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?
Kel says
Hi Sara thank you for the advice earlier I was scared stiff of the thought of a dmp and would just continue muddling through each month with no cash to live. I filled in all of my debt tool plan honestly with Step change and the calculation was shocking even with this id be living better than I am now. Granted they estimate nearly 3 years till I’m debt free but if I carry on like this I never will be so think I’m going to bite the bullet and give it a go thank you again ?
Ben c says
An update regarding Wonga,
I have helped my brother through the complaint process, as I was going through it myself anyway. We have accepted an offer yesterday, in my estimates it is c£800 short of the total interest amount repaid (settlement to us: c£5,200). He was thinking of Christmas and wanted to boost the bank balance for the winter period.
When accepting a direct offer from Wonga, how long do they usually take to process a payment. There is no mention of a timeframe on their email.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
5200 out of 6000 sounds like a good offer to me! THey are pretty slow, they say 14 working days but it’s a bit of a mystery exactly when that starts from.
Shem says
Hi Ben
As you are excepting a direct offer rather than through the FOS It would be interesting to see if this takes the full 14days as myself and one or two other members did recently accept offers directly and found money appeared with in our accounts within a few days of wonga acknowledging the acceptance
Shem x
Richard says
I got mine within 7days. I called up everyday asking how long……and on the 7th day……..
Ben C says
Thanks everyone,
I have sent a polite email this morning requesting acknowledgment of my acceptance.
Failing that the complaint will continue on to the FOS.
Just to see if that speeds things up…
Kieron says
Hi Ben,
I’m currently waiting for a reply on my Wonga complaint.
I’m interested to know how long you have waited and how many offers you had till the one you accepted.
I paid over £3000 on interest and rolled loans nearly every 3 months for about 5 and half years. Do you think I will get a good offers?
Many thanks
K
AE says
Finally the wheels are in motion an adjudicator picked up one of my 8 complaints and has agreed was unaffordable with pounds to pocket (£900) does anyone know how long they take to pay out if they agree with the adjudicator?
Thanks :)
C says
Hi all
Does anybody know the time frame for wageday advance to pay-out after ombudsman decision?
This is my last complaint to be settled ? thank you again everyone especially Sara
Helen says
LendingStream wrote me an email in early August saying how they carried out the affordability assessment, but never stated whether this was their final response despite me sending three emails asking if it was. I’ve forwarded this to FOS and have now had an email from LendingStream (more than two months since their last email) with their actual final response, just reiterating the first email. They have copied FOS in to their email this time.
They are saying my Experian score ranged between 693 and 758 at the time of my applications, and this is what they say in the recent email:
“We understand you are concerned about the assessment of your Experian credit score, however, we would like to confirm that the experian credit score was correctly assessed and deemed acceptable. We also confirm that Lending Stream never alter any information and the scores specified in our previous email was captured during the application.”
I don’t know exactly what my score was at the time of my first application as I wasn’t checking Experian at this time. But I know that my noddle score has gone up since. My Experian score is currently 299 and that is with me being relatively good recently.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So off to the Ombudsman!
Tell the Ombudsman that you don’t think their Experian score can possibly have been right. From previous cases it seems that LS only recorded the score, not the details. I wouldn’t worry about this, your current credit record will show what LS should have seen if they had properly checked your credit record.
Helen says
Further to my post above;
LendingStream are quoting my Experian credit score several times in their emails:
“Your Experian score was ranging from 693 to 758 at the time of the applications. This was factored into our proprietary underwriting and deemed acceptable.”
“[…] Hence, our decision to lend money does in part rely on the information received from Experian (credit scores).”
“We understand that you are concerned about the assessment of your Experian credit score, however, we would like to confirm that the experian score was correctly assessed and deemed acceptable. We also confirm that Lending Stream never alter any information and the scores specified in our previous email was captured during the application.”
“[…], the organization which will try to make a search on your credit file will only receive the information in the form of credit scores to get an idea of your credit worthiness as per their assessment procedure. Hence, the loans were approved to you as your credit scores reflected that your financial circumstances were in good standing.”
Reading the extracts above it seems LendingStream received a score and nothing else from Experian and the score has been supplied by Experian and is not made up by LendingStream. However after contacting MoneySavingExpert today, they are saying that I am the only one who can see my Experian report, and that lenders ONLY see the information in it. Which one is it? I’m so confused!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Looking back on some of your previous comments, you had 9 loans from LS in the last year or two. That is very recently. If your current Experian score is 299 and things have been getting better, I can’t imagine how the Experian scores LS have quoted are correct.
One “solution” to this puzzle (apart from the possibility that Lending Stream have simply invented these numbers) is that although MSE are correct to say that Experian don’t provide the credit score they give you to a lender doing a check, a lender can pay for a credit reference agency to calculate a score for them, using whatever criteria they want… if this is what is happening, then the so-called Experian score doesn’t really mean anything unless you know what it is based on.
But I want to emphasise that you shouldn’t be to bothered by this mythical score. What matters most to the adjudicator is whether your bank statements show the loans are unaffordable.
Stacey Reddick says
What do i do from Here? 118118
[I have edited the very long reply – Sara]
You told us that the reason for agreement 734068 was consolidate borrowing… we also complete a ‘welcome call’ with each applicant… During this call you were also asked to confirm if you felt the loan was affordable and whether you were aware of any future changes to your circumstances which could affect your ability to afford the loan. not proceed with the application… the above steps are taken to try to ensure, in line with the FCA rules in CONC, that potential applicants are creditworthy and can afford the loan they have applied for / have been offered by us.
With the above point in mind regarding you being asked if you think the loan is affordable, I am concerned that you now state that you did not think this was the case. I would like to draw your attention to the declaration that you signed as part of their loan agreement which states:
“You declare that at the time of Your application: All the information about You and all other information is true and complete and that You realise that We rely on this information in agreeing to make a loan available to You.” … there is a statement just above the button you clicked on to submit the application which states “If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies…” … We work with people with a less than perfect credit history because we understand there are times when they may need a helping hand.
At present, the balance on your account is £4985.43 of which, £2196.51 is arrears/overdue payments and as such, I would urge you to contact our Collections team to discuss how you are going to address the account.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I know it’s easy for me to say, but I wouldn’t worry very much about all that stuff. It is, no doubt, meant to sound alarming. But there could be good reasons why you may not have understood their questions about your expenses or may have given inaccurate answers, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/.
Having said that, if you said the loan was for consolidation and you didn’t use it for that, but if you had done that the 118 loan would have been affordable, then you may find this a hard case to win at the Ombudsman.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
When did your complaint go to the Ombudsman?
Natasha says
My complaint when to the ombudsman on 17.07.2017
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, then the last 4 of the loans you listed were clearly within the 6 year rule. Is only 4 are older and 57 (gulp!) are under 6 years then it makes sense to say you are happy not to get a refund on the first 4 but would like them to be taken into account when the complaint about the within 6 year loans is considered.
Natasha says
Thank you, I have emailed. my adjudicator back reiterating this. Really not sure why Wonga are saying the first 8 loans are out of the time scale. Wondering now if there are extra loans that I’ve missed out.
