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?
Calum says
Morning All,
I hope somebody can help. After seeing the site, it left me wondering how many Payday loans and companies I have used over the past 7 years and if I have a case?
Looking back I had:
Cheque Centre Ltd: 35 Loans running consecutively from June 2009 until January 2012 and always increasing in value from £200-£900.
QuickQuid: 12 loans running from 2009 until 2014 – Most of which I rolled over and acquired additional interest and charges. Always increasing in value.
Wonga Ltd: 9 loans between February 2012 & October 2012. Also 11 loans between January 2013 & November 2013.
WageDayAdvance: 11 loans between January 2013 and November 2013.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sorry for not replying earlier, didn’t spot your comment. That sounds like good complaints against all 4 lenders. The ones against Cheque Centre and QQ will probably take longer to sort out because they include loans that are over 6 years old – but the Ombudsman will look at these – pay no attention if a lender tells you the Ombudsman’s rules say they won’t!
Matt S says
Ross, if your looking in. I received my settlement figure in an email from Payday Express within the last 10 minutes with a note at the bottom saying that it would be in my bank account within 5 working days. I’m really hoping they are quoting worst case scenario based on bank transfer times and don’t now take another 5 days to process the payment. Have you heard anything regarding your refund from Payday UK?
Ross says
Hi Matt,
Yes, I had an email from PDUK at 0900 this morning. They said the payment will be made via faster payments so, odds on as long as your bank accepts faster payments, you should see it in your account today, but I think they quote the 5 days as a precaution. Will be nice to get this one over and done with! ?
Ross says
Hi Matt,
Just to let you know, the credit from PDUK has just hit my bank account (shows up as Instant Cash Loans). I can FINALLY put this one to bed! :)
Matt S says
Hi Ross, thanks for letting me know. Just checked and mines is in now also. A good way to end the week :)
Dave says
Just had a couple of e mails from Payday UK saying they were under no obligation to send out the required statements of loans. I rang them and they said the same thing. I’m unsure which are credits from them on my bank statements. Can anyone offer any advice about where to go from here please?
Allison says
Hi Dave, I had same email. I emailed straight back and said I was going to write to the financial ombudsman if they didn’t send them they replied and said that they had 4 weeks to reply so I will see what happens. Have you got a copy of your credit file? You might see the number of loans on there. Good luck
Lorraine wilson says
I have all the emails for my 28 loans and they’re all still on my credit file, i didnt ask for a statment, will that be enough?
Allison says
Hi ya, I’m new to this but I should think so. If you are asking for interest and charges you need to email and ask for them to reimburse you. Good luck
simon says
Hi,
Please could somebody help, I have put complaints in to all my lenders had the same as most people with them asking for the £1 fee or bank statements etc etc thats all fine But QQ have now come back with a final response ( put the complaint in on 01/02/17) they said:
We thank you for your complaint regarding the above account. We take complaints very seriously and have investigated the matter fully. However, our investigation indicates that the matter you are complaining of occurred outside the complaint handling time limits.
As you may know we are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and are bound by their rules and guidance. The complaint handling rules are known as DISP and specifically in your case, Disp 1.8.1( R ) states
“If a respondent receives a complaint which is outside the time limits for referral to the Financial Ombudsman Service (see DISP 2.8) it may reject the complaint without considering the merits….”
Our investigation determined that the event you are complaining of, i.e. when you took out your loan/s, occurred outside the time limits below and we are therefore rejecting your complaint on this basis.
We appreciate your comments about the loan/these loans being unaffordable. However as your loans were taken out in 2008-2009, you would have been reasonably aware of this issue at the time you were making your repayments.
I understand you may be disappointed but hope this explanation explains why we have taken this position.
My question is what do I do now? Is is worth going to the FOS? The loans I had was:
26/06/08 – £300 rolled until 28/08/08
28/08/08 – £400 repaid 24/09/08
26/09/08 – £300 repaid 23/10/08
28/10/08 – £300 rolled until 27/03/09
Although I believe there were more but they want show them on my account and I have no access to that bank account now.
Thank you for any help you can give me.
Simon
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You are likely to get a similar response back from other lenders if your loans from them are over 6 years old.
You should take your complaint to the Finanical Ombudsman. The FO has decided that they usually can look at loans over 6 years old, you just need to put in your complaint a sentence explaining why you are only complaining now, as that link explains.
Don’t expect these complaints to be speedy – they are likely to take a lot longer than most I am afraid. But this is not a dead end, whatever the lenders say.
Simon says
Hi Sara
Thank you will send to the financial ombudsman and explain as per the link let’s see what happens. In no great rush for the money thankfully now all sorted with debts (well almost).
Thank you so much for all the help and advice on here from everyone. Good luck to you all.
Dave says
Hi had about 5 loans with lending stream paid 4 off the last one I am in debt £650 and it has gone to collection they have offered me £250 back but are sayin I had good credit at the time. Do you think I could get more if I take it to the ombudsman. I have had payday loans from 2008 till now and have only just found this page!! Thanks for all your advise so far.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Are they offering to wipe the debt AND give you £250? Or just take £250 off your debt? Do you know how much interest you paid on the 4 loans your repaid?
Nick says
So I had the first information from my adjudicator yesterday about my QQ loans,I had one and rolled it twice and them a flexcredit account that ran for nearly 2 years.
QQ in there final response said all loans well one, was affordable and the flexcredit acvount was mot a loan so that doesn’t count! So they turned me down for it being unaffordable.
As requested by my adjudicator I sent him all bank statements and credit report, he advised yesterday that they repay all interest from loans 1 and 2! So now just a waiting game on Qq for what they want to do, I guess I paid back approx 6500 so the interest and the 8% should be a reasonable amount to be returned,now just the long haul.
Also had two other complaints picked up by adjudicators so a little hopeful they will come to the same unaffordable decisions.
N
kevin says
Has anyone tried to claim back personal loans from TSB. I was given a loan back in 2008 for 8500 when i was only earning 250 a week and i also had a loan of 3000 from tesco bank at the same time. My credit file was in decent condition at this time but i ended up not being able to afford this after 6 months and eventually had to get into an IVA which i have now paid off in full. Do you think this would be worth getting the ombudsman to look into or would i be wasting more time clogging things up whilst they are busy with all these payday claims.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think this would normally be a reasonable irresponsible lending complaint HOWEVER as it went into your IVA, I suspect you ended up repaying less than £8500 in the end… so there wouldn’t actually be any interest to refund… so there is no point.
PS the Ombudsman is there to consider customers complaints. The only time I suggest that people should think whether they are just clogging up the system is where a couple of people have suggested they know they won’t win a one loan case but they will go to the Ombudsman anyway just to annoy the payday lender – that seems to me to be pretty silly and unfair on everyone.
Gemma says
A Lender has asked me for my credit file and bank statements to consider my complaint. Is that normal?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
At a guess it is Uncle Buck or Quick Quid… It isn’t unusual to be asked, but you don’t have to send these – many people don’t see why they should give personal information to a payday lender, especially as those two aren’t known for making reasonable offers!
If you don’t want to send them, you should replay that you want them to consider your complaint based on what they already know, as you think your borrowing history and your complaint show that the lending was unaffordable, but you will be happy to supply further information to the Ombudsman if necessary.
Gemma says
Thanks Sara. It is Uncle Buck. I was thinking of doing what you said but wasn’t sure if I could or not
Joanne says
I found this site yesterday and decided to contact my lenders. Having 7 different payday lenders constantly rolling over I set to work and got the information I needed. Last night I sent emails to me lender, ferratum, wage day advance, sunny, safety net,247 money box and 118 loans
I have received my first reply from ferratum today just 12 hours later! They have confirmed they have received my complaint and put my account on hold until it has been sorted. I have asked for much from any of them. Just to wipe my accounts off as the interest owed to me would cover these amounts.
Fingers crossed
Gary says
Hi Sara,
I have received direct offers from Wonga, and MYJAR which i have accepted.
I have 4 other complaints that i have referred to the FO as they rejected my claims. i have just received the following from the FO regarding QuikQuid –
I write further to your complaint about Casheuronet UK – QuickQuid
While we are waiting for your complaint to be assigned to an adjudicator, the business is willing to make you an offer of £537.00 for your loan number 4886520. We are told that you had three payday loans with them and this offer applies to the last loan you took out in July 2012.
They’ve added that the refund would first be deducted from your outstanding balance which they require confirmation of from a third party
Please kindly let us know if you are happy to accept this offer. If you are, we will ask the business to process the payment and we will close our file for this complaint. If there is an outstanding sum, we will need details of the account you would like the remainder of the offer to be paid into.
However, if you are not willing to accept this offer, we’ll go ahead and assess the merits of your case.
We ask that you let us know if you are willing to accept this offer no later than 10 February 2017.
I do not believe this is a fair offer as my 1st loan – interest £400, 2nd loan £1575.00 interest due to them being rolled over.
The fact that they are now making me an offer do you think i should reject it for a better offer?
Thanks for all your help so far.
Many thanks,
Gary
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sorry some questions – this may well be a poor offer, but it’s good to be sure!
How much do you owe on the last loan? How much did you borrow? And how much have you repaid to QQ? And to the debt collector it was sold to?
