest of the comments it seems likely that you’ll get something. I’ll be turning down their offer and going to Ombudsman. I dont even understand qq offer, it seems like its just a random amount.to hope I go away and so they can get off on the cheap. I want to get as much momey back off these horrible people as possible! They put me in an awful position a few years ago!
Kg says
I have taken it to them they are looking into it. Had about 5 loans in total with multiple deferrals. The first 3 increased from 400 to 700 principal amount but the last 2 were a lower value (around 400-500) only because i borrowed money from my parents to reduce the debt with the last loan ending up defaulting.
I have got an adjuticator so just got to wait until they come to their conclusion. Im hoping they conclude the same as what i think…that they were unaffordable. I had loans with wonga and payday uk at the same time along with payday express and lending stream.
Wonga actually offered me a refund for the last 2 loans out of 10 but i rejected and referred it to ombudsman
Sarah says
They rejected mine outright and didn’t offer me anything at all but now the adjudicator has found in my favour and suggested that they repay everything from 2008. It’s funny how they seem to just mess around for the 8 weeks but even at the FOS stage they like to take their time. If I remember back to the days of borrowing from them if I had of taken this long I think I would’ve been charged at least 10 times for delaying their payment!
Antony says
I got the same offer in the exact same format of your response. Go to the FO I got awarded. £1475 within 2 weeks.
Stephen says
I am in exact same position. They offered a few hundred pounds which i knew was in correct. So far ombudsmen agrees with me and they have increased it to 1000 however ombudsmen says to carry on complaint as they are well In the wrong. Refer it to them they are excellent.
Michellw says
Sent my complaint to speedy cash on 14 October, just replied offering 944.00 back. However, they did say my last loan was still open but as the loan was for 425, they were going to take interest off and I just need to pay the capital and as I already paid 412, I only need to pay 13. But I know I paid this loan off through a dca last year.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Do you know how much you paid the dca?
Michellw says
Not too sure and I cannot get bank statements to check, do you think if I ring them they will tell me. If I haven’t paid they’ve not contacted me for 2 years lol
Sadie says
My QQ complaint is awaiting investigation via adjudicator, however they have put in an offer for just under 2k via the FOS. My adjudicator has asked for a response before end of next week and said of course she may not choose to uphold anything. I’m questioning whether I should accept?? I calculate about £3300 before interest is owed…. has there been any instances where the PDL make an offer but then adjudicator then doesn’t uphold complaint?? Heeeelp!!!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t think anyone has reported having a serious offer (and just under 2k is serious – QQ wouldn’t have offered if if they don’t think you have a good case!) offer from a lender and then having the adjudicator decide they should get less.
What can happen is that the adjudicator may tell you it seems like a reasonable offer and you should accept it.
Daniel says
I’m glad I read this Meryl! I fired off a complaint to paydayUK on the 17/10 saying I was considering making a complaint and requesting a list of loans. They replied several days later fobbing me off saying they didnt have to/capital aid off blah blah, seeing as I only had a small handful of loans sporadically with them I’d decided to just leave it for now.
Just checked my credit report searches and sure enough on the 17/10 Instant cash laons limited did a search! I’m going to go for them now.
stephen says
accepted £6290 compensation from wonga and sent all bank details thursday just gone and have received email that it has been sent to approval department and they also have sent a request for all my loans to be removed from my credit file. what is there time frame for funds to be deposited in people’s experience thanks
K says
Refund paid from Wonga within 2 days after email received confirming!
Aga says
Hi all, I have e mailed my adjudicator today and the response is:
”
“The Money Shop are dealing with a backlog of case at the moment. It maybe some time before we hear back from them but I’ll update you once I’ve had.
Mark says
This is getting ridiculous with TMS they cannot have that much of a backlog as the ombudsman website has only 1 or 2 decisions a week against them even 1 or 2 decisions a day should not cause them that much of a problem also when another instant cash loans company made me an offer I had the funds in 48 hours?
