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?
Nic says
Well complained Thursday to Mr Lender, sent me an email back saying no at first that they done all the correct checks etc. I replied saying u was going to step change and FO this is the reply today…..
Upon further review of your complaint we would look to write off your outstanding balance with SLL Capital Financial Solutions for the amount of £191.90 as a gesture of goodwill. We can confirm that upon acceptance of this offer your outstanding balance will be £0.00 and your account will be closed….
They then go on to ask if I accept writing off my balance and remove adverse info from my credit
To be honest it was 1 loan and not for a huge amount. I’m just happy they are writing it off.
1 less person to worry about paying. Hopefully the others cone back with same response.
Thanks so much xx
Pete says
Hi
I have just received a reply from 247Moneybox after 1 week. They said as a gesture of goodwill they will resolve by writing off my balance of £1040 and remove any defaults which may have been reported to the credit reference agencies.
I worked out the interest I paid them over 2 years to be around £1750. Should I accept their offer or push for the full amount of interest? Not sure what to do as this is first offer.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Pete, that offer is in the difficult territory isn’t it… it’s not a stupidly low £150… and it would be good to get that large debt cleared… but is it worth saying you will go to the Ombudsman if they don’t increase the offer? The Ombudsman sometimes says the first few loans were “affordable”, but also 8% interest would be added on. Only you can really say…
Steve says
Be interested to hear about this.
247 Money (I also have a claim in with Safety Net) offered me £300 and clear file. I don’t have a current balance. I have paid them £2450 in interest and they don’t seem to be interested,do I have to take to FOS
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That is a very low offer if you have paid that much interest. I suggest you point out how much interest you have paid and say you will be going to the Ombudsman unless that make you a serious offer.
Vic says
Hiya.
I used Leslie Charles Solicitors to claim some money back for my payday loan claims.
I eventually got an offer of £3200 from wonga,which I accepted.
The money got sent to Leslie Charles who should have sent me About £2300.
Unfortunately they haven’t paid me and I am going to send an email complaining about them to the FOS.
They are a disgrace,who claim they have sent cheques,which haven’t,then when I asked for a tracked letter with the cheque,they agreed,but that hasn’t arrived.
I have for a bank transfer,but they have refused.
If Wonga sent the money via bank transfer,I don’t know why they can’t do it.
Anyway STAY CLEAR OF LESLIE CHARLES SOLICITORS
Sara (Debt Camel) says
My advice is not to use ANY claims firm. You can do a better job than they can!
Lesley Page says
I have just had an email from CFO, they have offered to clear my debt with them , its just over £100 as i didnt finish paying them, i think i should accept this, what do you think. I had 3 loans with them and paid just £96 interest as i didnt pay the last loan with them.
Jamie says
I lodged a complaint with piggy bank on Thursday last week ! Already they have made an offer of £270, altogether I had paid just over £300 ! Very happy
Lesley Page says
Piggy bank are saying that i put an income of over 1700, there is no way i would have put that, and they keep saying they have sent the original form i filled in but there is no image to open, i have just emailed them back again, one of the loans i had was withing days of me paying them back, any suggestions would be welcome.
S.D says
247 money box have offered to wipe an outstanding balance of £300 and remove a default from my account, I only had that one loan with them. I complained on Saturday and they offered this today, can’t fault them for customer service there
Gordon says
They are terrible!
I had an offer to remove defaults and thats all. Had a large amount of loans with them one after each other.
Tried contacting them and they just go silent – no replies to emails and phone calls.
Very worst one of the the lenders – By a mile. Literally wouldn’t expect a company to act like they have.
Joe says
Hi all,
Had an email from FO today saying they had sent Wonga an email stating they have looked into my case and that that they recommend and think it would be fair to refund all loans between certain dates. Is this as good as done or can Wonga still fight this if they find something wrong as its only what the FO ‘recomend’? The ajudicator also asked if they agreed or not?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Joe, I think “as good as done” is a reasonable summary. This is only a recommendation because it is coming from an adjudicator. If Wonga can point out some factual error, the adjudicator will look at the case again. Or if Wonga reject it, it will be sent to one of the Ombudsman for a final decision.
fred says
Hi guys, sent a complaint to mr lender yesterday and got this:
On this occasion we will not be upholding your complaint. However, as we can appreciate your situation, we would like to reduce your outstanding balance to £231.56 as a gesture of goodwill to resolve your complaint. This would be a deduction of £216.93 and would allow you just to repay the original capital amount borrowed without any interest or charges.
When we ran a credit search upon application, we based our decision on the fact you had settled previous accounts in a satisfactory manner, a high credit score, listed on the electoral roll and had no evidence of IVA’s, CCJ’s or Bankruptcy’s.
– at the time my file would have shown a CCJ. i have one loan with them, taken out in may last year and currently on a payment plan.
Should i accept or is it worth going futher?
thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well if you only had one loan it’s not a bad offer, but why not reply saying that when you applied for the loan you had a CCJ on your file?
Jonny says
Hi all,
First of all thanks for everyone that has added information on here as it has really helped me to start trying to make some claims. So far I am trying with Quickquid Mr lender PDUK and wonga. I only started these claims last week and I’ve already had an offer from mr lender
Has anyone had any dealings with them? Their offer to me has stated that they won’t be upholding my complaint, but they would offer me a part refund of £260 as a gesture of good will. I’ve had a look at my account and the charges are well over £1300. They also meant that this isnt them accepting liability etc. Am I likely to get a better offer if I mention the FOS?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it’s nice to get an offer quickly, but it sounds as though Mr Lender has made you a very low offer hoping you won’t take it any further. If you have paid over £1,300 in charges and interest, you must have had quite a few loans so this is likely to be a strong case to take to the Ombudsman. You could go back to them and say you have calculate the interest and charges at [exact figure] and if they don’t make you a sensible offer you will be going to the Ombudsman.
Jonny says
Believe it or not that is one for 3 loans! But they had been rolled over 6 months each. So glad I managed to get myself out of the pdl cycle. I’ll send them another email and see if they increase their offer.
Sophie says
Hi All,
Just thought I would give you an update……. so I have 4 cases with the FO. Wonga, Quick Quid, Ladder Loans and SafetyNet Credit/Indigo Michael.
Wonga – received a call yesterday, agreed with the FO + an extra £50 for distress (Wonga deceived this not the FO) in total £697 to be refunded and should be with me in the next 3-5 days. 15 weeks in total from the very beginning to date.
Quick Quid – just received a phone call from the FO to say that they agree with my complaint only from the 2nd loan onwards had about 10 loans The FO did say that the majority of the 1st loans are deemed affordable but if you go back for more and more frequent than they should be able to see that you are not coping. So they are suggesting that they pay me a refund of approx. £2000, the FO couldn’t give me an exact figure as she is not allowed to, so this is only an estimate at the moment. Remove details from credit file, reduced outstanding balance to £0 + the 8% simple interest. They have got 2 weeks from today to agree/disagree with her. Still not completed but started this complaint around the end of November
Ladder Loans – absolute nightmare, started this complaint at the end of November, to date still no final response. It has been with the FO now for approx. 9th February and they have not responded to her. She has given them till tomorrow to get back to her, if no response she will base her opinion on the information I have only provided. Fingers crossed with this one.
SafetyNet Credit/indigo Michael – These were really quick to provide me with a final response, within 4 weeks. The response was the same as the first email that was sent to me. This is now with the FO waiting to be allocated but was only sent 7 days ago.