Also, was there a gap between loans 1 and 2? and repaying 2 finally and loan 3? And how often was loan 2 rolled?
And how did the loan sizes compare – loan 1,2,3?
Gary says
HI Sara,
1st Loan 28th May 2011 to 27th September 2011 Loan £500 – rolled over 4 times – Interest paid £400
2nd Loan 27th September 2011 to 18th July 2012 Loan £1,312.50 – rolled over 10 times – Interest paid £1,575 and Late payment fee £12
3rd Loan 18th July 2012 to 20th Aug 2013 – Loan £1,312.50 – rolled over 12 times – Interest paid £537.00 Late payment fee £12.00 – Payment to Debt Man Company £261.65
No Gaps in any of the loans.
Hope that helps.
Many thanks,
Gary.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
From that it looks a starightforward case: after rolling your first loan 4 times, you settled it and immediately asked to borrow a considerably larger amount. This second loan should either have been declined or QQ should have asked for evidence about your income & expensditure to be sure that it was affordable. They didn’t, so there is a good case that you should be refunded the interest on the second loan.
(Also QQ haven’t offered 8% statutory interest on the third loan, but that is minor in the overall picture.)
If you think this is reasonable, then you should tell your adjudicator why you are declining the offer.
Gary says
Thanks Sarah
I have replied to the adjudicator declining their offer.
Just wait and see now – i have 3 other cases sent to the FO in the last 2 weeks
Miriam says
Hi all
Any experience with ferratum and wageday advanced?
Ross says
Hi Miriam,
Ferratum are, generally, very good. They sorted my complaint within 24 hours. They took all of the interest I had paid on previous loans, and offset it against my then current balance. This left a balance of around £240, which they wiped as a ‘gesture of goodwill’. I was very happy with this outcome.
Unfortunately, WageDay Advance were a different story and they sent a, rather condescending, 7 page rejection letter. I sent it to the FOS and they upheld in my favour, at adjudicator stage, and WageDay Advance accepted the adjudicator’s findings. All interest was removed on the final loan and they owed me £348, which they refunded quickly.
Good luck!
Lisa says
Has anyone had dealing with crs collections.. I am on a dmp and just been told my account is handed to them, what do I do, will they accept my payments from the debt management company
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think they are just collecting on behalf of the lender, rather than they have boght the debt? Just tell your DMP company and they will switch the payments over.
Lisa says
Will this company accept my dmp payment or will they turn up at my house, I so stressed…
Thank you for your reply, is this a normal course if action when on a dmp, Mine is with National debt relief
All my other creditors seems ok with the repayments, its just ferratum which has said they now have my account…. I have complaints in with all creditors, satsuma wiped and refunded interest, george banco refused, so sent to the ombudsmen and awaiting the rest…
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK well I would hope they will be able to reassure you on Monday. Debt collectors don’t usually make home visits – they have no legal right to enter your house and it would normally be pretty poitless as you (or rtaher your DMP comopany) have already supplied them with an I&E showing what you can afford to pay them.
(I will add that if you switched your DMP to StepChange, they provide exactly the same single payment distributed to your creditors service but they don’t charge you any fees, so all your money goes to tpyur creditors and your debts get repaid faster.)
Dave says
I’ve spent the afternoon going through my credit report and making all manner of notes and I’ve found a defaulted Wonga loan. Despite tens and tens of loans I never missed a single payment on any of them because I was scared of the repercussions. On my bank statements I have found payments to Wonga that would have settled the ‘defaulted loan’ on the dates given and in addition I took new loans out constantly during the ‘default’ period and afterwards. I received no letters or phone calls. It has to be a mistake! I can’t believe it’s on there!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, another thing to add to your complaint!
Dave says
Is my claim still ok Sara even though I never missed a payment?
I’ve been making a spreadsheet today and with both Wonga, Lending Stream and QQ I pretty much had none stop loans that ended and started on the same date for at least 2/3 years. There were numerous top ups with Wonga but these don’t show on the credit file. It’s just the opening loan. I have collated all information from bank statements though.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Some of the largest refunds we have seen have been to people that never missed a payment… Obviously if you had made late / missed payments they should have stopped lending, but repeat borrowing from the same lender should have cause the lender to wonder if the loans were really affordable.
If your loans with a lender were back-to-back with that lender, then this is a very strong case.
If you had a pattern of repaying a wonga loan by borrowing from QQ, then repaying that from LS, then back to Wonga, that is going to be a harder complaint to win, because each lender will be seeing significant gaps. But top ups/rollovers would improve this situation.
You also have the argument that all lenders should have noticed the Wonga default and taken that into account. Even though you never actually defaulted!
Dave says
There were 25 x Lending Stream loans non stop from April 2011 to June 2013.
9 x original QQ loans all consecutive between March 2011 and August 2014 with 33 rollovers and 5 top ups.
21 x original W loans all consecutive between January 2011 and September 2014 with 70 top ups and 21 rollovers.
11 x Payday U.K. Loans all consecutive between March 2013 and August 2014.
I wouldn’t say there was a pattern to pay off others as it was to keep rolling them as much as possible. Many, many loans that were paid off and new ones taken the same day or within 1/2 days.
I’ve had loans in the past couple of years but it has never been to this extent but still with consecutive months. I’m really determined to make the best of this and get things back in order. I feel it’s my chance to put everything right.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They all sound like good complaints. The more you can manage without any more borrowing at the moment, the more you will be able to wait for a proper resolution of the complaints, not feel you have to accept a lowish offer cos you need the cash.
Lb says
I, like you didnt miss any payments until ending up on a dmp. I had continuous loans with qq, payday uk, payday express and lending Stream. These loans were from 2008 to 2013.
So far I have reclaimed over 8500 from qq, 6800 from express, my lending Stream is with an ombudsman who has sent their provisional response upholding my complaint…they haven’t provided any further information so I am just waiting for a final decision from the Ombudsman…this is likely to be another 7500. My payday uk has been upheld by an adjudicator…just waiting for the company to reply….I am sure this will go all the way to an ombudsman because they agreed for the adjudicator to look at present 2010 loans and now the adjudicator has upheld these too…with the 8% added on this claim I could look at receiving a staggering 15000!!!!
The amounts received have been life changing, I have no idea how I sustained these payments for so long! It’s a long process…but what have you got to lose?
Kg says
Thats a fantastic result. It is a shame these companies get you in the situation where your debt spirals but its moment like these where you truly open your eyes and think wow, how much money did i spend on these loans?!
Dave says
It’s partly my own fault through spending money on gambling but I can’t believe they kept on providing the money. I really believe them not providing loans would have made me seek help much sooner. I feel awful about what I did but really see this as a new start.
Kg says
Dont worry i wemt through the same thing. The companies didnt care what you did as long as they made money off you. Just have to learn from it
Rob says
Hi Sara,
Having had a good chat with my Adjudicator, I am not in the least bit surprised by the delays with the FOS.
There are some people calling on a daily basis seeking updates, some declining adjudicators decisions as they have not recommended every single loan to be refunded and some that are accepting offers before the adjudicator has started reviewing the complaint and not advising the FOS that they wish to close their complaint, meaning the adjudicator has wasted their time on a complaint.
It is great that we are able to claim back all the money that we have paid but it is a shame that some people are just too selfish and causing delays for others.
Regards
Rob
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I agree people shouldn’t go to the ombudsman level automatically if the adjudicator has offered all except the first few loans – that could be a reasonable offer. But we have seen cases where the ombudsman has offered to include more loans than the adjudicator does. There isn’t a simple rule here – I think if people focus on “what would a fair decision be” not “what is the maximum I could get” they usually make a good decision.
Michellw says
My bank account was closed due to me owing them a debt, could anybody advise me how to get copy statements in order to send them to the God. Thanks
Allison says
Hi ya, my bank account was closed in 2013 but I rang them and they have sent me all transactions from 2008 until closed. I didn’t pay but you can pay £10 to get them too. Hope this helps.
Steve says
I didn’t realise you could do this on your own . I claimed against Wonga who settled for 5k. Sadly I hadn’t read this page as I felt I should have received a lot more ( and I also paid an eye watering 20% to MMT)! I am now just starting with QuickQuid (and pounds to pockets) and also wage day advance.
Rebecca says
Hi,
I know this is not a Payday loan but has anyone had any success with Welcome Finance on affordability complaints on their loans?
Many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They are still authorised, just not lending any more. No reason not to complaint. How long ago was the loan and what was “wrong” with it?
Rebecca says
Hi,
Same reasons really on affordability and that there wasn’t really enough equity in the house. Looking back now we were desparate so took a secured loan on the house which they were happy to give even though there was not really enough equity or affordability, I don’t remember sending bank statements or pay slips. I may have been on maternity leave wjen we took it out. We did manage to pay the repayments eventually, sometimes I missed them and caught up over a number of months. I negotiated with my mortgage company to not pay the full amount some months so I could pay welcome. Got behind with council tax. Got into a bit of a mess really. In the end we ended up selling the house, paid off the majority of the welcome loan but there was not enough to cover the balance so they transferred that to an unsecured loan which we have now paid off in full.