Mark says
I phoned PDEX today who I made an agreement with Thursday last week, they have said payment will take at least 2 weeks due to a backlog
Mark says
I spoke to them and mailed them myself 10 days after my final decision email advised they were on track to deliver In 28 days and on the phone on Friday the lady stressed they had 28 days and seemed shocked when I offered to do the calculation for them
Nim says
Hi ALL,
I am very grateful to this site which I came across just out of the blues – saw an article about payday loan refund and how to claim – so clicked on and also did various searches last week on other payday loan refund.
Debt Camel sprung up and started going into depth with the information on the site and started reading the comments under various sections.
God I am so grateful to read about the dreadful stories of ordinary people being sucked into this catastrophic financial circumstances causing real life distress and just to be robbed by these payday lenders – I hope there are many out there who will get to know about this site and start reclaim what is their financial belonging and hard work to earn this.
So basically, I started to use the template on 2 of the lenders and set them off, Payday UK and Lending Stream ( have total 7 lenders).
This all started on the 11th Nov 2016.
Payday UK have written requesting £1 for statement of account – and standard fobbing off material in their email! – as per previous comments on the threads around Payday UK.
Lending Stream gave a break down of the loans ( but no break down of charges etc.)…..and again fobbed off with standard email.
I was on my next case when I thought I’d ring the FOS to get some information on Provident Credit ( anyone have a positive claim back yet???….as there has not been many cases here – but started my case with the FOS – (extremely helpful service and compassionate to my circumstances and listened ALL the way!).
After giving my information about provident Credit, I mentioned I had a few more Payday Loans and the Lady, FOS, was extremely helpful again and offered to deal with ALL the remaining lenders (bearing in mind I already submitted Payday UK and Lending Stream and email directly on the 11th Nov 2016.
Going forward, all information on payday loans was given directly to FOS on the 11th Nov 2016, including Payday UK and Lending Stream.
Update as of today:
1. Payday UK emailed me back today and requests £1 for my account of statement! – case is with FOS also
2. Lending Stream – emailed me back today with detailed info – basically rejected my claim – case is with FOS also
3. Provident Credit – via FOS – awaiting response
4. Payday Express – via FOS – awaiting response
5. Pounds to Pocket – via FOS – awaiting response
6. Wonga – via FOS – response received today (14th Nov 2016) with breakdown of 2 / 10 loans and offered £1500 – speedy response or what??
Was not happy, and emailed back to FOS and explained that there were 10 loans. FOS has emailed Wonga and requested rest of loan history.
Just a bit confused here with offer too:
Offer: £1,513.06
Interest and fees : £1,513.06
8% interest net: £385.02
Total settlement: £1,898.08
Then this follows…..
Tax
8% interest gross: £481.27
basic rate tax deduction: £96.25
Is this totally right that 8%pa added just comes off straight away as gross deduction? – anyone with a similar outcome with their offer??
So in principal, my true advice is : go straight to the point of contacting the FOS – give them ALL the information regarding your payday lenders, and let them start the fireworks!!! and hopefully you will all have a wonderful start to the new year!
Rather than emailing directly and waiting 8 weeks or so, then going to FOS, again waiting for 8 weeks etc, GET the ball rolling as soon as possible – and don’t be frightened to tell them your story and how you became trapped into getting more and more payday loans to pay previous loans etc. and causing financial distress – which they should compensate too.
Once again, I dedicate Sara for rolling out this site and answering many daunting questions, and I had the pleasure of reading these and please continue to share your stories to others as everyone’s case is different and will help others get on the band wagon to start reclaiming their hard earned cash!
Sara and others, any response on the above would be grateful especially about refund breakdown from Wonga.
Again, I am indebted, or shall I say on the way to be ‘undebted’ with the help of this site – thanks Sara!
Have a good evening all.
N
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Thanks for your kind words :)
I can explain the Wonga offer:
A) Interest and fees : £1,513.06 – This is the interest and fees they are refunding you
B) 8% interest net: £385.02 – This is the 8% interest LESS TAX that you will also be paid
c) Total settlement: £1,898.08 – so this is the total amount you will get (A)+(B)
The tax figures that follow are then explaining the tax in a not very helpful way:
D) 8% interest gross: £481.27 – this is the total of the 8% interest they have calculated they should pay
E) basic rate tax deduction: £96.25 – this is 20% basic rate tax deducted from (D). If you take this about away from (D) you get the figure in (B), the interest after tax is taken off.
