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?
Craig says
Just had a call from FOS regarding my Payday UK complaint.
They have agreed to refund interest + 8% + £150 inconvenience on all my loans which were taken out in 2008 & 09
I have passed on my bank details to the FOS and Payday UK have 4 weeks to issue the refund
They can’t say what the refund will be until Payday UK have processed it but i can make an estimate as i have a statement of my loans from them.
Has anyone else had success on loans taken out more than 6 years ago?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
for anyone who is wondering, this is a different craig to the one who has reported the big award against Wonga today!
sw says
Same here Craig, yesterday I had the same offer but only £100 inconvenience payout. My loans were all 2009, rolled over into 2010.
I have no idea how much this will be, a rough guess, as they never sent me a statement of account.
Over the moon, thought this one would be hardest and probably get nothing.
craig says
same here as they were refusing to look at my complaint as it was more than 6 years from when i had the loans and i just left it.
was very surprised to hear that they have now accepted and agreed to refund interest on ALL the loans! let’s see how long they take to payout now. i did get a refund from payday express recently and they paid just over 2 weeks from the settlement date. i’ll let you know how i get on :-)
sw says
Yes same as me. They said they would not look at them. I left it too, chased the ajudicator at various points. So surprised ro receive that call yesterday. All loans for me too, and I didn’t have many. Will update you as soon as I hear anything.
martin says
Just to let you know and ask question just had my complaint upheld by ombudsman with payday expresss who have been very unhelpful my question is has anyone had claim with them and how were they with paying out from way they been expecting full 28 days, this sadly for me is my smallest one, but what surprises me more is that payday uk (same owners) made me very good offer before adjuctor which i took these taken it all the way
Ross says
Hi Martin,
Payday Express are part of a company called Instant Cash Loans, which includes The Money Shop and Payday UK. They are notorious for holding out, until the very last possible days, to pay out. I also wouldn’t bother wasting your time chasing them, unless they go over the 28 days the FOS allow them to refund. All you will get back is generic responses saying things such as you will get it, when you get it. I think the more you pester, the more they may push you back in the queue. To give you an idea, and this came from my adjudicator at the FOS, on the Friday he enquired, I was 7th in the ‘queue’ to be paid. It took them until the FOLLOWING Friday to pay me out. That’s a massive achievement of refunding 1 person PER DAY, if there figures they quoted to my adjudicator hold any merit. Just don’t hold your breath!
Emma says
Hi,
I put in a series of complaints with a number of companies at the beginning of the month. Everyone has acknowledged these except for SafetyNet Credit. Has anyone had any experience of dealing with this company? I have re emailed and asked for them to acknowledge they received the complaint so will wait and see.
Ross says
Hi Emma,
I lodged a complaint with SNC and they only responded after I sent it a second time. They claimed not to have received the first complaint, even though it was sent to their complaints email address AND I received an acknowledgement of receipt?!? If they fail to acknowledge the second complaint, I recommend you give them a call?
Nikki says
Hi I had success within 7 days from safety net credit who simply removed the balance and closed account … It was £975 …
Tbh I was really shocked … As all other claims are taking forever ..
Allison says
Hi, I have just had another email from SSL , offering £200, I paid £650 in interest. What should I do? I have already registered a complaint with the FOS. But I haven’t sent the completed forms yet, could I ask them to up the offer to save clogging up the FOS? Thanks. Allison
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Why not? All they can do is say no… I think it may be better if you suggest what you would settle for rather than just ask them to increase it.
Allison says
Thank you. I have emailed them asking for a sum nearer the full amount .I will let you know the response. Allison
Allison says
Oh they have just emailed with an increase of £150 that’s half the interest I paid, not sure what to do next? ?? Thanks for the advice Sarah
Ross says
I’d keep pushing. Have they said this is their ‘final offer’? If not, I can’t see any reason why you can’t keep asking them to reconsider their offer? Each offer is getting you nearer and nearer to the amount you want! Good luck!
Allison says
Oh no! They just emailed me and said that they have made a mistake and I only paid £321 in interest not £600 like they first said! So wish I took the £350! They haven’t offered me anything yet. Where would I stand if I went to the FOS? Thanks. Allison
Ross says
I would be inclined to ask for a swift resolution and that they refund you the £321 and that you will no longer have to involve the FOS if you can reach an amicable decision. The most the FOS may give you is the £321 +8%, so trying to sort it between the 2 of you would speed it up, as there’s a bit of a backlog at the FOS currently. Your choice though? Good luck!
Claire says
Hi Sarah,
I had submitted a refund request to MyJar regarding some payday loans I had back in 2012, they defaulted my account which is due to expire off my credit file in July 2018. At the time I had entered onto a debt management plan and was struggling to make re-payments. I have copied their response below. I just wondered what your advice would be on whether to accept this or go to the Ombudsman. Ideally I would like the default removing from my credit file too if at all possible;
Please note that we only were made aware of your financial difficulties once your last loan with MYJAR fell into serious arrears. As we received no contact or payment from you, the hold expired and the loan was handed over to a 3rd party debt collection agency on 5 June 2012. To date, you have paid £81.13 towards the loan and the outstanding balance stands at £401.37.
Our conclusion
We have conducted appropriate affordability checks before approving your loan applications in line with the set rules and guidance from the regulators. We made our borrowing decisions based on all the information available to us and trusted the details that you provided to us to be true and accurate.
However, we have considered that you repaid later than the agreed due date on several occasions and we could have done more to assess why this was.
Decision
In light of the above, it is our view that your complaint should be partially upheld. To put things right, we propose to refund you the interest and charges you have paid on your last three loans in the amount of £34. As your last loan remains outstanding, this refundable amount would be credited towards closing the open balance, thus reducing the remaining balance to £84.87. This is the principal amount you borrowed, £200, minus the £81.13 you have paid to this date and the refundable amount of £34. We do understand that your financial situation may not allow you to pay this in one instalment, therefore we are willing to arrange a weekly or monthly repayment arrangement that you deem to be affordable for you.
——————————————-
Deatils: I’ve had 6 loans from them in total 5 at £100 each and the last one for £200. The interest on the £100 loans was £17 each and £34 on the £200 loan.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You have paid £85 interest in all, they are offering to refund £34 and take the interest of the last loan.
If you went to the Ombudsman they might I suppose say that an extra loan was unaffordable, but these are pretty small loans and you may not get a larger offer. 8% interest would add less than £15.
It’s up to you, but it’s not clear this is worth bothering to take any further.
alan says
Evening
On the 16/12/16 I complained to Wage Day Advance whom acknowledged my complaint and at the beginning of January replied with a letter via post explaining how they go about lending but not a refusal nor a final decision.
I could not understand this so sent an email to them on the 12/1/17 to which they replied..”.Once we have looked in to your complaint further I will get back to you”
Not heard a thing since and fiorwarded to the FOS but my question is has anoyone had similar experiences and what was the outcome
Ross says
Hi Alan,
This sounds rather strange. Wage day Advance responded to me within the 8 weeks, even though it was a rejection. It went to the FOS and the adjudicator upheld my complaint and WDA accepted his findings. They paid out rather promptly too. I would recommend you call them, as there’s something definitely amiss here?
Pear says
Hi Alan
I sent my first email to WDA at the start of February and got a letter in the post 4 weeks later with my statement and an offer, I emailed to decline this offer and stated what I thought it should be, I received an email back saying that the had issued their final offer which I thought would arrive by post, when nothing came I emailed again and they said that the first offer was their final offer so I have passed to the FSO.
Good luck
Susan says
Hi Rachel
The adjudicator passed my case on to the ombudsman end of November because Payday Express ignored the adjudicator deadline. The ombudsman contacted me at the end of January and gave me his final decision end of Feb. So 2 months waiting for ombudsman and 1 month for decision. I know I was lucky getting through the ombudsman stage so quickly.
Rachel says
Thanks Susan I’m at week 8 of waiting for an obudsman to pick it up so hoping it will be in the next month I might hear, they did make me a reasonable offer but didn’t include pre 6 yrs which would be a great deal more so I rejected and now to wait.
Susan says
Hope its soon Rachel. Definitely worth waiting. I was offered £840 which I turned down and ended up with £2700. They deducted an outstanding £350 I was due them ( was £660 on my credit file, which they have agreed to delete). They also deduct HMRC Tax on the interest which was £250 so the full amount offered was actually £3400 but im still over the moon with the £2700
Mike says
Hi, I just want to say thank you to this site, over the last 2 years I’ve been stuggling with payday loans and credit card debts. In December after splitting from my wife over my borrowing that I hid from her i entered a dmp with step change. I then kept seeing adverts on Facebook about get refund from wonga and payday loan company’s. After a bit of research I seen that these company’s take 25% of any refunds. Anyway I had a small victory today satsuma loans who I took a £1000 loan out with over 12 months with £900 interest. I had paid back around £300 to date. After following the template emails I got a replay saying that they would take off the interest of £900 and with payments I have already paid. I would owe them £600 but were also going to write that off and remove it from my credit file. I have followed the emails and sent to my many other payday loan Leanders so fingers crossed :) also on a plus note after going onto the dmp my wife took me back and is supporting me in my repayments :)
ZT says
Hi All
I am looking for a little advice after today receiving this email (copied below) from 247 Moneybox after submitting an affordability complaint around having borrowed an lot from them month after month ( 40 loans since April 2012 to Oct 2016), most of the loans were taken out on the same day the previous loan had been repaid. I was between 2013 to 2016, borrowing £400 each time.
I am not really sure how to respond to 247 – my complaint was based on the fact that I was reliant on their loans ( and many other pd lenders) every month to make it through – so I was wondering if has anyone else been asked the following question from 247 MB: ” To help with our investigation, please confirm if the information you provided to us at this stage was false and/or inaccurate.” How did you respond?
Quick note on the credit report comment 247 MB have made – I had 5 defaults listed on my credit file in 2013 and it would have shown multiple late payments until end 2016. I also went into a DMP in 2013.
Any help would be much appreciated
Email from 247: “Dear Zoe,
Thanks for your email.
The complaints procedure is at the bottom of my initial response, as per the email. I have reattached a copy underneath this email signature.
As advised, we have 8 weeks from the date of your complaint to issue a final response.
Your initial email advises your credit reports for the last few years show poor position. We assess the data in the credit report using a scorecard developed by an external consultancy and is continually enhanced in-house. The threshold of this scorecard is 219 (that is, the lowest score considered as acceptable). Your minimum score throughout our relationship was 257, and your maximum score was 296 – to exceed this threshold by this margin demonstrates a strong credit report.
I have checked a number of reports on your account, and note:
Zero defaults in the last 12 months
Zero delinquent accounts in the last 12 months
Zero active CCJ’s
Zero settled CCJ’s
Please see below an example of the income and expenditure information you provided to us as part of one of your applications. This is a declaration from you to help us make an assessment as to whether the loan is affordable, and this was provided no less than 36 times throughout our relationship.
netpay = £1,499.00
Mortgage/rent = £0.00
Credit commitments = £350.00
Other outgoings = £300.00
Free cashflow: £650.00
Loan amount advanced: £100.00
As you can see the free cashflow amount here was more than enough to cover the loan repayment due.
We lend based on a proportion of a customers net income, in this case the loan advanced was approximately 6.5% of that figure. Across your relationship with us, the loan amounts advanced ranged from 4% to 14% of your declared net income. Accordingly we believe our decision to lend was responsible taking into account the information available to us.