Matt D says
Hello,
I have a current adjudicator decision in my favour with Safetynet Credit, this was made on Friday 13th October and the adjudicator gave SNC until 27th October to reply. I made this complaint initially in late May/early June. I’m just curious if anyone else has had this experience at all? Generally do SNC side with adjudicators when it’s against them? I noticed in the stats that they received 44 complaints against them and only 5 reached ombudsman. If my investigations are to be accurate.
Any timescales or rough outline of what happens next would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Sally says
My complaint against SNC was rejected by them too so I went straight to the ombudsmen. I don’t really think SNC have a leg to stand on as they can see your bank account and your transactions, therefore, they can see what you can and can’t afford. That’s just my opinion though. I’m really hoping that the ombudsmen rules in my favour. I would love to hear about other people’s experiences with SNC as from what I’ve read on here they reject the majority of complaints.
Matt D says
Yeah I believe SNC reject any direct complaint towards them, yet my adjudicator was brilliant in their write up. I’m really anxious now though as you’ve got to wait for their reply or submission of additional evidence. (Although to be fair, I don’t think there’s anything they could possibly submit as you said, they have had access to everything.) I’ll keep you up to date on this case if you like? And if anyone else wants to share things about SNC please do so? Has anyone else heard from either adjudicator or ombudsman? Thank you for your replies ?
Ross says
Hi Matt,
SNC appear keen to write off balances (or they used to) but not actual refunds. I don’t know why this is, but who knows? When I complained, they offered to write off my £1300 balance, which I happily accepted, as this was equal to the interest I’d paid them over the 11 months I had an account with them. As such, I didn’t have to go to the FOS but, as complaints are now stacking up, they not even be doing this now? I told them, that as they could see all of my bank account (what was I thinking?) they should’ve noted my other loans and gambling. Good luck!
Matt D says
Yes, I told SNC that I was struggling, and they did offer me a repayment plan. No writing off of balances for me, just smaller monthly repayment. I made my complaint and went through the official procedure but it seems they have a standard format of reply, ironic as they mention copying and pasting in their reply! That’s when I progressed to the FOS, in May and I had a response on Friday that the adjudicator has ruled in my favour. I’m waiting on the next move of SNC now!
Mike says
Guess I was a lucky one SNC
I sent them the standard letters and got a list of my loans, I sent the second letter and within 6/7 weeks they accepted they had lent irresponsibly.
They refunded £934 ( including 8% ) which I was happy about because I had only paid £1184 in interest.
AK says
My direct complaint was upheld in week 4. I had an outstanding balance of £1000+interest, so refund was only £72 but it covered all interest I paid except the interest on two first deposits and cleared outstanding balance. It was fair offer and I happily accepted.
Matt D says
Just an update on SNC, I contacted them today to say an adjudicator had ruled in my favour. Surprise, surprise they said they hadn’t receivied this paperwork, so I had to send them a copy myself to their complaints email. I called a couple of hours later to check they’d now received it, and they have and said they were working on it (don’t know whether this is a good or bad thing to be fair) and that I should receive a reply tomorrow. Hopefully they’re busy working out the 8% interest in my refund that the adjudicator recommended?
Sally says
Hi Matt, did you have to send copies of your bank statements and credit report to the adjudicator too. I have sent mine to the FOS and just had a letter from them to say that they are awaiting to receive the business file from SNC.
Matt D says
Hi Sally,
When my adjudicator rang me, he said he didn’t need my statements as SNC had provided financial details of my transactions. The fact that they could see my incomings and outgoings counted against them massively. However I did send my statement for the duration of my loaning period because I wanted to give a fair representation to the FOS. I saw on another forum see that SNC May omit some data from their records to back up their case. My advice would be that it’s worth sending them off.
Mrs W says
Hi Matt
Did you receive any response from Safetynet? I’m at the same stage now with adjudicator ruling in my favour.
Matt says
Hi Mrs W,
Received my refund this Thursday from SNC. Couldn’t have been easier, they wrote to me on the 30th to advise they had sided with the adjudicator. Then settlement forms were signed and scanned, and one email to SNC and they acknowledged receipt and paid out on Thursday evening! :) Just be prepared to be a little patient at the end of the process :D
Mrs W says
Thanks so much Matt. Adjudicator has given them until 16th November. I sent my first complaint middle of June probably around the same time line as you. Fingers crossed I get the same result from them. Trying to be patient is the hardest part :-)
Gary says
Hi there,
The ombudsman has requested additional clarification on my bank transactions due to gambling, his comments are as per below:
“I note what appear to be significant winnings on your statements. These included a refund of £2000 from Ladbrokes on 4 may 2015 and two cash deposits of £2000 and £1200 at Halifax on the 14 May 2016. Can you confirm whether or not these deposits were winnings.”
My question is i know the £1500 was winnings, however i seem to recall the other amounts were provided by family to help assist me due to gambling losses and help pay off some accumulated debt. Will the ombudsman look negatively at the fact i received money from my family or shall i say they were winnings.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, getting money from your family does not harm your case – it shows you were desperate and couldn’t manage on your income. As always it is best to give a completely accurate answer to the ombudsman.
Nicki says
Your best bet is just to be honest. I would say you know the £1500 is winnings but your unsure about the other two and that they could be winnings or they could be assistance from your family. He will just be trying to get a good picture of what your financial situation was at the time. Even if you had to borrow money from your family doesn’t show that you were any better off it shows that you needed help
Dan says
I’ve got 400 pages of bank statements (8 years worth!) plus about 100 emails and feel like I should obtain copies of all my credit card statements etc, plus potentially things in my wife’s name – I could end up with 6/700 pages that I would need to upload to the FOS, across separate complaints (Would only send each thing once) but that seems crazy and so time consuming but I have started the process against payday loan companies, loan companies, credit card, catalogue and am contemplating against my bank as well – a massive gambling problem but I think a ballpark would be total interest and charges of over £30k over the last 6 years! – no wonder my marriage is on the rocks and I’ve been so stressed for years now! thankfully I’m 200 days clear and about to start therapy for my addiction but will keep choosing not to gamble any more! Anyway a simple question after all that – should I just print everything I have and send it to the FOS instead of trying to upload or am I just planning on way too much detail (if so what do I miss out?!)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
200 days clear – well done, great start to a new financial life. Getting some refunds will also help!
I see no reason to send credit card statements unless the FOS asks you for those, I am not sure how they help your case. If you are trying to find when credit limit increases occurred for making a complaint, then just state that there were several and let the lender come back with the facts if they think this is wrong. If the FOS wants the statements, they can ask the lender!
Not sure what the 100 emails are – if they are just confirming loans then they aren’t needed. only emails to a lender explaining that you are in difficulty and the replies to these are relevant.
400 pages of bank statements is a lot… When a case is submitted o the ombudsman, I suggest you ask the FOS if they really want that much or could you say supply just the January & July statements each year as a starting point and then send extra ones if they are required?