Keep going with it guys, you may feel like you are not getting anywhere with them but it will come good in the end :)
Steve says
Well Done Sophie.
Keep us informed on Safety Net/Michael Indigo?
I have one with them at the moment and they have over doubled my lending value, without any increase to my income.
So not sure how they do that
Sophie says
Thanks Steve,
Will do, they did this to me, which allowed me to take more and more out, they have access to bank accounts which makes it even worse as they can see what goes in and out each month. These are the biggest ones I have paid charges and interest too. I worked out I paid 5k in just charges and about £800 in interest in a very short space of time. They were taking payments out willy nilly some were over an excess of £600, leaving me with no option but to take out more! In the end I had to change bank accounts and start a fresh as I couldn’t go on living the way I was.
Steve says
That’s what is happening.
My account went to £0 the other day, as I was trying not to borrow more, but they had taken money out without me knowing, but the ‘Safetynet’ to stop you going overdrawn did not kick in, so the process actually doesn’t work.
Sophie says
Im not sure of your situation or whether this is the right way to do things but the way I did it is I changed bank accounts. I set one up easily with Halifax online didn’t even have to go into a branch. I cancelled all CPA’s, standing orders, direct debits and made sure no one could take any more money. I moved my wages into a my new account and direct debits too. It was such a relief knowing at the end of each month my wages were not being taken. When SafetyNet did get in contact with me, I told them my DMP will deal with you, haven’t heard anything from them, not even to chase up the outstanding amount the only communication I had with them was to do with the complaint.
Like I said I don’t know your situation and its entirely down to you, but it saved me life :)
John says
I originally sent the FO over the bank statements for the year of the first loans I had. The ombudsman had a look over them and got back to me within 1 -2 weeks to tell me that I didn’t have a case and the loans were affordable. . I must admit he was outstanding the way he explained it telling me how he thought they could be affordable.
I disagreed with him and asked if there would be any sort of documents I could send him to see if it would help my case. He said you could try and get hold of your credit score which I managed to get within 15 minute’s of the call ending. Sent that over to him to see if it would help then come Monday I had an email saying he had asked QQ to refund all of the apr and the late fees.
That’s all I have heard back from him so far so the two weeks for QQ are up on Friday so my fingers are crossed they don’t disagree with the ombudsman’s decision. Will quick quid take the full two weeks or do the tend to get back to the ombudsman quicker?
Sophie says
Hi John,
The FO did say that they normally will take the full two weeks to agree/disagree with the decision, but they have to grant them this. If no response in 2 weeks or request further time it will then be escalated to an ombudsman, from there if the ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator then Quick Quid are ordered to uphold the complaint. 9/10 they do agree at this stage.
hope that helps,
Fred says
Thanks so much for all the stories on here. I sent the complaints yesterday and i’ve had over £350 writen off from two lenders.
247 were very easy – just sent a very simple email stating that I did to believe my loan was unaffordable and today they said they took proper checks etc but as a good will they will clear my balance
Claire says
Just received a call from Lending stream, they have written off my balance and gave me £434 back, good result.
The details: They acknowledged my complaint on 8 Feb, called me last week with an offer which I rejected. Said they would get back to me within 48 hours which they didn’t so unkept chasing it up daily. I had took out loans totally £2250 and paid back about £1800 interest.
I down, 3 more to go! Others are with Payday express, PdUk and wageday advance.
Vic says
Hiya.
Thanks to every on on the site.
My jar(TEXT LOAN) are going to refund £109,and because i havent had much more in interest,i am going to accept.
I had a decline from CFO(CAPITAL FINANCE ONE) saying that they didnt need to do credit checks.
As is there final response,i am going to complain to the FOS.
Vic Smith
Gary says
Just wanted to briefly share my updates (as it stands).
I’ve mentioned before but Sunny, Wonga and Lending Stream all paid out before the FO got involved. In hindsight, perhaps should have escalated the latter 2 as they were a bit low.
Quickquid – upheld and repaid £1.8k (they agreed that only the first loan was affordable so refunded all interest on the other loans
PoundstoPocket – rejected by the FO (could just about get on board with his reasons
PaydayUK – adjucator has recommended that the company repay £3.3k + interest. Payday have disputed this but the FO isn’t particularly impressed with their reasoning.
Uncle Buck – ongoing with FO.
WageDayAdvance – company rejected and pondering whether to go to FO. It’s not megabucks so will probably leave this one.
As said before – just keep plugging away. It takes a while so be patient.
George says
I want to thank everyone for posting words of encouragement and hope.
I didn’t think I stood much of a chance of getting anything back from Wonga as my credit history had no defaults at the time I was borrowing from (2012-14) them, I was working, I had never had roll-overs (but did ‘top-up’ a fair bit) and always paid them back on time, and I didn’t use any other Payday lenders.
But that wasn’t the ‘full picture’, my wife and I were on a voluntary DMP with the then CCCS (now Stepchange) and her credit file was a different story at the time I started borrowing from them, all the credit cards we had (6) had defaulted and were in her name.
Long story short, we needed a short term loan to get the car fixed and the only place we could get a loan was Wonga, our banks refused both short term small loans and overdraft extensions to cover the cost, so like so many others we entered the cycle of relying on paying off the loan with our salaries only to re-borrow a larger amount to account for the interest and charges… the cycle only broken in late 2014 by a PPI payout.
I first complained to Wonga about unaffordable loans on 12th Dec 2015 and the only update I got was on 7th Jan when they apologised for the delay and re-iterated I would get a final response within the 8 weeks from 12th Dec. I phoned them when the 8 weeks were up on 11th Feb but they had no idea how much longer it would take so I filled in the Ombudsman complaint form on the FO website on the 12th.
I heard nothing from either the FO or Wonga until today when much to my surprise Wonga emailed me a final settlement offer of £942.58 which includes £50 compensation for the delay in resolving my complaint as a gesture of goodwill, and also removing the redressed loans from my credit record.
Interestingly, they don’t appear to have factored in the DMP or my wife’s credit record in their decision to uphold my complaint, instead they appear to have relied solely on the size of some of the loans relative to my income…
“… All of this information was entered into our underwriting system which uses an advanced algorithm to underwrite the loan as well as carry out an assessment of affordability. You achieved an acceptable underwriting score and the loans were approved on that basis.
Having looked in detail at your loan history, we see that some loans may have been unaffordable as they were significantly high compared to your stated monthly income.
Outcome
Based on the above, there may have been more that we could have done to assist you in relation to the loans identified and so we have decided to uphold your complaint relating to those loans.”
Personally I wanted to try and fight for more as we’d paid them over £2100 in interest and charges over the years but my wife said no, just get the money in the bank! So I’ve accepted their offer.
Good luck everyone and thank you again.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well done! Taking a good size bird in the hand can be the most sensible move, especially if the borrowings were in your name but the defaults were in your wife’s, that makes the case less clear cut. If you still have a DMP with Stepchange, you may be able to use this money to make full & final settlement offers on your other debts which would be good!
George says
Sara, once again many many thanks.