I pad off the loan last year. I think I took it out in 2008/2009.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I doubt you will get anywhere. The lender is very unlikley to have kept any details about the checks they did at the start of the loan and without those the FO is unlikely to find against them in a single loan case.
These checks are much more important for single large loan applications. For payday loans it doesn’t matter as much if the lender hasn’t kept any records as the fact you kept borrowing month after month should have alerted the lender to the fact something was wrong. but with a single loan, the lender has to have been able to see at the begininning that it wasn’t affordable.
Thomas says
Hey! I forwarded my complaint into the FOS early last month. I received an email asking for bank statement which I sent over on the 18/01. I haven’t heard anything back after sending these over.
How long should I expect to wait before I hear anything?
T
Neil says
Thomas – it does seem that there is around a 4-6 week wait for cases to be picked up by an Adjudicator right now. This is based on what I’ve read here and my own complaint, which I believe has only just been picked up after being submitted back in December.
To anyone wondering what the latest is, or how long it will take, my suggestion would be to simply ring up and ask them.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Unless your case has been unreasonably long, say over 12 weeks, I don’t suggesting ringing and asking. I’m not saying that many will take 12 weeks, but phoning doesn’t speed things up and it’s just more work for the FOS.
David says
I’m five weeks further ahead of you, and still not heard anything more since the initial response from the FOS asking for bank statements and any further information.
So prepare for a much longer wait just yet! I’ll post on here when I hear from them.
Lucy says
Hi i sent my QQ complaint to focs early december and they asked for bank statements at the end January. I sent them within a few days. Adjudicator contacted me on yesterday to ask a couple of things that were on my bank statements eg. Childcare providers. Today he emailed saying he agrees my loans were unaffordable. Now QQ have until the 22nd to get back to him. So mine was about 8 weeks until i heard from them at first and then within one week of sending bank statements
Lucy says
Just had adjudicators decision he says loans 2-20 were unaffordable for me! I only had 20 loans and im very happy with this decision! He says hes passed this onto QQ today. Does anyone know how long it takes for QQ to respond? He’s given them until 22nd Feb to respond. Thank you to this website! I would never of known I could try and claim anything back!
Ross says
Hi Lucy,
In my experience, QQ and P2P (they’re the same company) will not make things easy. It’s likely they’ll disagree with the adjudicator and it’ll have to go to an ombudsman. I don’t mean to pour cold water on your initial triumph, but just letting you know what may happen. Good luck ?
Lucy says
Hi yes im totally expecting this to go to the ombudsman but just so relieved an adjudicator found in my favour as i kept doubting it. Will just have to sit back and wait now. Thank you for your comments ?
Mustard says
Yes I’d get comfy. adjudicator found in my favour, QQ didn’t agree. Been waiting to go to ombudsman since end of November. Haven’t heard a thing, but I know I will eventually. My complaint started in April last year!
Lucy says
Yes i think it will be worth the wait! Mine started around july last year its a long process but something i never knew possible
susanne says
I am looking for some advice, I had over 40 loans with the cheque centre between 2009-2013, I have paid over 6k in interest in these loans, although my salary was roughly £1800 per month and I could initially afford these loans of approx. £80-200, I began to settle the loan on my payday and take out a new one the very same day, things quickly spiralled out of control and I was borrowing in excess of £1000 from Cheque Centre every month over 4 years. I have complained and just received their final response where they say their affordability checks (looking at my bank statements every 3 months) did not show that I was unable to repay these loans. Also they say they will not consider my loans pre 2011.
My complaint is that these countless loans were given month after month, I would receive my salary in the morning, pay off the loan in the afternoon and get another loan at the same time. I have just contacted FOS however I would like to ask if you have any idea on how successful my claim is likely to be?
Regards
Susanne
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You know the FOS is looking into older loans. A “settlement figure” may reduce what you get, but not by as much as a write off would have done.
It’s natural to worry that there will be something in your case that means it “won’t work”. See Lucy’s comment earlier today that she is so relieved an adjudicator found in her favour as she “kept doubting it”. But from what you have said, this dounds like a very good case.
Susanne says
Sarah,
They agreed to write off a small sum at the end, will this seriously affect my claim.
I think i borrowed upwards of £40k over the years, paying back over £6k in interest the write off amount was £500.
Regards
Susanne
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest thinking of the £500 as an “advance payment” for a refund you might get now. So If the FOS would have awarded refund on x loans totalling say 5k, then you may now get back £4.5k as you have already had £500 of that back.
The actual FOS decisions can be complicated but this seems to me to be a reasonable way to think of it. If you had paid £800 in unterest, then yes, having had £500 written off would be very significant. but not on a claim your zixe. Even if the older than 6 years loans are excluded, it is still a large claim.
PS I have been deleting your surname – I don’t think you want that on the internet, I suggest leaving it off when you put a comment in.
susanne says
Can I ask, in your experience how long do these types of claims take to be settled after the FOS has become involved?
Thankyou for all your advice.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yours could be a long while as it involves loans over 6 years old.
Dave says
Hi everyone, first serious response today from Lending Stream after 2.5 weeks. What’s my next step with this please. 25 loans, all consecutive for two years whilst holding other loans with a Wonga and QQ. I’m not going to accept this. Is this normal?
“Affordability Checks:
We confirm that an affordability analysis is conducted for all customers (existing or new) and on each loan application. Our advanced analytics and underwriting processes review the information provided by the customer, all public information, and details held by Credit Reference Agencies before making a decision.
Your Experian score was ranging between 622-698. This was factored into our proprietary underwriting and deemed acceptable
At the time of each application, you were employed full time
Your monthly income at the time of applications was ranging between £2075.00 to £3250.00.
We could observe a sufficient disposable income, which denoted that repayments towards the loans could have been made without any financial difficulties
You were approved only for the amount you were eligible for
Although we received additional applications, they were declined as they did not meet our lending criteria
We expect our customers to include any current obligations due to be paid while filling the expenditure details to ensure a fair assessment of their disposable income and ability to make repayments. The data shared in your applications indicated that your monthly income well exceeded your expenses and that repayments towards the loans could have been made without any financial difficulties.
In lieu of overall situation, we believe that Lending Stream has behaved responsibly in approving your loans and has dealt with them fairly.
While we confirm the above, we could note that there was some procedural error while approving the loans 527250 and 1026412. Hence, we are ready to refund some of the interest paid towards these loans, amounting £141.48.”
Can I reject and proceed to the FO with this one now? Do you think I’m wasting my time?
Connie says
I just had a fairly generic rejection from LS too. Off to the FOS then! Others still waiting response.
Dave says
Do I still have to wait 8 weeks even though it’s only been under 3?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sounds like a pretty normal rejection. I expect that quoted credit score is much higher than you would have expected! 25 consecutive loans is a clear case to take to the FOS.
If their reply to you says it is their Final Response, you can go straight to the Ombudsman – you don’t need to tell LS and don’t need to wait until the 8 weeks is up. If it doesn’t says this, I suggest you replay saying you are rejecting their inadequate offer and will be taking the case to the FOS.
I normally suggest going throught the FO online application – that allows you to attcah other things eg your complaint to the lender and the Final Response from the lender. Also read https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-refund-complaint-detail/ and see if there are any other details you want to add.
alan says
Your reply from LS is a carbon copy to the one I got and I was in similar loan patterns as yourself. The interest they offered me back on loans was for the smaller ones and I rejected and took to the FOS
John says
Dave,
Copy and paste of what the sent me months ago accept they offered me zero. Since then the FOS awarded me the lot!
Go straight to FOS – Good Luck
John
Eddie says
Hi Sara
I have received a rather unexpected answer from FOS adjudicator regarding my complaint against MyJar for 97 loans taken from 2010 to 2016. Would you be able to advise how to respond to this and what can I do in this situation?
“Thank you for contacting us about your complaint.
about your complaint
The ombudsman service can look into a wide range of complaints about financial businesses – but there are some limits on where we can help. Unfortunately, based on everything I’ve seen so far, we don’t think we can take some of this complaint forward.
From what I understand of your complaint, you borrowed a number of loans from My Jar between 24 December 2010 and 12 September 2016. Unfortunately we won’t be able to look into the loans you borrowed before 30 May 2013 – this is the date consumer credit became regulated by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and had to follow guidelines on how they lent to their customers.
So we wouldn’t be able to say whether My Jar was wrong to lend to you before 30 May 2013, as they were outside of our jurisdiction.
We will now look into the loans you borrowed after 30 May 2013.”
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you reply saying that the Ombudsman usually looks into Myjar loans pre 2013.
and also that the OFT issued licenses for Consumer Credit firms such as Myjar, see this information issued in 2008: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140402142426/http:/www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/credit_licences/oft969.pdf.
Tom says
I think they’ve made a mistake on the year there
FOS told me that payday lending before 2007 was out of their jurisdiction due to how it was regulated (or not regulated!)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s always hard to guess what sort of mistake has been made!
susan says
Hi,
yeah the said the same to me regarding my jar.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, well go back to them with the reposnse I suggested above!