Dan says
Thanks,
I’m just thinking so much of mine was linked but I was not making payments on essentials (like rent etc) but for the last few years I’ve just been paying large sums to credit cards on multiple occasions each month, which is mostly what shows on my bank statements (so arguably much was affordable) however I was just gambling whatever I paid into a credit card, or withdrawing cash from a credit card. Much to my shame, I also racked up significant debts in my wife’s name AND repeatedly failed to transfer the £2k a month I was supposed to. I don’t know on one hand I think I have a strong case on the other I fear not, hence why I was thinking perhaps I need to pull everything together and try to build the strongest case I can, also saving the FOS a lot of leg work – many emails would show where I was asking F&F for financial help etc
Acee says
RESULT! Was given £2300 back from PDUK & Payday Express out of this I offered Lending Stream £300 as a f&f on a £595 debt and Likely Loans £1000 as a f&f on a £3500 debt and they have accepted. It will mean my DMP finishes 5 months earlier and because of Sara and the wonderful people on this site I will be debt free by August next year at the latest instead of January 2019 and I’ve still got 6 or 7 cases with the Ombudsman so hoping to be debt free before the summer thank you so much.
Dan says
Congrats! nice to see you used your refund wisely, I hope your debt-free comes as soon as possible for you
Acee says
Thanks Dan its down to this site that i got the info on how to negotiate an f&f quite literally a lifesaver for people, amazing to update my stepchange DMP tonight and see my debts down from over £12000 to under £8000.
Gary says
Great results ?
Acee says
Thanks Gary was prepared to offer Likely Loans upto £1800 so served me well going in with a low offer just mentioned my parents only had £1000 to give me seemed to work.
Acee says
On another note my lending stream complaint is with the Ombudsman because they rejected my complaint in their final response, however tonight I have received this email from lending stream
‘This is in reference to the FOS complaint received on your behalf
We understand that you are not happy with our previous resolution, however, we confirm that all necessary checks were executed at the time of your applications and your loan was approved only after it cleared our affordability analysis.
To reiterate, during the approval of your loans you were full time employed with the monthly income of £1070.00 or above for each application. We could observe a sufficient disposable income to make the repayments without any financial difficulties. Also, while accessing your applications, the score was confirmed to be above 564 and you were approved only for the amount you were eligible for. Although we received additional applications, they were declined as they did not meet our lending criteria. Upon reviewing your account, we found that all your loan accounts have been closed successfully.
Having said the above, we believe that Lending Stream has behaved responsibly in approving your loans and has dealt with them fairly’
I am totally confused as they gave their final response weeks ago so I sent it to the Ombudsman so what is that email about? They included an FOS ref number but my complaint hasn’t been assigned an adjudicator yet as I’ve had no contact from the FOS.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
does the figure of 1070 income or the credit score of 564 match with what LS previously replied to you?
Acee says
No they initially said between £1070 and £1800 and credit score of between 564-768 I’ve still got the original email ready to send to the Ombudsman when they pick up the case. Just not sure why they have emailed me a final response again and they quoted an FOS number when I don’t even think they have picked the case up I’m totally confused.
Helen says
This is almost exactly word for word the same email they sent me, apart from the credit score and monthly income.
When I put my complaint to FOS they could not give me a reference as LendingStream never sent me a final response. When I explained to FOS that I had asked LendingStream several times whether their email was their final response, FOS contacted LendingStream directly and asked them to send me a final response. That’s when I received this email.
Acee says
Thanks Helen Lending Stream has already sent me a final response weeks ago so this was out of the blue for me I’ll just see what happens over the next few weeks and keep you updated.
Neil T says
Hi Sara, Do you know how long it takes the business to get in contact with you after the Ombudsman ruling. I had the adjudicator call earlier to say Sunny will pay out on all the loans when they previously only offered 3 out of 36. The amount came to a very handy £3600.
The ombudsman said the business will contact me to pay out but may take four weeks. Is it worth calling to nudge them along as Just want to get this over the line.
Gary says
Excellent result, bet you’re pleased ?
SPLITTY says
WAHOO!! Payday UK have today finally paid up (albeit only £257 in interest & fees paid back to me) but crucially they have written off a £1061 debt that’s been hanging over me for the last 4 years!
I’m now free from the harrassment of daily phone calls from the PRA Group and letters from BW Legal threatening legal action against me.
PDUK also promised to remove all information from my credit report relating to my loans, including the default they issued on the last loan that was eventually sold to PRA.
Am I right in thinking that I’ll have to wait until next month for this to show up on my credit report?
Even though I haven’t come away with a huge payout, the relief of not having this old debt hanging over me and finally being able to improve my credit rating makes so much more of a difference!
I’ve still got 4 other claims waiting for an adjudicator however none of those have negative credit details against them, so any refund from those will be a bonus.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It make take them a few weeks to get credit records sorted. If you are using one of the free credit report checkers such as Noddle, these are snapshots every 30 days, so depending on the timing, if you ask for a report a few days before the correction, it may not show up until 30 days later… I suggest checking end November.
Lucy M says
MY QQ SUCCESS: I submitted my complaint to Quickquid in October 2016. QQ remained largely unresponsive during the entire process. At one stage they made an offer of £300 which I rejected.
I requested a Subject Access Request from QQ who informed me that they did not have to comply as it qualified as an “exemption”; which was incorrectly supported by my adjudicator. The Adjudicator rules in QQ’s favour based on them reported I was earning £3,000pm (not true!). My adjudicator said it was simply “not necessary” for me to see my file and was “extremely unlikely to change his mind.” QQ is absolutely legally obligated to comply with a SAR. I spent weeks fighting this & stated that if QQ failed to comply I would be making a formal complaint to the ICO. QQ finally agreed to provide me with a copy of my “Business File”.
By Business File contained over 900 cells of duplicated data. The salary for each entry was £1,500pm except a single entry stating £1,500 “twice weekly”. It appeared QQ had taken this single cell and claimed I earned £3,000 for the entire period. I argued the £3,000pm figure (upon which the adjudicator had based his decision) was clearly incorrect. The adjudicator was reconsidering his decision, when QQ offered me £3,000. I accepted this and it was paid about 28 days later. The entire process from start to finish took a year.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good grief.
(For anyone else encountering this sort of nonsense about a firm not having to comply with a SAR, put a complaint into the ICO immediately. Here is one readers story where the ICO made the Money Shop hand over the information https://debtcamel.co.uk/ico-money-shop/)
That is appalling complaint handling by QuickQuid. Can I suggest that you think about telling their regulator, the FCA, about the obstructive way QQ has behaved. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/quickquid-payday-loan-refunds/ which says how to do this.
gillian says
hi just a quick update i recieved over 6 thousand pound from quickquid in refunds the last time i used them was end of 2015 the only problem now is since i have got refund they have started to send me emails asking if i would like to take a loan ARE THEY SERIOUSE surley this proves they just target anyone with the emails trying to tempt you (I WILL NOT BE TAKING UP THE OFFER AS NOW THANKS TO THIS SITE I AM DEBT FREE AND EVEN HAVE FUNDS IN BANK)
AE says
Accepted my first offer of £950 from pounds to pocket a little less than I initially thought but it will start me on the road to being debt free, does anyone know how long they take to pay out?