The DMP is cleared and the money will be ours to do as we wish :)
Our DMP was Self Administration because my wife works in finance, any other option would’ve meant she’d lose her job and couldn’t have worked in finance for another 6 years after the debts were paid back. [We live in Scotland, and yes the irony of someone working in finance getting into financial difficulties isn’t lost on us either! lol]
Amazingly I applied for a bank loan from my bank to clear the remaining credit card debts about 6 months ago and was accepted, I know it’ll take a little longer to become totally debt free due to now being charged interest but I just couldn’t stomach dealing with the credit card companies any longer. We’ve gone from paying £670/month and almost penniless, down to a far more manageable £190/month… and for the first time in about 4 years have a life!
I’m totally gobsmacked that I got anything at all, never mind nearly £1000
It all started around October when I got a piece of junk mail through my door claiming they could help me get compensation if I’d had “3 loans in a row with the same lender”… I didn’t believe a word of it as I’d never heard of payday lenders giving out compensation and thought this had to be a scam by a fly by night solicitors (they probably are because you can do it yourself) but I hung onto the flyer to remind myself to do some digging on the web.
It took until December before I followed it up and I stumbled upon Debt Camel.
Even then I wasn’t entirely sure I should believe what I was reading, people really do appear to be getting money back for the interest and charges?
I thought what the hell and contacted Wonga using the templates on here, in total i sent about 4 emails and 2 phone calls to Wonga and filled in the financial Ombudsman online complaint form, plus a phone call to confirm they received the complaint… circa 10 weeks later £942 will be coming my way… simply gobsmacked!
Lee says
So today I have had an email back from Mr Lender offering me £1,020.00, I am almost tempted to take this but I had 20 x loans with them and interest I have paid back is £5917.34, to be honest I was expecting more but will the ombudsmen find in my favour? below is part Mr Lenders reply, can instalment loans be deemed unaffordable ? I also have an email I sent Mr Lender in 2012 at the time of my second loan informing them that I was struggling to pay off the loan, nothing was done to help me and I just had to keep borrowing and often in more amounts.
I must say Mr Lender have come back to me in just under 3 weeks of my initial complaint which I have to say is good of them, but I still feel I should have got more back, my last 7 x loans where for £1000 + roughly £400 interest each month, my disposable income was £1600 at the time, surly they cannot expect me to live off £200 per month???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Lee, I don’t see you have much to lose by going to the Ombudsman apart from a few weeks. On the 8 loans that weren’t installment loans, MrL has only offered back the interest after two rollovers on each loan. It is much more likely that the Ombudsman would say that the first few were affordable but ALL the interest on the subsequent loans should be refunded. Plus 8% statutory interest, which adds up.
Installment loans can be determined unaffordable, it’s a bit less likely than normal payday loans as you are repaying less each month, but it is possible.
The fact that you informed them in 2012 that you were having difficulty and they didn’t help – indeed continued to lend – is a strong point in your favour. At this point they should have referred you to sources of free debt advice – I bet they didn’t!
It has to be up to you, £1,020 is a lot of money. But MrL wouldn’t have offerd you that much unless they knew you had a good case! In theory Mr L can withdraw their offer. But that will only matter if the Ombudsman decides that you should be given less…
Mel says
I have had an offer from Mr Lender stating “On this occasion we will not be upholding your complaint. However, as we can appreciate your situation, we would like to offer you a part interest refund of £287.50 as a gesture of goodwill to resolve your complaint.”
I had two loans and they were rolled 8 (£90 interest each time) times and 3 times (£195 interest each time) respectively between 03/01/13 and 13/06/14. With a rollover admin fee of £7 each time.
The email they have sent also states that “At the time of your loan, the OFT still regulated consumer credit lending and there was no two rollover limit in place, this was implemented on the 1st July 2014 following the new regulatory authority regime of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). ”
They are saying that “During your initial loan you did not make us aware of any financial difficulties and you were able to settle your outstanding balance without requiring any further assistance. Once you made us aware of your financial situation during your most recent loan we set in place an interest frozen repayment plan to assist you with your outstanding balance.”
Can someone please give me advice as to:
How do I calculate a total interest and charges – should a rollover fee of £7 charged each time also be added to the overall interest and charges? Does £287.50 seem reasonable as I think the offer is low.
Whether or not I should pursue this with Mr. Lender as I did not advise them at the time of the first loan that I was in financial difficulty as they have stated above but only for the second loan?
Thanks in advance for the advice.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“Does £287.50 seem reasonable as I think the offer is low.” As your interest and charges add up to well over £1,200, I agree this seems like a low offer. The Ombudsman would also add on 8% interest, which adds up over the years!
“Whether or not I should pursue this with Mr. Lender as I did not advise them at the time of the first loan that I was in financial difficulty as they have stated above but only for the second loan?” the point is that they should have realised from the fact that you rolled the first loan 8 times that you were having difficulty repaying… The fact there was no regulatory limit of 2 rollovers at that time is true, but they should still have considered whether these loans were affordable for you, and it sounds as though they didn’t do this properly.
It has to be your decision, but I think you have a good a good case to go back to Mr L and say that unless they increase their offer significantly you will be going to the Ombudsman.
Robert says
Just thought I’d update you re Lending Stream. They initially rejected my complaint (I had four loans with them and paid a total of £725 in interest and charges). I then responded asking where they had got the credit rating that they were quoting and whether they were asserting that it was responsible to lend to someone who had take out multiple loans with other providers. I then stated that I would be willing to accept the interest for the last two loans.
Lo and behold… an offer of exactly that (£325) was made today. However, they didn’t accept that they had been irresponsible. Not a bad result considering I only had four loans with them.
Two down – 6 to go!
Claire says
Hi, I’m still waiting from replys from all company’s apart from lending stream, who offered to clear two debts and take off the Interest on the other larger debt. I declined and and went to FO. They have now come back with another reply since receiving the complaint with FO, to clear the two debts and to pay off the other debt in full!! Iv declined obviously and Iv told the FO why! Why would they do this? It doesn’t make sense to me!
Still waiting on wonga, Qq, provident and a few others! Wonga is my main one as I had over 10 loans with them! Hopeful by end of March that one will be sorted! If you take it to the FO does it take another 8 weeks ? Thanks
John C says
Realised i’ve posted on the wrong thread! Its been great reading about success stories on here. I have put in complaints to 2 Payday lenders Quick Quid and WageDayAdvance. I have had 59 loans with QQ from March 2008 to October 2012 that totalled over £50k! After this I was on one of the Flexi Credit accounts and borrowed a further £22k between August 2013 and December 2014. In total I paid over £15k in interest in that time. Between this I had 2 loans with Pounds to Pocket (part of the same business) and then was able to have my Flexi account and more P2P loans at the same time. Clearly a financial issue. I had 2 other loans with P2P in that time and 2 others since I paid off my last QQ amount, inc one with 6 payments still to run. After raising my complaint with QQ it seams one is automatically raised with P2P
With WDA I had 31 loans between March 2009 and March 2013. In this time I had 17 rollovers, including 1 loan 10 times and then given a 6 month payment plan to pay off. The next month I was able to loan for full again. I then had a further 6 loans between Jan 14 and now, these are mostly on split payments over a number of months. In total I’ve paid around £7k in interest in that time
At the same time I had loans with Pounds till Payday and was sometimes paying back £2k per month just to them, to pay the loan off then reloan! As these are / were based in Malta there isn’t much I can do about it, however paying all these loans in a month became financially impossible.
Complaints went into QQ 4 weeks ago and into WDA at the start of last week. I’ll try and update when I have some information, its just great to see others going through something similar and getting a result
Graham says
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! John C, thats a lot of cash, you must have been the best customer ever for these PDL. Hope you get your complaints resolved.