To help with our investigation, please confirm if the information you provided to us at this stage was false and/or inaccurate.
Kind regards,
Fiona
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you read https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/?
I suggest you reply saying that your large number if loans should have suggested to them that you were in financial trouble and it was irresponsible to continue to lend. And that you don’t recall giving those figures (make thus stronger if you are sure you didn’t!), that your rent was actually £x.
Add that CONC 5.3.1 says it’s not generally sufficient for a firm to rely on income and expenditure data provided by the customer and that the prolonged borrowing should have suggested something (e.g. The zero rent) was wrong.
It is also worth commenting on the bit about your credit records. Something like: “To say i had a strong credit report is bizarre. I entered a DMP in 2013. At that point I already had 5 defaults on my account and more accounts were recording late payments until 2016”
Good luck – and if they reject or make a poor offer, go straight to the Ombudsman!
Chris says
Hi I’ve had 4 loans with satsuma one after another I’ve paid just over £500 in interest I’ve asked for refund on interest they requested proof of my credit score and dmp which I have sent in I’m still waiting for reply has anyone actually had a refund from them ? Thanks
Ross says
Hi Chris,
I complained to Satsuma, and they rejected my complaint with a 7 page response (talk about War & Peace style responses?). I sent it to the FOS and the adjudicator ruled that the final (and largest) loan was unaffordable. The interest was written off from this loan and a refund of around £300 received. They accepted the adjudicators decision, so it didn’t need to go to an ombudsman. However, if you do get a refund, be mindful that they only (rather bizarrely) refund via CHEQUE!?! I asked for a bank transfer, as did the adjudicator, but they said they only do refunds by cheque. Very strange, in my opinion? Good luck!
Nick says
Hey Sara And everyone I just wanted to say thank you and give you guys an update on how I’ve got on. PDUK have been brilliant with regards to my complaint came back to me within 7 weeks with an offer which is more than acceptable and I have accepted so hopefully I get that paid out soon. WDA also have kept in contact with me and they finally sent me my SOA and so formally complained yesterday waiting for the reply. My only question is ref a company called handy cash U.K. I can’t get a response from the email address in their site and can’t really find out much about them online anymore has anyone got any idea about the company? Thank you ?
Sam says
Hey everyone
I am trying to get some advice for a few issues i have come across when putting all my information together on making claim’s. I stumbled across this website on Friday with absolutely no idea i could even attempt to claim back any money that all these PDL company’s have squeezed out of me over the years. I have spent most of the weekend pouring through old emails and my online bank statements getting as much information as possible to build strong case’s. I have even put a spreadsheet together to try and make more sense of how much interest i have paid.
So i got my 1st loan from Wonga back in 2011 i inevitably then fell into the payday trap pretty quick. I am in the Armed forces so i have always had a stable job with a stable income but as everyone knows the loans grew and grew to the point where i was paying one off and getting another the same day or day after. I then moved onto using PaydayUK and Payday express(i now know they are the same company) as well as Wonga. As the the Wonga payments got to big i then turned to Wageday Advance, Community payday and Cash Genie at the end of 2012. I managed to somehow keep these accounts from getting any missed payment or default but it was a very hard balancing act as i am sure many people on here know all to well. In October 2012 i manged to get an Amigo loan using one of my mates who was also a big payday loan user himself to be the guarantor only because he was put on the joint mortgage of his mums house so he could be the guarantor. Very stupid i know but we were young and desperate :( well that helped to pay off the payday loans for the time being but again as i am sure a few people know its easy to then slip back into the trap of all this easy money when you had a bad month. So i was back using Wonga, Wageday advance, Payday UK and Payday Express plus my Amigo loan payment. In June 2013 because they had again all gotten to much again i somehow managed to get another guarantor loan using The 1st Stop Group, again using the same mate who himself had a bad record with payday loans. so i now had two guarantor loans with the same mate and a bad record of rolling over lots of payday loans.
Any one that has got this far through my story thank you the main points are coming soon i promise :D
So i managed to stay out the cycle for a few months but soon i was using Wonga, Payday Express and Wageday Advance again :( but with this and the two guarantor loans something had to give so soon enough with Wonga and Payday Express i fell behind. I know this was not a smart move but i just ignored them hoping they would go away. I was still using Wageday Advance until the end of 2014 when that also fell behind and i could not pay them. Again i just ignored these outstanding debts and managed to get back on track a little even though these debts still hung over me. Sometime in 2015 i think not sure of the date Wonga cleared my balance i know now though reading articles on here they had to for some legal reasons.
At the end of 2015 though i somehow manged to to re lend with Wonga, So with 2 guarantor loans plus two outstanding PDL with two other company’s and a history of roll over after roll over they lent to me again. In that same month Dec 2015 i also started to lend with MyJar, I am guessing everyone can see where this is going again, So through 2016 my Wonga payments snowballed again and also the MyJar lending went up until in march 2016 i couldn’t pay them and because it had sort of worked for me in the past i just ignored this. I also got a satsuma loan at the start of 2016 which after 4 payments i could not pay so that also went on the forget about it list. Even though i am saying i just ignored them in a very blase way anyone that reads this comment and is in a similar position this is the worst thing you can do and i do not advice it. So i had four outstanding loans on the ignoring list with Wageday Advance, Payday Express, MyJar and Satsuma at this point plus my two guarantor loans as well. I kept rolling over the Wonga loans then in aug/sep 2016 i took out loans with Square Today, Uncle Buck,cashASAP and SafteyNet Credit to help with the increasing Wonga loan and to survive.
In October 2016 i luckily got a loan from a family member to help clear all my debt but being to embarrassed to tell them the extent of my crazy lending i borrowed enough to pay off the 2 Guarantor loans, outstanding Wageday Advance, MyJar, Satsuma loan, uncle buck, CashASAP and Wonga keeping the Safteynet Credit loan cause at the time it was very small i i was embarrassed about telling my family member i also had.
I currently have a payment plan set up with wonga, massive outstanding Safteynet Credit account £750 plus in January i got a 247 moneybox, piggy bank and money boat loans all small but its the Safteynet credit one that is the killer at the minute.
My 1st question is if anyone who had there accounts cleared by Wonga in 2015 did this affect the outcome of there claim in getting back the interest they paid because i think i have a strong case?
I still have an outstanding defaulted account with Payday Express of £431 but on my credit file on checkmyfile.com its says the account is closed. I have read on a previous reply to a message from Sarah that its not best to wake a sleeping lion but with Payday Uk being the same company as Payday Express is it worth putting in a complaint to Payday Uk because they may reference my outstanding Payday Express balance?
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and any answers to my questions would be amazing :D :D :D
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Some of the cases where there has been a write-off /redress paid automatically are held up whilst the FOS looks into the issue. Others have just gone through, no probs. I suggest putting your complaint in and thinking of the write off as a “pre-payment” on any refund. ie the refund will be lower but for a good case (or a small write off!) there should still be one.
Your Payday Express account is unlikely to really be closed, it has probably been sold to a debt collector who will be contacting you at some point…
Mark says
Hi everyone, got my final decision from ombudsman re 24/7 Moneybox and their deadline for payment is 17th April.
Any experience of how they operate now? Will they wait 28 days… or even more??!
This is my last one now with the ombudsman only other is toothfairy which is with the liquidators.
Ross says
Hi Mark,
I had a payment from 247 Moneybox and they were relatively quick. They could wait the 28 days, but they are not permitted to breach this time period. If it comes close to the 28 days, you can contact your adjudicator, and advise them that you’re still waiting for payment, and they will chase this up for you, asking what the delay is.
Kelly says
Accepted an offer from lending stream, but they have today missed the 28 day deadline for my refund!! Where do I stand with this? They have been by far the most deliberately unhelpful people I’ve ever dealt with, keep claiming not received emails from the adjudicator and they change the accepted date every time I speak to them.. delaying tactics no doubt and put the phone down on me on numerous occasions.
The adjudicator rang them
Friday to point out refund was due by today and hey said it would be in my bank Friday or latest today.. and it’s not. Can I raise a further complaint about this?
Neil says
Kelly – my thoughts are that you would potentially be owed a little more money as the calculation for 8% interest is now technically not correct.
Some might also say you are owed a small amount of additional financial compensation for the distress and inconvenience their vexatious approach has cuased you ;-)
gillian says
hi i have a complaint with lending stream with the adjudecator at the moment having had 41 loans in the last six years i was paying them off then reloaning on the same day i paid the last off ten days ago and since then i have had ten emails and seven text off lending stream saying log in to your account to reloan now do you think i should tell my adjudicater this to highlight how i got into the mess that as soon as i paid they were encouring me to reloan ty
Wiggles says
yes you should at least let the adj know, I asked them to stop sending my any communication that was outside of a standard repayment info etc, has worked but they still ignored the adj
Ross says
After reading about Payday UK starting to accept investigations about loans older than years old, I wonder if the powers that be at Instant Cash Loans have either decided it’s time to actually start dealing with complaints properly, or they’ve had their knuckles wrapped. My complaint to Payday Express (part of their lot) was upheld by the adjudicator in January. They ignored his 25/01 deadline and the subsequent 08/02 deadline. Ever since then, I’ve been sat in the ombudsman queue. So, think of my surprise, when I awoke this morning, to an email from my adjudicator, advising that Payday Express have now chosen to respond (at last) but, unsurprisingly, don’t agree with his full assessment. However, they have offered just under £3k to settle the complaint. I have asked the adjudicator if he can offer a rough figure of what I would receive if the ombudsman upholds the complaint the same as he has. As tantalising as the offer amount is, I’m not going to accept, as I believe the offer to be much lower than what I expected, especially without the 8% compound interest (which is mentioned nowhere in the calculations). If and when I receive what the ombudsman award could be (I know this isn’t guaranteed) I may wave a carrot back at Payday Express to tempt them to settle at a figure more to my liking. I’ll keep you all updated. It would be nice to get this one done and dusted, just leaving me then with the Quick Quid complaint, which is stuck in the jurisdiction muddle.
graham byrne says
I have been waiting 14 Months for my PDUK complaint to be settled, I am Sticking with It.
Ross says
HI Graham,
I have now had the, estimated, figure back from the FOS. I have now asked for the full amount of interest back, as a compromise, and I will settle. I have to be mindful that my adjudicator didn’t uphold all of the loans, so if they do agree to refund all interest, I’m not far short of the mark and won’t have to stay in the ombudsman queue. However, I’m not holding my breath and have given them until Wednesday to respond. I hope you see some resolution to your case soon?
graham byrne says
Hi Ross, I have loans over the 6 year period. My Adjudicator e-mailed me in December and told me my complaint was still in progress with a Ombudsman. I have complained to the FCA regarding PDUK ( Instant Cash Loans) complaints process, or lack of. Waiting patiently for an outcome, not waiting for cash, just a decision.
Garry says
How long do wageday advance take to pay out once an ombudsman rules in your favour?
Are you best to give them a call?
Ross says
Hi Garry,
In my experience, Wageday Advance were very good at paying out. I think the most I waited was around 3 days.
Rachel says
Hi Garry they paid me in 1 week after I accepted I gave bank details to fos
Maureen says
They made me an offer on their Final Response letter, I accepted yesterday and had an email this morning to say it’s been processed and will be in my account within 5 working days.