Eddie says
Thank you Sara I have sent it back to them let’s see what they say
Joseph says
Hi everyone,
Has anyone got any experience of how Money Shop deal with Ajudicator decisions? My Ajudicator has upheld my complaint for the vast majority of loans and I reckon I’m just a refund in the region of £4k. This is hot on the back of Money Shop offering a refund of just over £1k. From experience What do you think are the chances of Money Shop accepting at this stage and settling the complInt or are they likey to go to ombudsman to drag it out?
Thanks,
Joseph
Ross says
Hi Joseph,
Please don’t hold your breath! My adjudicator upheld my complaint against Payday Express (same company as The Money Shop). They were given until 25/01/17 to respond, and didn’t bother. The adjudicator then (annoyingly) had to give them a further 2 weeks grace (up to, and including, today) to respond before he could file it to go to an ombudsman for final decision. They have ignored both deadlines, so I have wasted a month, and will now need to look at waiting another 3 months, before an ombudsman will pick it up, to make a decision. Instant Cash Loans (the company which owns The Money Shop, Payday Express & Payday UK) really are the pits to deal with. If you look at my comment, much further down, about my experience today, you’ll understand more why I think the way I do!
Good luck!
Dave says
I have been reading so many stories as I’m trying to assess whether I have a good claim. I do find it interesting to read. I have had a reasonable salary of betwen £2100-£2300, but my gambling and excessive use of loans to cover my tracks got me into problems. I constantly shifted money between my account, my partner’s and a joint account and it’s all really confusing. Will my partner’s salary come into any decision. It was my responsibility to pay all the bills that were in the joint account (mortgage, utilities, council tax etc.), but often had to make it up with her money on top of her own bills. Can my salary jeopardise any claim as they can just say I earned a lot so it is affordable? Month after month, 4 lenders at a time, repaid and taken out on the same day. Surely these can’t be deemed affordable when they were non stop for 4/5/6 years?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Dave,
we have had people here win cases where there is a lot of gambling even if they had a high salary.
We have also had cases where people have had confused accounts to show because of their partner. In these cases you are likely to have to produce bank statements for the joint account as well as your own account and may have to go into a lot of details explaining what is going on. I usually suggest that you pick a couple of moneths at random, say one 2 years in and one 4 years in to the lending and go though all the entries explaining each of them. If your partner was putting in half the money for the joint bills and so were you, then she was regularily having to top up the joint account, this supports your case.
Repeat back-to-back borrowing for many years should have been a warning to the lenders that despite your reasonable salary, there was something wrong with you your finances. This was not short term borrowing, you had clearly become dependent on it.
nattalie says
Hey
So here is my latest update.
As stated before Sunny agreed to refund and write off my outstanding balance before I went to the FOS. Great result and they were very helpful.
Wonga, LS, and Myjar all with the FOS. Adjudicator called me about Myjar and has suggested out of 4 loans that loan 2 was unaffordable and should be refunded all interest plus 8%.. however when I asked what she deemed loan 3-4 to be (loan 4 is still outstanding £950) she said that on my application I put down I was earning £2500 a month, I only earn £1389 a month and had 4 other payday lenders at the time. That because of that fact the lender can only go off what I have said therefore she cannot deem it unnafordable? I explained to her I was desperate when applying and have massively over exaggerated my income and surely after my previous applications showing less income that should be deemed unnafordable aswell? She didn’t think so? So I am lost now as to what I can do. She has written to the business with her outcome and asked them to refund loan 2 interest etc and 8% but this still leaves loan 4 outstanding. Whilst I totally appreciate this is entirely my fault I wondered what anyone else’s experience was in this situation?
And if there is anything further I can say in my defense to try to get loan 3 and 4 included in my complaint and loan 4 specifically written off?
Sorry to ramble.
Thanks to everyone for any advice.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Had you put a lower income down for loan 2? What were the gaps between these loans?
nattalie says
Hi
after speaking to the company and my adjudicator it seems I have put down a higher income for loan 3/4
I must have put down a true income for loan 1 and 2
Also the 4 loans were taking between 24th June – 22nd nov
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you go back to the adjudicator saying you don’t recall changing what you put down on the application. But if it looked as though your income had increased a lot, surely the payday lender should have wonders why you still needed to borrow money because this doesn’t make much sense.
Connie says
Update from me. Satsuma/provident responded to my complaint via a letter, in which they have removed ALL outstanding money due and sent a cheque for £47.51, as I’ve already paid the capital and a bit more.
That was my largest debt on my DMP and it’s now zero. The MySatsuma login says I have no active loans!!! I am delighted. DMP debt free date moves to march I reckon now.
LS off to the FOS yesterday, MyJar sent a week or so ago. PDUK, WDA, Wonga and Sunny the only left not to have responded to initial complaint.
Connie says
FYI: The outstanding to pay was all interest, just over £700. Best news ever!
Joanna says
My adjudicator called me yesterday to say that Quickquid called out of the blue to offer me £599.50 pence (50 PENCE LOL!!!) for the 8 loans that I took out with them between 2012-2014. Its quite odd because my adjudicator didn’t even send them a response to what the FOS feel about my case and how much should be owed to me if any.
Naturally I said rejected their offer. I’m still trying to work out where they got the 50p idea from.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
loving the 50p :)
Joanna says
My adjudicator has now completed the investigation. QQ should never have borrowed the 8 loans to me. In his conclusion, he stated that he asked QQ for the raw data that they are supposed to hold that contains the credit checks that they said were fine. QQ never gave him this information, so based on all the info they must refund on all the loans.
But how do I calculate the interest? The 8 loans total up to £1875, but I’m not sure how much interest I paid.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
the best way to see how much interest you paid is to look at your bank staements. If you take all the payments you made to them and subtract the money you borrowed, the amount left is the interest that you paid.
Dave says
Does the FO expect you to have a disposable income of £0 if loans are to be considered unaffordable. I’m looking at some of my history on bank statements and some months I’ve been paid say £2300 and half of that has gone on payday loan repayments. I’ve still and normal outgoings and utilities. The joint account was topped up monthly by my partner who was working only part time. I lived permanently in my overdraft in both accounts and was maxed out by the next pay day. There were some occasions where I was given money by family to help out and I worked extra part time work to give more money, but often this would go straight to loans. I guess I’m trying to establish whether I have a worthy claim. I’m a bit worried I don’t really. Looking at statements it’s clear that my spending was incredibly high and I certainly didn’t have any savings.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Take one payday lender. You repaid a loan to them and took another out the same day or soon afterwards. What would your bank account have looked like if you hadn’t borrowed again? That is the test about whether the loan you repaid was affordable…
Dave says
I have done what you suggested and looked closely as a few months worth of statements dotted about. For an example, If I take away all credit card, payday loan commitments and other loan commitments straight off my pay figure I am down to between £500 some months and some months it’s actually a negative figure. This is before I then include mortgage, utilities, TV, life insurance, car finance etc. which often totaled about £1100 in a joint account. This doesn’t include childcare, food, fuel which were often paid out of my partner’s account. £700-£800 a month was often used from my partner’s account to top up the joint account as I didn’t have enough money. She also had her own commitments too.
Debbie says
Hi has anyone had any good results from lending stream or CFO?
Connie says
Lending stream rejected my complaint, I’ve been told they’re one of the most awkward ones!
Kat says
I complained to Lending Stream on 20/01/17, they came back with the usual rubbish saying they would not admit irresponsible lending but a procedural error on one of my loans may have made things difficult for me and offered me £50! I of course rejected this and one week later even though still not admitting responsibility they increased this to £550. I rejected again on 2 grounds, not enough for the amount I lent and also no 8% interest added. In the last offer they stated this was their final response so I sent complaint off to FO yesterday.
On the same day I had a letter through the door from Wageday Advance stating they admit they didn’t do all the checks they should have done but only offered me interest back on 1 loan out of 12, They also state on the letter that they didn’t use credit reference agencies at the time of lending to me but conducted their ‘own’ credit assessment of affordability. How could they have lent to me without even checking my credit history! Its a joke so also took that to the FO yesterday.
Update on others in case anyone is dealing with these companies:
Mr Lender came back straight away and offered a settlement and I accepted
Cash Genie have offered me all interest back on all loans plus 8% but as they are in administration they are awaiting realisation of a large asset before the next set of payments can be made but I will receive a cheque.
Quick Quid initially rejected my complaint but then emailed me again saying they are looking into this but from what I have read on here I don’t hold out much hope.
Payday UK and Payday Express have acknowledged my complaints but nothing further as yet.
Wonga have acknowledged complaint but nothing further as yet and Early Pay Day loans have not even acknowledged my complaint and that we over 2 weeks ago!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
re Wageday Advance not doing credit checks – regrettably this was legal at the time… but they should still have taken account of your borrowing history, so if the gaps between the 12 loans were small, they should have stopped lending after the first few as you were becoming dependent on the loans.
re Cash Genie – don’t hold your breath…
kelly says
So I have an interesting one regarding QQ today!
I logged my complaint against QQ last year for unfair loans and charges etc, I had 7 loans however they were rolled over numerous times over a 2 year period. Prior to making my complaint I logged into QQ’s website to get a breakdown of all my loans. The account was showing a 0 balance however after making my complaint I noticed the balance changed to over £1200. It was for a final loan of £850 which had increased with interest and charges to this higher amount.