John C says
I think I’ve been a cash cow for these guys for too long! Thing was I earn a decent salary, but even for me it just spiralled out of control and I was paying one loan back, borrowing from the same company to pay the next loan, then borrowing from them again to pay my bills. Some months I was paying over £900 just in interest. With help from my family I was able to get myself into a better financial position, but I’m still paying loans and credit cards and probably will be for some years to come. If I can get anything back from these vultures I’d love to be able to pay something back in a lump sum to my mother who helped me out.
Gordon says
That is a serious amount of cash.
Donyou know how much interest you paid yet?
Mine overall is approx 6-7k. Shocking i know
John C says
Sorry Gordon I have absolutely no idea. I’m going to start going through my emails from 2009 to see where I was with PTPD and go from there. I know I don’t have any emails from the last few years as I must have deleted them. It took me best part of a full afternoon to go through my WDA advance ones, I suspect PTPD will be even longer!! Maybe getting my bank statements might be easier as I can see what went in and then what went out – difference the interest. I know some of the later loans were £2k a time on their newer way of paying across 3 months, but i’d just go online the moment I got paid and pay the whole loan off via their live chat. Borrow the next day and pay off my other loans, then borrow them again and pay my mortgage and other bills. I cancelled every single DD to ensure nothing bounced!
John C says
Gordon
I’m tracking at more than £22k of interest paid between March 2008 and end 2015. I need to add my PTPD info to that, which could be as much as another £15k. Horrific!
I paid in full every month, think I paid slightly late 3 times with QQ and once with WDA due to my pay date changing at work. My head was in pieces by the time 2014 came round, I couldn’t cope
Joanna says
Hello All,
Just wanted to check in with a quick update. I’ve had an email from the adjudicator at FOS today to advise that they have emailed Wonga and requested that they refund me any interest and charges paid after a specific date (there were three loans prior to that that the adjudicator felt were affordable and I’m not going to argue) plus 8% simple interest plus the removal of the entries from my credit file. I’m absolutely thrilled with that. Wonga have been given until Tuesday to respond after which time the matter will be escalated to an Ombudsman. I really hope Wonga respond as I’d prefer it not to become too protracted (although the whole thing has really only taken three weeks since my initial emails to Wonga and FOS). If it does go to an Ombudsman does anyone know if it’s likely that the decision of the adjudicator would be reversed and whether any further information would be required? I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much at this early stage.
No word yet from Quickquid regarding the complaint I have with them but that’s got several more weeks yet to run.
Fingers crossed for swift resolutions for all.
Danny says
Success!
First actual case has been won and Wonga are paying me £903.02. I have just had the email off the FO to say the money will be deposited over the next 5 working days and my credit report will be updated in the next 30 days.
Thank you so much for this website.
Stick with it guys!
Danny
Chris says
Hi All,
Really appreciate this thread, and has helped me start my refund cases vs 3 PDL companies.
Had over £12k of loans with Wonga, £5k with QQ and £3.5k with Ferratum. Hoping to get about £3500 back from these scumbags.
Out of interest has anybody here had any dealings with Ferratum?
Also – if you had a loan & interest frozen, will that affect any verdict that they may come to?
Loving this thread though – power to the people!!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
One person has reported Ferratum removed the interest from her outstanding balance.
If interest has been frozen, obviously you will have repaid less interest. But that won’t affect any complaint about the interest you had already paid.
Leanne C says
Hi all
Just wondered if anyone has chased up during the 8 week period or just left things? Also I submitted a second complaint to Poundstopocket as they provided me with my annual statement and it was wrong but they haven’t responded to that complaint at all, not even acknowledged recipet it of it, should I phone to see if it has been recieved or just leave it with the original complaint?
Jamie says
Hi, I just chased up lending stream as I didn’t get a response from my first email asking for statements or my second email which was to complain, they said they would respond in the next 7 days and they would send a final decision at 8 weeks ? He said they had started dealing with the complaint, part of me is expecting a small offer next week, how ever I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. I think they may be getting a lot of complaints at the second , Although I complained to piggy bank and was resolved and paid full interest back on 15 out of 21 loans with in 7 days !!
Leanne C says
I got a small offer from Lending Stream within about a week, I responded and said I didn’t feel they had addressed all the points I raised in my complaint. So got another response but same offer. I again responded and said that they hadn’t responded to my complaint approriately and I wanted a full and final response so that I could refer the complaint to the FOS. I didn’t recieve any response to this so I sent a follow email 2 weeks later and then she phoned me and said they were willing to write off my outstanding balance of £700. I am still waiting for a response from QuickQuid, Pounds2pocket, Wagedayadvance and Wonga.
Wonga responded and then said it was taking them longer to deal with my complaint then they anticipated, think they have had it about 4 weeks now.
QQ and P2P have sent an initial response saying they weren’t upholding my complaint but when i asked for a full and final response they have said they will look in to it, but P2P have not responded to my second complaint.
WDA have acknowledged my complaint but not reponded yet.
Matt says
Hi,
Having gone back to Lending Stream querying the extremely high credit scores they said I had at the time of taking loans with them, they have replied with the following :
“Thank you for waiting patiently while we gathered the information to address the concerns raised.
Lending Stream performs all necessary checks before approving a loan and we confirm that these checks were executed on your loan applications as well.
In answer to your question about the credit Score, please note, when a customer requests for a credit report from a Credit Reference Agency, he or she may acquire specific information including names of different lenders’ and their respective reporting, however, when a financial institution does a credit search on a customer’s credit report, they are not privy to that exact information. Hence, our decision to lend money does in part rely on the information received from Experian (credit scores).
We would like to inform you that the credit scores which is retracted during the application comes to us in an XML format which is then decoded and translated into score format, for example: Your Experian score was showing as 763 or 814, which was inclusive of loan from other lenders and is considered sufficient for payday lending.
Once again, we confirm that Lending Stream performed necessary checks on each of your loan applications.
To keep you posted, your loan account 1564336 is being handled by CRS (Credit Resource Solution), as they are handling all the debt management programs on behalf of Lending Stream. However, if you wish to deal with us directly, we are ready to assist you to clear the outstanding balance with an ease.
We await a confirmation of the aforementioned offer, so we can contact you and discuss this over.”
Is there any further I can go with this? I cant see how they can offer loans based on my credit score being 763 and 814 when my actual credit score was always around 500?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Matt,
to be accurate about the “experian score” business – when you access your Experioan credit record they will give you a score. When a lender checks your record, they do not get given this number. However, many lenders ask Experian to calculate a score for them based on whatever rules the lender wants. So the score that is used in the lender’s decision making process is based on their own rules which may well not be the same as the ones Experian use.
So to take a couple of made-up extreme example, a mortgage lender may say that they want a score of 0 returned if a borrower has any defaults at all on their record. Or a payday lender can say that they don’t care at all about late payments or any defaults that are over a year old.
It is hard to tell if the person replying to your complain understands this or not!
I don’t see any point in discussing this further with Lending Stream as you aren’t getting anywhere. I suggest you reply saying that unless they write off your outstanding balance you intend to go to the Financial Ombudsman.
dominika says
hi all :) Just quick update after my Wonga drama now they commed back to FO before they even looked in my complain and offered £694 i accepted an offer now have to wait to get it in my bank account :) … Could wait longer but dont want to waste time for few hundreds more been long enough already :)
now preparing to send my Wagedayadvnce final response to FO – they offered me redress of £352 for last loan ive paid in full but they offer was a bit cheeky as they offered me to take this off my outstanding balance . My argument is and was if they saying that my last loan which ive paid in full after 6 rollovers wasnt affordable how they can say that my outstanding loan which was twice bigger then last was affordable.