Kerry says
So so happy just received a email from
My adudicator regarding payday loans I had with them. The complaint has been with the ombudsman service since sept. The money shop have agreed to refund all interest and charges I had on my cheque book loans plus 8 percent interest and 100 for my trouble. The adudicator couldn’t yet give me a figure but said that is everything they would ask of the company anyway. They have forwarded my bank details onto them for the refund and said I should hear from the money shop very soon. Not sure how long this time frame will be if anyone can help me on that one and how I will hear from them. I had these loans roughly from 2009 could be a little before till Aprox sept 11. Was paying i think either 15 per 100 cheque per month and had I think up to 600 per month in cheques. So happy just got to wait for the amount and to receive it but it’s been worth the wait. Keep going everyone and be patient for the wait as the financial ombudsman service will do their very best for you. Now got to wait regarding my loans with quick quid, payday uk and payday express these have been with ombudsman service since October 16 and now have an adudicator.
Maureen says
Hi, I just had to share this fantastic offer I received from wage day advance, 7 weeks from my initial complaint to them. I am absolutely over the moon, as a single working parent now, this is life changing for us. Some lenders are reasonable and realise they did wrong and could have done things better! I also submitted 4 big complaints that were refused by Quick Quid, PDUK, Cheque Centre and Money Shop to the Ombudsman yesterday, all worth around 5/6k each, if they were upheld it would allow me to have a deposit to allow me to buy our first home. Thank you so much Sara for this site and all the great advice you give us, without you I wouldn’t have known this was possible.
Here’s their response: –
Having reviewed your borrowing history I do feel Wageday Advance should have conducted further checks prior to granting your seventh loan.
My reasoning for this is due to the pattern of lending seen on your previous loans. Therefore I feel further checks should have been conducted to re-assess your circumstances and ensure the further lending was still suitable for you.
Decision
In light of the above, it is my view that your complaint should be upheld.
This is because, as outlined above, I feel further checks should have been conducted prior to granting your seventh loan. Due to the pattern of lending seen on previous loans more needed to have been done to ensure the loans were still affordable.
I do not however agree that your first six loans should be upheld. This is because by signing the Credit Agreements you have confirmed you understand the products you requested from Wageday Advance. I can confirm that all the information in regards to this product is documented in a clear and visible format in your Credit Agreement.
Wageday Advance did carry out the relevant affordability checks on each of these loans and accurately assessed your income.
In order to resolve your complaint I would like to propose the following in full and final settlement of your complaint:
A refund of all interest and charges for loans seven to eleven amounting to £3774.50.
Include the statutory 8% interest on the above amounting to £1610.69.
This means the total amount payable to you is £5385.19.
For us to be able to issue you the redress by Faster Payment, please email us to confirm your bank account and sort code at your earliest convenient.
kerry says
Hi
I would just like to say thank you for all of the information on this site. It is far better than any other advise online.
Since 2014 I have been on a debt management plan due to being left as a single parent, I have just recently found myself in a situation where I am able to settle all outstanding debts (yay) and look forward to a brighter future.
Through reading the information you provide I approached two pay day loan companies in regards to irresponsible lending(Mr Lender and Quickquid) and two doorstop loans (provident and greenwoods).
I thought it would take up to eight weeks as per the automated e-mail. Mr Lender e-mailed me today and offered refund everything over the 100 percent interest over the original loan! I also spoke to provident today as I also queried the default date as they had it as 2014 when infact this one was 2011, they are checking the records with a view to changing this too!
I am ecstatic as if this is done all defaults will ‘drop off’ by January 2019. If it wasn’t for educating myself by visiting this site I would never have pursued it. Thank you!!
kerry says
oh …I forgot to add it was Saturday 18th March that I started communications and the first one is resolved in three days!
Ross says
Well done Kerry,
Mr Lender really are the better of a bad bunch. They appear to actually take an interest in dealing with complaints, unlike others I could mention, but will choose not to. When I submitted my complaints, back in 2016, both Mr Lender and Ferratum were absolutely fantastic. Both companies dealt with, and resolved, my complaints within 48 hours. If only the others could follow this example, there would be none of the frustration that we experience from other businesses not so keen to resolve complaints as quickly and efficiently as they do.
Emma says
I was wondering if anyone with prior experience could offer some advice. I put in a number of complaints towards the end of Feb. So far I have had my accounts wiped with Mr Lender, 247 MoneyBox and Ferratum have offered me a refund of a third of the interest I paid. Lending Stream have declined irresponsible lending, Uncle Buck need my credit report and MiniCredit (opos ltd) cannot find the account. Aside from these I still have 5 accounts being investigated. All these have now acknowledged my complaint but I have active accounts with 4 of these.
When I complained I asked for all collection activity to stop whilst the matter was being investigated. Of the 4 lenders, 2 have done this and 2 haven’t. If I have payments due out at the end of the week can anyone advise what is best to do with regards to this. Make the payments as usual or contact my bank?
Ross says
Hi Emma,
If you’re able to make the payments, without borrowing further, then it’s probably best you do, as this would avoid late payment markers being applied to your credit record. However, if you’re not in a position to do this, then contact the companies concerned and either offer them a token payment (even if it’s just £1) or advise that you cannot afford to pay. In any case, I would advise that you contact your bank and cancel the CPA’s for the loan payments you don’t want to leave your account. You can also advise the companies you’re cancelling for that you have done this, out of courtesy, so that they’re aware, if and when they try to take payment, that this is the reason why it’s failed. Chances are, that if you advise them in advance, they won’t attempt to collect payment. If your bank allows any payments to be made, after you have contacted them to cancel the CPA, then they’re liable to refund you, so it’s a definite safety net for you. Good luck!
Jason says
After one year and two months success fos went in favour all but one loan. Adjudicator made decision in September but as I was partially paid on one loan it’s been stuck for 6 months thankyou Sara u been amazing good luck everyone
Sara (Debt Camel) says
great news – I hope some of the other cases that are held up because people had already had some automatic redress from the lender also start moving.
David says
Hey everyone,
I received my final response from Q.Q last night – it seemed more specific than the three I have received from P.D.U.K, P.D.U.K and The Money shop (off to the F.O.S I go with these).
It makes interesting reading re their credit rating modules etc, they missed the whole point that although I only had three loans and a flexi loan with them, I had numerous others running concurrently with other lenders at the same time!…. but my main question is are they correct on the flexi credit account comment? Can I refer them to the F.O.S on this type of loan? To my mind, this was the largest and actually the most unmanageable. Meeting these target dates actually spurred me to borrow more to pay them back and although I didn’t miss the repayment date, it left me feeling suicidal with the mess I was in.
———————————————
[stuff they sent to everyone has been edited out – that’s most of it!]
I see that your credit model score was never under the minimum approval threshold for any of the loans for which you were approved. For instance, on 03/02/2013 you had a credit model score of 0.3622 when the minimum approval score was -0.25. Your credit model score is substantially higher the minimum approval score which shows that our affordability assessments properly ran per our internal policy.
The investigation of your complaint also considered all relevant information contained in your application. It was noted your monthly income was stated as £2200 per month. I compared your income to the average monthly repayment for each loan you took with us. From this I can see that the income you made during each loan with us was always more than enough to cover the amount you had to repay us for each loan and thus I cannot agree with you that your loans were unaffordable.
DEPENDENCY
I also note you had a Flex Credit account which is not a payday loan but a running credit account which is designed to provide customers with the option to drawdown credit up to their approved credit limit and repay it over a maximum of 10 months. Just like a credit card, we are not under an obligation to conduct an affordability assessment each time you drawdown on your credit limit.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How long ago were your loans? Were you ever asked about your expenditure when you applied? QQ usually don’t seem able to produce any information on this for loans of a few years ago. Without that they can’t really say anything sensible about what was affordable – your income alone doesn’t help with that.
The guff about their credit model is just words and a meaningless number, not much help at all in saying what your credit record was really like. What do you think it would have shown?
“are they correct on the flexi credit account comment?” which bit? are you saying you didn’t realise you could spread the repayments over 10 months and thought you had to repay and reborrow every month?
“Can I refer them to the F.O.S on this type of loan?” – yes, people have won flexi loan cases against QQ.
“To my mind, this was the largest and actually the most unmanageable. Meeting these target dates actually spurred me to borrow more to pay them back and although I didn’t miss the repayment date, it left me feeling suicidal with the mess I was in.” can you explain what you mean by target dates?
Nick says
I just my flex account with sunny upheld by the adjudicator, now just to see what sunny say about it all. I think I had another one with quickquid which was upheld as well.
Nick
David says
Hi Sara,
My loans with Q.Q were around 2014 – I may have filled out a rough form of expenditure at the time, I really don’t recall.
From memory with the flexi account, I opted for a loan over 3-4 months and repaid the agreed amount on each payment date, I think there was an option on a slider scale to where you could amend the amount to reflect how much you wanted to pay each month.
I think Nick has answered the question I was asking.
Once again – thanks for this site Sara and all the contributors. A long time still to go for me still but thank you, it is giving me hope! :-)
I have already had the standard rejection ‘final response’ letters from PDUK, PDEX and The Money shop within a 5 weeks (submitted Mid Feb) of my initial claim so I will escalate to the FOS once the 8 weeks are up.
Nick says
If you have received a final response letter you can go to FOS straight away you don’t need to wait until the 8 week point
Laura says
HI David
Minus the flex account this is pretty much what i received from QQ. Their bizarre credit rating system (where the minimum accepted level is a negative figure) makes no sense, as did their email. I took mine straight to the Ombudsman after receiving my final response! Good luck!
tracey says
So looking through my credit score history. And payday UK have stated amounts on some of the loans and not others. Is this normal for them to do. It often also states that the opening balance is the same as the closing… That can’t be right surely? Opening should be less than closing as I would accrue interest? No? I’m confused. Wongas footprints are fairly straight forward but payday UKs look dodgy to be honest.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can’t rely on your credit history being accurate. If you want a full picture of your loans it has to come from the lender or from your bank statements.
Michelle says
Cash genie have just sent me a e mail to confirm cheque will be sent out 7th April
Charlotte Clark says
How long after your response letter did you get the date of payment.
Michelle says
Hi Charlotte
They told me in November they would refund me and today got confirmation it would be paid in April.
It’s not a full refund but given they are in liquidation I didn’t see any point in taking to FOS and decided it was a bonus if I got anything
susan says
Hi,
just to let people know got email from Beth at CG and i am in the April payment, i emailed her at the end of November regarding my complaint, so could be people up to Nov are getting theirs in April.
Maureen says
I only complained in February to cash genie and I’ve today had an email advising I’m in the 7th April cheque run too!
Katrina says
Same with me, I just got the email. I first complained January 20th so not a bad time scale.
Louli says
Thank you so much debt camel!! I followed all your advice and I’ve been offered just over £4000 back in interest I paid!!! Thanks!!
John says
HI All,
16 weeks after submitting my complaint against Quickquid to the FOS I got an adjudicator decision today.
Awarded on all loans except the first one – not sure of exact amount but it is about £5500. Delighted by the thorough investigation the adjudicator put into it by going through every scrap of my financial history. Also of course delighted with the result. I expect Quickquid to reject it and go into the ombudsman queue for months yet but still good to know I am on track to get this cash.
That brings my awards to over £7000 with my largest one – about £6K – still to come. Likely to be this week as its also 16 weeks old and adjudicator has contacted me a few times this week so is working on it.
Keep going all – There is redress out there if you have a case and persist!