My complaint was referred to the FOS and the adjudicator found in my favour. QQ disagreed however they offered me a ‘discount’ off my outstanding balance of £1000 and offered a repayment plan. I refused and explained to my adjudicator I didn’t owe them anything, in fact I felt I had repaid the plan via a debt management plan years ago.
The complaint was referred to the Ombudsman who again ruled in my favour, however through further investigation they found that QQ had sold the final debt to a debt collection agency years before, so I will be getting all the interest and charges they added on to the final debt to sell it for over £1200.
I remember when I was on my DMP and QQ continued to add their charges and not accept payments. Well that is Karma for preying on the financially vulnerable and adding unnecessary charges and interest when a customer tries to get on the straight and narrow by entering into a DMP.
FYI – I completed the DMP years ago :) I’m finally rid of all the debts
Ross says
Well done Kelly!
The sheer incompetence of these ‘companies’ is truly staggering and, as these complaints continue to rise, I hope the regulator can begin to see just what has been going on. I know they imposed a cap of 0.8% per day on loans, but this doesn’t address the issues of how they, improperly, granted loans to people and they’re now beginning to reap what they’ve sown, by having to refund hundreds of thousands of pounds. I’m down to QQ, Payday Express and The Money Shop (as in complaints) then I’m finished with payday loans forever! The QQ complaint is likely to drag on a bit, as some of my loans are more than 6 years old and this is currently being perused by the legal team at the FOS. I’m happy to wait though, as my adjudicator has said this could be a tidy sum if it’s established that they CAN look at these loans, fingers crossed!
Joanna says
Good for you Kelly, glad to hear that you’re debt free.
But that’s a really bad story.
Kg says
Great story and result. I just remeber 1 loan company hounding me almost 10 times a day when collecting debt. They were despicable and caused me to lash out on the phone due to the stress they put me under. I really wish i remember who it was so i could have added that in to my complaint. Ive had good success. Quickquid result is refund of all loans which works out to be well over £1000. No response from them yet. Payday express was a couple of loans as well. Awaiting wonga which is another big one and money shop.
I have so far been waiting over 3 weeks for the refund from payday uk. Been a joke, they keep saying it will be done by 13th which is 28 days from acceptanxe. They say its first come first serve which begs the question how many do they have to process.
Ross says
Don’t hold your breath KG. PDUK dragged my refund out and only did it on day 25 of a potential 28. Shocking company.
kg says
got the refund on day 25 as you said ross, also i was very surprised about my loans being removed. all of them were removed the very next day (even those the adjuticator ruled were affordable).
adjuticator ruled loans 2 -11 from wonga were unaffordable so thats good news worth over £1000.
no response from payday express or quickquid (another £1000+) as of yet and the deadline is approaching.
just waiting on adjuticator to respond to my lending stream queries and a response on the money shop complaint.
looking good so far.
kelly says
thank you all for your messages, its really nice to share my story and hopefully this will help someone else!
Kat says
Just wondering how long people waited for wonga to reply to adjudicators decision. My adjudicator wrote to them and gave them a deadline of monday. Shes now given them a further week as they have not responded. I have a gut feeling they will not respond in this week and it will have to go to ombudsman. I have my wedding in june and could really do with this money before then as they have already offered me nearly 3k but i felt this was a poor offer and so did my adjudicator. Starting to think i should of just accepted their offer
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There is a big random element here – your gut feeling is just your worries talking. Wonga don’t routinely take all decisions to the ombudsman level.
Also, adjudicators don’t normally tell people a lender’s offer is poor unless it is! 3k now may be handy, but it sounds as though you could get a lot more by waiting.
Kat says
Ye it is just me worrying. I just feel they are dragging abit. I understand they probably have alot of queries coming through. I already have one with the ombudsman which has only been in the queue approx 6-7 weeks so still have a lomg wait on that one
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If Wonga don’t reply so you get in the Ombudsman queue, Wonga may still pop up and agree or disagree but improve on their current offer before an ombudsman picks it up.
Neil says
In my case, they replied in the 4th week. Mind you, this was last month (January) and the Adjudicator sent their decision to Wonga about a week before Christmas, so I didn’t think that was bad going.
Kat says
Well they replied. Disagreeing with the adjudicator but increased their offer to 4800. If they had accepted adjudicators offer it would of been 4900-5000 so i have accepted 4800
kenny says
hi all
the question i have is around safety net. i have an ongoing complaint that the ombudsman took 4 months to give me an update on. they are now saying there is a hold on reviewing rolling credit claims and they don’t know how long this will last. its a medium sized claim of about £1500 so i was rather disappointed to hear this, this was in December and i still have not heard anything.
has anyone else experienced this?
has anyone had any update on their complaints?
any help and or info would be greatly appreciated
thanks and good luck all with your claims
Ross says
Hi Kenny,
When you complained to SNC, did they offer you anything before you went to the FOS? With mine, they offered to wipe the whole balance (just under £1400). Whilst they didn’t admit liability, they offered this as a gesture of ‘goodwill’. The amount wiped was more than the interest I had paid and I wouldn’t have received much more, if anything, had I moved it on to the FOS. so I gratefully accepted. I know there’s been issues with flex-credit loans, which has caused hold ups, so maybe this comes under the same scope? Sorry I can’t help much more.
kenny says
hi Ross thanks for the reply
i did complain and they came back pretty quickly to dismiss it. stated they were responsible lenders etc
funny thing with safety net as you will know they have access to your online banking and would have had sight of the numerous payday loans going out every month, i was in some state at that time, and responsible lending is far from what it was.
i didn’t have any outstanding balance with them, so i got no offer at all.
starting to think it’s a lost cause, but fingers crossed perhaps another blogger has had a positive experience with them
thanks again
Susan says
I made complaint to safety net and they came back with an offer I declined as it states in there terms that would notify you in writing off any increase or decrease of your amount you borrow, which they never did with me so I am waiting on update from the adjudicator regarding this.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how good was the offer, Susan?
kenny says
i hope you get an response from the fos adjudicator Susan, if you do could you post it.
reason i’m asking is my adjudicator sent emails stating they were investigating etc, them 3 months later said as its a complex flex credit product they couldn’t help at present, as there is still some chat at the fos on how to proceed with these cases regarding non standard credit.
no idea why they couldn’t tell me that at the start, but i hope your case is different
stephen says
Hello just wondering how long people have had to wait for Payday Express to refund a settlement amount once a FOS adjudicator made their decision?
Cheers
Ross says
Hi Stephen,
Prepare to wait up to the full 28 days the FOS allow for the refund to be issued. Another contributor on here was waiting on a Payday Express refund at the same time as I was awaiting a refund from Payday UK (both the same company). We were, eventually, refunded on day 25 of 28. Please don’t waste your time chasing them, before the 28 days are up, as you will get a standard response telling you, basically, you’ll get your money when you get it and that they cannot offer a firm date on when it will be processed (as bonkers as that sounds!).
stephen says
That sucks i could have done with it sooner but thanks for the info much appreciated.
Kelly H says
Hi
Looking for a little bit of advice. I had a numerous wonga loans and top ups throughout 2013. Most of these totaled pretty much my whole monthly wage and eventually I ended up being unable to pay. My loan was wiped in 2014 which was fine but I have just realised that they are saying in the email that they cleared £2209.81. My loan at the time of default with interest was £1273 which means nearly £1000 worth of charges were added on in less than a year. I was going to attempt to put in a complaint regarding irresponsible lending but with such a large balance being cleared I’m not sure there is much point. Can anyone advise?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So you had some loans which you repaid. Do you know how much interest you paid on those loans?
Then there was the last loan – how much was this loan, not the added interest or charges, just the amount you borrowed? And did you make any payments to this loan?
Kelly H says
I paid around £1500 in interest over 18 loans.
The final loan was for £950.
I did not make any payments towards it as I was in talks to set up an arrangement when I learned the loan had been paid off.
Thanks
kenny says
i would get a complaint in Kelly – you have nothing to lose
Lisa says
Do you have to do individual complaints to the ombudsmen or can you do them all as one
Thank you
Ross says
Hi Lisa,
You’ll need to submit a separate complaint for each company you wish to complain about. You will be assigned a case number for each individual complaint, hence the reason why they need to be done individually. Because each case needs to be investigated, and some may be upheld or rejected, they have to be done individually.
Lisa says
Aww thank you for your reply.. this is new to me so just want to do things right, how long does it take for an adjudicator to be appointed the case
kenny says
a few weeks to get an adjudicator Lisa
Ross says
The good news is, they are taking on more staff, as the workload is increasing. This may help speed things up?
Deano says
Just had this reply from lending stream, just wondering has anyone had similar response and challenged this with success with the FOS
”Dear xxxxxx,
This is in reference to your email dated xxxxx Thank you for waiting patiently while we gathered information to address your concern.
Please note that you borrowed 15 loans from Lending Stream, out of which one loan xxxx is still outstanding with the balance of xxxx
To start with, we would like to confirm that Lending Stream always ensure to run the proper affordability checks before approving or declining a loan applications. Our advanced analytics and underwriting processes review the information provided by the customer, all public information and details held by the Credit Reference Agencies.”