But if Wonga are only offering a refund on 2 out of 10 loans, you may well be able to do better by saying you want the Ombudsman to look at this.
Suzy says
Sara ( debt camel ) got my final responce from ombudsman Friday signed to accept this is about cash euronet what happens now as they have not asked for my bank details thanks sue
Rachel says
Hi sue I confirmed bank details with fos and they passed them onto QQ paid out on day 7/8
Suzy says
Finally tonight I recieved around 15 emails from quick quid saying my refunds will be in my account within the hour and hey that’s exactly what happened £4400 went into my account it’s more than I expected they had also taken off £570 I still owed so I’m total was £4970 over the moon x
Claire says
Hi Sara,
Thanks so much for creating this incredible website!
I thought I would share my experience since when I started out in September:
Cash Genie – Complaint upheld within two weeks, paid out £300 + by cheque two weeks later
Payday UK – Written off loan and paid £170 on top – accepted
Wonga – Rejected complaint after 6 weeks sent to the FOS
Payday Express – Rejected complaint after 8 weeks sent to the FOS
Uncle Buck – have until 28th November to reply
Pixie – Have until 4th December to reply
Sunny – this is quite a big one for me, I have constantly had 3/4 loans out with them at a time, but since my complaint have taken out another £150 with them as I was desparate, they have until the 28th to reply – does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? does this null my complaint at all?
Also, does anyone have any experience with AvantCredit? They sent me an outright rejection as well.
Many thanks,
Claire :) x
kenny says
just had my adjudicator find in my favor for some, but not all wage day advance loans
loan nov 2012 – total interest £206.50
loan mar 13 – total interest £118
loan apr 13 total interest £162.25
loan may 13 total interest £206.50
loan aug 13 total interest £221.25
Any clever clogs out there able to give a rough idea what the 8% interest would be would be? i think in total its about £243, due to these being quite a long time ago
WDA were quite hard to deal with, but anyone new to this site please keep at it, you will get the pay off eventually – Sarah ( debt camel) – i want to make a donation from my refund, i’m sure you’ve mentioned before that citizens advice is one you recommend, is this right?
cheers
kenny
Tom C says
After initially complaint in January if this year I have finally had my PDUK complaint upheld by the Ombudsman.
I borrowed 26 times over 5 years and the ombudsman have found after the first 4 to be irresponsible and unaffordable lending.
I had three other complaints with the FOS but it was decided they were not unaffordable.
How long to PDUK take to pay out and will they inform me of the figure before paying out?
Thanks to this forum or I would never of complained!
Tom
Aga says
Hi Tom, you need to ask adjudicator to keep on reminding Pduk or you can e mail them , my pay out came a day before the last day they had ( I guess as FOS was telling me they had 28 days, the company informed they had 30 days , then 4 weeks from the day I accepted etc, there was a bit of confusion ) and I contacted them and my adjudicator did , they responded asking for my account details and the money came on the account , 5 days later I have received their e mail with the detailed calculations , according to my calculations it happened to be around 200 less but I just left it , my original complaint went to PD UK on the 27 Feb 2016
Nigel says
Ok time for a full round up as to the status of my former loans and refund claims.
Claims upheld and closed through direct contact and pressure.
MyJar, Mr Lender. Wonga, Lending Stream, Safeloans, Cash Genie, Speedloan, Piggybank, CFO lending, Sunny, Safety Credit, Response Funding (fancyapaydayloan), H&T Loans. Next Credit, Uncle Buck.
Claims Not upheld but taken to FOS and decided in my favour with Adjudicator and refunded.
Peachy, Wage Day Advance.
Claims with The FOS at Adjudicator status.