John
Steph says
Firstly, thank you so much for this page. I was pointed in the direction of it following a post I put on money saving expert and it’s been great.
I’ve submitted complaints to all PDL companies I’ve used – Wonga, QuickQuid, Satsuma and Sunny.
Quick Quid rejected my complaint with a £350 gesture of goodwill – now with the FOS
Wonga asked for an extra 8 weeks – now with the FOS
Sunny rejected – now with the FOS
Satsuma – haven’t issued a final response.
I had a repayment plan agreed with QQ and was one month in to 17 months of payments. Following the FOS request for my file from QQ, they have cancelled all my future agreed payments and advised me that this has been done due to FOS involvement. Has anyone else had this? My account with QQ is showing in arrears online and I’m concerned about missing payments and then taking court action
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If your case against QQ is good – and if they have offered you £350 it probably is, that is a large offer for them! – then there isn’t much to worry about here. They aren’t going to start court action whilst you have a complaint in with the Ombudsman. And if your last loan is determined to be unaffordable, then it will be deleted from your credit record.
But if you had reduced the repayments to an affordable level then you could reply that you would prefer to carry on making them I suppose. But don’t leave yopurself in a position where you are short of money and have to borrow somewhere else!
Steph says
Thanks for your response Sara, I am happy for them not to continue collecting for the time being so will contact the FOS (where they have told me to go if I want further information) and check I’m definitely doing the right thing from their perspective.
I’ve had 13+ loans with QQ over the course of 6 years – it’s difficult to determine the exact number due the number or top ups and rollovers, but my summary of account said I’d paid £6,361 in interest alone for this period. I used Wonga, and sometimes others, as a cross subsidy to pay off QQ, and the bank statements I’ve sent to the FOS demonstrate that.
I imagine they’ll take it the whole way and will need Ombudsman review, but I’m in it for the long haul and hopeful I MAY get something back from them….it’s worth a go anyway.
Thank you for your response.
Steph says
Contacted the FOS about this and have been told they know nothing about QQ cancelling my repayment arrangement. Redirected me to QQ… hope this doesn’t give me any additional problems.
Also, how lovely are the people at the FOS!! I’ve spoken in depth to 2/3 people. They make things so much simpler, using bank statements I’ve submitted for my QQ complaint on my Wonga complaint.
Fingers firmly crossed …..
Debbie says
Have just received this response from WageDay Uk and not really sure what to do next (if anything). What do they mean by “our own bespoke credit scoring logic”? They have my disposable income going from £675 to £1090 in a period of 10 months (honestly couldn’t say what I put down).
They have missed off the loan for £540 taken in November 2016 when listing their investigations. They then go on to accuse me of providing inaccurate information which they it would appear were quite happy to accept as they state “at no point did we feel concerned that they information provided was inaccurate!
They so they didn’t at any time do a credit check which in 2014 was 571 with check my file and is now 371 with noddle. I have been in an ongoing cycle of borrowing, repaying early to pay less interest and then borrowing again to be able to survive. I was borrowing from multiple lenders and varying amounts. My credit file would have shown all this along with credit and catalogue defaults. Then they contradict themselves and say they did do credit checks.
Do I have a case for complaint or do I just try and come to an arrangement?
———————————-
You have been granted a total of three payday loans and two payday loans by WageDay advance from June 2014 to 16 December 2016.
Your first loan was granted on 11 June 2014 for the amount of £150. You rolled over/deferred this loan on one occasion 15 July 2014. This loan defaulted on 18 August 2014 due to non payment incurring fee of £20. This loan was then paid on 19 August 2014 for the amount of £215.68.
Your second loan was on 7 March 2016 for £80 and was paid on 18 April 2016 for £104.96. Your third loan, an instalment loan was granted on 02 September 2016 for £400. You paid two payments of £114.78 and then repaid the loan in full on 25 October 2016 with a payment of £303.05.
You 4th loan was granted on 21 November 2016 for £540. This loan was pain on 16 December for £643.68 and you final loan, an instalment loan was granted on 16 December 2016 for £690 and I can confirm there is an outstanding balance of £1060.10.
Investigation
It is my opinion that WageDay did conduct sufficient affordability checks prior to granting your loans. When assessing a customer for finance WageDay use our own bespoke credit scoring logic and during this scoring assessment we used comparable information to determine the accuracy of the information provided to us. At no point did we feel concerned that the information provided was inaccurate.
During your first loan you stated your total monthly income as £2050, outgoings as £450 and disposable income as £1600. Based on this you were lent £150 to ensure you had sufficient income after repayment.
During the second loan you stated your total monthly income as £2050, outgoings as £1375 and disposable income as £675. Based on this you were lent £80 to ensure you had sufficient income after repayment.
During the third loan you stated your total monthly income as £2300, outgoings as £1375 and disposable income as £925. Based on this you were lent £400 with monthly repayments of £114.78 to ensure you had sufficient income after repayment.
During the fourth loan you stated your total monthly income as £2300, outgoings as £1210 and disposable income as £1090. Based on this you were lent £690 with monthly payments of £225.79 to ensure you had sufficient income after repayment.
Looking at your income and expenditure it is clear that the information you provided was inaccurate. We were reliant on your honesty when declaring your details and could only rely on the information we were provided with.
For you first 3 loans WageDay did not use a CRA and the assessment was completely based on the self declaration provided by you. As payday lenders were not required to use CRA data when assessing an application and as such we could not reasonably have been aware of the status of your credit report. For your final two applications our assessment of your credit worthiness was automated and considered multiple items of information about you and your financial circumstances, including your credit score and re-payment history. Based on our assessment and the information you provided we believed the loan to be affordable at the time it was made.
Comments then made about me signing the contractual agreements to confirm I had understood and that they don’t encourage deferrals, they then comment.
We don’t concede you were in a spiral of debt as they number loans held with us would not suggest a dependency on the finance. Further to this there was a minimum of a month between repayment and refinancing on each of your loans prior to your final loan.
Decision
In light of the above it is my view that we did nothing wrong when issuing the payday loans. By signing the credit agreements you have confirmed you understand the products requested from WageDay.
WageDay did carry out the relevant affordability checks on each payday loan and accurately assessed your income. While you used our services on a number of occasions, there were times when the funds borrowed were inconsistent for a dependency on our finance, and there were occasions whereby there was more than one month between borrowings. For these reasons WageDay will not be issuing a refund or provide any compensation.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have? They seem to list a £540 loan in Nov 16?
Debbie says
Hi Sara
I’ve had a total of 5 loans. Four of them were between march 2016 and December 2016. The £540 loan was taken out on 21st November and they mention it in the relevant facts section, then they appear to forget it when the write about their investigation.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would have thought you had a reasonable case for a refund of loan 4 and 5. As there is a balance on loan 5, this should be reduced to the amount you borrowed less anything you have paid to it (which may be nothing).
Debbie says
Do you think it is worth writing to WageDay again or should I just pass it to the FO?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it will only take a few days to tell WDA what you would be prepared to accept, it’s up to you.
clive matthews says
Just had a final response back from uncle buck at 5pm on the final day of their eight weeks. Firstly they dispute supplying consecutive loans even though when they list the loans the greatest period over 7 loans between repayment and reborrowing is only 13 days Secondly, in their opening statement they said this;
‘Your application went through a credit check performed by the credit reference agency Call Credit, which confirmed the monthly income you provided, of £1 400.00, was accurate.’
Am I right in thinking that it’s not possible to ascertain salary from a credit reference agency?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Your income isn’t included on your credit record. It is possible they were paying Call Credit for some other service I suppose.
But with 7 month of consecutive borrowing I suggest you send this case straight to the Ombudsman.
Miriam says
Exactly the same, I received a final response at 4pm and I emailed them that I’m not happy and will file my complaint with FO. They sent me an email straightaway and asked me for the case ref I have with FO. So I didn’t wait filed my complaint and sent them my ref number. So will see.
alan says
Success
WDA have upheld my complaint after I challenged their lack of responsible awareness on 2 of my loans I rolled over a few times and they have agreed to refund all interest and the 8% per annum to me from these loans.
One of the better companies to deal with
Emma says
Hi Alan,
Can I ask when you first submitted your complaint to them?
Many Thanks
alan says
16/12/2016
Rebecca says
Hi, I have emailed 8 PDL companies requesting a statement of account. No response from payday express. Payday uk have said they have passed it to customer relations who should be in touch. Cash genie informed me I didn’t have any successful loan applications from them. Wonga are going to get back to me, as they have a high number of requests. Wageday advance and my jar are sending me the statements within the next few days. And I have received statements from quick quid and poundstillpayday. However I am unsure what I am looking for on these statements, how do I work out how much I am owed etc? And is the. Next step to email them back requesting redress? What do I include within the email. Anyone who has sent an email of this nature what did you include? Thanks.
Ross says
Hi Rebecca,
If you owe no money to either Payday Express or Payday UK, then the chances are that you’ll receive a standard response, stating that they are not obliged to send statements, under some financial act. If this happens, then you may want to consider sending them a SAR (subject access request) which would cost you £10, or you can just refer to your bank statements. On your bank statements, you need to look at what was paid in by the PDL company, and what was paid out. For instance, if you borrowed £400, and they claimed £500 back, then your interest would’ve been £100. I know that sounds obvious, but I’m just trying to simplify it for you.
I believe Cash Genie are in liquidation, so I doubt you would be able to make a successful claim with them, as they are struggling to pay people who have already submitted successful claims. Please don’t quote me on this, but others who have claims, with Cash Genie, may be able to advise (I never had any loans with this particular company).
It’s difficult to say how your cases, with Wageday Advance & MyJar, may pan out. It may, purely, be down to how strong your case(s) may be as to how they respond. In any event, if you’re unhappy with their final response, you can refer these to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Quick Quid are renowned for either dismissing complaints outright (I have bitter experience of this) or offering derisory amounts in the hope that you will settle. For example, some people have been offered an initial amount of £200, to settle, and have then received £1,000’s more, after the FOS have investigated.
Pounds til Payday was/is a company that is outside the jurisdiction of the FOS, as they’re based in Malta. If you look at Sara’s page on this company (same as Swift Sterling) this will point you in the correct direction on how to submit a complaint.
As for sending your initial email(s), requesting redress, take a look at the templates Sara has, on this site. If you had numerous payday loans, with numerous payday loan providers, at the same time, then this a definite unaffordability issue and they need to prove that they did proportionate checks before issuing your loans. This is not up to you to prove, but the company/companies that actually issued the loans. If you require any further assistance/tips/answers, then just post on here. A lot of us are now nearing the end of our ‘journey’ (some have already finished theirs) and would be happy to hand down any tips/advice/information you may require. After dealing with a LOT of payday lenders, I am now just down to 1, which is Quick Quid. This is currently held up in the ‘jurisdiction’ issue, whereby some of my loans are older than 6 years old. Quick Quid have said they are objecting to the FOS being able to rule on these, so it’s an ongoing argument between the FOS and QQ. If you have loans older than 6 years old, with QQ, then you may also fall in to this bracket. However, don’t worry too much about this now, there’s plenty of time to deal with this. Good luck!
