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?
Lou says
I’ve had a response from mr lender, I was paying back via motormile finance the outstanding balance which was 250, last year when the balance had reached 116, MMF settled for 81.
Mr lender are saying they will write off the 250 and purchase back from MMF.
My question is, should I ask them to refund me rather than them purchasing back the debt from MMF as technically I have cleared and settled??
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you think £250 is a fair refund, definitely do that! If you had a lot of earlier loans and paid a lot of interest on those, this may not be a good offer?
grace says
So… little update I have finally had a response from Pounds to Pocket through the FO they have agreed to write off the outstanding amount of £250 and remove from credit files. It may not sound a lot but I only had one loan with them so pleased. Waiting on Quick Quid who have until 25th March through the FO and all other complaints are with the FO Payday UK, Payday Express, Uncle Buck, Cash Choice, Poundstillpayday and Opus x
Mat says
Hi Sara,
Thanks to your site, I have now decided to pursue complaints against 6 of the companies I had loans out with. I just had a question about CFO, who sent me a lengthy e-mail following my request for a statement of account, before I have even put in a complaint. One line they put in it was:
“Prior to completing your application for credit the CFO Lending Website clearly stated this was a no credit check short term loan.”
Is this in itself admission that proper affordability checks were not conducted?
They also stated that I told them £x on rent, £x on food etc. but I don’t remember doing this, and no longer have any record of it. It also doesn’t appear to tie in with my actual earnings, and I wouldn’t have given them a lower earning amount as they claim. Tried to log in to their site to find that they are now closed, and so can get precious little evidence in the way of screen shots of my actual account.
Should I continue writing my complaint on the basis that not carrying out a credit check strongly supports the fact they did not do proper affordability checks? Or does this undermine my case in some way?
Does anybody else have any experience of CFO Lending that might be able to advise? Did anybody get an actual statement of account rather than a rambling letter saying “you applied for more credit on…” without finding out the actual amount applied for or the amount paid back?
Thanks in advance everyone
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would ignore the fact they say they didn’t carry out affordability checks. They weren’t legally obliged to, but if they had and the checks had shown a poor credit record, that would help your case. But not checking doesn’t either help or harm your case.
You can make an affordability complaint on the basis that they could have told from the amount you were borrowing and your income that the loan was not affordable. It is much easier to win these complaints if you borrowed repeatedly from them or rolled loans, as then the pattern of repeat borrowing should have suggested that you were in financial difficulty.
Mat says
Thanks Sara. As it turns out, the income and expenditure figures they quoted that I provided at the time of application for the final loan actually show that I wouldn’t have had enough to cover the loan they issued (£535 left over, £592 to repay loan), so I think that, and the fact that I was deferring and borrowing ever increasing amounts, should hopefully be sufficient.
Vicki says
Lending stream sent me an email stating that they done all checks etc , so I went back and said I would take to ombudsman and they came back with interest refund offer
Stacey says
Hi guys, I’ve had a response from lending stream today with a 3rd resolution to clear all outstanding debts, as I declined last 2! which I am totally over the moon about, do you think it is worth pushing for a payment on intrest and charge?
What should I say?
Stick with it xx
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It depends how much interest you have paid them compared to what they are writing off. If you are “over the moon” then perhaps your gut instinct is that this is a fair offer?
Ed says
Anyone had dealings with mr lender (PDL) with the ombudsman
Adjudicator said to repay loans 4-8
They offered (after 2 weeks) loans 6 & 7
Escalated to ombudsman
Just wondering how much longer this will take now?
EDIT Ed let me know that the Ombudsman agreed with the Adjudicator on 8 April, so it took about another 3 weeks
sarah says
i have sent a complaint to wonga about my loans. cut a long story short i had a massive 200 loans from them, i had a loan every week for 5.3 years just about. i am pretty certain i had more than 200 but thats all i can prove via statements. now i must admit i did lie about working when actually i wasnt but thats their fault they never checked. do u think this is a good case? i would pay back the loan and then literally 15 minutes later take out another. i finally got out of this cycle when they refused me one day, which meant i was broke for a week but then i was fine. i owe them NOTHING xtia
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Sarah, that is a very large number of loans, it suggests a clear case where the lender should have realised you had financial difficulties. Let us know how your case goes!
Donna says
Hello,
After not hearing back from elevate (1 month loan) and Opos (mini credit) despite sending 2 emails requesting my statement of account, I sent them another one last night stating if I did not receive a response in 48 hours I would be taking the matter to the financial ombudsman. First thing this morning I had an email from them both!
Unbeknown to me Elevate wiped the balance I had on my loan in November 2014 – the loan was taken out originally in 2010, I continued to roll the loan over until I couldn’t afford to pay it anymore and stopped paying (mortgage payments took priority). Obviously I’m happy this has been written off but don’t know why! I have emailed to ask why out of interest it was.
Opos – I’m unsure what to do next and would appreciate any advice. I took a loan from them in 2012, I’ve had just the one loan for £150 which I couldn’t pay back. The outstanding balance on the loan is now £1179! In their email they state I was accepted for the loan based on the information provided about my employment, income and credit check. A credit check at that time would have shown numerous late payments, defaults and 2 ccjs, one issued in 2010 and one in 2011. Surely if they had conducted a thorough credit check and seen this they would have seen I was experiencing financial struggles and shouldn’t have given me the loan?
I don’t plan on making any kind of complaint asking for interest back as I didn’t pay any, I’ve only had the one loan from them, but would I have a strong enough case to ask them to write off the debt and clear the default of my credit record?
Many thanks for any advice
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Opos have clearly carried on adding interest and late payment charges for many many months. I think you have a good case for a complaint here.
With just one loan it is can be hard to argue the original decision to lend was wrong, but if you can enclose a copy of your current credit report, they should still show the 2010/11 CCjs. The other point to make strongly is that they should have realised you had major problems and stopped adding interest and charges after you defaulted. If you told them about your difficulties, read this article which lists lots of problems that may have happened and see if any of them happened in your case: https://blog.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/payday-loans-what-to-expect-from-your-lender-if-you-re-struggling-to-repay
John C says
Received my final response from QQ this evening. Surprising as its only been 7 weeks.
“Thank you for your inquiry and your patience while we conducted our investigation. My understanding of your complaint is that unfair charges were assessed towards credit extended to you.
We have looked into your concerns and have provided my findings below for your information.