It goes on to explain what checks they did, my Experian score was fine, affordability/expenditure was fine, in full time employment and they are willing to waive my outstanding debt to resolve the matter!
Are they just hoping I accept this instead of me forwarding my complaint to the FOS ??
Any advise is much appreciated
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes.
Of course it may be a good offer. With a previous 14 loans it’s unlikely, but do you know the numbers to make sure? how much interest did you pay on the 14 repaid loans? How much did you borrow in loan 15? How much, if anything, have you paid to loan 15?
Deano says
The remaining balance on the last loan is £136, I am not sure on the total interest I have repaid. I use to rollover/reload with them. I requested a statement of account from them but this has been ignored. Yesterday I received my bank statements which I am going to trawl through over weekend to get the figures amount borrowed, amount repaid/interest.
Should I reply and decline and inform them I am forwarding my complaint to the ombudsman?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If the balance remaining is only £136 this is a very poor offer. I suggest you tell them you are declining. They may come back with a larger offer, so spending the weekend getting the figures together is a good idea.
Ideally you want a summary spreadsheet with one line for each debt showing:
Date borrowed, amount borrowed, amount repaid in total, interest plus charges paid (the difference between the previous two columns), date finally repaid
Andy says
My first success from one I wasn’t expecting to be honest.
118118 money. I initially had a loan with them for £2000. After a while I was given the chance to ‘top up’….. loan 2 was £3500 which included approx. £1200 to me and the rest to pay off the loan 1 balance.
Same again for loan 3, around £1200 for me and £3500 in total.
Thy have replied today to say that loans 1 and 2 were unaffordable, interestingly, due to an agent error that meant I should have been offered less.
Therefore the interest paid on these two loans plus 8% equalling £1249 which has been removed from the balanced owed on loan 3 which I am still liable for as this was seen as affordable.
If anything, I was expecting loan 3 to be unaffordable, as they offered me this AFTER I had submitted my unaffordability complaint. Also, my credit rating would have been by far at its worst when taking out the 3rd loan so if the first two were unaffordable, then the third one simply has to be given its for a slightly larger amount!
However I think they have investigated fairly and I’m probably just going to accept the outcome. It’s not money in my pocket which is a shame but It reduces why I owe.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I can’t see how a loan offered after you have put in an affordability complaint and before a loan they have agreed to refund was repaid can be “affordable”. I don’t think this suggets a fair investigation, just a tick box exercise, but it’s up to you if you think the end result is fair.
Lisa says
Hi can I ask how long 118 took reply to your complaint, I have one in with them at the moment
Andy says
Hi,
13th December was when I put the complaint in. Had an email last week saying they should be finished soon, then had another one yesterday saying should be ready within two days, then got the offer today. Close to 8 weeks without looking at my diary
Lisa says
Ok thank you for your reply, hopefully I should hear something soon, fingers crossed….
I didnt top mine up, I just had about another 6 payday loans going on
CJ says
Morning everyone,
Just looking for a bit of information about how to complain to the financial ombusman and to get comfortable with the process.
I’ve got a couple of questions.
I submitted my complaint to QuickQuid on the 15th of December and they responded to me with a “Goodwill offer” of £75, so ive already taken this ombudsman and raised my complaint, do i need to inform QuickQuid that i have gone to the ombudsman ?
After i’ve submitted the complaint online, how long can i expect for the Ombudsman service to contact me and acknowledge my complaint ?
Can anyone tell me of the process this goes through?
i’ve seen ” the adjudicator ” mentioned a few times and i’m unsure of who this is, is this from quickquids side or the FOS ?
Also to initiate the complaint was it the best process to go straight away make the complaint online ?
When making the complaint online should i upload all supporting documents ? (Account Statements, Account information and bank satements)
Thanks in advance,
CJ
Lucy says
Hi i had a QQ complaint and they offered me a good will gesture. I took it to focs the last week in November i disnt let QQ know and i had a letter from them saying they had my complaint and would look into it. I then didnt hear anything until the last week of jan asking for more bank statements which i sent straight away. Then last week they called to ask a couple of questions about my statements and then within one day my adjudicator had agreed loans 2-20 were unaffordable and have told QQ they have until the 22nd to get back to him. Ive seen a lot of people say they they often reject or offer a low amount so i assume it may go to the ombudsman which will probably be 3 months before its even looked at. You can make the complaint online but to speed things up send all the docs u have! Bank statements, statement of account, final response from lender and any communication you have had with them etc. Good luck!
Liam says
Hi all,
I have now had a final decision on my Sunny complaint in which the ombudsman partially found in my favour. What may be of interest to others with this type of open ended credit is that once I had borrowed up to my credit limit and interest was added, i was then over my limit. The ombudsman decided that Sunny were at fault for allowing this and to refund all interest from the first time my balance exceeded my limit. As this was fairly early on in my borrowing with Sunny, I’ll be getting most of the interest I’d paid plus 8%.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Thanks for letting us know – that is an interesting argument…
Neil says
Liam – thanks for this, it’s really interesting (I have a Sunny complaint currently at Adjudicator stage). My limit was exceeded fairly early on too; when I submitted the complaint I pointed this out and stated it was indicative of irresponsible lending.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is a great point to make! You can also argue that the limit was unaffordably high in the first place.
Danielle says
Can i just ask, what does the ombudsman look at exactly when you send him your bank statements? Is he simply adding up the interest paid on the payday loans? Or is he looking at the dates they were taken out and what it was spent on??
Also, ‘who’ is the adjudicator? Is that the ombudsman?
Lucy says
Hi the adjudicator looks at the loans you had and looks through your bankstatements to see if you could afford to pay them back? In his letter my adjudicator said that i only had a disposable income of £60 per month so was not going to be able to repay them so were unaffordable. Adjudicator is at the ombudsman service yes they try to sort your case out but if you or the lender reject it them it going in a queue for an ombudsman to look at it
Danielle says
Oh right, ive sent all of my bank statements etc to the ombudsman who i have been emailing infirmation. So the adjudicator will make a decision, through the ombudsman service to begin with to see if both parties agree? I emailed my bank statements a couple of weeks ago now, not too sure how long im expected to wait from now tbh. I have only done this for one payday loan provider. I am currently struggling to payday a wonga loan as present, is it possible i can complain about wonga AFTER the quickquid loan has come to a conclusion?
Lucy says
I only had one payday lender to complain about but i think you can do as many as you like at once? I have catalogue and overdraft complaints too but they are all seperate claims. Once i sent my bank statements i heard back within a week
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The Financial Ombudsman has a two stage process. The first level is with a FO member of staff called an Adjudicator. The Adjudicator will come to a decision, but unless both sides accept it, the case goes to the second stage where it is considered by an Ombudsman. Most complaints are settled at Adjudicator level – there are 10 times as many Adjudicators as Ombudsmen.
Danielle says
Ok how long can i be expected to wait from when i sent my bank statements, usually? I have a wonga which im stuggling with, i have had about 8 of them within the past 2 years but the recent 3 loans i have literally paid off and then taken out a new one almost straight away on the same day. Can i appeal this too? Even tho i have a QQ currently being looked into?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Re Wonga, you have to complaint to them first then after 8 weeks go to the FO. If you have a current case at the FO, you can ask your adjudicator if they can take on the Wonga case as well.
Emily says
Hi , would anyone have details of where to send complaints relating to Ladder Loans ? Thanks
Ross says
Hi Emily,
Ladder Loans appeared to be tied to Instant Cash Loans. When you Google them on the internet, it states that they have ceased trading but try their sister company, The Money Shop, for a loan. The email address quoted is used for The Money Shop complaints, so it could be a good starting point.
Emily says
Brilliant , thanks Ross. It’s difficult to find much online regarding them as they ceased trading.
Ross says
Has anybody had the same experience, as me, with Payday Express ignoring the adjudicator’s findings? Initially, they rejected my complaint but say they ‘identified’ a couple of procedural errors and offered a refund of £342, which I objected and sent to the FOS. The adjudicator recommended that they refund on most of the loans they issued (plus 8%) and this comes out at around £4-£5k. They were given until 25/01 to respond, which they didn’t. They were then given until 08/02 to respond, before it was sent to the ombudsman queue. Unsurprisingly, they failed to respond again. However, I received an (unrelated) call from The Money Shop, and a team leader from there promised to chase this up (part of the same ‘group’ of companies), as she found this ‘strange’ that they hadn’t responded, even if it was just to reject the adjudicators findings. I also sent them a ‘chaser’ email on 08/02, which they have, again, chosen to ignore. It’s now gone in to the ombudsman queue but it’ll be a good few months before this is picked up. I do feel that these companies should be rebuked for the way they choose to deal with the FOS and consumers.
On a separate note, the 6+ year issue drags on. As well as contacting me, regarding the Payday Express complaint, my adjudicator has said that the 6+ year ruling is still sitting with the FOS legal team and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, just yet. I am hoping that, when they do make a final decision, that they CAN investigate these loans, otherwise it’ll be a lot of time wasted. Also, as there’s so many cases ‘backed up’ I can see their being a longer wait, as they clear the backlog. However, on a more positive note, my adjudicator made me aware that they are taking on more staff to cope with the increase in workload. A clear indication that these type of complaints are really starting to increase now.