Rebecca says
thank you for the reply. I am still slightly confused by all this, and trying to organise everything and try and work out what i’ve paid etc. I have received statement of accounts from quick quid (5 separate pdf’s, so I’m assuming that means I had 5 separate loans with them??) Today i received a statment of account from myjar (7 loans in total-2 at £100 and 5 at £200, however the last one dated 11/04/2012 is still showing outstanding) I also received a SOA from northway financial (poundstillpayday) with 34 loans on it, the smallest amount was £200 and the largest was £340. The last loan was 12/03/2012, which says sold to MMF £500.93. I understand that the ombudsman can’t deal with ptp so who do i need to contact now? northway financial or MMF?? and with regards to the first two, do I now start with my complaints email using the template provided? I am also still struggling to get a response from paydayuk, paydayexpress and wageday advance. I can’t access old bank statements either as I have changed banks. all help and advise much appreciated.
Ross says
OK, let’s try and break this down in to different points, to make it a little easier;
* Now you have your statements of account, for the lenders you wish to complain about, you can tot up what you’ve paid in interest (the difference between what they loaned you, and what you paid back) and ask for this amount to be refunded.
* With reference to Pounds til payday, you’re correct. You will need to, initially, complain to Northway Financial direct, as it’s them, not MMF, which issued the loan(s). If you have no luck with Northway, then you have to refer the complaint to the Maltese authorities. Sara has more information on this, on a separate page. The FOS have no ability to intervene, as they were never UK regulated.
* If you’re struggling to get responses from PDUK, PDEX and WDA, don’t worry! Just make sure that you’ve kept copies of the original complaints you’ve sent and, after 8 weeks are up, send them to the FOS. The FOS will demand the information and they’re more than likely to ‘stump up’ the required information once they’re involved.
* I would recommend that you send everything via email AND be certain to keep EVERYTHING you send, and receive, in a separate file. I made separate files in my Hotmail i.e. PDEX FOS, WDA FOS etc.. and this made it much easier, when I had to refer to something, instead of trawling through lots of emails, all in one place, for separate complaints.
I know all of this may seem daunting, but there’s plenty of people on here who will help, along with Sara, so keep at it! Good luck!
Rebecca says
thank you again for the reply, I have been going through my emails today and have started putting them all into folders as you have advised, whilst searching through them all, I have found the loan contracts from payday uk and payday express, so can these be used if I am unable to obtain old bank statements? also with regards to quickquid, I have seen I had one last loan which defaulted and was passed onto mackenzie hall which i paid off, however this was not included on my SOA. so do i include this when calculating the interest I have paid? and there are a few late fees of £12 are these included? at the moment with quickquid I have calculated £449.98 (that is without the £12 late fees and the last loan which defaulted). I have not calculated any of the others yet, but I am certain that poundstillpayday is the biggest one. So I will be sure to calculate that one and myjar and compose my complaints email to them. If I can calculate interest and find loan dates via the emails i have found from paydayuk and payday express, can I use these details in my complaints email so I don’t have to wait around for them to send me a SOA?
Rebecca says
I have had another email from PDUK today saying that my account has no sums due or payable so they have no obligation to send me a SOA. I used the template on here about the fca rules and needing the account details to explain my complaint clearly and they just keep sending me this back! Very frustrating! What should I do??
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If any cases go to the FOS you will have to try to get hold of your old bank statements.
Chris says
I’ve got an unusual situation at the moment, maybe others could shed some light. Once my final PDL refund is finalised I’d like to post how my journey has been from start to finish over the last year, but for now I need some advice.
I had a complaint in with the FO regarding CFO Lending, which after being with the adjudicator for 4/5 months went to the FO who, after 4 months, increased the adjudicator’s decision.
The FO’s department and CFO lending have both said that the company are unable to make the repayment at the moment and won’t be able to make it within the 28 days, but will let me know when they can. I don’t know if it is because of lack of funds or lack of staff to process the refund. It’s a fairly large amount so would be very handy back in my account.
Do I just wait? What deadline do I give? What are my options if it goes on and on and what is too long to wait? Has anyone else had dealings with CFO Lending?
Thanks
Chris
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you had a Final Decision from an Ombudsman?
Chris says
Yes, but CFO Lending have said they will not be able to process the refund/claim within the four weeks and the Ombudsman’s office have emailed telling me this as well.
Andy says
Hi all,
A quick update.
I initially made a complaint against Sunny in around October. The waiting is just to be allocated an adjudicator. I was allocated one last Monday, he asked for some info which I gave him on Tuesday, and a decision was made on Thursday, so it’s all very quick once you have an adjudicator.
I had around 19 loans with Sunny over a period of about a year. These were instalment loans but I almost always paid them back early. This was due to gambling. I’d win and pay them off early then get a new loan then next day when I’d lost.
Sunny dismissed my complaint. My argument was that although I’m happy that they wouldn’t necessarily spot anything for the first few loans, my repeat and erratic borrowing should have set alarm bells off, at which point they should have carried out further checks. They would have then seen all the gambling transactions on my bank statements.
The adjudicator agreed, and suggested that all interest after the first 4 loans should be repaid to me. (Don’t be afraid to show bank statements with gambling, it will work in your favour, especially if you say the gambling is caused by the spiralling loans.)
Sunny have accepted the adjudicators decision, and offered me £498 but I think the interest for that period is more like £1k so not sure if they’re trying to pull a fast one.
Nick says
The adjudicator should send you there findings, which I have noticed different ones send differing amounts of information, my quick quid he just said repay all loans no amounts, my one with Wonga he sent them all over with a list of what he thinks should be repaid etc.
Maybe ask the adjudicator for the list of loans that would be repaid.
My sunny adjudicator called this week to say they had just agreed with sunny about investigating the instalment loans as I guess sunny didn’t agree with it at first, mine had been in since mid Jan and she called thus week to let me know what was happening with it.
Nick
Michael says
Evening all,
Has anyone ever had dealings with Mr Lender?
I sent a letter off asking for my statments and to give them credit they had sent these statments with in 5 days. I then sent and email asking for a refund. The intrest I had paid them from 2013-2016 added upto over 2k. I got reply from them today (after only 7 days) saying they believe they where in the right ect but would be willing to offer a good will gesture of £690 :( I have replied to there offer telling them I believe the offer is too low. My question is what happens now?, will they send my a final response? or have they ever made another offer to anyone? Or do I just see out the 8 weeks and go to the ombudsman?
Lucy says
Hiya Michael!
I emailed Mr Lender on 9th march and within 4 days i had a refund and the outstanding balance wiped. I had to reject two offers of a refund and the 3rd one was just short of £20 of the interest i paid. If you have an outstanding balance being wiped please ring up and double check they have done it as i have had an issue today of them taking payment out as my account was still open. Rang up at 8:30 am and they had sorted it by 11am with the money back in my account. They should get back to you with either another offer or a final response one its obviously in their hands. Of around 9/10 emails i have sent out regarding irresponsible lending all on 9th march Mr lender is only 1 of 2 company to get back to me other than acknowledgement emails (SNC being the other one)
Good luck!
Michael says
Thank you for the information Lucy, Im glad I didn’t accept. I received a second email from them explaining why the offer is so low. It just seemed like a fob off to me so I’ve replied back explaining I will not be accepting their offer.
Lyndsey says
Hi, I found debt camal last year so I started my payday refunds two have been successful and paid out in a short time and two are still with the ombudsman. It’s been 6 months now and the ombudsman are saying that payday uk are still holding back my info because of jurisdiction and there saying I wasn’t in financial difficulty also the checks they did was all fine..I really don’t understand this, the ombudsman say they might not be able to look at my complaint.. now this company I had 42 loans with over 6 years and I am looking at a lot of interest back… now I’m thinking I might not even get a penny. How long does this take any ideas or advice please
Rachel says
Hi Lyndsey I have been waiting a long time too first it was rejected completely as I put date of my first loan on claim form ( going back 10yrs!!) so had to resubmit and now had an offer but declined because of the older loans week 9 of waiting for ombudsman I’m hoping I may hear this next month ( started the process last march) did they offer you anything at all?
Lyndsey says
Hi Rachel thanks for your reply, when I put into payday uk they just said no after 8 weeks waiting they said everything was ok ect. Even though some loans I took 3 months to pay off, took it to ombudsman last year early sept, been phoning every 4 weeks for an update and they have nothing to tell me other than pduk saying there a time limit. I’m hoping after all this time I get good news… I hope you get good news
Rachel says
Like Sara said people have had claims go there way recently so I’m hoping this will mean good news for others good luck
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The older loan cases can drag on, but several people recently have reported payday UK are starting to pay out on the over 6 years cases, so just hang on in there, your case will considered.
Kevin says
Hi Sara
Bit of a dilemma with wonga, thought i had paid in full with my DPP but when i checked my credit file it still says I owe wonga 1000, do you think this is right as I’m very concerned , my statements don’t make much sense and say i had 4 loans which came to 1800, but surely they wouldn’t wipe 1000 off with no letter.could they try and make me pay this back if my claim gets rejected. HELP
Sara (Debt Camel) says
if the debts were in a DPP, then they should have been repaid in full. It could simply be that your credit record is wrong? I suggest you talk to the debt advisor that set your DPP up.
Kevin says
Thanks Sara I’m in week 10 now with wonga but after seeing this feel like giving up but i will make a few calls tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of it as it looks very bad on my credit file, will let you know how i get on.just want to say you are doing an amazing job helping everyone on here, think saint Sara sounds better
lorrain says
Kevin I had the same with Wonga a few years ago, I contacted them and they immediately removed it from my credit file. They were very good.
Louis says
So my FOB got back to me today (well, he got back to me a long time ago but I never checked my voicemails!)
He has stated the following (and I am actually very nervous about what this implies unfortunately).
“I have looked through your complaint but I wanted to discuss it with you.”
Perhaps that implies exactly what I think it implies (i.e – nothing can be done basically and accept the initial offer, which truly does stink! if it is the case!)
Has anyone else experienced that kind of response prior to a conclusion?
Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It means what it says – he would like to talk to you. It’s good that he has got in touch. There is no indication that this is good or bad news. It may simply be introducing himself!
I suggest you get back to him and start by saying you rarely check voicemails and would rather he emailed in future.
Louis says
Adjudicator has spoken – basically feels my monthly income was not too much, but also my outgoings weren’t too much either and therefore the conclusion he came to was that of similar to what LS had initially offered me…
Upsetting? Yep…
I don’t want to risk going to the actual ombudsman because It could go against me…
Even though I get a little refund of just over £100… Today, the lenders have won.
Nigel says
Can I just say something. I really don’t want to rub anyone up the wrong way, The Adjudicators are usually 99.9% spot on. There is no harm seeing if a lender lent irresponsibly at all. But just because we have used these services it doesn’t mean they always have lent irresponsibly otherwise everyone who has ever borrowed would be claiming and all these lenders would be out of business. In regards to what you have had back on two complaints I would say you have nothing to lose and sure take it to the Ombudsman add some other points as to why you had to borrow the cash in the first place. My own personal worst state my In comings from work were £1,800 a month and my outgoings were £14,800 when it reached it peak. Complete meltdown!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you think the adjudicator has missed something, go back and ask him to look again. Adjudicators can and do change the minds when people make new points to them. And you aren’t risking anything except a delay in going to the Ombudsman. How many loans did you have over what period?
Miriam says
Hi all
any experience with cash4unow? I sent complaint on 26th Jan, received only acknowledgment and another email on 9th Feb saying that they will complete an investigation by 23rd March. So it was yesterday and I received nothing. What shall I do?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You could either send it straight to the Ombudsman or call them up and ask why you haven’t been sent a decision.