Thanks :_)
Brad says
Hi Sara, I noticed the comment above from Acee regarding full and final settlements. Is there a page on here with advice on how to negotiate this please? I’m hoping to be in a position to look at this in the next 1-2 months. Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
of course there is :) https://debtcamel.co.uk/debt-options/less-common/full-final/
Ben says
Just a quick question, before I accept offers from lending Stream and Quid. Is it a full refund on interest we paid we are trying to claim? Or refund on the actual loan also? Any feedback would be great.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
it is a refund on the interest you paid, not the amount you borrowed.
Be careful if they are offering to write off an outstanding loan as part of the refund – this may sound good but it may be worth less than you think as a lot of the outstanding amount was interest. If you aren’t sure, come back here and say what the numbers are… it’s worth making sure rather than regret this later.
Luke says
I received an offer from Lending Stream which I thought was for 1/3 of interest and charges paid. I replied saying I would take it to the Ombudsman. However, I recalculated its actually for bang on 50% of interest and charges, (£1797.44 for £3288.63 of interest/charge) is that a fair settlement? If so, do I have to now progress to the FOS or can I retrospectively accept their offer?
Also I have a complaint against Wonga with the FOS. They received everything they asked for (statements, credit report copy etc) on 25 Sep. How long would I expect until I get an adjudicator decision?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is up to you what you think is fair. How long ago were these loans? Because the Ombudsman would normally add 8% interest per year to any refunds? Also does it matter to you if LS removes any negative information from your credit record? If it is, get this agreed with LS in writing before accepting their offer.
If you decide you think a 50% offer is good enough to accept, then I suggest you contact LS and ask them how you accept this. Only when it is actually paid by LS should you withdraw your complaint at the FOS as some people have been badly messed abound by LS… hopefully this won’t happen to you but it’s good to keep your Ombudsman complaint running until you actually get paid.
Luke says
All were between 2013 and the start of 2017. Their email makes no reference to the 8% addition? I just wondered if 50% was a good offer in your experience?
Also I have a complaint against Wonga with the FOS. They received everything they asked for (statements, credit report copy etc) on 25 Sep. How long would I expect until I get an adjudicator decision? I noted that in my complaint, it includes a few loans outside of the 6 year timeframe, should I email the FOS to say I’m happy to not receive refunds on them to help speed up the process?
L7 says
Hi Sara,
So I’m on a journey of getting refunds from payday loan companies and have had over 1000 back in the first three weeks! I’ve just started a claim against amigo loans I had two with them the first for 3000 to consolidate payday loans and then the second for 5000 to consolidate once again as o took more payday loans out! In the conversation they based my earnings on me working overtime as I was working a lot at the time but surely they shouldn’t base affordability based on overtime and also they could see I was taking more money to pay the same payday loan companies as before, do you think I have a good case for a refund of interest on the second loan?
Kel says
Hi just got a response from PiggyBank and to be honest it’s a little scary and a little threatening not sure where to go with this one
This is the summary-
Based on my findings and the information above, I can uphold your complaint regarding irresponsible lending and will be able to offer some redress in this matter. If you accept in full and final settlement of your complaint I can refund interest and charges on the highlighted loans which totals £49.52. As your outstanding balance is £405.20 this means you will have a new outstanding figure of £355.68. Please confirm you accept this offer and I will also have your credit file updated
Please be aware that the T&Cs that you agreed to, mention fraud and a fraudulent application; be aware this is also classed as ‘irresponsible borrowing’
I did make my credit commitments sound a lot more attractive but surely they could see these
Advice would be great please
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have before the current one that defaulted?
I wouldn’t worry about their aggressive sounding response. A few payday lender do this and it is unpleasant but nothing ever comes of it. There are a lot of reasons why your application may not have been accurate, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/.
Kel says
Hi Sara I had six previous loans before defaulting with them
If they don’t feel they have done anything wrong why offer redress at all
Thank you for your help
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Because they are hoping that the combination of a small offer plus aggression will make you give in? There isn’t really much point in speculating about this. With 7 loans this is a case worth asking the Ombudsman to look at to see what they think is fair.
SPLITTY says
WAHOO!! (Mk.2)
Just a day after my payout from PDUK, I’ve had a letter from the ombudsman upholding my complaint against 1st Stop (now Clear Recoveries) for all 3 loans I had with them.
1st Stop were an absolute PITA to deal with when I had the loans and were incredibly quick to issue defaults.
When I put inmy complaint, they blatantly lied to me and the adjudicator, claiming the business was being wound up (their website was/is still live and accepting new loan applications – and they are still shown as active on Company’s House).
I now stand to get a refund of £1394 in fees and interest back… HAPPY DAYS!!!
Matt says
Today I’ve received a ‘final response’ letter from PaydayUK regarding six loans with them. I’m a little confused with the response I received as they’ve not determined whether they lent responsibly on two of the loans, the letter reads:
However, you continued to utilise our services taking out another two loan deposits of £250.00 on 13 August 2016 and 6 November 2016. Based on your lending history, I think when you took out these loans we should have asked you for more information. Unfortunately, I have been unable to reach a decision as to what we should have done with the information I have available to me. However, if you are able to provide the documentation I require as set out in the table below we will happily look at these two loans again for you.
In my opinion it sounds like they’ve admitted they should have done more with the statement being “Based on your lending history, I think when you took out these loans we should have asked you for more information” but have stated that in order to look into these two loans I will have to provide bank statements from this time and a credit report. They put down the bottom:
13 August 2016 – 30 March 2017
March 2017 2 Unable to Determine Redress: N/A
Are they legally obligated to provide me with an answer rather than just giving me “unable to determine” and should I respond to them prior to send to the FO?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not really worth arguing about what they should have done. It is peculiar for them to ask for your credit record as they can look at that themselves without asking you.
Did they make an offer on the previous loans? If so how many loans did you have and how many are they offering to refund?
Mrs W says
Hi All,
Adjudicator agreed in my favour Wonga should refund all loans 6-27 (around £6500 in interest), Wonga disagree and only want to pay out loans 6-21(£3100 in interest) Has anyone had the same situation and sent on to Ombusman for a better outcome?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes this happens. Most times the ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator, but sometimes the Ombudsman awards a refund on fewer or more loans. Unless you are desperate for the money I suggest letting it go to the ombudsman – that is a lot of money at stake and the later loans must have been pretty large to have paid that much interest.
The adjudicator will have considered Wonga’s view that the later loans were affordable and disagrees with it.
dan says
If you can afford to wait it out then must be a good case, unless there was a good, plausible reason to not pay on 22-27 but probably not, they are just hoping you are desperate for money and accept
Mrs W says
Thanks so much Dan and Sara, I will wait as it’s quite a difference. Fingers Crossed and thanks for being so positive.
Claire says
Hi, my adjudicator sided in my favour on some of my loans and gave WDA till the 27th September to contact them. They didn’t respond until the 2nd October, where they disagreed with the adjudicators findings. Now my claim has gone to the ombudsman and I am waiting for one to pick it up. Is it normal for WDA to reject adjudicators findings and what does the ombudsman do, do they normally agree with adjudicator or might they reject my claim?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
In most cases the Ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator my guess is it’s over 3/4 for these payday loan complaints but I haven’t seen statistics.