Monkey Dosh, Different Money, Credio (cashbridge), Satsuma, 100pounds.co.uk, Moneybox 24/7, Payday Express, Early Payday Lender (EPDL), Cashfloat.
Claims with FOS at Ombusman stage or waiting to be heard at that stage.
Quick Quid, Toothfairy.
Claims still waiting for final response from lender.
Moneyshop, Pixie, Cash 4 U Now, Whizzcash, TrustedQuid.
Lenders not yet claimed against.
CashASAP, MyKredit.
Lenders I cant get in contact with and wont be able claim against and have been dissolved.
Poundstillpayday, Swift Sterling, MisterCheque, Minicredit, Speedydosh. Pounds2day, Ambermarle & Bond (chequecashing), Liquid Advance, Money In Advance.
A right sorry sate of affairs over the last 8.5 years. But so far £16,000 back. lots still happening.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi everyone,
one person has been kind enough to send me a copy of the letter their adjudicator has sent a lender saying that the FOS thinks it can look at loans over 6 years old.
If anyone else has one of these letters, sent in the last week or two, I would like to see it so i can see if common wording is being used? If you have, could you reply to this comment, then I can email you and you can forward me your letter.
Edited – here is the new article https://debtcamel.co.uk/ombudsman-payday-loans-6-years/
Ally says
Hi Sara,
I have just had a call from the Ombudsman saying my Mr Lender has been passed to an Adjudicator, I asked her a couple of questions regarding my other PDL’s and told her I have requested Statements but am waiting replies. She told me to put complaints in straight away don’t wait for the Statement, as by the time the adjudicator gets to them the 4 weeks will have passed and they can move straight on with them.
She told me to include my over 6 year claims as these are being looked at as well now.
So I guess I will be busy this evening, my partner works for a bank and told me every claim that goes to FO is charged at a minimum of £500 to the company involved.
thanks
ally
Sarah says
Hi
I had two separate adjudicators looking at my case with QQ – one for pre-2010 and one for post 2010 – last week the adjudicator sent a letter to QQ stating that they had found no reason to why the pre-2010 cant be looked at. This will mean that all of my loans from 2008 can be considered now. I think they are working through the cases bit by bit and then assessing the information you provided to the FOS.
Thanks
Sarah
Pamela says
Thanks to Sara and everyone on this site the information has been very helpful. I got into a spiral of debt from 2008 – 2013 due to an ex leaving me in financial distress. I did not know you could claim this until I did a google search as was sure there must be something like the PPI system. I then found this very helpful site with great advice. I sent letters to Albemarle Bond, The Cheque Centre, The Money Shop and Wonga all on the 24th October 2016.
Albemarle Bond were extremely prompt and sent the statement of account by 27/10/16 and emailed an offer letter today for £1217 which is all of the interest plus the 8%. I was very surprised and delighted with this today, they said this will be paid into my account by BACS and asked for my account details. For note to anyone chasing Albemarle Bond, they started trading in another name in 2012 “Speedloan”. So any loans before that were not counted.
The Money Shop were difficult at first and I got the standard letter everyone else seems to have had where they say they can’t send me details of past accounts. I replied back with an official complaint and they apologised and said they are looking into it for me and sent me an official response acknowledging my complaint. However no statement of account yet from them. Hearing from previous cases I think they will drag their heels.
However I am glad I got the ball rolling and the offer today has just been amazing. Only 3 weeks and no ombudsman involvement was necessary, if only they could all be like that. Good luck folks.
The Cheque Centre have assigned me a specific person looking at the case. Cheque Centre interest is around £5500 and The Money Shop around £4k. I expect maybe I will have to send these to the Ombudsman. Also just had an acknowledgement from Wonga, interest around £600 on this one.
John says
Hi,
im stuck in payday loan spiral for last 4 years now, but also had a problem with gambling – im in debt/overdraft every single month, will my gambling (which i dont do any more) stop me to get a refund?
aga says
No John , it won’t ; i had my statements packed with online transactions hundreds every month for 5 years – disaster- until my partner found out and moved out of the house and i said to myself “no more”. This year out of 14 lenders only 1 adjudicator said ” If i had financial problems i shouldn’t have taken loans and she declined my claim , the rest thanx to Sara and this website was ruled in my favour .so go ahead. However before u start u need to say to yourself “no more gambling” otherwise your life will be destroyed as whatever u get back from payday lenders u spent again on gambling -it is addiction.