And still got my PaydayUK with FO ( that big one lol ) wish u all good success
Gordon says
Hi All,
Just received an offer from Wage Day Advance – Total Interest and charges paid on loans was £1826 inc 8% interest.
Currently have an outstanding balance of just under £280.
The offer was £1826-£280 = £1540
Not a bad result considering and it only took 5 weeks no Ombudsman used.
lou says
Quick update
So far after about 12 weeks I have had 600 back from lending stream and 1600 from pduk. QQ and wonga with the fos. Thanks to Sara
Mags says
I am so pleased I found this site.
I am having problems with CFO Lending who have been a nightmare. They claimed not to have received my DMP paperwork when the plan was set up and kept adding interest and charges. Eventually they found the paperwork and payments that Stepchange had sent but by this time he amount owed had increased to £1300. I managed to get some of the interest and charges cancelled – the debt now stands at £930.
They say they have reviewed my furthe complaint but will only reduce the amount to £748. They claim not to have done a credit search but I had an “Authentication score of 60 and a bank verification score of 9/7.”
No idea what this means. Should I decline their offer and go to FOS?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
HI Mags, those numbers will be some internal assessments they generate. There’s no way to know what they mean or even if they made them up! At least one lender is quoting “Experian credit scores” that are MUCH higher than the one the person actually had.
You may have a good case to take to the FOS. If you could answer the following questions we could say what points to emphasise to the Ombudsman:
How many loans did you have from CFO? Do you know how much you borrowed and how much you repaid? How big were the payday loan repayments in comparison to your income? What was your credit record like when you borrowed from them – would it have shown defaults? You obviously had other debts if you needed a DMP – were these large?
Mags says
Hi Sara – this site is awesome by the way!
I had 4 loans with CFO – started with £185, finally borrowed £480 as they kept increasing the amount I could borrow.
I had multiple loans with PDUk – these are with the FOS – and was behind with other credit agreements.. I had missed. 1 mortgage payment when I took out the first loan with FOS.
I am embarrassed that my finances had got so bad, but feeling positive that I am taking control and getting results! Lending Stream, Mr Lender and 247 Moneybox have written off the loans – all this is thanks to this site!
Lou says
CFO are a nightmare!! I had a loan with them, the loan was in total 900, they slapped on the interest and charges up to £1800, took a lump sum from my account. I complained and got no where, they were really rude and horrible to me. When i started in my DMP, i emailed stating I had actually paid back the balance, and didn’t see why I should pay their extortionate fees and interest. Within a week I had an email from them wiping the remaining debt (I think it was about 1100) and offering me £50 compensation. I accepted and thought nothing of the default they had registered! I emailed them this week to say as they had admitted to me they were in the wrong, i dont see why i should have the default on my credit file, and requested it is removed. They agreed and removed it. persevere with them. good luck x
Vicki says
Nearly £900 back from sunny , recieved a letter today for refund of all interest £200 balance cleared . super happy with that
Shaun says
Well, so far i have managed to get Mr Lender and Lending Stream off my list.
1/ Mr Lender….From start to finish (3days) They recalled the loan back from Motormile Finance £1050 and wrote off, as well as cleaning up my credit record.
2/ Lending Stream….Just today (after 3 weeks), they offered to write off 3 loans, total value £460, and credit record cleaned up.
I accepted both, as i’d worked out no interest payments (or very little) would be owed to me.
5 more companies left, and like most on here, PDUK and WDA their cogs turning rather slowly.
Alan says
Got a reply yesterday from WageDayAvance after 7 weeks. I had a total of 14 loans with them from 2009. They upheld my complaint from my 4th loan as the others were after 6 years. They have agreed to pay me £2500 redress! And to think I would have never seen that money if I hadn’t of found this site!
George says
Just a quick follow up from my post on the 24th…
The £942 refund Wonga promised me on the 24th is in my account this evening.
Probably just coincidence, but on Wednesday I was told I’d get an email before the payment was made, and then it’d take another 3-5 days dependant on the banking system before the money as available.
Tonight i still hadn’t had an email and no money was in my account so i phoned them, spoke to a really helpful lady who put me on hold to check with her line manager… came back and said the transfer was initiated yesterday and would be in my account by the end of next week at the latest…
I checked my account as soon as i got off the phone and lo and behold… there was the money!! (which i swiftly transferred out, just in case they changed ther mind! lol )
I couldn’t be happier and can’t thank this Forum enough.
Mel says
Hello,
I received an offer from Mr Lender for £287.50 when interest & charges were over £1200. I emailed them back on 25/02 saying that if they did not increase their offer substantially that I would have to go to the FO.
Any idea how long I should wait for a response or do they have 8 weeks from my complaint email?
John C says
I’ve already got my complaints into QQ and WDA but another big one was with Pounds Till Payday. I’ve been asking for info from them for about 10 days without success, not even an acknowledgement of my emails. Very frustrating. Not as frustrating as the fact they only now sit under any jurisdiction from the FOS so I can’t complain to them about anything before Dec 2015. Before that, both they and Swift Sterling sat under the Northway Financial umbrella in Malta and are covered by the Malta FSA.
As I’ve had no response I’ve spent the last 6 hrs going through my online banking and totted up everything I could find. It didn’t help that payments went in and out of my account under Northway Financial, Pounds to Payday and Pacific Pounds Till Payday. I can see payments going out in Dec 2008, but as parts of 2009 and 2010 are patchy, I’ve totted up from my first repayment in Jan 2011 up till my final payment in August 2015. Total amount borrowed £44,637 total repaid £56,836. Interest £11,042!! Has anyone had any success at all with this lot? If they could sell their product in the UK its annoying to have to go through the Malta FSA to complain. I’m not seeing anything but the MFSA saying Northway haven’t done anything wrong.
In total that’s £50k from QQ, £45k from PTPD (although there is actually another £8k before Dec 2010 that I can see, but can’t find all the repayments), and £12k with WDA, between 2008 and now. In total I’ve paid well over £33k in interest to these companies. That doesn’t include the loans with Pounds To Pocket that were at a lower rate. I could honestly cry looking at that. Soul destroying and nearly life destroying
Jasmine01 says
I really feel for you John C I have spent the last couple of months combing every horrible in and out payday loan wise it makes me dizzy sick! keep fighting the good fight though, im sure youll get there in the end and if they don’t help you the FOS have been really helpful so far to me
Jasmine01 says
Hi Guys,
Just wanted your thoughts on this please
Trying to get defaults removed at the moment, one of the is 247 moneybox,
I took the loan out on 08/01/2013 to be paid back on 31/01/2013
The payment bounced and I had a default from them on 01/02/2013
Is that even legal? Just wondering if I can use it as further ammunition to the fact the loan was totally unaffordable in the first place, but I was a very desperate woman back then!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
A default date the day after a loan should have been repaid – that breaks the Information Commissioners Guidelines that you have to be 3-6 months in arrears before a default is added. This is well worth mentioning in your complaint to the lender and to the Ombudsman!
Donna says
Hi, I’ve stumbled across this site by a bit of luck!