[generic reply]
A thorough review of your account has determined that we followed all our processes and conducted a creditworthiness and affordability assessment on each credit application and extension. Therefore, we do not agree with your complaint for the reasons stated.
However, we pride ourselves on looking after our customers by attempting to resolve any issues in a straightforward, efficient and amicable manner. Having taken all your comments on board and as a gesture of goodwill and without prejudice, we would like to make you an offer that we believe is fair and honest.
In full and final settlement of your complaint, we would like to offer a further payment of £750.00 for your time spent on this complaint and any distress and inconvenience caused. [This loan would also be deleted from your credit file]. Total refund £750.00.”
Now £750 is very generous for a business that’s done “nothing wrong at all” but this is clearly to try and persuade me not to go to the FOS. I’m also not sure what they mean by “a further payment of £750” as they didn’t offer anything else. I paid over £6k just on the flexi account alone that I had with them (not sure what loan they were saying they would remove from my credit file) and in total I paid over £15k in interest between March 2008 and December 2014, meaning I paid back £65k to this company, plus my loans with Pounds to Pocket which were separate to this. Yes that’s £15,242.70 in interest and £36 in charges!!
Looks like i’m off to the FOS
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“I’m also not sure what they mean by “a further payment of £750” as they didn’t offer anything else.” I think this is because they copied and pasted the answer from a standard one. Other people may also have the offer of a balance being written off, which isn’t relevant for you. That also explains the offer in square brackets to delete a loan from your credit file :)
There is always some risk in rejecting an offer of £750, however it sounds as though you borrowed consistently over a long period which is classic sign of non affordability.
John C says
Hi Sara, thanks for your quick response. I took it as a cut and paste too, which is just as frustrating as thinking they haven’t done a real investigation. I realised I actually missed off the flexi amount borrowed, so the amount paid back to them out of my bank account was over £88k in those 6yrs and 9 months. Interest was just over £15k. Plus the 5 P2P loans I had with the same business!
I’m not answering the email, I’ve just gone straight online and filled my forms to the FOS, adding my credit report from Noddle, screen shots from my Experian report, copies of my loans and dates with QQ, PTPD and WDA. That shows how much I was paying back each month (well over my salary) If the FOS need anything else I have anything they could want. My complaint to QQ was asking for everything from July 2010 back, interest wise. That’s when my loans went from £750 to £1350 in 1 month. I’d already had 29 consecutive months of loans up to that point and paid over £2k in interest. I’m not trying to be greedy, I borrowed the money and paid it all back, but at the detriment to other bills – council tax, late mortgage payments etc. Easier to not pay the mortgage as it was one payment then not pay the PDL’s
Kiri says
Hi,
Received this email from 247moneybox, not sure how to answer, the information at the time of the original loan was correct. But if they had checked my credit history they would have seen all my defaults. I contract and the job ended straight after taking out the loan, from the first email they sent me when I complained they offered me the interest and a good will gesture.
email received:
Can you confirm if the information you provided to us re: income/expenditure was false/
To reiterate we are as a gesture of goodwill offering to refund the interest paid on top of your loans.
No refund figure included, what should I do except the offer or hang in there for the 8% on top of the interest.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Kiri, if they are offering to refund all the interest that is not unreasonable. It’s up to you if you think it’s worth pushing this further for the 8% interest – if there was only 1 loan this is pretty doubtful.
Joe says
Quick update, recommendation from the adjudicator to refund all interest on 20 loans from Lending Stream. They came very late in my payday loan cycle and were lenders after 80 plus prior payday loans, over 120 in total. They have a few weeks to respond to the recommendation. I have 7 other lenders with FOS and this is the first decision made after Wonga and Sunny settled without taking to FOS.
Background, I had a major gambling problem prior to taking the lending stream loans and this is why I resorted to payday lending initially, had lending stream loans after entering payment arrangements with numerous other lenders, FOS had full bank statements.
Mat says
Hi Joe, congrats on your success with LS! I’m in first stage of complaining with LS, amongst others, but they’ve not even acknowledged my complaint yet.
I too got into payday lending due to gambling. Can I ask, did it hinder you in any of the investigations at all? I’m really worried that this will go against me, particularly if I have to go to FOS and provide bank statements, or provide statements direct to lenders.
Thanks in advance, and I hope the rest work out for you
Joe says
I provided full bank statements for 5 years, as I say this is the first ruling, only payday uk and lending stream have an adjudicator as yet. Hopefully will hear about payday uk fairly soon too. Doesn’t seem to have hindered the process, the argument is about responsible and affordable lending. Obviously my case is fairly extreme with the 120 loans over a 5 year period, £48k borrowed with £59k repaid so £11k in interest. Lending stream will mean a return of £2500 in interest then the 8% on top. So will help greatly with other mainstream lending debts accrued. Such a relief to sort these things, ended my payday loan cycle January this year, last month was the first month since March 2011 I haven’t had to take a payday loan.
Mat says
I hear you on that, this was my first month without a payday payment since 2011 too, an incredible relief.
I really hope you get the results you’re looking for with the others, it’s sobering to see it all written out like that
Joe says
It crazy how much of a problem can be caused, the accessibility of this kind of lending causes other vices to spiral. The irresponsible nature of lending from the payday loan companies ought to be questioned, surely responsible lending ought to be a priority (although payday loan companies wouldn’t probably exist if this was the case). Would be a relief, with lending stream that will be about £4K worth of interest claimed out of the £11k I paid in total so getting there steadily.
lisa says
Had my 1st success.I had £195.20 off Quid.co.uk and paid back – most of it a write off with a small refund.Thank you Sara.
Joanna says
Hello everyone,
Received some great news from the Ombudsman today to say they are upholding my complaint about Wonga. I’ve accepted the decision and I believe they have advised Wonga.
How long do they usually take to payout once the decision has been agreed?
Jo
Richard says
Hi Joanna
I’ve just had my letter confirming that the ombudsman has upheld my complaint against Wonga too. I’ve email the to tell them I accept their decision. Hopefully it won’t be too long a wait for the refund.
Full details: Wonga took the full 8 weeks the asked for 4 extra. Took the full 4 weeks to reject my complaint but offered me £50 due to how long I’d been waiting. FO adjudicator found in my favour 2 weeks later and Wonga didn’t respond in the 2 weeks they were given so went to ombudsman. That took another couple of weeks.