Nicole says
After having a few good results last year I have this morning sent off compliants to 4 more payday lenders! Has anybody had any dealings with square today… Trusted quid? Have also sent to wage day advance and sunny! I have only had one loan with trusted quid and square today but I feel I should have not been accepted as my credit report is very very poor and shows several defaults
Marie says
Hi Nicole. I’d be interested to know how you get on with the companies you only had one loan with. I only had one with MyJar which I still owe on. At the time I had lots of other PD loans so I have decided to email them asking to wipe the loan and remove from my credit file as shouldn’t have given me credit. (worth asking. I only had 2 with Sunny, which I wasn’t going to bother with, but think I might as well now.
Nicole says
I complained to Mr lender last year I only had one loan with them but they refunded all interest. I also complained to my jar last year, my account has been passed to debt collection and I had paid it for over a year when was already repaid! And they hadn’t even notified me… So got all over payment back from them and all charges and a good will gesture!!! I only had three loans with sunny… I will let you know how I get on Marie! Always worth a try with the amount of interest we have paid to these companies!!! Nicole xx
steve says
Hi Marie, I had lots of loans but only one with MYJAR and they refused to do anything with it and FOS agreed with My jar :-(
Kee says
Just spoke to the Money Shop who are not refunding anything before April 2007.
PDUK and PDEX are, so I am a little confused as to why they aren’t
Wage Day Advance are still refused to look at time barred items
H&T are just ignoring me!
Nim says
Hi, just interested to know what dates PDUK and PDEX are refund from? like 2005/06 or earlier?
Best Nim
Kee says
I asked and they said back to the beginning of any lending I had with them, which was 2002 but I am yet to see that in their breakdown of calculations once they send it to me.
C says
Success!!!! Sent a email over to satsuma 26th Feb. They gave me my statement of account on 8th march. Today I have received a letter from them to say they are wiping my outstanding balance, removing the 3 loans from my credit file and a cheque for 600.00 was in with the letter. I am really pleased with this first result.
Lucy says
That’s great! Im waiting on satsuma, did they request any more information from you before they decided on the refund?
C says
They did ask for proof of other debt on my credit file, but i declined to give this and said basically that I would prefer you to investigate my complaint on the information you already had, as this should have been checked.
Big thanks to Sara and this site…. thankyou
Just had a response too from ombudsman about my nationwide credit card, they have requested information from nationwide…. Didnt want credit file or statements though???
Marie says
What are you pursuing with credit cards?
C says
The credit cards is about them increasing my limits so high that it was unaffordable. If they had done accurate credit checks they would have seen alot of other high debts including loads of pay day loans, overdrafts etc. And also my wages would not have covered my bills let alone my debts.
Joe says
My first refund. 12 loans with QQ 2010-2014. Approx £4k charges interest.
Complained to QQ 8th October ’16.
Response after 4 weeks rejecting complaint.
Sent to FOS. QQ offered £350 good will mid December.
Adjudicator found in my favour of all 12 loans and recommended full refund + 8% interest in January.
QQ failed to respond to his letter and it went to the Ombudsman queue.
Suddenly QQ started making offers, £1200 then £2000, £2500, £3500. I rejected each time and today I was offered £4550. I accepted and the money was in my account an hour later! So happy.
Overall the first complaint email to QQ 8th Oct to receive the cash today took 24 weeks.
Don’t accept low good will offers!!!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you are wondering why they suddenly started making offer, one possible reason is that if it goes to an Ombudsman decision it would be published by the FOS. QQ may be trying to reduce the numbers of these by settling the ones they are obviously going to lose. But there seems to be a large random element here.
Joe says
I think with the 8% interest I could have been in line for an amount towards £6k if my rough calculations are correct but I was happy to settle and get it out of the way. I was surprised that the adjudicator went back to quid quid with my counter offers (over £5k) as I have read on over posts that the adjudicators can’t do that.
John says
Hi Joe,
I asked my adjudicator to pass on my counter offer to QQ and he told me he was not allowed. Another adjudicator told me that they do pass them on.
It’s a strange one but to be honest I think they are all doing such a good job on our behalf that I just left it at that and didn’t argue it. Now a couple of months down the line I am glad I didn’t get the counter offer amount as I have been awarded considerably more ………
Good Luck
John
sw says
Joe, was your 2010 loan outside the 6 years from 16th October 2016?
Joe says
Hi SW,
Yes it was August 2010 – I was concerned that it may be an issue after reading some posts on here but the six year point wasn’t mentioned….
sw says
Thanks. Maybe the fact that they paid you slightly less than you were due, the loan over 6 years dosen’t come into in their minds…Basically they do what they want.
deborah says
Had this response from Safety Net Credit and wondering what my next steps should be.
The disposable income they have does not take into account the payday loans I had with MyJar and WageDay advance or being able to pay for everyday expenses like petrol, food, clothes. My credit file might not have any CCJ’s but I have defaults with credit cards, amigo loan, payday loans, bank overdrafts. The gave me an original limit of £400 in March and increased it every month until it was £980 in December. They clearly had access to my bank account and could see that I could not pay my bills without continuing to borrow. Is the fact that I used a templated letter relevant? As for the defaults being satisfied this is pure rubbish I have current defaults which show that I am making reduced payments to some lenders.
Having investigated your complaint fully it is our view that your complaint is not supported by the
facts.
Firstly, it is evident that you have used a templated complaint letter which has been downloaded
from the Internet. This means it contains a number of points which are not relevant to our business
and the product which we provided to you. It is clear that the template
you have used is for payday lending complaints, not for complaints against revolving credit facilities.
Interest is also capped so that after 40 days no more interest is applied. This means that our
customers do not get trapped in a spiral of debt as you have claimed.
You also mention your credit reports. When we booked you as a customer we did a full credit check.
Your report showed that you had no CCJs and a good history of settling short term loan accounts
with any defaults being either old or satisfied. From access to your bank transactions we established
that you had a monthly disposable income of £1292.17.
Your bank transactions do show the use of other payday lenders but these are factored into our
affordability check and we will only lend where we are satisfied that a customer has sufficient
disposable income to be able to afford to repay without difficulty. In your case your disposable
income was sufficient to manage the £430 which we assigned to you, and the subsequent credit
limit increases.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The templated letter point is pretty irrelevant.
It’s up to you if you want to go back and argue with them – they do sometimes give reasonable offers – or send this straight to the Ombudsman.
Ross says
Hi Deborah,
I had the exact same issue with SNC. I had a lot of loans, with other providers, and SNC increased my credit limit from £150 to £1,000. In my complaint, I sent them a list of loans, credit cards and household expenses I had to pay for. I also made them aware that they could see all of my ingoing and outgoing payments from my bank account and that they were the only PDL who had this privilege. They did send a response, which attempted to exonerate themselves of blame, but they offered to wipe the balance, which was £1370. After totting up what I had paid in interest, this was just about right, so I accepted. They cleared the balance and I had an email a day later confirming this.
Kelly says
It would appear SNC are also using a template letter as I received exactly the same response. Only difference was my expendible income which they also had very far from correct. I fired mine off to the Ombundsman.
Louis says
Hmm. Sure I just posted and it never went on.. never mind I will try again:
Nigel that is a crazy amount!
So, the Adj stated (basically) my monthly income was pretty low, but then again, so was my outgoings so therefore there isn’t much in the way of then irresponsibly lending.
Having an overdraft, contactless card can cause major issues (as it did for myself). £6 per day and a maximum fine of £90 (15 days) + unpaid DD fee’s can accumulate too – £15 for each one.
This leads to borrowing money – and the cycle begins…
It’s probably worth noting that, in June I had paid off all my LS loans and then, (due to the above reasons) the cycle began again.
I will post the initial email again:
I have had 17 loans from you between December 2015 and to Present date 11/2016. I have been borrowing more often and the amounts tended to go up. Your payday loans trapped me into a debt spiral, with the loan repayment taking so much of my wages that I had to borrow again from you [or from other payday lenders] to cover my next month’s living costs.
For this period my income averaged about £750 a month, and went up to around £1200 however this was only due to me having done overtime shifts at work. My general income would be around £700-750 per month.
My living expenses varied but were roughly: rent/mortgage £250. Council tax £0. Utilities and bills £0. Transport costs £50. Clothes £15. Food, toiletries, nappies £100.Other debt repayments £150. Total £565 per month.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how large were the LS loans at the start? at the end?
Debt repayments £150 – does this include the overdraft charges?
Louis says
I’m just having a look at my statement from when it started “16 Dec 2015” and I had actually a few DD’s (littlewoods + very + Council tax for example and a few little ones £5-10 each) + The following on living expenses:
Those DD’s = £56+40+28 = £124
travel – Bus fare ~ £30-40 a month minimum…
SO £50 p/m – Step dad to which I owed lots of money (previously due to wonga, LS, moneyshop and a few more I think loans – but I never asked him to look into that, but I suppose he saw them on my creditfile)
Shopping + Clothes (when I could actually afford) = £100-150 P/m
Rent @ £250 p/m
Broadband = £42 p/m
Phone top-up = £10-20 p/m
I borrowed £230 from LS in that one month – now… surely that is irresponsible?
This is where it begins… a constant cycle from here on…
I paid back to LS in January:
£181…
I mean, adding all the other bits and pieces you take into account each month – Books, other equipment needed for college… I don’t know… this seems slightly unfair?
Dan says
Just had an email from Wonga complaints with an offer of £2300 from my 19 loans I had spread over a 24 month period ending about 3 years ago. It has taken nearly 5 months since my initial complaint but finally I can say it was worth it! Wouldn’t of even known about if I hadn’t found this website, thanks!
Joanna says
My Pounds to Pocket complaint is still in the Ombudsman queue. After turning down their first offer that was for £500.50p (50pence LOL) they have made a second offer of £862.20. I have refused this because my adjudicator upheld my complaint on all of my loans with them and their offer is extremely small considering the amount that they should refund me.
Incidentally, I did actually ask my adjudicator why he is waiting a while before he forwards a complaint onto the Ombudsman. He explained that since the queue is long, it is best for all adjudicators to do all that they can to negotiate with the loan companies and to try and encourage them to settle now rather than later. I feel that this makes good sense and saves a lot of bother in the long run.
sw says
I have had an update on my QQ complaint which has been with an ajudicator for months due to some of the loans being over 6 years. The ajudicator upheld my one newer loan but QQ still declined. It is now being passed to the Ombudsman. The QQ response is huge….it quotes all sorts of areas where the ajudicator is wrong in what they are saying. It also says she has pretty much copied the text for several complainants. They use your name in it Sara and they quote things you have said on this website. All very bizarre!! But they do not agree with anything! Hence it’s going to the ombudsman. QQ are not happy!!