I had no idea it was possible to make these claims and think it is something I may be eligible to do. Over the years I have taken out numerous payday loans, usually either rolling over loans to make the payments on them or taking out other payday loans to pay the original ones.
I cannot remember all the companies I have had loans with, I did go through a few – is there a way I can find out who I had the loans with or is trawling through my online bank statements the best option?
Also I had an email from Wonga in March 2015 which said I no longer needed to make any payments on my loan as due to new affordability rules I would not have qualified for the loan. The loan was with a debt collection agency which Wonga said they had taken back and written off. Counting my lucky stars I thought no more of this until finding this site. I know I had more than one loan with Wonga – I think they were the first company I went with. So I’m now left wondering can I put a claim in to try and get compensation in relation to this loan which they have written off plus all the other loans I took out with them?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Donna, going through old bank statements is one way to find who you borrowed from – if you don’t recognise the name of the lender try googling it as often it will be the legal entity on a bank statement rather than the brand name everyone calls them. Another way is to get your credit record – you can check Noddle for free – and look at closed accounts. This isn’t guaranteed to show them all but it would be a good start. I would say start with the couple of lenders you remember using the most – they are the ones it’s most worthwhile to pursue!
Re the Wonga write off. If you had already repaid interest on that loan, you may be able to get a refund for that, but you can definitely ask for refunds for earlier loans.
Shanae says
Good Morning,
I recently had an offer via the FOS with pduk, payday express & the money shop (instant cash loans, also called cheque loans) I accepted these offers.
I have checked my credit file today and noticed 2 credit searches from instant cash loans. One for a quotation search and one for an administration review I have no idea why as I was not informed that any of these would be done.
Has anyone else had this? Why would they need to do this? I am not happy as I wanted to apply for a mortgage shortly and would have had no evidence of anything to do with payday loans on my file.
Claire says
How long once you passed it to the FO did you get a reply?
Shanae says
The offers I had via the FOS were
Paydayuk £5000
Payday express £1800
The Money Shop £2000
My loans were from 2007-2013, however the fos said they could only look into loans from the last 6 years. I followed the usual 1st letter for info, then 2nd letter for refunds. They all took beyond 8wks as they couldn’t give a final response yet. Although they did keep me updated. I started first letters end of October. Went to FOS in early January. Got offers nearly 2 wks ago. FOS said to give them 4 wks to pay out and remove details from my credit file. Only info FOS asked for was bank statements at the time and my current credit report. I sent what I had, which wasn’t a lot as it was such a long time ago. I printed off my report and sent that off too although all defaults were gone now. I still mentioned this to them and sent them emails from payday lenders about increasing my limit, offers etc anything that helps. I also had emails when I asked for help, when I was struggling and sent that too.
I can’t believe what a mess I was in back then and this site proves that I am not alone. Keep calm and carry on everyone.
Tony says
I had a reply from capital resolve, who were dealing with my debt from yes solutions who I understand have ceased trading. They have agreed to write off the remaining debt of £974. I have no idea what loans I took out with the company and as they have ceased trading, seems like I should accept. Any views? Still waiting for all my big ones but that is three now where have got a decent result
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Taking it seems like the most practical option if you don’t have details of the previous loans. even if you did, it’s not clear how easy it would be to do anything with them.
Katie says
I have emailed both Wonga and QQ regarding loans had with them previously, still had no replies after 4 weeks so emailed them again today… I currently have one with Satsuma from which I have had too resort too £1 a week and have missed various payments so not quite at a default yet but looking likely too head that way, I just can’t afford too pay them. Is it worth emailing them the same PayDay email that was sued for Wonga & QQ? Also has anyone experience of Avant Credit UK again who I am only being able too make £20 a month contribution when my payment should be £106 a month for 36 months on an £1800 pound loan which has my APR at nearly 80%! What would anyone suggest for these 2 latter companies??
Martin says
Peachy has replied to my complaint assuring me that as creditors they abide by their statutory obligation under the consumer Credit Act 1974 to undertake an assessment of creditworthiness before granting credit to a customer. My complaint raised was that at the time of being offered loans by this company, I was already in debt to other payday lenders but they stated that at each loan application, which was always on the same date of the previous loan being re-paid, they had always conducted a credit search. They also stressed that when I took out each loan that I had signed the credit agreement. Because I had entered into a payment arrangement, they said that I could contact them again if I was still struggling to make payments. They said that this was their final response.
Martin says
I had 4 loans from Peachy. 4th June 2015, 10th July, 2015, 13th July, 2015 and 7th August 2015. The last loan was applied for on the re-payment date of the previous loan. That loan was for a higher amount with a much higher amount of interest added. At that time I had already been in default with other payday lenders and/or having to obtain one loan in order to pay off the other. Their email to me stated that they had carried out the necessary affordability checks and indicated that this process is assisted by all of my creditors registering accurate data with credit reference agencies in a timely manner.
grace says
I had the exact same email – off to the FO!!
redfraggle says
My complaint about Peachy has also gone to the FOS. Despite the fact I was repeat borrowing on the exact same day they took the repayment and that the amount borrowed was steadily increasing they sent me the standard “we checked your affordability and you signed the agreement” email. Referred to the FOS a couple of days ago so not heard back yet but will keep you posted.
Edit: Just had a response from FOS asking me to clarify a few details. Filled out the form and sent back so now waiting to hear what they say. Nothing but standard responses from the others as yet…
Kevin says
Hi All
I just thought I’d give you details of my success to keep the spirit positive :)
Pixie Loans – £200 (full amount, took 2 weeks from complaint)
WDA – £400 (I accepted the small offer due to financial situation, took full 8 weeks from complaint)
Wonga – £1000 (almost full amount, took 11 weeks, email at 8 weeks requesting longer)
I can see a number of people mention the Wonga timescale to respond, I think the options are to just take it to the FO at 8 weeks, or try and grin and bear it and sit it out until 11-12 weeks, frustrating as it is, as it seems they do eventually communicate, despite the timescale for a complaint being absurd!
Good luck all, and thanks Sara!
Pete says
My partner is also starting the ball rolling with regards to a payday redress from having over 50 loans in a short space of time. She is worried she may have exaggerated her earnings at the time of the loans due to desperation. Due to this she is worried she may get into trouble if she gives the FOS her statements and they see that they are slightly less what she originally told the PDL. Can she get into trouble for this?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
hi Pete, “slightly less” isn’t likely to be a problem. And with a lot of loans from the same lender, the repeat lending by itself should have alerted the lender to the fact she was having problems.
edit : see this later article on this subject https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/
S.D says
52 payday loans from 5 lenders in 3years on monthly pay,
QQ had 8 weeks but say they reject my claim for irresponsible lending and want the outstanding amount I defaulted on 2 years ago.
I paid almost £3800 interest on 10 loans with them.
They had all the information from me during this claim such as my other borrowings.
They say they credit checked me to check for defaults and CCJs at the time and felt I was ok to lend to
I had 3 CCJs and a handful of defaults. But they still lent to me
I had late charges with them on most of their loans.
I’ve forwarded it to ombudsman
No way they were responsible
Donna says
Hello, so last night I decided to go through my bank statements and see who is had loans from – I was absolutely gobsmacked at how many different companies I’d had them from and how much is borrowed. Going back and seeing it all in black and white is a real eye opener.
Anyways I sent my emails off to all the comapnies requesting my account information.
This morning I have received an email back from Myjar with a full breakdown.
In summary between March 2012 and March 2013 I had 7 loans with them.