As frustrating as it is, it appears patience is the key here and (hopefully) a good end result, rewarding said patience?
Rachel says
Yes definatley be patient surely if they thought it was a waste of time they wouldn’t put you in a que I have only been waiting a few weeks for ombudsman but originally started the complaint in March so its been a long time already. It would just be nice to close this chapter and move on.
alan says
So today WONGA yet again send me an update on my complaint stating that they are snowed under with complaints and it could be another 8 weeks for them to get back to me. This is the 2nd time this has happened and my complaint is with the FOS anyway so we will see what happens from here on in…..anybody else had similar experience
Ange says
Hi there
I’ve had an offer from QQ today via the adjudicator. I had 7 loans from £150 to £750 in the space of 6/7 months back in 2011 and in total they add up to £2900. QQ have only offered on the last one that was £750 and they have offered £808.09. I have rejected there offer and it’s going to the ombudsman to decide. Has anyone had experience of this. Will I get another offer, how long does it take and does the ombudsman rule in our favour usually?
Thanks fellow camels.
John says
Hi Ange,
They appear to be doing that to everyone.
As soon as an adjudicator was assigned to my case they offered £2K. I declined. I believe I will get a lot more by allowing the FOS investigate.
Your decision – Good Luck whatever you decide!
John
Mustard says
Hi I declined wongas offer of £750 and ended up with £1800. QQ complaint with ombudsman after they offer £150! Adjudicator found most of my loans bar 2 unaffordable, so unless you are desperate for the money right now, think of the bigger picture if you have a good case you could get much more back. ?
Libby says
I finally received my final response from Wonga yesterday offering a refund totalling £1984 including the interest. This was for 7 of 35 loans. They have said I need to pay an outstanding balance of £368 out of this. I filed my complaint on 7 November 2016. The response came a day after I contacted FOS. I replied to Wonga asking them to clear the outstanding balance at their request so I can take advantage of the full compensation offered. Am I being unreasonable and should I wait for a response from FOS bearing in mind it could take months and I could do with the cash!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds a poor offer. Do you know how much interest you paid in all? If that is 7 loans, then you may well get three times as much or more by waiting… it is worth doing the sums rather than grabbing the money – however welcome! – and then regretting it later.
Libby says
The interest was approx £2400 from what I’ve worked out! I’m not expecting to get it all back of course!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
mmmm worth double checking? That sounds very low unless the 7 loans Wonga are refuning are massively larger than the rest of the 35?
Tom says
so I finally received the information from my SAR from payday express and Payday UK. Both of which are saying time barred. Interestingly it turns out Payday Express say I have overpaid them £154, this £154 that they have sat on for the last 4 years. I was paying them via step change, on the statement from payday express it just shows me going into credit month after month, nobody at Payday Express contacted me about it. They had my email address and telephone number. I know the interest is a relatively small amount but should I be submitting a new complaint that they sat on my money for 4 years despite knowing I had financial difficulty and ask for compensation plus 8% interest?
Even after I submitted my responsible lending complaint they did not mention this money they owed me. it was only once they have sent me the statements (which they initially refused to do even with the SAR) that they confess to this money they owed me. Seems to me like they were fully aware but didn’t want to pay it back.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have they actually sent the details of the loans over 6 years old?
T says
Yes, after I threatened to complain to the ICO
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good! (Not good you had to do that though – what about all the people who aren’t so clued up and who would have given up … grrrr)
Well as they are saying they woint refund on the older loans, off to the FO. I wouldn’t put in a seperate complaint about the way they have not even offered to refund YOUR MONEY they are holding, but make sure this is clearly identified as a seperate point in the general complaint to the FO.
Wendy says
Hi there does anybody know how quick wonga are to make refunds after you have signed their acceptance form? Thanks
Aaron jackson says
Usually takes 5 working days.
Did you accept Wongas offer or did you go to FOS?
How long before wonga made an offer?
Wendy says
Hi aaron
Is it usually 5 working days for wonga to make a refund then? I accepted wongas offer directly because I already had a loan written off and I only had 7 loans altogether with them and they came back and offered me £1000 so I thought that was good. They took 12 weeks to make a decision.
Ross says
Hi Wendy,
A few days after you send your acceptance to Wonga, I would advise chasing them up, with either an email and/or call. The reason for this is, after they received my acceptance, nobody actually noted this on their system, so it remained sat wherever it was sat. In all fairness though, when I chased them up, and they noted the acceptance, they issued the refund within 2 days.
Wendy says
Thankyou very much ross I appreciate your advice and I will chase wonga up tomorrow about the acceptance form.
Thanks again. Wendy
Liz says
Success with Sunny!
Used them continuously from September 2013 until now. Complained at the beginning of January and have had an email today offering:
“In line with my decision, and to return you to the position you would be in had you not been granted a loan, I would like to offer the following:
• A full refund of all interest and charges paid in respect of your loan, totalling £1908.63
• Simple interest at 8%, calculated on the above figure, totalling £508.95
• The record of your loan will be removed from your credit file; we will update Equifax, Experian, and CallCredit.
• The outstanding balance of £195.65 will be written off, and the account closed down, meaning you therefore have no further liability to us.”
Absolutely delighted with this outcome. It says funds will be in my account within five days. ?
Thanks for all your help and advice, Sara!
Katie says
That’s a great result. I have been borrowing with them continually since 2012 and still owe about £250. I’m not late with payments but I have sent complaints to other day pay day lenders. I was going to wait until I had paid off sunny before I complained to them. So should I complain now whilst I still have an active loan ? I’m worried that if they reject it then it would affect my credit rating which after years of defaults ccjs and a DMP has only just recovered. Thank you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I understand your worry, but if you have been borrowing continuously since 2012 you have a very good complaint… and the later lons such as your current one are always the most likely ones to be determined to be unaffordable.
If you can repay the current loan and not borrow any more that month, fine. If not, then I suggest putting in a complaint and asking for an arrangement to pay.
Dave says
I have a very similar claim against them as you. Do you know why they might have settled so early? I have sent them my credit report and details of missed payments and a default they ignored from back in 2014. They continued to issue loans despite these.
Liz says
Hi Dave,
I just sent them an email using the template on this site. I didn’t send them any other information nor did they ask for it. It took them just over five weeks to get back to me with their final response.
Best of luck! ?
Emily says
Hi Liz , can I ask what email address you used to complain to Sunny ? Thanks
Liz says
Hi Emily,
I sent my email to help@sunny.co.uk
They were definitely one of the easier companies to deal with in my opinion. ?
Aaron jackson says
I currently have 3 complaints in with wonga, Quickquid and payday uk.
Payday uk is ALL outside the 6 year rule.
Quickquid was a few before the 6 year rule and a few within it.
Wonga I had around 20 before the 6 year rule and 50 within it.
I will still refer the cases to the FOS if the likes of payday uk declines. I’m not just going to take there no for an answer without the FOS saying so, I’ve nothing to lose, and these company’s have preyed enough of people for years.
Just wondered what sort of timings I will be looking at these days, I understand they are allowed 8 weeks…. but is wonga snowed under these days? Will they ask for a further 6 weeks etc??? I will just refer instantly to FOS if they do that to me.
I also noticed a few days after I complained to PDUK, an “administration review” appeared on my credit file. They promised me nobody else can see this. But what are they playing at even checking my credit file? They know fine well I my loans were OVER the 6 year period so they know NOTHING from pay day uk would be on there…. so why are Instant cash loans (PDUK) Having a look at my credit file when they have been UNAUTHORISED to do so? I did not give them any permission to do this. Are they allowed to do this?
Any help i really appreciate, many thanks, Aaron
Rob says
Does anyone have an email address for 24 7 Moneybox that they actually reply to?
Only one I have is customer.services@247moneybox.com and haven’t ever had a reply
Dave says
When the FO look at bank statements, does money borrowed off family count as income? There were several times when things were getting particularly tough that they had to help, but things still didn’t get much better for me. Would this again not be seen as a sign of me struggling?
Susan says
No they should ask you if more than few times the same person has put money in your account and why.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think if you were, say, to get £300 each month without fail for a long period then it might be reasonable to count this as “income”. But one off payments aren’t income.