Richard
S.D says
Same story so far then, they offered me £50 for waiting, so it’s with the adjudicator, I had escalated it to them 3 weeks ago anyway after the 8 week deadline, hopefully that speeds up things, but I’ll happy wait if it goes in my favour, I think my case is strong so I was surprised they have pushed all the way
Raquel says
Hi, little advice needed please.
I emailed wonga, payday express, cheque centre and pounds to pocket.
I received a letter from cheque centre about 3 weeks after emailing them with an offer i accepted of £800. I emailed wonga wonga at the same time and have received an email asking for an extra 4 weeks which all toll im in the 10 week waiting time with them as it stands. I did the same with payday express and they replied saying i didnt have a case that was 6 weeks ago and because i said i would see the FOS they jave simce sent an apology letter saying my complaint should have been esculated and wasnt so they are now looking into it. Pounds to pocket, i have not paid them anything back since i borrowed from them so i asked if they could write off my loan but they have since sold the loan to a debt collection company. I have received after asking all companies a statement of account so i have them all.
Im wondering what your views are on wonga taking so long, ive rang them umpteen times for updates and it been 10 weeks do you think this looks possitive? I worked out all interest i had paid to them from the account statement and its way over £3000 will they refund it all? I had about 30 loans 1 after the other plus extra top ups and roll overs.
Payday express of course admitted to not escalating my complaint 10 weeks ago and are now doing so does this look possitive? Interest paid around £600.
What do you think pounds to pocket can do inregards to me not paying them anything back due to unaffordability?
Any advice would be appreciated thanks in advance.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Raquel, well done on the £800 from cheque centre – it’s good to have one pay out if the rest are taking a while!
Wonga – I think they are just really busy at the moment. Lots of people here have received an offer during the “extra weeks” period, so they certainly aren’t using it to just delay everything. But they do reject some complaints which the Ombudsman then upholds, so you aren’t guaranteed to get a good offer from them. Knowing what interest you have paid is good, as it gives you a way to assess any offer. If all your loans were straight after each other i would hope they will offer to refund most of that interest!
Payday express – generally they seem less good at making offers that Wonga. If you don’t think your offer is reasonable, take it to the Ombudsman.
Pounds to pocket – you can still claim that a loan you have paid nothing to is unaffordable. They may agree to write off the balance or (more likely) to remove a lot of the interest from it so there is only the amount you actually borrowed to repay.
Christine says
Success with Payday UK!!!
I have had a letter from the FO . The letter states that Payday UK must pay me the interest plus 8% from 3rd November 2009. I have no idea why she has n’t asked for the loans prior to November 2009.
The letter states that PDUK have until 25/03/2016 to reply, it also mentions that despite corresponding The letter does not state the amount that should be refunded -should I do a spread sheet and send it?
Does anyone know what will happen if PDUK don’t respond and ignores the FO?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Excellent news that the FO has upheld your Payday UK complaint!
It would be good if you could add up the interest you expect to get back so you can “check” the amount you are offered.
I assume this decision is coming from an adjudicator at the FO. If PDUK ignore it, they will probably be reminded by the adjudicator, but if there is no response the case will be passed to an Ombudsman for a decision. Unsurprisingly, the Ombudsman will usually uphold the adjudicator’s decision if the firm has just ignored it!
Martin says
Hi Sara,
MyJar offered, as a gesture of goodwill, to write off the interest but still want me to re-pay the loan of £100 using the same figures in the repayment arrangement I am currently in. What would your advice be about this?
MyJar emailed saying that although I provided a copy of search history with Noddle, they stated that they can’t always be fully made aware of any other credit commitments. They go on to say how they make a detailed credit assessment whenever they lend and that based on the information I provided and also what they gathered from a credit reference agency, they believed that re-paying this balance would not provide difficulty for me. They then state that as a gesture of goodwill they are prepared to reduce the repayable amount for the last loan with them to the principal of £100 borrowed, thus writing off all interest fees from the balance and are willing to accept this through the same repayment arrangement that they had previously established with me. This is their final response.
So they still want me to re-pay the initial loan having wiped off the interest even though I have emailed them several times to insist that they write the £100 loan off as it was unaffordable and, based on my credit report, I was already struggling with other payday lending debts.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Martin, I have copied in some details from your previous comment that no-one replied to. I assume you only had 1 loan from them. If you had previous ones that you repaid , this would be a very different situation.
With only one loan, offering to remove the interest and charges is a pretty common offer.
Milo says
Looks like a lot of cases being won against Wonga, QQ and LS
Anyone had success with my trio, Uncle Bucks, The Money Shop and PDUK?
This trio don’t seem in too much of a rush to answer my complaint but only been 2 weeks.
Will keep you updated about dates and results
Christine says
I have just had conformation that the FO has upheld my complaint against PDUK. My advice is to go straight to a formal complaint as the 8 week window starts ticking then.
I complained to PDUK in November, I still have not had the statements that I requested! In the end I looked through my emails to check the dates of loans/rollover loans and copied them onto a word document to send to the FO. I then went through my online banking to check all transactions, I sent screenshots of the bank statements to the FO.
This will speed things up, if I had waited for PDUK to reply I would still be waiting for those statements.
If you look through the bank statements, look for PayDay UK, MEM, and Monthend Money as the loans and repayments were listed under all 3 headings throughout the period of the loans.
Christine says
I am expecting just under £1100 pounds. The FO upheld my complaint from November 2009 so the loans prior to that won’t count
I have also complained about QQ. I have sent the emails and screenshots to the FO . The amount hear is relatively small but I am being chased by a DCA called MMF for £300, they originally said I borrowed £600 and told me to call the police if I was nt happy!-as if the police have not got anything better to do than sort out MMFs failings.
The have continued to chase me even though I have told them that the loan is the subject of a complaint with the FO. They have threatened to send an assessor round to my home to check my living conditions and financial situation.
Quick Quid said they have no control over it. T-In this case I have asked for compensation for all the distress caused and for the unpaid loan of £300 to be written off. and all details to be removed from my credit file.
Fay says
Hi everyone
I thought I would post a quick update. So over the past 8 weeks I have had success with the following writing off/reducing my balances with my Stepchange DMP:
lending Stream £579
THL – £242
Mr Lender – £505
My Jar – £458
Trusted Quid – £350
TLS (via Cheque Centre) £615 and refunded £160 of interest
Ferratum – reduced to £299
Liquid Advance – reduced from £1115 to £215
Quick Quid – reduced to halve outstanding of £750
All of the above responded well within the 8 weeks. QuickQuid within the last hour of the 8 weeks!!