Each loan increased with value and I was often late paying them back, incurring more interest and late fees, I also took out more than one loan a month on some occasions. The total interest I paid was £551.14 – (which in comparison to other loans which I’ve roughly worked out is nothing).
I have an outstanding loan with Myjar for £400 which is currently showing as in arrears on my credit report.
My question is should I ask Myjar to wipe the outstanding loan and remove from my credit file and leave it as that or should I be asking for my interest on my other loans to be repaid as well?
Tony says
Hi Donna
I only had £221 in charges from my jar and had a debt of £198. I did the second letter template (Step two from this article) and they offered to clear the debt and clear off my records. I accepted this as quite fair, but I would still use the second template letter and let them come back to you with the offer
Matthew says
Hey
I had a letter from both payday uk and payday express asking for the 10 pounds etc. I emailed them back questioning there response and now ive received an email from both of them saying my complaint will be dealt with within 4 weeks. this is only to get the answers to step 1. also ive had a response from safety net credit saying out of good gesture they will wipe my outstanding balance of 400. I emailed them back saying its not good enough and want all the interest etc back. surely if there willing to allow the 400 I owe. I must have a strong case and be entitled to more.
Regards
Sophie says
My SafetyNet case is with the FO after SN rejected it. Shocking this company, in the space of 5-6 months they allowed me to borrow over £5k!!
Just had a call for the FO, first of all adjudicator was saying that she couldn’t uphold my complaint. SafetyNet had provided her with loads of information, info that she had never seen. I started to argue the case and say is it right that they can take repayments such as £600 out of my bank with no warning!?! I also mentioned that they allowed my to borrow and repay back over £5k within a short space of time. The FO seemed shocked, asked where this info had come from and said my statement of Account. It turns out that SafetyNet had provided her with lots of pretty information to hide the fact that they are in wrong, hoping that the complaint will be finished and not send her the real information.
This has now been passed to her and she is going to relook at it.
Beware of these guys!! if your taking the complaint to the FO make sure you have your statement of account to back you up!
Steve says
Hi
I have started to collate the information on them and they have nearly trebled my limit since July last year and lent me nearly double.
I will send my complaint in as we know it takes time
Do you think the FO will now agree with your complaint?
All the best
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Sophie,
the good news from this is the fact that the case workers at the FO are really prepared to listen to what you have to say. Several people have been told they don’t have a case and have then explained things in more detail and the FO has changed their decision.
Of course there is nothing good about about the fact that a firm seems to have provided the FO with either wrong or very incomplete information :(
Martin says
Pixie Loans wrote back and said that I completed an affordability assessment at the time of applying and that they had no reason to think that I would not be able to re-pay without difficulty. They also say that I signed the credit agreement relating to each loan and in doing so I agreed that the loan was affordable and suitable for me before they deposited the loan into my account. They stated that a robust affordability assessment of my financial circumstances had been conducted at the time of each application using “Call Credit” which are a 3rd party credit reference agency and their internal policies and procedures also verified that the loan was affordable at the time of application.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That sounds like a standard reply – time to take the complaint to the Ombudsman.
MW says
Hi, I’ve had a reply from the FO adjudication to say the my complaint against Wonga has been rejected on the grounds that there were gaps of 2 -3 months between taking out out loans even though some months I’d had more than one loans with them. Apparently this isn’t over borrowing! The months in between I’d borrowed from other lenders but these credit checks weren’t necessary back in 2013.
Is that it or is there anything else I can do?
I took out 7 loans plus a top up over a period of 11 months. Max amount was £300 one time.
I would’ve thought of a credit check had been done at the time it would’ve shown that I was regularly taking out payday loans on a monthly basis. Should I go to the FO? Is it worth it?
P2P have rejected my complaint on similar grounds but also because I’d only taken out two loans with them even though they overlapped?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think 7 loans plus a top up in less than a year should have been a clear signal to Wonga that you were struggling. I think you should go back to the adjudicator and say this, ask them to look at it again and say you want the case to go to the Ombudsman if they don’t agree.
Patricia M. says
Hi all,
Quick Quid SUCCESS!
An update: I am absolutely thrilled that the FOS adjudicator rang me today to say that QQ have agreed that all of my 43 loans (plus a year of their rolling Flexcredit account), except the first 3, should not have been given to me… they are refunding all interest plus 8% interest… over £11,500!! I am amazed it’s come to so much.
Timeline: 1 Feb FOS received my complaint. 11 Feb I received an email to say that they had asked QQ for their side of the story and that an adjudicator should be in touch with me within 12 weeks; 2 March, phone call from adjudicator to say QQ had made an offer.
So, about 4.5 weeks in total (plus the 9 weeks originally dealing with QQ who made me an offer of £350!!). I’m thrilled it was so quick, I hadn’t even heard that the adjudicator had agreed with me that they were unaffordable. He said today that he thought it was a fair decision, and I have agreed!! Fingers crossed the payment now comes through quickly.
So, maybe this is a move in the right direction for QQ who seemed previously to have really been dragging their heels over the time taken to reply to the FOS?
For info, I sent the FOS copies of my Experian credit file from 2011 and 2012, but no bank statements or further information was asked for.
Good luck everyone and thanks a million to you Sara for this site!
P
John C says
Wow, great result Patricia! Fingers crossed I get something similar as I had 59 consecutive loans then 2 P2P loans and their flexi account, all from the same business. Total of 84 consecutive months of lending so far from them as a group! Total QQ interest was over £15k plus the interest on Pounds to Pocket loans.
Sophie says
Fantastic News Patricia,
My complaint with QQ is with the FO, they have also agreed that they were in the wrong. QQ have till the 8th March to reply to the FO to disagree or agree but your post has just given me a little bit of hope ;)
Well done!
Kimberley says
I have sent off my letter to Wonga, can anybody please let me know what kind of responses they have back from them?
also are there any success stories from anybody who has not had to take further action with Ombudsman
grace says
Hi Kimberley I had a recent refund from Wonga for nearly £5k this took about 12 weeks in total, I did receive a couple of letters apologising for the wait as they have a backlog but just kept chasing up – fingers crossed for you
George says
Hi Kimberley,
I went to the ombudsman after Wonga failed to conclude their investigation after 8 weeks, I don’t know how much of a difference that made (if any) as Wonga made me an offer that I accepted about 2 weeks later.
I had precious little contact from Wonga after they sent me all the pdf files for my statement of account, only one email a few weeks later apologising for the delay, but with no mention of requiring additional time.
Indeed, the ombudsman didn’t even acknowledge they’d received my complaint until I contacted them a second time to query whether my complaint had been received.
I’m not sure if you can count that as requiring further action from the ombudsman or not, given that the no-one from the ombudsman had to rule?
Whether or not it gave Wonga a nudge in the ‘right’ direction I guess i’ll never know.
Fwiw, in my case, at no time was I asked for additional information from either Wonga or the ombudsman… which surprised me because I didn’t feel I did a very good job with the complaint letters…. I didn’t give nor was I ever asked for things like credit reports, wage slips, bank statements etc… I just explained my/our situation very briefly and supplied the case reference number for my/our (then) CCCS, (now) Stepchange, case file.
Best of luck.
Jamie says
I called wonga to put in a complaint but also called the F/O to inform them and for advice, I called wonga today but they will not give me any more info as I’ve informed the F/O and it’s now being dealt with them have a made a mistake?? Or will I still get a true result because the F/O have been really helpful
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Jamie, I wouldn’t worry about this, I am sure your complaint will be properly handled. From what I have heard, there is some sort of special arrangement between Wonga and the Ombudsman.