Ross says
Hi SW,
Are the ombudsman now investigating loans for QQ older than 6 years old? I’m stuck in this muddle at, at the moment, so do we think QQ are now permitting the FOS to look at the older loans? This is the only one I’ve got left, after Payday Express finally responded to my adjudicator after mission his January deadline. I fully expect the QQ complaint to have to go to an ombudsman mind you.
sw says
Hi Ross
Well this is the first I have heard about them investigating older loans. My complaint had been with the ajudicator for months with no update. They are basically saying NO and that this part of my complaint should not be considered as I should have realised earlier. Their response is 9 pages long! They quote all sorts of articles published from 2012 for example, where if I was a ‘savvy’ internet user, I should have complained earlier. They have also quoted ombudsmans decisions where the ombudsman have agreed it is outside the timeframe. They quote specific ombudsman cases and the ombudsman names. They do not believe my ajudicators reasonings are correct. It’s going to be a hard battle this one! My last one too.
jack says
so i have sent lending stream an complaint and got a response requesting “a written letter with a £10 cheque (in favor of lending stream LLC) as part of the subject access request”
is this for real? do i pay it? or do i just send it to the FO?
please help
Sharon says
They did exactly the same with me I just pointed out to them that I was not making a Subject Access Request and was making a complaint. They then acknowledged that they were investigating.
jack says
Ok brilliant i will email them back was kidn of confused as im making the compalint and they want more money:/
Jess says
First of all I’d like to say a massive thank you to Sara for this website. After starting my complaints towards Lending Stream and Wonga in November I’ve finally got somewhere with them!
I’ve just had a letter from my adjudicator regarding my complaint with Lending Stream, who initially completely declined my complaint. I had 26 loans with them over the space of a year and they got increasingly more frequent and I was taking out more and more each month. The adjudicator has ruled that from loan 5 onwards I should not have been accepted for the loans, and has requested the company refund all interest and charges from that loan onwards, plus the 8% interest, as well as removing the loans from my credit file. He’s said unless the company has new information regarding my complaint it’s very unlikely that the ombudsman will have a different decision. They have until 5th April before it goes to the ombudsman.
Regarding my Wonga complaint, it’s now with the adjudicator. They asked for an extra 6 weeks which I respected and gave them, and on the final day rejected my complaint fully. I feel a bit stupid for allowing them the extra 6 weeks but after getting this far with Lending Stream I’m confident that I’ll have the same outcome. My finances are steady at the moment so I’m not desperate for the money.
Just one question, do the company legally have to agree with the final ombudsman decision and refund me the money if the ombudsman rules that way?
Ross says
Hi Jess,
Yes, the final decision (by an ombudsman) is legally binding and the company HAS to abide by his/her ruling. They can only object to the adjudicator’s findings which, as you’re probably aware, is the initial complaint stage at the FOS. The ombudsman is the second, and final, stage which they have to accept. You’re also correct in the fact that the ombudsman will agree with what the adjudicator has said, in the majority of cases, unless either party offers further information which may make the ombudsman consider it differently. I wouldn’t worry though, I don’t think there’s many cases where this happens as in the majority of cases, all information has been provided & considered at adjudicator stage. Good Luck!
Wendolina says
I have had 22 loans with lending stream over a 2 year period with 6 loans running concurrently with them at the moment. I have made a complaint about irresponsible lending as I was often paying them off then taking another out on the same day and also had loans with other pdl companies. They’ve declined my complaint saying I had a good credit score and affordability checks were done. I’ve advised them my credit score is very poor, and that from my credit file they would have seen I’ve been on a debt management plan, have CCJ’s, records of lots of various missed payments and other pdl loans, and plus, 22 loans in 2 years with 6 running concurrently is irresponsible lending. But they’ve said as my income was 1800-2100 I could afford the repayments. Is it worth pursuing?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, definitely. Payday loans can be unaffordable evn if you had a great income. If you have borrowed repeatedly from a payday lender for that long, take your case to the Ombudsman. Lending stream often say people have had good credit scores when they were far from good – send a copy of your credi record to the ombudsman with your complaint and they will be able to see the truth.
ricky b says
I Have my statement of account. from wageday advance. would this be considered for a refund?
08/04/2010 142334 Loan 150.00 – 150.00
08/04/2010 142334 Initial Interest 37.50 – 187.50
30/04/2010 142334 Payment – -187.50 –
04/05/2010 149856 Loan 230.00 – 230.00
04/05/2010 149856 Initial Interest 57.50 – 287.50
28/05/2010 149856 Deferral Interest 57.50 – 345.00
28/05/2010 149856 Deferral – -57.50 287.50
30/06/2010 149856 Payment – -287.50 –
01/07/2010 170012 Loan 310.00 – 310.00
01/07/2010 170012 Initial Interest 77.50 – 387.50
30/07/2010 170012 Deferral Interest 77.50 – 465.00
30/07/2010 170012 Deferral – -77.50 387.50
31/08/2010 170012 Deferral Interest 77.50 – 465.00
31/08/2010 170012 Deferral – -77.50 387.50
30/09/2010 170012 Payment – -387.50 –
01/10/2010 202635 Loan 390.00 – 390.00
01/10/2010 202635 Initial Interest 97.50 – 487.50
29/10/2010 202635 Payment – -487.50 –
02/11/2010 218800 Loan 400.00 – 400.00
02/11/2010 218800 Initial Interest 100.00 – 500.00
30/11/2010 218800 Deferral Interest 100.00 – 600.00
30/11/2010 218800 Deferral – -100.00 500.00
31/12/2010 218800 Payment – -500.00 –
04/01/2011 250926 Loan 400.00 – 400.00
04/01/2011 250926 Initial Interest 100.00 – 500.00
31/01/2011 250926 Payment – -500.00 –
01/02/2011 268817 Loan 400.00 – 400.00
01/02/2011 268817 Initial Interest 100.00 – 500.00
28/02/2011 268817 Deferral Interest 100.00 – 600.00
28/02/2011 268817 Deferral – -100.00 500.00
31/03/2011 268817 Deferral Interest 100.00 – 600.00
31/03/2011 268817 Deferral – -100.00 500.00
28/04/2011 268817 Deferral Interest 100.00 – 600.00
28/04/2011 268817 Deferral – -100.00 500.00
31/05/2011 268817 Payment – -70.00 430.00
01/06/2011 268817 Payment – -430.00 –
01/06/2011 358452 Loan 400.00 – 400.00
01/06/2011 358452 Initial Interest 100.00 – 500.00
30/06/2011 358452 Deferral Interest 100.00 – 600.00
30/06/2011 358452 Deferral – -100.00 500.00
29/07/2011 358452 Default Charge 12.00 – 512.00
29/07/2011 358452 Daily Interest and Charges 174.37 – 686.37
12/08/2011 358452 Payment – -20.00 666.37
25/08/2011 358452 Payment – -10.00 656.37
07/09/2011 358452 Payment – -10.00 646.37
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It looks like you were either deferring or repaying then borrowing again for this whole period. And the amounts were going up. Yes, that looks like a good claim!
Expect WDA to reject it as most of the loans are over 6 years old – but ignore this and send it to the ombudsman who is looking at the older loans.
Steve p says
Hi Sara.
I know you must find answering queries like mine tiresome,but would really appreciate your thoughts on this.
Between 3/2/14 and 4/2/17 I borrowed a total of £6320 from Wonga and paid back £7848, the interest amounting to £1528, also between 28/4/14 through to 12/12/16 I borrowed a total of £6600 from SUNNY and paid back £10238 the interest amounted £3640, and also between 24/3/14 through to3/12/14 I borrowed a total of £1167.50 from Q.Q. and paid back £2196.63 (final payment made on 2/7/15) the interest amounting to £1029.13, and a 1st and only loan with lending stream of £510 taken 8/10/16 of which the final payment is due on 6/4/17 and will mean I have paid a total of £998.55 with 488.55 being the interest paid, all of these loans were running concurrently with one another,and obviously I was borrowing more and more,mostly to facilitate payments that were due,I was paying loans off,then borrowing more on the same day sometimes and always within a week of paying one off, I have submitted complaints to all 4 companies, WONGA are playing for time it seems,Q.Q. are fobbing me off with generic responses,Lending stream the same,but SUNNY have issued their final response saying none of the loans were irresponsibly lent,and that the credit I was given only constituted a very small amount,I have informed them that i have painstakingly gone through all bank statements for the period given,and have copies,but again they say, they will not uphold the complaint as,I am certain the other companies involved will probably give the same final response,I know those figures I have mentioned may seem like small potatoes compared to some of the story’s I have read on here,but taken all together it’s quite a sum for someone who earns maybe 11k per annum, I was borrowing from parents in the end to make good on the loan payments, I never made any late payments or defaulted on any loan,neither did i make any late payments,the help i was given from borrowing from parents and friends allowed me to do this,but I have spent 3 years in a vicious circle of worry and stress as a result of paying these loans,at present I have only 2 payments to make on outstanding pay day loans,and it feels like a weight is being slowly lifted from me,I want to thank you for any advice you can give me on this in advance,and also for all the helpful info on this site in general.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds like a lot of borrowing – I suggest you send them all to the Ombudsman if they are rejected. Starting with Sunny!
Steve p says
I have started the ball rolling on the Sunny one,waiting to hear back from the someone at financial ombudsman.
It was a lot of borrowing,I had 27 loans off Sunny in the time period I mentioned,33 loans off Wonga,and 8 off Q.Q. 3 years worth of debt, they were like a ball and chain,is quite common for Sunny to turn down your initial complaint without making even a derisory offer?
Katie says
My 8 weeks with Abermarle for speedloans and many many cheques complaint was up yesterday so I called them to check if the final response was ready as otherwise I would forward to the FOS. Up to this point they had been updating me every few weeks to say that it wasn’t ready. I got a letter yesterday to say the investigations was in its final stages and that they would send me their findings early next week so to wait a tiny bit longer. Anyone else had a refund from them ? Do you think it’s likely they are going to uphold my complaint as they have asked me to wait a couple more days or is it a delaying tactic ? They don’t have to pay anything unless it goes to the Ombudsman- am I right ? Many thanks
Ross says
Hi Katie,
Just because they’ve asked for a little more time, doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to uphold your complaint I’m afraid. Asking for more time could just mean that they’ve got more complaints than they can handle within the given time. You don’t have to wait until it goes to the FOS for them to pay you, if they agree and/or uphold your complaint. You don’t have to accept what their findings are, or the amount they offer to settle with you (if this is the case), and you need to check against what interest/charges you’ve paid, against what they’re offering to settle. If you disagree with their findings and/or their offer, then you can reject this and send it to the FOS for them to investigate. Just ensure that this is their FINAL response, before you send it off. They will generally state it’s a final response anyway, but some companies send responses without explicitly stating that it’s a final response.
Pamela says
Hi Katie
I had success with Albemarle, they paid without going to the Ombudsman. However they would only acknowledge the Speedloans and not the cheques as they claim the business went into liquidation prior to changing over to the Speedloans. They paid all interest plus the 8% on all Speedloans that I had taken out and I got just over £1300 back in December. It would have been a lot more had the cheques been included. They were very prompt and the money was paid into my account the next day after accepting their offer. Good luck.
Katie says
That’s useful to know thanks Pamela
Andrew says
Hi All,
Had my assessment back from FOS regarding sunny, basically been told to pay back interest on 22 out of the 25 loans, has anyone had any experience with Sunny agreeing or declining decisions from the FOS? Or are they another company who just don’t reply within the two weeks?
Thanks,
Andrew
Ross says
Hi Andrew,
Sunny, in my experience, were very good. They didn’t uphold my complaint about their Quid product, but refunded all interest, as a gesture of goodwill. However, they did uphold the Sunny element of the complaint. All this was done without the need for the FOS and they paid out extremely promptly. However, as every case is different, it’s difficult to say what they would say about your particular case. I believe they will respond, but you’ll just have to wait for their opinions. Fingers crossed for you.
Marie says
I’ve just opened my final response from Wage Day Advance, 4 pages long.