Quidmarket refunded all the interest of just under £500 (had paid loans off)
Pounds to Pocket have refused everything so off to the FO!
Payday Express and Money Shop have requested more time, so I am expecting Payday UK to request the same given they are owned by the same people!
Wonga is due tomorrow, so I really hope I get a positive outcome rather than asking for more time too!
Quid, WDA and Uncle Buck are due next week too, so wait to see what happens.
So, far a fab success and I would never have done this without coming across this site – thank you so much!
Good luck to everyone x
Jess says
Am I the only person who seems to be struggling with Wonga?
It seems like everyone else is getting a response of some kind, be it good or bad.
I heard from them 4 weeks after submitting my complaint saying that it was taking longer than usual but that I should hear from them within the 8 week period originally stated.
4 weeks later I haven’t heard another thing from them despite numerous emails to them to check the progress of my complaint.
At the 8 week mark I contacted them to let them know I intended to contact the financial ombudsman, yet still no reply.
I referred it to the ombudsman online a few days ago and haven’t heard from them either yet, how long does that usually take?
I’m starting to feel kind of invisible, like I’m literally just being ignored?
Has anybody else had this experience?
fay says
Hi
I have had call them every week for an update to get the standard its in progress. So today is when the 8 weeks is up, so again I called them to be told they need more time and spookily enough, an email was sent to me whilst I was on the call! However it reads like an interim email rather than requesting more time. I was fuming, so called again to be told yes they need a further 4 weeks maximum.
Does anyone know how of much of the 4 weeks they use? the lady I spoke to said quite sarcastically ‘ could be tomorrow or the full 4 weeks’!
Payday UK have not been corresponding with me as they spelt my email address wrong. They now have it and have sent the emails I was supposed to have received, They too are asking for more time and the man I spoke to says it be at least another 8 weeks!!!
What is everyone’s advice on these – sit tight or do you think I would get a quicker response if I escalate to the FO? I think I have a good case with Payday UK and Payday Express as they are currently on my DMP, which should demonstrate they were not affordable in the first place! Wonga ones were paid off, but I had already 4 other payday loans on the go at the same time and by my reckoning could get back appx £3k if successful
many thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would go to the FO straight away with PD UK and indeed with and payday lender.
Ben says
had a refund of just under £300 today from MyJar. I requested statements of account on the 2nd of march, put in my complaint on the 3rd. then they offered me £346 on the 9th but would have taken 300 from this to pay an outstanding balance. I complained further and they then offered 588 so after removing what I owe im now 288 better off along with any info removed from my credit report.
the final offer email was received at 11.51am on 21/3 and I had the money in my account within 4hours of me giving my details.
Jamie n says
Update. Lending stream have wiped off my £1114.64 balance and are removing entries from credit file. Very happy with this and am not chasing interest/repayment of charges as feel have been very fare. Lots of emails and phone calls but worth it! Still trying with other companies
Lee says
QQ refused my complaint so i went to adjudicator at the FO who helped me and who had enough information to put a offer to quick quid – i got back all my loan money plus 8 per cent – nearly 3.5k – plus removed from credit file .
Phoned quick quid today who said my refund had been paid but checked account nothing there found out that the second two numbers on my sort code had been turned around that they put them in wrong . so there requesting funds back and i have to call back tomorrow and give them right sort code fingers crossed i dont have to wait another 2 months as its been a long process!
Bob says
Hi
Just wondering as basically I had 3 constant payday loans of which 2 were Flexible Loans with Sunny and QuickQuid, basically Id be given a credit limit from each and could withdraw upto the maximum all the time, so as soon as I had the payment taken from my bank account I could literally take back out the money minus interest so I was in a constant loan with the providers and this went on for nearly 2 years! in that time my circumstances changed but I was still able to keep borrowing as there was no checks made.
Also Wonga Kept granting me loans when they should have seen I had 2 other payday loans and my credit cards etc… kept increasing
I’m wondering if as I only had to apply the once and then after that I had unlimited access without what seems any checks being made on me if I then have a case ? also these types of loans don’t seem to be available anymore I’m guessing for the same reasons I’m mentioning ? I’m sure these loans in their own right were irresponsible lending regardless of peoples income etc… as they encouraged staying in high cost debt without any regular checks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Bob, you can make a complaint about these “flexible” loans. The limit you were given was probably too high and the lender should have seen that you seemed to be in trouble because of your frequent use of the facility.
Sam. F says
Well, I had a very interesting email from Wonga this morning, I have already had a case with them which they wrote off the o/s balance & removed the default from my credit file & now, with no prompting from me whatsoever, they have issued me a refund based on affordability, not a huge amount but then neither was the original amount, very odd but very welcome.
Matt S says
Ferratum are refusing to uphold my complaint,
One of their reasons was that : “You have had six loans with Ferratum. All of these have been paid back on time and you did not alert us to any affordability issues. Your loans were not set up in quick succession of each other. There were periods of time between each one – between one and four months.”
However this is not true as with my last 3 loans with them I was relending the same day that the previous loan was paid back. Shows they have not researched my complaint very well.
Going to get my complaint in now with the FO.
Dave says
Hi all, currently have my 19th loan out with wonga and struggling to pay this off. All my loans have been taken out at the same time as other payday loans and i am up to my eyes in debt. I really shouldn’t have been offered any of these loans. Defaulted on numerous bills but somehow managed to pay off loans with other loans but getting very messy now. Should i write to wonga even though i have an existing loan with them. Payment due two weeks and Im not going to be able to pay it. Whats the normal procedure under this circumstance? Do they freeze loan payments whilst a decison is being made?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Dave, i sounds as though you have a good case for a complaint against Wonga and possibly other payday lenders, but for the moment the most important thing to do is to stabilise your current financial situation so that you don’t need to borrow any more money. This almost certainly means not repaying the loan to Wonga in two weeks, or to any other payday lenders. What I suggest you do is phone StepChange http://www.stepchange.org/ and ask to set up a debt management plan with them – they will take over writing to your creditors and will ask them to freeze interest and you make them one payment a month.
Once that is underway, then you can look look at payday loan complaints. And if you are successful, hopefully that will let you clear off some of your debts. But the complaints process can take several months, which is why you need to to talk to StepChange first.