But sometimes they “tinker” with the adjudicator’s decision if they don’t think it’s quite right. So an award of “6 out of 10 loans” could be changed to “8 out of 10 loans” or “4 out of 10 loans”
Brad says
So Wonga came back today after 7 weeks rejecting my complaint. I had 31 loans in 21 months, borrowing over £20k. Off to the FOS again!
Brad says
Hi, can anyone give an indication of how long it takes having filled out an online complaint with the FOS to hearing any contact? I’ve not had an automated email or anything and the ones I’ve logged are my first experience of this.
Thanks
Matt D says
Hi there,
Don’t panic, you normally won’t get an email to say if they’ve received your complaint or not. You’ll normally receive some correspondence in roughly 4 weeks, possibly asking for statements or response letters. Then it can take some time to get to an adjudicator, I complained in late May, and heard from my adjudicator in late September. So in my experience it can be a little bit of a slow process but very worthwhile!
Mark says
How long can it take FOS to conclude their investigations..I had 22 loans over two years with lending stream which I’ve calculated that interest alone amounts to approx £5000.They said my credit score was 758 upon the first loan they gave me in Jan 2012 which I found very hard to believe considering at the time I had a personal loan and and payday loans with other lenders of large quantities since DEC 2010.I ve sent bank statements as requested to FOS three months ago but no update as yet.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds as though your case hasn’t yet been picked up by an adjudicator. It may be that Lending Stream haven’t yet sent the FOS their case file :(
I suggest you call the FOS and ask if an adjudicator has been assigned.
Ashley says
I have started to write complaints to all the payday lenders I have borrowed from in the last 7 years. many I have taken 20+ loans with, and already have been offered 1k+ settlements from a couple. many have rejected my complaints.
I have taken 4 loans with Lending stream over a period of 1 year, and they have not upheld my complaint, Do you think this one is worth going to the ombudsman with?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes definitely worth a try.
Ross says
I noticed today that PaydayUK and Payday Express websites show they are no longer issuing loans. I have complaints in with them, Is this anything to worry about? They have not given a final response within 8 weeks and it was logged with FOS last week?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I am hoping this won’t affect any existing complaints as the parent company hasn’t gone into administration. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-uk-stops-lending/
Maureen says
I have a big complaint in against Payday UK but even so, I see this as a great result! One of the big four lenders no longer inflicting misery on people and inevitably forcing them in to debt, bankruptcy etc…..the more of these lenders that either go into administration or stop lending is good news! They are no longer profiting from their high interest lending. I paid around £5000 interest to this company over 4 years.
Maureen says
There is a termination of appointment on 25th September of two directors on companies house for Instant Cash Loans….not sure what to make of that!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Thanks I had missed that. One of the two resigning directors was Stuart Howard who was their CEO…
Jb says
Dos any one know how sunny refunds work. Got informed I should have had my refund today. But before I phone them just want to know if they pay by bank deposit so over night or did it just go in at a random times during the day. Thanks in advance.
Ross says
Hi Jb,
They pay by Faster Payments, so it should hit your account within a couple of hours. If they say it was refunded today, it may be in your account now, or tomorrow at the latest I would think?
Dave says
Did they offer you a refund, agree With adjudicator, or did it go to ombudsman?
Just tomorrow is their deadline to respond to my adjudicators decision.
Jb says
They offered me a full refund. So accepted with them direct
AK says
How long did it take after acceptance of their offer to receive the refund? I accepted their offer yesterday and didn’t hear from them yet, in the offer they mentioned 3-5 working days, did they pay on day 3 or 5?
Jb says
Currently still waiting today is day 5
Bert says
I have had good news and Ombudsman has ruled in my against lending stream.
So my Ombudsman didn’t take any bank details off me to pass onto Lending Stream, but said that they will be in touch with me within 28 days to process the refund. Has anyone else had Lending Stream contact them directly to get bank details so they can process the refund? And how long does the Ombudsman’s decision to the refund from Lending Stream in your bank account usually take?
Mer says
Hi Bert,
Ombudsman found in my favour against Lending Stream on 3rd October, they have 28 days to contact me, I’ve not heard from them yet. I emailed them on Tuesday to check the progress, but they haven’t replied. I will let you know if I hear anything
Debs says
MyJar – surprisingly easy to deal with!
Submitted my complaint to them 9th Sept 17. Had a reply within 2 days letting me know they had received the complaint and would investigate, and aim to get back to me within 4 weeks. A couple of weeks letter an email to say they’d be taking longer than 4 weeks but will definitely be back to me within 8 weeks.
Yesterday 18th October, had an email asking when would be a good time to call and discuss the complaint, rather than wait I called them today.
They were very reasonable on the phone, admitted that it did seem my affordability of the loans was questionable and agreed to refund charges and interest on 11 of the 12 loans I had + 8% interest.
They emailed me with official offer within the hour, I replied straight away. Funds in my account almost immediately!!
Thanks Sara! You truly are worth your weight in gold! You’ve helped so many people with this site! I cannot thank you enough! I have written a cheque to give to my local citizens advice agency and tell anyone who’ll listen about this site and the help you offer!!
Kel says
Good evening I’ve had two knock backs in two days PiggyBank and wageday advance both said no wrong doing although piggy did offer a small amount of redress
My question is I have just activated my dmp which will obviously take a couple of weeks to get in place should I still send these complaints to the Fos I have included all my payday loans in my dmp so see it that whatever the outcome I haven’t got anything to lose. I am also still paying token payments to these companies wda offered to send a hardship pack to arrange payments for my outstanding debt but if it’s in my dmp not much point am I looking at this all wrong ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, send the complaints straight away to the FOS. There is no need to wait for your DMP to be up and running, the complaints can go ahead now. Which DMP firm are you talking to?
Kel says
Good morning Sara I am using step change I have sent all of my information to activate my dmp
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Ok StepChange are good. I suggest (and I think StepChamge will agree) that you cancel the token payments you are currently making to the payday loan debts (and any CPAs with you bank that you haven’t already ended) and inform the lenders that StepChange is setting up a DMP for you.
tony says
Dear
We have received information from Provident about the complaint you have referred to our service. Provident has explained that the last loan was issued on 28 May 2010
Because all of the loans were taken out more than seven years ago, Provident has objected to our service looking into the complaint. Part of this is because it says it’s unable to adequately investigate the concerns as it is only required to keep documentation for a period of six years. The time limits for bringing complaints are six years after the event complained of or three years after the date upon which the customer became aware, or ought to reasonably to have become aware, that they had a cause for complaint- although there are exceptions to this.
If you would like to pursue the complaint further, we would first need to consider whether we can investigate these loans before we can move the complaint forward. It will take some time for us to consider before we will have an answer for you.
If you wish to not pursue the complaint further, please let us know and we’ll arrange to close our files. I would appreciate it if you could let us know how you would like to progress the complaint as soon as possible.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
I have asked them to investigate further as provident have supplied me with agreements going back to 2008 which is 9 years ago saying they only keep them for six
Ryan says
Hi,
Anyone had a refund from safety net credit? I’ve used them For 3years with over 60 loans. 11k in total.They have send me a list of all loans and repayments already is it worth me complaining and asking for a refund?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Definitely! They could see your bank statements so they should have known you were in trouble.