Matt S says
Does anyone know what checks were carried out by Payday Express back in 2012/2013? They didn’t respond to my adjudicator so he ruled in my favour on 2nd loan onwards, they still didn’t respond and so it went to an Ombudsman. Ombudsman provisionally ruled that all loans were unaffordable, and gave them a month to respond. They responded to the Ombudsman after 3 weeks not agreeing with their decision and providing further information. The ombudsman asked them to clarify some of the information and they did this by last Friday. I was told on Friday I’d get the final decision shortly.
I’m still waiting for the final decision and its really playing on my mind. I cant think what further information they could have provided. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t asked about expenditure when I originally applied, or about other loans I had. But then again it was almost 4 years ago and I really cant remember.
I just feel this has been going round in circles. From originally complaining in February, them denying the complaint and so thinking I’d get nothing. To the adjudicator finding partially in my favour and thinking I might get a small refund. Then the Ombudsman finding fully in my favour and so then thinking I would get a much larger refund. Now I’m worried its going to go way back down again based on whatever information Payday Express have provided.
Hopefully will get the final decision soon and put my mind at rest one way or the other.
aga says
Hi Matt ,
Payday Express hasn’t done any checks on my applications, none , they just took into the account my income which was entered on line
Kg says
Just a quick question on the affordability aspect. Do the adjudicators take into account how much your expenses were i.e. fuel/transport/living costs automatically from your bank statements?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, that is the reason they ask to see bank statements, so they can see what your out goings are. The regulator says for a loan to be affordable you have to be able to repay it without undue difficulty, so that means being able to repay it and make all your normal bills and expenses, including other borrowing and not have to borrow any more the next month.
Kg says
Brilliant. Thank you. I got an email from my adjuticator just confirming a few anomalies on my statements. Basically there were a few random incomings value between (£500 and £4000) from my parents who leant me money to help clear my debts.
Do you think this will positively or negatively impact my case? Also as she couldnt see any bills dd going out ( since i lived at home with parents) shes asked me for a list of regular bills expenses spending on food etc but crucially from july to november and not from the first loan start date in march.
Just to give some context. First loan for payday uk was taken out on 30/03/2011 for £200. Deferred for 5 months repaying small amounts of principal and closed 26/08/2011. Then a new loan for £500 taken out 08/09/2011 which was settled on 26/10/2011 deferred once. Another loan taken out 08/11/2011 for £460 and paid on 27/11/2011 but another loan for the same amount taken out same day and repaid on 22/12/2011.
Along the way through the months i had multiple payday loans as well as 4 credit cards up to its limit as well as being in an overdraft upto 2k. My salary was only about 1200 a month post tax.
Your thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It may help if you could explain how you got into debt in the first place as that is quite a high salary if you are living at home. Perhaps you had been living elsewhere and got into debt so moved home as it was cheaper? Or had a period with little work? Or a business failure? Or a gambling problem? Or you had to replace a car? Also point out that there was no “luxury” spending showing – no holidays, foreign hotels, regular visits to expensive restaurants. So although your statements may look “odd”, you were really struggling to manage, hence the regular use of payday loans for 8 months to survive until your parents cleared a lot of your debt. (NB change all that so it’s accurate for your situation!)
Kg says
Thanks sara…it was as ive seen with a few people on here…gambling problem. It didnt end specifically there. This carried on with other payday loan companies throughout 2012. And yes there were no luxuries only 1 transaction in a resturant in that period…and with sky betting transactions on there its very clear where the miney was going. In terms if the occasional “winnings” im assuming this doesnt really get classed as income?
A lot of general food spending was done on my credit cards
Thanks so much for your support again.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Be open with your adjudicator that you had a gambling habit. If your credit card statements are clear that you were spending the money on food, you could show them to the adjudicator?