Dave says
Thank you Sara. I will contact stepchange first thing in the morning. Things for me are getting rather desparate and I need help. Awful thing is I know what i need to do but just cant get myself out this spiral of debt.
Hopefully things can change for me. Dave
jamie says
I am just over 4 weeks in to my complaints, with Pounds to pocket and Quick Quid and Wonga, going by the comments on here I don’t expect QQ or P2P to offer any real offers, So I will of course escalate it to the FO, when I send my complaint I feel I should send my bank staments and credit record as well, as I am pretty sure they will ask for them, My question is Will they expect to see 4-5 years worth of statements, and will they expect to see all the credit reports spanning 5 years, the bank statements will probably be about 200 pages long ? also, as the 8 weeks of complaints will be up at the same time, I am thinking that I would send all 3 complaints in the same envelope, is this acceptable to the FO ???
many thanks is advance
Jon says
Hi Sara and all posters,
I, like all here, ashamedly got trapped in the payday loan debt spiral between 2011 and 2015. Having thankfully stumbled across this website, and followed all the excellent advice, I have just sent out complaints to 10 different companies, with whom I’ve had a varying number of loans, ranging from 3 and 20. So far i have had the standard replies from Wonga, Quickquid, CFO and WageDayAdvance, asking for further details/stating they will investigate and it could take up to 8 weeks….
I have had an offer from Lending Stream after about 7 days of £468 as a goodwill gesture, despite claiming they’d done nothing wrong. I have rejected this and asked them to reconsider as i paid over £3200 in interest and charges over the course of my loans with them.
I had a response from Peachy within 24 hours rejecting my complaint and stating they had conducted their business in compliance with all relevant legislation, regulations, regulatory guidance and requirements and that they can justify their practices and procedures used in assessing affordability in the event of a regulatory challenge. Therefore, I have approached the FOS with this one. So fingers crossed!
I have, this morning just received this response from Opos Limited (Mini Credit) and wanted to know how to respond please?
“Thank you for emailing Opos Limited and giving me some extra time to look at your account. Unfortunately your account was not included in the portfolio of purchased account by Kapama Limited from Mini Credit in December 2014, therefore I am not able to help you any further in relation to this account and I am not able to comment any further on the matter.”
I had 11 loans with what was MIniCredit from July ’11- May’ 13, that were finally repaid with Opos Limited under a repayment plan in October ’13. Judging by the emailed response i am not sure where to go next? I have emailed back to ask whom to escalate my complain to if it is not them, but any other advice would be gratefully received. I don’t know if anyone has had a similar response from this company before?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think you need to phone up the Ombudsman https://financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm and ask what you can do about the MiniCredit loans.
Good luck with this and the other complaints!
Adam says
This is a great site and very helpful.
This is an absolute long shot i know, however i have had this issue with Wonga (Or Quickbridge as it is on my Credit report). I had a rolling debt from borrowing £300 then £500 to pay off the £300 + the interest and so on up to £1000 then borrowing £1500 + to pay it off and so on.
This was at the same time when I was struggling to pay off another loan from Halifax and overdraft from Nationwide which I subsequently defualted on both. Fast forward to present day and im completely debt free, however have 3 years left of the defualt markers on my credit report – Is the any point in requesting the defaults be removed due to this payday loan issue, essentially if they would have carried out correct checks etc then they would not have lent to me, thus i would have been able to repay my other debts and not defaulted. Long shot like i say but would it be worth the arguement?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s certainly worth putting in a complaint to Wonga. If you are asking if Halifax and the Nationwide will remove the defaults because you were given an unaffordable payday loan – no I don’t think they will.
adam says
Thank you.
Just had an email back from UncleBuck, i had to take a PDL with them just before xmas. Took £400 and repaid £600 – £200 a month for 3 month. I’ve emailed them and they stated that they use credit ref agencies and ‘internal checking measures and scorecards’ to evaluate affordability.
I have 2 defaults on my account and until yesterday had a DMP with 3 other accounts, surely this should show that i should not have passed proper responisble checks.
Should I press on with applying for a refund even though the loan was repaid the beginning of March?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This isn’t going to be an easy complaint to win – just one loan and the monthly repayments weren’t big. But you do have a case that they should have been able to see from your DMP that you were in financial trouble and so shouldn’t have given you the loan.
Adam says
DMP and 2 defaults on my record so hard to miss. If you don’t ask you don’t get I guess and it costs nothing to ask. I feel I’ve certainly got a case with wonga. Nearly a full year of repeated borrowing with a systematic increase of amount per month clearly shows that it was the interest that was causing the financial issues.
Leanne C says
I am debating whether to pay off the balance of my P2P loan and therefore have one less balance on my DMP. They have refused to pay out and I have sent the complaint to the FOS. I could pay off the balance but wondering if that will make any difference to my complaint?
grace says
The FO upheld my complaint with P2P and the result was they wiped off my loan from my DMP which is good as I only had one loan with them, I only had about £250 left on it from £1000 but better than nothing!
Soph says
Hi all. So far I’ve had refunds from Myjar, and a refund and write off from lending stream. 247 Moneybox agreed to remove interest from the balance of a loan and accepted a repayment plan for the principal sum. Next Credit and Payday UK have been escalated to FOS as pduk failed to even provide a statement of account or respond within 8 weeks and Next Credit deny any fault.
In the last few months I have also paid off a defaulted mobile phone account and catalogue account. Yesterday I was accepted for a credit building credit card, something I was automatically declined for previously.
Stick with it, I’m already seeing a positive change in my credit report from this!
Also thanks to Sara for putting all this together.
To anyone wondering how to get started, all the information is in the article!
Phil says
Hi all. I sent off a complaint letter to Sunny last week after racking up nearly 2k of interest over a 2 year span. I never missed a payment but that was mainly due to taking out further loans to pay off the remaining ones whilst plunging myself into a deeper hole.
Received a reply today that they froze all outstanding payments from existing loans while they investigate and they will reply within 8 weeks.
Couple of questions (sorry if these have been asked before) does the 8 weeks begin from when I sent the complaint or from today’s email? And has anyone else had a good response from sunny or was the FO needed?
Thanks in advance and thanks for this site!
Jamie says
Hi, I’m currently 5 weeks in to my complaint with sunny, just out of interest did you ask the to freeze payments or did they just offer to ?