If you are still borrowing from them you need to cancel the CPA with your bank that lets them take money. Otherwise they may tell you your account is on hold for 30 days when you complain, but at the end of that time they still haven’t answered your complaint but they sustain start taking money again :(
If you have other problem debts, look at DMP to sort your current situation out and get stable. This won’t harm any complaints you make. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/help-payday-loan/
John Smith says
Hi,
I had a email from a Adjudicator on the 05th October 2017 saying that they have wrote to Sunny saying that they should refund all interest and to get back in touch on the 19th October 2017 if they agree. Do I contact the Adjudicator to see if they got back to them? If they haven’t what does that mean?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would leave it a couple of days. If Sunny haven’t got back, the adjudicator may decide to give them another week or two. But if they don’t reply the case goes into the queue to be seen by an Ombudsman.
Dave says
Their deadline to reply to adjudicator on my case is today. If they hadn’t replied to yours yesterday I won’t get my hopes up too much for a reply today.
Like Sara said, I’d leave it until Monday before emailing. Might just need a few more days to respond. Wonga took 2 extra weeks on my other case. And sunny took the full 8 weeks to respond to my initial complaint.
Dave says
My adjudicator has emailed me today to say they haven’t responded. Given them until 26th now.
MH says
Hi All,
Anyone recently had an adjudicator decision in you favour with WONGA and them taking over the allocated time to respond?
thanks
MH
Dave says
My one was end of august. Wonga took 2 weeks longer to respond (4 in total) and didn’t fully agree with adjudicator.
I accepted to avoid ombudsman queue (about £400-£500 less than what adjudicator advised) and hen Wonga took near 28 days to payout and only after a lot of calls!!!
Pear says
Hi Sara
Looking some advice after hearing about payday UK seemingly withdrawing from the payday loan market. I had a decision upheld by the ombudsman a week ago for a refund on my loans within 6 years (I decided to forget the over 6 years) they have 3 weeks left to refund me, should I try ringing to get it sorted or am I panicking over nothing.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would be VERY surprised if there is any problem with this. The parent company is still in business. But why not ring them up and ask?
Lisa says
Hi All,
Just called the FOS for any update on allocation to an adjudicator, and whilst this hasn’t happened, they did advise that there has been an offer from QQ of just short of £1500. QQ initially rejected my complaint completely, however, have now made an offer on loans 4 – 6 (there were 9, but I am assuming that some have been removed due to the 6 year timeframe)
Having looked through my records, I calculated that I only paid about £800 in interest on a principle of 3750. So on the surface this does feel like a good offer as it includes the one that has defaulted and they have confirmed that this will be removed. So will wait on the email confirming from the FOS exactly what this is and make a decision.
On the basis QQ normally come in initially with a low offer to start, and are painfully slow to do anything, I want to get myself in a knowledgeable position, Watch this space….
Robbie Henderson says
Just had call from adjudicator re cheque centre loans older than 6 years. They’very made an offer of £1700 but have discounted the first 12 loans and have haven’t offered 8%simple interest on the loans they’re willing to pay. I don’t know whether to accept as I wasn’t expecting anything anyway or hold out. The adjudicator did say that it’s likely simple interest at least would be added in Ombudsman decision which is £1160. But then there’s no guarantee they agree and pay out? But if they don’t agree can I just accept the initial offer? Given the timelines involved in could end up with nothing? Adjudicator did say he did accelerate the case and would have his view early next week. What do you think Sara?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t think there is anything I can say here that you haven’t already thought of. If CC reject the adjudicator decision then the case has to go to the Ombudsman. Which even if it is fast tracked means the “December deadline” is very close, but I have no idea whether that date actually means anything or not.
I suppose you could tell the adjudicator that you will accept their offer if they add simple interest on – for these older loans that is a sizeable amount? But if they say No, you have a difficult call to make.
Craig Webb says
Hi
I have just received all my statements from QQ I had 15 loans from them between 2010 and 2012 the last one I didn’t pay it but they said they want wage slips and bank statements from that period, shall I supply them or not ? I haven’t even asked for refund only my statements !
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you used the step one template letter from the article above, it said you were making an affordability complaint, so QQ know you want a refund.
It’s up to you if you want to give QQ your bank statements. There is no need to supply payslips as those amounts are on your bank statements. Some people don’t see why they should supply this information to a payday lender. It’s possible that QQ will use it to make a better offer, saving the need to go to the ombudsman, but I haven’t seen any evidence of this. Looking through more than 2 years of bank statements would take a considerable amount of time and some people reckon QQ will ignore them – they are only asking for them to make the procedure seem difficult to you.
If you don’t want to supply them, I suggest you use the loan info you now have to write a good step two complaint and put at the end that you would like them to consider your case as it stands and you will be happy to supply bank statements to the ombudsman if necessary.
In practice QQ are very likely to refuse to look at loans over 6 years old, so your case is almost certainly going to go to the Ombudsman.
Dan says
Just passed the 8 week stage and after receiving. Around £300 for some very small loans I’ve just accepted a tad under £3k, max would of been £4K without going to the adjudicator! Massive result and fingers crossed it come soon through soon, that’ll be going straight into repaying a debt! Not that long ago and I would of spent that five times over in my head before it arrived and most of that would of been to bookmakers! No more! Thanks again Sara, I will make another donation to the CAB once it’s paid out!
Lee says
I have today sent this to Lending Stream…….
Good Afternoon
I have had no response to the email I sent you on the 11th October 2017.
I would like you to provide a Statement of my Account. The FCA Rules provide that a firm’s procedures must ensure that a complaint may be made free of charge. I require complete details of the loans you gave me and the amounts that I repaid in order to be able to clearly explain my complaint.
In addition, the FCA’s Principles set out that (6) a firm must pay due regard to the interests of its customers and treat them fairly and (7) a firm must pay due regard to the information needs of its clients, and communicate information to them in a way which is clear, fair and not misleading. I consider that you are being obstructive, delaying and not treating me fairly by not supplying me with a Statement of Account.
If you do not supply me with this information, I shall be taking my complaint about payday loan affordability to the Financial Ombudsman and I shall also be writing to the FCA pointing out the difficulties you are putting in the way to prevent me being able to make an effective complaint.
Please can you provide me with the information requested.
Should I await their response or send the case to the FOS? I the number of loans from Lending Stream but I do not have the amounts or the dates, I guess I will need this info to start the case with the FOS?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can’t take a case to the Ombudsman until it has been 8 weeks since you sent it to Lending Stream. You don’t have to have a list of your loans to do this – it helps you make out a case but it’s not essential. The lender will almost always provide the ombudsman with a list of the loans.
Do you have your bank statements from this period? You can usually reconstruct the loans from those – look for the amounts you received and the amounts you paid LS. The total interest you paid is the difference between these two numbers (well it’s a bit more complicated if you still owe them money.)
Lee says
The original complaint was sent on the 4th August and I got the standard reply asking me to pay them a £10 fee for an SAR.
I responded and then have sent this email as a nudge so to speak.
I can try and obtain bank statements but don’t know the exact dates of the loans.