I had taken out 26 loans with them between 2007 and 2014. I’d get out of the cycle for a few months and then would end up borrowing again. I actually have an outstanding debt with them from 2014 for £1400
They’ve said they’ve carefully reviewed my case and that in their opinion they conducted sufficient affordability checks. They were reliant on my honesty, and they’ve done nothing wrong. (I had pay day loans with other lenders at the same time and had poor credit)
They have said that they will issue me with an income and expenditure form and put the account on hold for 30 days.
I am going to pass this on to the ombudsman….do they not have to put this on hold whilst the ombudsman investigates?
Has anyone else had a flat out no from them, and been successful when it’s reached the ombudsman?
I was hoping they’d at least wave the outstanding balance (i paid a lot more than that in interest.)
They have also noted that the start of the loans were longer than 6 years ago and my complaint is more than 3 years after I should have realised there was a problem. They say the Ombudsman will not have their permission to consider my complaint and would only be able to do so in very limited circumstances if they believe my delay was due to something exceptional.
Do you think this is worth pursuing?
I would also like to add that they’ve never chased me since 2014 for this outstanding balance either!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The Ombudsman IS looking at older loans.
You have little to lose by pursuing this case. I suggest completing their I&E – if you make some payments to this now and win your case, it will just increase the amount you get back. It doesn’t harm your case at all.
David says
Hi could any one help me I have had 4 payday loans with my jar in one month total off 1000 sent letter off for irresponsible lending they said done all checks correct I have got ccj on my file .. at the same time take 3 pay Lones with 247money box paid them now I have got 5 more on a repayment plan but if they all looked at my bank statements they would c I am using it for gambling have I got a good claim in against them for not doing there checks correctly thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Was the CCJ recent? Any recent defaults or missed payments? Did you have a lot of other debts as well?
Were the 7 Myjar and 247 moneybox loans all in the same month? What was your income?
David says
Yes had all together 8 payday loans at same time I said my income was 1500 but was 1000 the ccj has been on for 3years.
I have not missed any payments.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
A 3 year old CCJ is unlikely to help your case for a refund – payday loans aren’t aimed at people with perfect credit records. Lenders should take account of recent problems, but it sounds as though you didn’t have any.
I think it’s worth complaining that both lenders shouldn’t have given you the last couple of loans but I’m not saying these are going to be easy cases to win. You had a dreadful month, but with no recent credit record problems and you exaggerating your income, the Ombudsman may well decide that that the lenders couldn’t have seen what was going on.
Cookie says
Hi All, not posted before but have been following the comments/tips and have submitted complaints to 3 payday lenders. I came across the site from MSE. Obviously as others have said, the site is great and I can’t thank you enough Sara for all the work you put into it.
Anyway, I’m in the midst of my complaints and have made some progress so thought I’d post in case any of my experience helps others as I have found the comments very helpful.
Wonga
09/01/2017; using template from this site and without statement of account. I went through bank statements/ credit file to get loan info and also to give a rough idea of interest paid. Borrowing between 08/2011 to 06/2013, 27 loans totalling £7,154. Total interest paid £1,612.79. Defaulted on last loan and the balance was wiped (£805.46) 10/2014 as part of the redress scheme
19/01/2017; complaint acknowledged by Wonga
13/02/2017; email to acknowledge complaint was still being looked into
06/03/2017; email from Wonga with FOS rights, advising they will respond within the next 8 weeks
07/03/2017; I referred complaint to the FOS, using the online form. I attached the final response letter, PDF copies of bank statements, an excel spreadsheet breaking down the transactions of loan credits and repayments plus a copy of my credit file (current as I did not know how to get a historical copy)
09/03/2017; letter from FOS through the post acknowledging the complaint
23/03/2017; email from Wonga confirming my complaint had been investigated in full. Some extracts from their response include:
– “Indication of Financial Difficulties: In your recent complaint you suggested that you were experiencing financial difficulties and we should not have lent to you. As such we have considered your position at the time and have found evidence that you: fell into arrears with one of your loans, advised us you were in financial difficulty on one of your loans, borrowed high loan amounts when compared to your stated income”
-“You have indicated in your complaint that you experienced difficulty repaying one or more of your loans. You did not, however, contact us before loan ***** to let us know about your financial difficulty. When you did, we reviewed your circumstances and set up a suitable repayment plan. Your loan agreement ****** has already been assessed under our affordability forbearance programme. As a result your balance was written off and all records of the loan were removed from your credit file”
-“Based on the above, there may have been more that we could have done to assist you and so we have decided to uphold your complaint. Additionally, we will also request for the redressed loans to be removed from your credit record. This may take up to 30 working days to be updated fully on your credit file. We would like to offer £1617.38 which is an amount equal to the interest and fees on the following loans…”
£1,617.38 refund in interest plus £608.82 (gross) £487.06 (net) 8% simple interest (so I’d receive £2,104.44)
23/03/2017; I accepted their offer and emailed FOS requesting my file is closed with them
There were 9 other loans of lower amounts that they have not included and deemed affordable (£100 or less), these were followed by larger loans and were probably attempts by me to reduce the lending without success and then I’d borrow a higher amount. I do still feel these loans were unaffordable on balance and when I accepted their offer I did ask for them to also be removed from my credit file also, but as a gesture of goodwill.
The offer from Wonga was more than I was expecting and I’m quite sure of the figures I paid back as I’d gone through bank statements over and over again. Plus, I had taken into account the wiped loan (which was the last one) and considered this as “an early refund”. So be honest, their offer was considerably more than I was expecting.
I’ve not received any acknowledgement yet to my email accepting the offer, I’m happy to just wait for the refund to be processed. Although Wonga have taken a while to respond, I do feel their investigation was thorough and their offer was more than fair.
My other complaints were to Lending Stream and PayDay UK. I complained to both the same day as Wonga (09/01/2017). The adjudicator agreed loans 4-7 were unaffordable with Lending Stream and all loans with PayDay UK were unaffordable. I’m yet to hear the response from either lender but will post full updates on both once there has been some progress
Katie says
Great to hear you update Cookie especially in terms of Wonga. I submitted my initial complaint to Wonga on 18th January so I am technically 9 days behind you. Quick question – my complaint has too be forwarded to the FOS – but had yours been allocated an adjudacator when they made you an offer ? Just trying to work out if they are speeding up a little or not ? Thanks
Cookie says
I hadn’t received any contact from an adjudicator when I accepted the settlement but when I emailed to close the FOS case (to the general mailbox not anyone in specific), the adjudicator who had dealt with my PDUK one responded to acknowledge the file had been closed. So it’s possible it had been assigned, I’m not too sure to be honest.
Katie says
Thanks for your reply. Fingers crossed I’ll hear soon.
Chris hanley says
Let me know if you get a response off wonga. I accepted an offer from them on the 21/3/17 and have yet to hear anything.!!
Ross says
Hi Chris,
I would recommend that you contact Wonga, to chase this up. I did the exact same and, three days later, had heard nothing and thought something wasn’t quite right. Wonga then proceeded to tell me that they DID have my acceptance, but nobody had done anything with it. Thankfully, after this intervention, they processed my refund pretty quick. Even though it’s no excuse, they are rather snowed under with complaints, at the moment, so I don’t think a gentle ‘nudge’ would be out of order to help them pull their finger out?
Cookie says
My try calling tomorrow then just to make sure they have it, thanks for the tip!
Chris hanley says
Thanks, I’ll give them bell. I’ll let you know
Chris hanley says
Exactly as you said mate, my acceptance email was just sitting there, no one had even looked at it! Hopefully it’ll get processed now, £7k whoop whoop
Ross says
Glad you’ve sorted it now. Enjoy your cash :)
Glen says
Unsettling to se Wong an issuing final responses to complaints submitted in January, I submitted mine early December and still haven’t had a final response unfortunately.
I’m now on 7 days out of an allocated 28 for a payday uk refund of approx £900 after adjudicator upheld my complaint. Strangely enough the same adjudicator rejected my payday express complaint which I thought was a stronger case than my payday UK complaint.
I have received a £2271 payout from WDA (this didn’t go to FOS)
I have received a £400 payout from myjar (this didn’t go to FOS)
QQ rejected my complaint, no goodwill offer. This is now with FOS.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you asked for your Payday Express complaint to go to an Ombudsman?
Glen says
Honestly, no. And purely because my adjudicator was pretty spot on, and I wasn’t the most helpful in terms of supplying bank statements and stuff due to starting a new job and life being hectic. So I decided to take one victory and call it a day.
Ross says
Hi Glen,
I don’t wish to add to your woes, but I thought you may as well be made aware that you’ll be in for a relatively long wait for your Payday UK payment to be made. I had a complaint with both Payday UK, and Payday Express, and both were upheld by the adjudicator. Once Payday UK (eventually) agreed to pay out, they strung it out until day 25 of 28. Another guy on here was waiting for a Payday Express refund, for the exact same amount of time as my Payday UK refund, and he also received it on the same 25th day as me. Can you see a common pattern here? I wouldn’t waste your time contacting them either, as you’ll just receive the same, generic, response about being in a ‘queue’ and the refunds being processed in ‘strict date order’ etc… It’s all cobblers really, but I suppose the longer it’s sat in their account, and not yours, they’re earning interest on it and not you.
With reference to your Payday Express complaint, that’s an interesting one, as the same adjudicator upheld both my Payday UK AND Payday Express complaints. I know you say you may be at fault, because you didn’t send bank statements etc… but how was he able to uphold one, and not the other, without said bank statements? (I assume that your lending was pretty much around the same time for both?). If he/she has, explicitly, said that the complaint couldn’t be investigated properly, because of this, I would move heaven & earth, to get the bank statements, and ask that an ombudsman looks at it. Even if you tell him/her that you want an ombudsman to look in to it, you still have a good 3+ months to wait until one picks it up, by current timescales, so you’ve got plenty of time to track down your statements. By just leaving it, you’re letting Payday Express off the hook and I, personally, wouldn’t do that. I, along with plenty of others, have had to invest a great deal of time (and patience) in getting mine sorted, but the rewards have been life changing, so please don’t give up and get back to your adjudicator ASAP! Good luck!
Chris says
I have accepted my ombudsman’s outcome with P2P which was in my favour and recieved the letter on friday from my adjudicator saying this has now been sent to the company and they was to contact me.
Does anyone have any timescale on how long P2P take to contact or payout? Im guessing from how unhelpful they have been so far it wont be something simple and quick.
Ross says
Hi Chris,
If P2P have accepted your adjudicators findings, then you’ll find they’re actually rather good at paying out. I know this is in stark contrast to how they reject complaints. When the adjudicator upheld mine, they offered 50% of what he recommended. I rejected this, and asked that he tell them I will only accept the full amount. Expecting this to go to an ombudsman, I was surprised to receive an email, 2 hours later, from my adjudicator, saying that P2P had agreed to pay the full amount. That same evening, I received a call from P2P (be aware that this will come up as ‘Unknown’ on your mobile, so be mindful to answer this, just in case), and they confirmed my bank details. 10 minutes later, I received an email saying that my refund had been processed and, by an hour later, the funds were in my account.
Chris says
That is really quick and surprising for them.
They had initially rejected my adjudicator’s findings so i’m guessing they will of done the same with the ombudsman’s also.
I rang them on friday evening to see if they could give me any details and all they could do is confirm my bank details so hopefully this will now be only a matter of days until its resolved.
Rachel says
Mine took 1 week from confirming bank details