Jamie
Lily says
Hi…Sunny messed me around a little to begin with giving me the information I requested, however once they had registered the complaint they replied within 8 weeks offering reimbursement of all interest and agreed to write off my outstanding balance of £180. They did state they had carried out the necessary checks but in hindsight accepted that the 3 loans I’d had from them were not issued responsibly.
Phil says
That’s good that you got a good outcome. Hopefully I get something similar.
Jamie I didn’t ask for them to freeze it they just said they had done it while they investigate. I think you can ask them to freeze all payments while your claim is on going and ask your current loan be included in your claim process. Can’t hurt to drop them an email and ask.
Claire says
Has anyone had any experience with the FO in relation to Payday UK or Payday express? Just wondering how long the process took once the complaint was raised with the FO and if anyone has had any luck getting anything from these 2 companies? I passed my complaints to the FO on Monday and I really hope it isn’t going to drag out!
James says
With Payday Express started complaint back at beginning of November. They made offer 1 month ago to adjudicator at FO which I accepted. Still waiting to receive 1k redress which they claim was due to adjudicator not sending signed agreement forms.
Wayne says
Hello Received an offer from Wonga today for nearly £1300 all interest and 8% compensation plus credit file cleared . They had requested 4 extra weeks to investigate and made this offer 3 weeks into the 4 extra weeks . I had 14 loans with them ranging from £300 -£700 .
Natalie says
Hi can anyone help me I have an open complaint through a solicitors (silly me) with wonga that has been going on for just over 8 weeks now and they have asked for an extra 4 weeks so this has automatically been referred to the ombudsman for a review. I however have had payday loans from other companies in the past and would like a letter template to send to each of these asking how much I borrowed, how much interest I repaid to them and also how they are compensating their customers too? Can anyone help?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Oh dear. Claims companies are incredibly expensive for something it isn’t just simple but better for you to do yourself.
There is a letter template in this article you have commented on. That sakes for a Statement of Account which will give details of your borrowing and repayments. There is no point in asking a lender how they are compensating other customers.
BUT you need to look at the documentation you have signed with the claims management solicitors to check that it only covers Wonga, as otherwise they want a large chunk of anything you get back from other lenders :( if you are unsure you need to write to them and say you do NOT want them to act for you in other complaints and wait until this is confirmed before starting the complaints.
Natalie says
They are only dealing with wonga for myself that is the only application I put in, I have sent emails to other payday lenders today. – Opos have got back to me with a statement of account.
– Wda has said they will be in touch
– had a reply from safety net too with everything.
Just need to wait for other companies to come back to me now
Dave says
Excellent website, I’m very lucky to have stumbled upon it. Now here’s my question, I have had around 20 loans with Wonga which gradually increased to the maximum of around £1000 which I was paying off monthly and then taking out another loan to cover my expenditures. I have had maybe 10 with Lending Stream, again one after the other and vary in amounts from £300-£800.
My other loans have been with QQ, PDUK, Uncle Buck and MyJar – varying amount of loans and varying amounts.
I have had single loans with Satsuma, SafetyNet, Piggy Bank, Money Boat and Mr Lender. Is it worth asking for the interest back from these companies if I have had only one loan from them?
My other question here is that I have made direct agreements (not through Step Change) to engage in repayment plans with a few of the lenders listed above. If I make a complaint will they unfreeze my account so that it continues to accrue interest?
This has been a terrible situation to land myself in and has probably been going on for around 3 years.
Finally, does it sound as though I have a case here? I dread to think of the interest charges I have paid over this period.
Thanks again for the site.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The Wonga and Lending Stream cases sound clear cut – a pattern of repeat borrowing the lender should have recognised. Worthwhile complaining about QQ, PDUK, Uncle Buck and MyJar too.
It is much harder to win a complaint about a single loan – unless:
a) your credit record would have shown a lot of defaults and even CCJs when you applied OR
b) the loan was very high in relation to your income OR
c) the loan was rolled repeatedly OR
d) you defaulted on the loan and then were not treated well when you told them you couldn’t repay it – did they keep adding interest and charges, did they fail to suggest you took debt advice – there is an article here https://blog.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/payday-loans-what-to-expect-from-your-lender-if-you-re-struggling-to-repay that looks at a lot of things payday lenders did wrong, see if any of them applied to you.
Grace says
Finally the fo just rang quid quick offer 2k. I am so pleased x
Sara (Debt Camel) says
What a good job you declined their “goodwill” offer of £250!
grace says
i’ll say! apparently they have a department dealing with complaints which was when I got offered the £250 then another complaints department dealing with the FO hence the £2k I very pleased with this result one down more to go :)
lou says
Update
Fos has ruled in my favour with QQ giving them a week to respond. Just hope they now accept their wrong doing. It’s taken 4 months
My loans between 2011 and 2015. They have denied any wrongdoing and been dreadful to deal with. FOS on the other hand have been really good on this one.
Sophie says
HI Guys,
Just an update, been a while since I have posted.
Safety Net Credit is my last one to go, the complaint is with the Adjudicator and I have just been informed today that it is now being taken higher to the Ombudsman. SafetyNet are still arguing that they have done have correctly, i.e credit checked me, the fact that they could see my banking and the amount that I was being paid by my wages makes them think that I had enough to cover their repayments, sometimes repayment of over £600 let along my priority bills.
The adjudicator has advised that this can be anywhere between weeks to months. so hears for a long wait. Although I don’t mind as whilst this complaint is in, the more they have to pay me! Fingers crossed the Ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator and SafetyNet will be told to refund etc.
I will keep you guys posted,
Matt S says
Finally received statements today from Payday UK and Payday Express after 6 weeks of waiting. Apparently they were moving offices which is why it took so long. Didn’t realise how much I’d had with them. Payday Express 3 loans over 9 months rolled over 6 times in total. Payday UK 3 loans over 16 months, rolled over 12 times in total including one loan rolled over 11 consecutive times.
I’ve put in my complaint and asked for it to be backdated as don’t see why I should have to wait another 8 weeks after them already delaying by 6 weeks in getting the statements to me. Don’t know whether i’ll have any luck with that but we’ll see.
Mark says
Finding this has been a dream…I have been caught up in this horrible cycle for 3 years. For the first 2 years I had repeated loans with both QQ and Wonga, borrowing the maximum available (I dread to think how much interest and charges I have paid). I have now contacted all of these companies, 3 are still current loans which now frozen interest while they investigate. I already know I borrowed around £11k over 28/29 loans repeatedly with QQ so could be substantial, that total will be much higher with Wonga. Wish me luck!!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good luck, it sounds as though you have got an excellent case for complaints.