Mark says
So grateful I came across this website! I lent numerous of payday loans, frequently topping them up and taking out consecutive loans for over 2 years with Wonga. Thanks to my loving grandparents I was able to pay all these loans off on time. Anyways, I put my complaint into wonga and they came back to me advising they could refund the interest on 7 of my loans out of 22. Worked out around £1600. I declined their offer and have complaint to the Financial Ombudsman who are currently looking into my case. I believe that all the payday loans I took out were unaffordable at the time. I was on a low income salary, whilst renting and had just become a dad at the time. Definitely felt the pressure to provide for my young family. In the end had to give up on the flat and move back in with parents – as I simply couldn’t manage with the finances and debt any longer. Was absolutley devastated that we had to give the flat up! But I turned my life around, managed to get a really good job, turned my finances completely around and managed to save up for a deposit on a house… all within a year and half. However, I had major issues trying to get a mortgage as a first time buyer. I had 3 mortgage applications with high street lenders rejected all because of these wonga loans I took out and even paid on time!!! I was extremely lucky in the end to get a mortgage approved by aldermore! However the rate increased ridiculously in comparison to what Halifax were willing to offer… I have to pay £149 a month extra on my mortgage with aldermore. This is my punishment for taking out these payday loans with wonga. What infuriates me more is that wonga fail to mention that before taking out any of their loans this will make your chances of obtaining a mortgage almost impossible within the next 6 years. Although they do make you aware that not paying their loans on time can seriously affect the chances of obtaining credit in the future. But regardless of whether you pay them late or on time… your chances are ultimately affected for obtaining a future mortgage. I know I have already put in a complaint for these unaffordable loans… with the main purpose to get the interest refunded and the loans cancelled off my credit history – but should I be trying to seek compensation as well for extra I’m paying on my mortgage. It was definitely confirmed that the reason my applications were getting declined was because of the payday loans. Please let me know if I have a case or if I have left this too late. Thanks a million for creating this page and good luck to you guys that are fighting these payday loan companies/sharks!!!!
Andrew says
Hi Mark,
Apologies mark, I can’t answer your question but I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me regarding your experience with getting a mortgage. I have been in a very similar situation again with wonga. I owned a house but sold it and I am now trying to get back on the property ladder.
How long was it since you paid your last loan until getting a mortgage?
Did you seek advise from a mortgage advisor? Is this worthwhile or am I just going to get judged?
I’m currently living at the in laws with a child and we have another on the way, when it gets to summer time I’m going to be pretty desperate for a house and I am considering renting however if it means waiting a few months extra going off your experience I might be willing to wait.
Any response is appreciated.
Regards,
Andrew
Neil says
Andrew – I can’t directly answer your question but I’m looking to get a mortgage later on this year myself. There is an article somewhere on DebtCamel that discusses the topic, but I seem to remember seeing a comment from Sara that anecdotally, about a year with no PDLs is enough to get a decent “high street” rate.
I plan on renting until I am exactly 12 months “clean” then going to see a broker. This process has helped no end and in truth, I was never in it for the refunds (although they have been lovely!) – I just want the loans off my credit file.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you had not needed to borrow from a payday lender, but only did because you had seen an advert saying it would improve your credit score, then you may have had a case. But from what you have said, it sounds as though your finances were a mess. In that case I doubt you can argue that you wouldn’t have taken the loans if wonga had displayed a warning saying payday loans were bad for future mortgage applications.
Anecdotally it is usually possible now to get a mortgage if your payday loans were repaid on time if they were more than a years ago. Good luck when you try to remortgage.
Susan says
I started a complaint against Payday Express May 2016. It went to an adjudicator and they ruled in my favour for 14 loans I had taken out and Payday Express had until 31st January to respond. As they hadn’t responded, my adjudicator wrote to me and said that it would be passed to the financial ombudsman. Then yesterday Payday Express offered compensation “as a goodwill gesture” for 4 of the 14 loans which was against the findings of the adjudicator. I refused and so it is again in the queue for the FO which I have been told can be up to 3 months to be allocated. That will make it about a year since I started this long process.
craig says
Hi Susan,
Roughly same timelines as my self with PDE.
My complaint was started in April 2016.
August 2016 PDE did not uphold the complaint
Went to FO straight after that who upheld the complaint Oct 16.
PDE did not agree (but offered a very small goodwill gesture) so went to an ombunsdman who have just made their final decision.
I’m not expecting the money overnight as I have read that they take ages to pay out but i will keep pushing them.
Good Luck!
Craig
Ross says
Hi Craig,
It would appear that we’re all in the same boat when it comes to any of the companies associated with Instant Cash Loans (Payday Express, Payday UK & The Money Shop). I have had the same issues with Payday Express, ignoring the adjudicators recommendations and wasting a month whilst it’s put in to the ombudsman queue. It’ll be at least another 3 months before it’s looked at (adjudicators words). You will find that Payday Express will drag out the refund process and you will, more than likely, receive it on day 25 of the permitted 28 the FOS gives. Oh and don’t bother pushing them, you’ll be wasting your time. We have tried, and failed. All you will get back is a generic email saying that they can’t advise when you will be refunded but it will be before the date (which is the date 28 days after your acceptance) and they will push to not refund until the very end of it!
craig says
Thanks Ross – i am not holding my breath but Payday Express have made an offer which I have accepted. I don’t expect to have this month for a while!
Cheers, Craig
craig says
just spoke to PDEX and they said they are working on 3-4 weeks from the settlement date for refunds. i tried to give them my bank details but they said the FOS need to supply this so i got in touch with them gave them my details which they have passed onto PDEX. let’s see how long it takes!
David says
Hi all,
great website and useful information.
One question I had was does it matter what you spent some of the money on? I mean, my loans were constant and unaffordable but I also had a gambling problem and borrowed money constantly. I had roll overs and top ups and concurrent loans. I was swamped and felt suicidal at one point. I feel like such a fool but its done now, If I could recover any monies now it would help to pay off some credit card debt.
I just wonder if I make a claim, will the FOS look into my financial history and turn down my claim due to the gambling issue?
Thanks in advance.
Ross says
Hi David,
Don’t be ashamed about the gambling issue, there’s really no need. A lot of us on here, including myself, used loans for gambling and it doesn’t go against you. On the contrary, it can actually HELP your case, as the adjudicator may decide that the gambling transactions on your statements should’ve been a trigger for them to question the need for you to constantly lend. I know that most companies don’t ask for bank statements, but the adjudicators tend to say that, when ruling in a consumers favour, that the companies should have made more in depth checks when constantly borrowing or requesting top ups. It’s not doing these things which make the adjudicator side with the consumer.
If you were constantly borrowing, as you have stated, and also from numerous lenders (I assume this may be the case?) then you have a very strong case to complain and it costs nothing to complain either. If, and when, you have to send your complaint to the FOS, they will ask for copies of your bank statements. Please don’t be worried about this, They’re not there to be judgmental, but just establish the facts and whether the loans were affordable to you. If you spent lots of money on gambling, then it’s 99.9% certain that they won’t have been in your case.
Good luck!
Clair says
I am currently contacting the lenders that I have had loans from in the past to see if I can get a refund is I was caught in a payday trap and was continuously borrowing from one lender to another. From what I can remember these are wonga, quick quid, payday uk and express, my jar, piggy bank and cash genie.
I have contacted wonga and they are saying they can’t find a record of me and are being really unhelpful they have now said that they are no longer able to help me!
Has anyone else has this problem what should I do now as I know I have had numerous loans with them and they used to take money out of my account all the time.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This nornmally happens if you have changed email addresses? Do you still have the emails from wonga?
Clair says
Yes and I still have the same email address I have gave them all previous addresses and everything, it just feels like they are fobbing me off
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This sounds unusual, take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.
Hannah says
Afternoon all,
I’m just looking for abit of advice, the ombudsman ruled in my favour I got refunded interest, 8% interest on top this was afew days just before Xmas so I’ve been checking my credit report there was no removal in Jan but thought I’d wait for febs report incase my credit report was generated before they’ve had time to remove them and today’s credit report all loans from quickquid are still on there! This annoys me as it was in the legally binding ombudsmans decision no I still have to play a game off chase when it’s a year down the line all this should of been done and dusted :(
Lb says
I had this problem too. I emailed them direct and reminded them to remove them…they replied and a couple of weeks later they were removed.
sophie says
Put my complaint in today to Wonga I had 41 loans 2011-2013. Interest/charges comes to 4100.00, there wasn’t a month that I did not borrow. They did provide me a refund on my last ever loan of £1000.00. I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that something comes of this as, this money would help me get straight finally!!
Tim says
Hi I have just found out that I had 99 wonga loans all rolled over week by week I have filed a complaint but am just wondering if it’s just the interest that is refunded? Also I defaulted on two credit cards as a result of being scared of the interest if I didn’t pay the loan back in time would the defaults be removed from my credit file? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Interest and any added charges, eg for late payments.
Getting a refund from Wonga won’t affect credit card defaults.
Tim says
So if it was their fault I was unable to pay the cards on time there is no way this could be removed from credit report?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That’s right, sorry, there is no point in hoping this will happen. It’s not the payday lenders fault you chose to carry on paying them and default on your credit cards rather than the other way round.
Hunki says
Hi people,
I have just had a reply from Vivus after only sending them an email on Sunday, strange!!. I had no information at all of the loans I had with them in 2010, so just asks for all interest and charges back and said I could obtain the information when my transactions arrived from my old bank account. They came back today with a instant accept our apology and we will refund all charges with interest. Problem is they said I took the loans out in 2013 and it was 2010! I haven’t been near a PDL since 2011 when I entered into debt management plan, so not sure what their game is. Is it a tactic to getting out of paying me the interest from 2010? They know I have no records and are being quite honest acknowledging the loans. Suppose I will wait for my bank transactions to arrive and hope Vivus are on there for some proof.
Giving them credit for being the all time quickest to offer refund, less than 48hrs, but confused by their dates/tactics.