Nick says
Well the FOS have just informed me that pduk have allowed them to look in my 20 loans that over 6 years old due to my husband being critically ill in 2012.
I had 20 loans one after the other.. each time I borrowed around 600 a time. Every month til entering a DMP. Should be a nice amount, all my complaints have been upheld so far..just this and wonga to go now
Lisa says
My lender says they don’t have to look into my case as it’s pre 2007? Is this correct? I have one claim with the Ombudsman now for a loan dating back over 6 years and it’s being looked into. Is it worth me sending this one to them as the loans were 2003. I’ve just received a refund from 2002 from a different claim re packaged bank account. Is it the same rules and regulations?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Consumer credit business (e.g. Loans) only came under the Financial Ombudsman’s jurisdiction in April 2007. I can’t see how you will be able to win a case where the loans were in 2003, sorry.
Shem says
Hi Sara
Really frustratingly after accepting wongas offer which included a £288 deduction to pay an outstanding balance they had passed to their 3rd party debt agency BPO with agreement to remove any negative marks relating to this loan from my credit file, I am now being contacted by BPO with ‘DO NOT IGNORE’ emails saying the balance of £274 remains. ive even sent wongas final response email which states the deduction will be used to repay the loan but thye say I am miss reading the offer! I 100% am not.
i’ve spoken to Wonga who confirmed the outstanding balance was actually £274 and this has been paid in full by the amount deducted as agreed in the offer. they said they reclaimed the whole debt from BPO on 6th October and the deduction was applied against it on the 11th and my debt is £0. but that they WONT contact BPO to clear this up that I need to! I have stressed that it was not a transaction I was involved with and therefore am not carrying anyway to BPO who are adamant the balance is still due to them!
help!
Shem x
Shem says
meant to say ‘I’m not carrying any weight! for info this was wongas offer!
for info too this was wongas text around the outstanding balance:
“I see that you currently have an existing loan with Wonga so if you accept our offer we will use part of the redress to repay your loan. The current outstanding balance is £288.00; however, this figure may change because interest is added on a daily basis. That would leave a total of £1334.28 to be paid to you as redress.
If you accept this offer, you will need to inform your debt collection agency of your new balance”
far from me owing anything now I would say someone owes me £8 :-)
on a serious note this is so maddening – I’ve emailed BPO but I’m not holding out much hope and I guess there is every chance they could add ‘missed’ payments to my credit file simultaneously as Wonga are removing them!
any advice would be really appreciated – it was a direct offer so no FOS involved
Shem
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Was the Wonga offer accepted directly from them or via the Adjudicator?
Shem says
Hi Sara,
directly from wonga no FOS or adjudicator involved,
I also just realised the difference between the £288 deducted and the £274 BPO state as the outstanding debt is £14 not £8. Which tallys up with the fact i was making £14 installments to BPO and the October payment was taken Really close to wongas final response which accounts for the anomaly and further confirms this is one and the same balance that wonga deducted funds to clear. (Not that I had any other outstanding balance with them anyway)
I’ve sent an email asking that they talk to wonga but I’m not holding out much hope
Shem x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
it is Wongas job to resolve the BPO problem, not yours. I suggest you phone them and say if it isn’t sorted by Thursday , with you having had an email from BPO to agree you no longer owe them anything, you will be sending the complaint to the Ombudsman and asking for compensation for their poor complaint handling.
Nicola says
Thanks you so much for this website Sara!! I sent all my complaint emails on the 26th September 2017. I have already had a refund from Mr Lender for £150, this was for one old loan which was rolled over twice (wasn’t expecting anything from this one!), then a £470 balance write off from Safetynet Credit, and a £900 write off from Satsuma! Wow! So happy, and so much closer to being debt free.
Still waiting on Wonga, Myjar, payday uk, wageday advance, the money shop and quick quid.
I have also got a complaint with the FOS for 17 lending stream loans, they told me my credit score was over 700 when I applied! Absolute rubbish, it is currently 396! I have 2 outstanding loans with them totalling £157, so was hoping they would wipe them, but I may get more back now that it has gone to the FOS, fingers crossed!!
I could be completely debt free by Christmas if these lenders agree in my favour! So just wanted to show my appreciation!! I will never take out one of these dreaded loans again, they have made the last 10 years of my life a nightmare of constant borrowing to pay off another loan etc. Feeling very pleased right now!
Thank you!!! ?
Gary says
Fab, I’m hoping for the same after a horrible 7 years of pay day loans
Robert says
Lending Stream also dismissed my claim said credit score was 700 god I should be so lucky.One month prior to my application I had a bank default for 3500 plus missed payments so have passed to Fos.
Nat says
I will also never ever in my life get another loan. So glad for this site. How many loans did you get with satsuma I’ve made a complaint to them borrowed £500 in Feb. Paid back £500 there’s £498 left of my balance so that’s just interest I’m hoping they will write it off. Also had 2 loans from they 2 years ago which I struggled to pay back x
Nicola says
I’ve only ever had the 2 loans with them, one for £200 which I paid off and then one for £1000 which is the one they wrote off (so glad because the interest was ridiculous on this one) I think it helped that I was in a DMP so they knew I wasn’t managing and the loan was unaffordable, because they didn’t do the correct checks in the first place. Fingers crossed you get a good outcome too ?
N says
Well the first I had 2 years ago was 800 I only paid a few payments I was 1600 into my overdraft and also had another payday loan at the time. My mother ended up clearing my overdraft and paying satsuma back. Last payments in October last year. Surely they shouldn’t have let me borrow another £500 in feb.
Nicola says
**Update- QQ and P2P not upholding complaint- so sent this off to FOS straight away
MyJar- Refunded £763!! (interest and charges plus 8% for 7 loans)
Another debt now paid because of this refund!! Thanks so much Sara, if my Wonga complaint is upheld I could be debt free for Christmas. This site has been a life saver for me! :-)
warren says
Hi everyone just a quick question i have two complaints against QQ and lendingstream both of them rejected my adjudicater finding which both where in my favor. Bit gutted was hoping they would agree with the adjudicator decision and hopefully get a refund before xmas ? now both are going to an acutul ombudsman decision how long roughly does it take for the ombudsman to A look into it and B make a decision i know its gonna be a while and every case is different just wanna get a rough timescale I’m looking at? Thanks in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
2-4 months on average, so its unlikely you will get a refund before Xmas. There is a chance QQ will pop up with a lower offer during this time – have you worked out how much the adjudicator offer is worth? It’s good to do this so you are prepared.
Paul says
Haven’t been on here for a while due to work, so far i’ve been refunded £12086 interest from various payday loan companies. does anyone know any other trading names for payday express ?
Ross says
Hi Paul,
They used to also trade under the name Express Finance (Bromley). This was an old trading name before they were taken over by ICL.
Lee says
Payday express is currently trading under Instant Cash Loans. Just had an adjudicator rule in my favour from a compliant I submitted to the FOS end of July. Took 3 months to get my first outcome from the FOS. They have till 2nd November to confirm they accept their decision and pay me out on loan 3 onwards to the final loan 12. Hoping they don’t appeal.