If you are still taking out payday loans that suggests your current finances are a mess and you may have other debts as well … if you do I suggest you contact StepChange http://www.stepchange.org/ and talk to them about your whole debt situation. It may well be that a debt management plan will help you get back on track.
This can be done at the same time as complaining to the payday lenders. It won’t hurt your complaint at all. It can take quite a while for complaints to be resolved, it’s best not to put off dealing with your wider debt problem until afterwards.
Joe says
Update:
Sunny and Wonga paid out themselves
Last week I reported I’d had a case against lending stream (around £2800 to be paid) upheld by the adjudicator of FOS.
My cases have been split between 2 adjudicators and have now had rulings back from the 2nd for:
– pounds to pocket – upheld £1400
– DJS (piggybank) – upheld £400
– Wageday advance – turned down. I only had a few small loans and I failed to provide information when trying to arrange a payment arrangement so this is understandable.
So overall 3 out of 4 already upheld by the adjudicators at FOS. Still have decisions for Quickquid, safety net credit, payday express and payday uk to come. I have been reviewing the decisions by actual ombudsman and it’s very rare they overturn adjudicators decisions.
The reason I’m posting this is because I’ve noticed many are apprehensive about taking their claims to FOS, allowing the lenders more time and thus potentially delaying the whole process further. I started my claims on November 10th, allowing the lender additional time will only delay. Plus once the adjudicator asks for info if you go straight to the FOS after 8 weeks it forces the lender to speed their process up.
I was debating starting claims against Toothfairy (no longer running so may be more hassle than it’s worth) and money box 247 – however one loan with a provider seems never to pay out so not sure it’s worth the effort.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Thanks for the update! You make some interesting points and I would add that the fact the same adjudicator upheld 2 and rejected one complaint shows that it is the individual cases that are looked at, rather than your overall position.
One loan cases are hard to win – but there are two exceptions:
– where the loan is in default and a lot of interest and charges have been added
– where the loan was rolled a lot of times
Joe says
It’s been a long drawn out process but it seems to be coming to an end and I’d imagine by the end of April all cases should be resolved, also it’s worth noting that I did have a pretty extreme gambling problem at points throughout the 5 year cycle. So those who are worried about providing bank statements ought not to be. The FOS will assess each case by its own merits
Markss says
I had my loans written off with Sunny and Stagemount plus Care Loans also wrote my loan off. I am having no luck with QQ/PAY DAY UK / mini credit. Although oppos have offered me a discount for the minicredit Loan of 50% but I am seeking full write off. I was in a IVA when these loans were taken up. I was desperate and know it was wrong but these companies must share done blame too.
Markss says
CFO LENDING! Has anyone had dealings with them? I know they are closed down but they were appalling with me raiding my account plus offering to reloan when I was in difficulties.
Louise says
Yes, they were awful! I eventually got a 950£ outstanding balance written off and default removed from credit file, that was fairly recent.
Danny says
Now my case as been upheld by the FO does that mean wonga will go by what they suggest, or will I have a fight on my hands still ?? Any reply would be really good thank you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If it has been upheld by an adjudicator at the FOS, then Wonga can ask for it to go to an Ombudsman for a decision. They probably won’t but it is an option for them. In practice the Ombudsman almost always upholds the adjudicator’s assessment unless the company can produce some new evidence. I don’t remember seeing a case like that being reported here – so far the the Ombusman has always agreed with the adjudicator’s decision.
If it is an Ombudsman’s decision, then Wonga will pay out.
ad says
I have had an adjudicator pass in my favour (refund would total £2500) but Mr Lender offer £900 (not including loans 4 & 5 which adjudicator did)
I have been waiting two weeks since i rejected their offer, so i hope the Ombudsman does indeed agree with the adjudicator, but i havnt heard anything since the adjudicator.
Fingers crossed
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Grant says
After find this site I decided to go down the route of complaining to the companies I got my first final response from my jar offering to pay the interest on half of my loans with them but not the other half for some reason.I had 7 loans in total but there only saying there paying on 3 of them, which 3 I’m not sure or don’t know how much interest was payed on those 3 loans there offering to pay.
I decided to reject there offer telling them why in my reply back to there final responce. They admitted further checks should have been done but wasn’t. I emailed back saying I wanted the interest to be payed on all my loans not only half of them and that I also wanted all stuff removed from my credit file.
what is the route you think is best for me to take?do you think I should go the financial ombudsman route or will they counter offer my responce to there final offer?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Grant, if you have asked them to look at it again, I would contact them after a week and ask if they are going to revise their offer.
You could ask them for details of the refund they are proposing – which loans they are proposing to refund interest on and ask why those loans – then if you don’t think their answer sounds very logical, explain why.
You don’t say how many loans there were. It is quite common for the Ombudsman to tall a lender to refund all loans after the first three. Just something to bear in mind…
Tray says
Hi has anybody had any recent luck with Sunny ?? If so how long did it take ?? ( I’m on week 6)
Thanks
Lily says
Hi….I had all my interest refunded and my outstanding balance written off with Sunny but they did take the full 8 weeks.
Greg says
I placed a complaint in with Sunny on the 29th March and got a reply the very next day with my statement of accounts. I got my statement of accounts and loans via email the very next day. It turned out that i had a total of 18 loans during a 20 month period totaling to just under £7000. I hope this works as i have been constantly borrowing from these companies just to stay afloat and pay back interest and i have used around 7 different companies to do so. I have written to the other lenders and Satsuma are asking me how much i borrowed?? Surely they must know my statement of account? They should have never lent me the money in the begining considering i was maxed out in my overdraft at the time and my credit score has always been low-very low.
Raquel says
Hi i got a final response from wonga they are upholding my complaint and have offered just over £1160 and have paid me the interest from 2 loans plus 8 perent plus £50 compensation. I totalled up my interest paid over 30 loans to about £3000 but they said only 2 of them showed up where i couldnt afford them etc am i right to accept their offer and would the FOS agree with them on this
Miles says
Hi Sara,
I had 4 loans in quick succession, with MYjar £300, £900, £950 & £1400 (all at maximum they would lend) paying one off then applying next day for another.