Kg says
Unfortunately i dont have access to them as i defaulted on a couple of them and rest are closed.
Yeah there were loads of entries from a road on my bank statement which i freely admitted it wasfrom coral which is a bookies. She didnt really ask if there was a problem on the back of it but to be honest from my statements it wouldnt take a genius to work that out. She did say afterwards that she just needed to clarify that and she won’t take too much longer to make a decision on the case. Seems to make me think it will be in my favour and just wantrd to cover all bases. Let me know if you could hazard a guess if im right or wrong.
Many thanks sara and il keep you posted.
Ross says
Just short of 6k heading my way from wonga thanks so much to this site? 6 months but well worth it
Lin says
Just a little update, I started looking at this site early last week, sent my first letter to my biggest lender last thursday (sunny 34 loans 5600 in 11 months) Sent letters to all of my other lenders Monday morning this week they have all been acknowledged. Got a final response from Peachy this morning- did not expect alot from them it was my smallest one only got 2 loans first for £50.00 second for £250 – they have just sent a final response writing off my outstanding debt of £197.56 which I did not expect I am over the moon as really did not think they would do anything but thought Id add them anyway!!! So happy thats going to be removed from my Debt Management plan – the only thing is the letter they have sent me is addresssed to a completely different name – Im Lin and they have addressed to Charlotte Dawson? The figures within the email are the same as mine so Im pretty sure its my information they have just put the wrong name on email – I want to accept but bit worried about this name thing any advise?
Claire says
Does anybody have any experience with WageDay Advance? I’ve just had my complaint upheld by the adjudicator. Over 19 loans, I borrowed just over £11,000 with them. Any idea how much refund I will be entitled approximately? The adjudicator has recommended that WDA refund all interest and charges, Pay interest of 8% simple a year on all refunds from the date of payment to the date and Remove any negative information from my credit file.
Hopefully WDA will agree and we’ll be able to have a Christmas.
martin says
i have one going through with WDA which the adjudicator upheld but then gave them another 2 weeks to apply which finshs on 18th novemeber think i borrow ed about £1500 in 4 loans but i have feeling the they will refuse so go to ombudsman which seems to be where most mine going shame as money needed now at least on 1
Claire says
The adjudicator has just informed me that WDA (surprisingly) did not agree with their assessment and so now the case has gone to the Ombudsman. Does anybody have any experience with this i.e. is the Ombudsman likely to uphold the adjudicator’s findings? How much longer will this process take? The saga continues. Thanks everybody especially Sara xx
EDIT Claire got a payout in January. The ombudsman decided that MORE loans should be refunded than the adjudicator :)
Bradley says
Just a quick update and data breach info:
QuickQuid – Intrest from loans (two) and 8% came to roughly £200.
Sent complaint in July and got offered £100 as good will via FOS in October.
I thought I would take this as it was one of my smaller claims (I have loads more). They sent the money within 2 working days. They then sent me an email with another persons name, loan details and refund amount… I complained and negotiated another £100 which gave me my £200 in total. Very concerning about the data breach!
John says
Hello, success with Cheque Centre!!!!!! Adjudicator found all loans irresponsible and ordered all interest on the 18 loans totalling just over 3k and then 8% stat. Complaint went in to Cheque Centre in July then on to Fos September. Cheque Centre have came back to her to say they accept her findings. I have signed the settlement form with Fos and this has been forwarded to Cheque Centre.
Andrew says
Wrote to 14 lenders on 11th October .
Had offers from 2 so far and settled
£1150 from txtloan (myjar)
And yesterday Wonga offered me £2150 and wrote off nearly £2000 so really pleased.
Thanks to debt camel and a little Dutch courage to email the companies
Awaiting replies from the rest and yesterday contacted morses club. As am still paying them £458 a month and cannot keep doing this and burying my head !!!! Once your in their trap it takes some getting out of
claire says
Hi,
Just a quick update I was contacted today by my adudicator to say she agreed with me regarding my loans with wonga. Only took it 6 weeks? now she has given them 2 weeks to reply. They agreed on 8 out of the 10 loans.?