Rhys says
Pay day express have acted very unfairly on my complaint. Told me I didn’t have an account. Took 4 month to respond. Rolled over my loan 11 times sometimes without asking me. Rejected my claim then said they not responding to my correspondents any longer
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Send it to the Ombudsman – your bank statements will show you had loans from them.
Ben says
Hi,
Does anyone have any info on LOANEXTRA.COM
I want to send a complaint to them but can’t find there business name anywhere online.
Paul says
domain name expired, probably closed down
Mikie says
Some more great news today!
Quickquid initially totally rejected a complaint against them and poundstopocket. Spoke to the Ombudsman service today for a quick update on my complaints in general, and turns out that qq have totally changed their mind, and offered all my qq interest back +8% and my 2nd poundstopocket loan interest +8% – while in the queue! The refund now stand at £7900! Astonishing. I accepted, so just waiting on qq to contact me now. For anyone who’s had a refund from them- do they just go through email/phone or snail mail? Just that I’m away to work for 3 weeks on Monday.
I can’t believe the results I’ve had, Sara – thanks so so much!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
£7900 after originally being offered nothing – excellent news!
gillian says
i received an email off quickquid the day after i sent my bank details to adjudicator accepting the offer i rang quick quid the next day and the nice lady processed it there and then it was in my bank within the hour i know this was quick compared to others that have waited
Mikie says
That’s fantastic- did you just call their customer service? I’ve heard that they aren’t answering on their complaints line any more?
Thanks
gillian says
the email i recieved off quickquid just said thank you for updating your bank details no mention of a refund but there was a phone number on it so i just rang that and like i said the lady i got on the phone said she would process it and it went in my bank within a hour good luck
gillian says
just another quick thank you to Sara i just got email from adjudicator for my lending stream she as said loans 3 to 42 should be refund total of 5939.63 pence plus 8 percent interest she as given them two weeks to reply i know they may not agree but i will let it go to ombudsman if i have to
This is on top of the 6500 pound i already claimed from quick quid thank you again Sara as at the start of the year i did not know i could claim and would prob be still using these companies and still be getting into more debt as they were taking all my wage every month.
This month was the first ever in over 8 years no payday loans to repay.
Lisa says
Amazing – well done!
Gary says
Just checked my credit report, hard reading with a complete history of my payday nightmare. in 6 years I’ve had £40000 in PDL’s made me feel a bit sick, here’s hoping for some redress and an end to payday loans.
Since I sent my complaint had a few administration reviews from Instant Loans? I presume they are checking before answering my complaint. Any ideas?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Probably – administration checks don’t harm your record.
Lisa says
THey did the same to me Gary, and I have read a few others too. I think its perfectly normal. (I ended up with a rejection from PDUK, and PDE admitted irresponsible lending on 3, unable to determine on 2 and lent responsible on 4. Both are now with the FOS)
Kevin says
Hi.
I’ve just seen this article having seen a link to a compensation company on Facebook. I’ve recently completed a DMP (back in February 2017) after getting into a bad cycle while trying to support my elderly parents. I had a couple of years of cycling my loans before taking on the DMP. I have had a refund sent my way by Wonga already that wiped out my balance with them that was helpful but there are still a couple of other lenders I’ve yet to hear from.
Given that they worked with me on the DMP could I still try and get something back? Would the ombudsman take into consideration the fact that I was on a DMP?
Thanks in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The fact you were in a DMP shows you were in a mess at the end. The fact that your lenders “co-operated” with the DMP is irrelevant – what matters is whether they should have given you the loans in the first place…
If you borrowed repeatedly and ended up in mess, then it’s worth making a complaint. I can’t say you will win because that depends on your exact situation, but it costs nothing to try, so give it a go!
(And ignore any claims companies – they charge a lot and aren’t any good with this sort of complaint. the Ombudsman wants to hear YOUR story, not some claims company sending a standard letter.)
Kevin says
Thanks for the reply. I’ll start sending out some emails today then.
Kevin says
So one day in and I’ve sent emails to my 4 outstanding lenders. I got the no obligation email from PaydayUk so I pulled up my emails from that period and sent them an adapted version of the above letter. I’ve had emails back from QuickQuid with my statments so I’ve sorted out that email and sent it back. I’m just waiting on responses from MrLender and Sunny. So slow and steady.
Thanks for the advice and I’ll keep the updates coming.
Natalie says
I sent an email to cheque centre asking for my account summary which I received within a few days. I have now had a letter saying they are investigating my complaint but they have advised they are in administration now. All loans are over 6 years ago. Have I lost out to claiming anything back?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They are still paying out and it isn’t clear when this will stop. There are rumours about December but all you can do is carry on and see what happens.
Robert says
Hi .I took a loan that I have pay plus interest but because some difficulties It took me longer than what we agreed I have repaid the original amount plus the interest but now they say that I still own them the original amount that I took £(200) so I borrow 200 I have repay 320 and I still own 200 is that correct to do to me…the loan that I took it was last October for 6 months
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Who did you borrow from?
Robert says
Hi Sara I took a£200 loan for 6 months from Piggybank I have pay back 320maybe more I had accept that I was late and I agrred by phone to pay another 40 to finish so 360 all together but I didn’t pay last month and now they send an email saying my loan is on arrears and I own 200
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I didn’t realise they did 6 month loans. What was the interest rate quoted on these?
Robert says
I don’t know Sara and I don’t care I asked if they can ask for more money or I can complain somewhere to find my right and pay a last 40 and forget the odyssey that I’m in as I’m not willing to pay them 200 all over again
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The reason I am asking is because the regulator has imposed a maximum on the cost of high-cost short-term lending, but I don’t know if this cap applies to your loan, it depends on the interest rate on the original contract… I can’t see from Piggybank’s website, as it doesn’t mention 6 month loans…
So you need to find out. You will probably have been sent a copy of the legal contract by email when you took the loan out. Can you have a look for it?
Bev says
After some advice please. PDUK have finally made a final offer. They say they will redress interest and costs on final 2 loans which were the biggys. 1 was over 6 years ago so that’s good. I had 7 loans altogether and co statanly deferred them. Fee on the 1st 5 is small. About £180 so happy for them.to be left off. My issue is I have had no statement is account and the offer for these 2 loans is a lot less interest than I think I have paid after going through bank and emails. I have referred to FOS but with PDUK ceasing trading should I be worried that if I don’t accept the offer now I won’t get any money at all in the future as they won’t be there Anymore? If that makes sense.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t think there is anything to worry about here. There is no indication that the parent company is in trouble.
But have you told PDUK that you can’t accept the offer until they have given you a statement of your account?
Bev says
Yes. I emailed them explaining. They had also asked for bank details to look at loans 3-5 but declined that too as believe they should have the details.
Thanks for the reply
Sarah says
Hi I’m currently waiting for my last settlement from lending stream to be paid into my account after winning my case which went all the way to the ombudsman. I’ve had a call from lending stream telling me that I need to provide my bank statement showing my sort code and account number to enable them to process the refund which I refused as I had put this information in a email. I called the FOS and they said I could send a summary from bank statement that didn’t show any transactions so I did this but it’s now been 27 days and still no payment!!! What are the next steps if they don’t pay by tomorrow???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well first of all, phone them up! Then tell your adjudicator.