Jamie says
thanks a lot for the reply, i just want to say you know i could cry reading all peoples post and I’m just a normal bloke these loans took my heart and soul, all because i was a little carless and in need of help and i was never able to get out of them for a long time which caused me many problems, once i got away i really hoped there was a way of helping others, i felt like the loan companies should be locked up as it was just a big trap that nearly ended my life.
im so glad people are winning, I’ve put in my complaint and hope i have a little victory for what happened to me good luck everyone , ill post in a few weeks if i do or don’t have any luck
Adam says
Had an email from the FO today. Quick Quid will be repaying me back interest and charges on 8 loans + 8% interest. This totals £1,300. They will also be wiping out my outstanding balance. I had between 30-40 loans with them over a five year period.
It took about 10 days from the FO sending over their findings to QQ to getting an email from the FO today with details of QuickQuid’s offer.
Hannah says
Hi
I have been looking at this website for a while and I have got to say thanks for all of the information.
I lodged a complaint with QQ and their 8 weeks are up today. I also referred it to the FO a while ago when I received a final response from QQ saying they rejected my complaint and had performed the necessary credit checks at the time. It seems the FO have been in touch with QQ and asked them to look into it further. I find it hard to believe they did the necessary checks as I had been discharged from bankruptcy 3 weeks before they approved my first loan. They then increased my loan every month after that, for 14 months, each new loan being taken out on the same day it was repaid. It got to a point where I was borrowing 1000 every month and paying 250 interest on top of that, leaving me with nothing to pay my rent or utilities never mind anything else. I know how easy it is to get into this trap, I initially borrowed £100, then to pay it back I borrowed £150 to cover the shortfall, and it escalated each month. A pattern of either rolling over the loan each month or borrowing more the same day I had paid it off should have highlighted a problem. Anyway, as I said their 8 weeks are up today and I will be ringing the FO tomorrow to let them know. Fingers crossed they agree with me, I am sure a recent bankruptcy would have flagged up pretty high on the credit report that they said they did but cannot provide.
Good luck to everyone going through this and its great to hear when people are successful
Bill says
Complained to Myjar on 1st February and they responded on 5th February advising that all loans were responsibly lent and they would have known anything about my dire financial problems. I referred this to the Ombudsman on the 6th Feb and have just had an email saying that Myjar have offered to refund all interest and charges + 8% interest for all loans that were taken out within 8 days of paying one loan off (almost all of them).
Anyone know how long it’ll take to get my £600? I’ve signed the form that the Ombudsman sent to accept this fair offer.
redfraggle says
So after reading this I have been inspired to get the ball rolling.
Requested statements from Uncle Buck, PDUK PDExpress, Pinkyloans and Nextcredit,
Sent email over to myjar, peachy and safetynet credit (who are by far and away my biggest one – I currently earn £1200 PCM and my credit limit with them is £1000!!!)
Myjar have sent over statement of account so I have emailed back requesting fees, interest etc
Peachy downright refused anything so I referred to the ombudsman yesterday
Safetynet have passed my complaint to the “relevant team” and will get back to me within 48 hours. Given that I’ve been borrowing and rolling over with them since Sept 2014 I dread to think the total pais in interest (currently working it all out from my statements)
Still need to tackle Wonga and 247 moneybox but these were relatively little compared to the others.
I have opened a brand new shiny account so I know that I have a fresh start moneywise. It’s a weight off knowing that I can actually live off my wages and not be borrowing left right and centre to be paying back interest and just spiralling downhill all the time
I will keep you all updated. Congratulations to those who have succeeded! Good luck to those still fighting
redfraggle says
I’ve now started the ball rolling on the following lenders:
Pixie Loans – half a dozen loans between 2014 – 2015
Peachy – Several between 2014 -2015
Wonga – Several between 2011 – 2014
Unclebuck – Half a dozen between 2011 -2014
Lending Stream – 4 loans between 2012 – 2013
Nextcredit – Several between 2013 – 2014
247 Moneybox – Lent to me under 2 different email addresses – bwetween 2012 -2014
PDUK – LOTS between 2011 – 2014
MyJar – Several dating back to 2012
Safetynet – £1000 credit limit since 2013
Wageday Advance – several loans between 2011-2014
Just looking at all the above makes me feel sick that I borrowed that much money from that many lenders. It all started with one small loan so I could buy a suit for a new job and then it spiralled and got unmanageable. I’ll keep you all updates as to the response. The biggest in terms of interest is Safetynet and I’ve been promised a response in 48 hours so I’ll let you know how I get on.
Joe says
Hi All, I wanted to post this message as the repercussions of a mistake by Mr Lender a few months ago cost me my job.
As a part of Mr Lenders process of funding a loan they contacted my employer to confirm employment. As you would expect I was hesitant for them to do this but was assured they do not say where they are calling from. The member of staff that completed this task did in fact inform my employer.
I was not in work this particular day but received a phone call from my manager to tell me to come into the main office the day after as he wanted to speak to me. I found this odd and immediately thought that it was something to do with the loan I had applied for. I went in the next day and was subsequently relieved of my duties as I had given work details to a third party.
I complained to Mr Lender and eventually got a reply from their Complaints Manager, Natalie Bond. Now I’m no Wordsworth but the grammar, written English and content was so poor my 9 year old would have done a better job. If this is the type of people Mr Lender employs? And should they really be in the business of lending money?
Has anyone else had issues with Mr Lender contacting their employer? Or received illiterate correspondence?
Please let me know as I want to put something together.
Thanks
Jamie says
Hi, just thought, dependant on your job, your employer can not let you go for giving your work info to a financial company ? Certain jobs , your not allowed dept of course, but you would of been aware of this prior to applying? I’m hoping that you pursued this as unfair dismissal ?? If it was in the last 6 months, you could pursue this against your employer ??
Donna says
Progress so far;
1st email sent late evening on the 1st March requesting statement of account
MyJar replied on the 2nd March and attached a copy of my statement of account. 2nd email sent to them making complaint. No reply or acknowledgement of this as yet. I’ll give them a week and if no acknowledgement I will email again.
PDUK replied on the 2nd March asking for my current residential address so they could get the information I requested. Reply sent to them; no reply from them as yet. I don’t know if they are sending the information in the post or whether they just needed my address to find the account and will email it. Again I will give them a week and if I haven’t received anything will send another email.
Wage Day Advance replied today with the following:
‘For me to be able to assist you further, please can you confirm if you would like to raise a complaint or if you just require information regarding your account(s) with Wage Day Advance.
If you are raising a complaint, please can you confirm the details of your complaint, along with what it is you would like Wage Day Advance to do to resolve the issue raised. We shall then log this from the date you have initially emailed us.
If you require account information only, we shall forward your email on to the relevant department who will be in contact with you shortly.
Please note that if you would like to raise a complaint but also require account information, we will provide this information when we respond to your complaint in our written Final Response Letter.’
Email sent back this evening detailing complaint.
Still awaiting responses from
1 month money (elevate)
Lending stream
Mini credit (Opos)
247 Moneybox
If no response in a week I’ll email again.
Paul says
I’ve had replies from myjar and elevate and been paid redress all within 6 weeks of sending the letters. Also today received a very good offer from safetynet