Do they usually reply in the timescale? and do they mainly agree with the adudicator rather than ombudsmen?
All in all so far its took just over 5 months so far from writing to wonga to ombudsmen ? Its worth sticking to it and its thanks to this site i was encouraged.
Rob says
Spoke to my adjudicator today as read about the guys in the site who’d heard that they were going to look at loans after 6 years. He said the FOS had been putting letters out to the lenders over the last couple of days to try and make them see their point of view as kind of test cases. I said good luck with that! Anyway he reckons the FOS stance is loans after 6 years should be looked at but it could well mean a judicial review to push it through which won’t happen overnight. My cases are on hold until a final decision is made. It’s all I think about morning, noon and night and it’s doing my head in. I had considered waiving the right to look at loans after 6 years just to get a decision and move on but I could potentially lose out on £000’s if it’s found in my favour. Anyone had any word that they’re looking at loans after 6 years for Cheque centre, payday uk or payday express for their individual cases?
Morag says
Rob,
Finally someone else who is in the same boat as me!! I have to wait to but it’s with provident, Greenwoods and loansathome4u.
Again I am in 2 minds but , as with u I could lose £0000s, how long do we wait.
Thanks
Rob says
Hi Morag
Looking at how long others have waited I guess I’m not too bad tbh. I first complained to the lenders on 1st August and all 3 took 9 weeks to give me a final response though I went to the FOS after 8 weeks. I’m thinking I’ll give it til after Xmas but it’s really hard to focus day to day when the potential compensation could change my life. But I keep having to tell myself I could potentially get nothing either! (Even though 2 of the 3 lenders have made an offer but only around 10% of what they could be told to pay back.) Just need to be patient and hopefully it’ll be worth it in the long run!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Judicial Review is possible. It seems to me (a non lawyer) that the FOS has made a clearly reasoned case about this jurisdiction decision. A JR is usually on the basis that a decision is irrational – it’s hard to see how that could apply here. JR cases are usually heard pretty rapidly.
So far as I can see, the decision is a general one and not linked to any particular lender.
Ross says
Absolutely landed!
Just received an email from Wonga, giving all the usual blarney about loans being affordable, checks being carried out, blah blah blah. So, I thought, ‘Another trip to FOS beckons’. Nope, they’ve offered £1998.58 to settle my complaint, partially upholding it, but saying they can’t go back before 2010. I honestly didn’t expect to get anywhere near this amount and, if the truth be told, not anything. I am so grateful to this site and especially to Sara. Had I never discovered it, I wouldn’t be the £2k better off that I am going to be now. They have, basically, refunded all of the interest +8%, on all loans after 2010, so I am going to take it. I might start a spot of Christmas shopping too! :)
Wendy says
Hi ross may I ask how many loans wonga refunded you for? Im waiting on a reply from them also. Thanks wendy
Ross says
Hi Wendy,
This was for 7 loans from January 2011 until March 2012, when I stopped lending from them. I also had a write off during their programme whereby they had to write off £220m in debts. There was no mention of this in the email, so I would not let it put people off complaining, even if you had a loan written off as part of that programme, as it proves it has no effect on new complaints.
Regards,
Ross
Wendy says
Hi ross thanks for your reply. Your case is similar to mine. I had 7 loans from january 2012 to january 2015 with 1 loan been written off with their redress programme in 2014. I hope I have success like yourself. Well done! Thanks. Wendy
Nigel says
I have found Pixie very easy to deal with, one loan rolled over once, all interest + 8% paid back after 5 days of initial complaint. My smallest claim but the easiest.
sarah l says
Just had an awful email from opos acting on behalf of minicredit basically saying that i committed a fraudulent loan with them as i did not give every single other loan and that they will remove from credit file and wioe off remaining £3.47 i still owe.
Is this normal as i really didn’t appreciate being called a liar.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Not normal but a few lenders do this. It’s offensive – and seems designed to intimidate people into not pursuing good claims. I’ve written about it here: https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/