I then borrowed from another company to pay them off as there was no way I could pay off the £400 per month installments over 6 months
I complained to them using templates here.
Today, they made an offer of £136 for the last & largest loan interest. As a gesture of goodwill.
First wasn’t installment, the others were.
I couldn’t afford first so paid it off and then got the £900 straight away. Credit file was ok no defaults, ccjs
I guess they will argue the first was affordable, and I might agree, but the last 3 were most definitely not. Myjar are saying I had £250 disposable income, but the last loan for example was for £400 over 6 months
I would like to continue with my claim but I read earlier that a few loans are sometimes deemed “affordable” by the Ombudsman.Also, if I accept now, nothing will be done about my 4 credit file entries. Is there any chance of these being removed do you think?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it seems likely the Ombudsman would decide My Jar couldn’t have known the first loan was unaffordable. Probably the second as well as it was an installment loan. I would suggest that applying to borrow the day after the second loan finished should have been a warning signal to the lender that you were in difficulty. If you feel happy with this argument, you could put it to the lender and ask for a refund on the third loan?
But if you feel the second one was really unaffordable given your income & expenses, then you have the option to go to the Ombudsman.
Tony says
Just had my reply from uncle buck saying they feel my loans with charges of nearly £3700 were all affordable, even though I had suspended possession orders against my property and a registered charge as well. Am certainly going to ombudsman as feel I have a decent case on this one
Christine says
I had my complaint about Payday Uk upheld by the FO. I rang the adjudicator today to see if they had replied-they had until the 25th to reply.
Of course they have heard nothing, the lady told me that Payday UK were snowed under due to the amount of complaints, she said that she would send a chasing letter tomorrow and if she does not hear back then it will go to the ombudsman and if they agree with her decision then it will become legally binding.
I asked her if it was worth me ringing Payday UK up myself to chase it and she said that I could but due to their workload I would probably get nowhere.
Has anyone personally chased the lender following a decision? is it worth ringing them up?
ken says
I have same issue. When i rung paydayuk they said as its now with the FOS then they would only communicate with me via them now. So you would be wasting your time. And they hardly ever answer anyway. So do something better with your time and let the FOS deal with them
Coops says
I just wanted to share how I’ve been getting on.
Wonga – dealt with direct complaint, time taken 11.5weeks from start to finish and refund of £1800 paid. They were always helpful and polite when I had to contact them.
LS – initially refused complaint, I asked them for their final response and escalated to FO. Before the case was assigned LS came back with an offer of £500 which I accepted. Time from start to finish, 13weeks.
QQ – refused complaint, finals response offered me £150 goodwill gesture I refused and went to FO. FO upheld complaint £2800 to be refunded to me. Time from start to finish 15weeks.
PDUK – acknowledged complaint but did not respond in 8 weeks. Still with FO. Initial complaint to them 4/12/15
247moneybox -same as above
Ferratum – same as above
I started complaining to these PDL companies on the 27th November after years of being in a vicious circle which led to a DMP. With these refunds I am now almost debt free and I cannot thank forums like this one enough for all the help and advice. It’s been a stressful 4 years but finally I can see light at the end of the tunnel :)
Donna says
Received a reply from lending stream today. They are not upholding my complaint. Below is part of the response from them:
“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, they are not privy to that exact information.” BUT surely they would have seen the late payments and defaults etc! And I’m still not convinced my credit score would have been over the 500 they use as a bench mark.
They go on to say they believe the loans were affordable as I was in employment, credit score and because all my loans from them were paid on time -YES they were paid on time because I took out further loans enabling me to pay them and survive the month which I explained in my complaint to them.
They end the email by saying:
“Our assessment shows that we have conducted adequate underwriting checks for your loans and we had no reason to believe that approving loans would put you in any sort of financial difficulty.”
What are other people’s experience with lending stream and is this the standard reply people are getting from them?
I have emailed them to ask if this is their final response and if so I will refer to the ombudsman.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“surely they would have seen the late payments and defaults etc!” yes they would have been sent this information. And you previously mentioned a CCJ!
“I have emailed them to ask if this is their final response and if so I will refer to the ombudsman.” that sounds like the right thing to do. If they had mad an offer to refund certain loans, then it’s worth arguing with them that they should also refund some other loans. But with a rejection, then off to the Ombudsman!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
We have had several people (Coops is the latest if you look back at today’s comments) say that they had a rejection from LS, took the case to the FO then were made an offer quickly, before FO had started looking at the case.
Donna says
Thanks Sara, I’ve just had a look at Coops’ comment, I’ll give them a week to reply to my last email asking if this is their final response, I think thats plenty of time for them to respond to a simple question. Then it’s off to the FO.
I did have a ccj as well at the time of them issuing me loans and my credit score (according to their records) was declining, however they still deemed it good!
I’ll keep you updated!
Thank you again.
Jamie says
Hi there, great find this forum, so was just wondering if I had a shot?
So back in October 2014 and 14 I had my Wonga loan written off but no compo and was literally getting a loan every month with them for a period of time back in 2012/2013
I also still have 7 open accounts with the likes of payday uk, ppt, QQ, MY JAR, 24/7 money box etc which have all been in default for a while :-/ would it be worth writing to all of these aswell, as I have had loans from them before, also ask for the outstanding balance written off?
Amazing what you can find on your credit file
I also have 23 closed accounts on my credit file, going month after month.
Thanks for your time and look forward to your response :-)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
A loan every month is a clear sign that you were in trouble which a lender should have noticed. Even though Wonga gave you some compensation it’s worth asking for the interest on the loans to be refunded – we have had people succeed with these complaints.
Is it worth waking up creditors that aren’t bothering you? Probably yes if you had more than a few loans with them before. Don’t ask for the balance to be written off, just put in a simple “unaffordable” complaint and see what they offer. If you only has 2 or 3 this is much more marginal. Why not start with the lenders you used the most and see how they go?
Sarah-Jane says
I have recently sent in a complaint to Cheque Centre. Has anyone has any dealings with these. I requested a summary of your account via email and received an email back stating that it was a summary access request and would therefore need to pay the £10
Rach says
I’ve just accepted an offer with cheque centre, they sent my account details with final response. Prior to this I asked for a statement of my account and was told there was a £10 charge. I can however say they are the best people I have dealt with so far, made an offer in week 5 which I accepted and recieved a cheque in the post 3 days later
Lily says
I’ve received a final response from Wonga 11 weeks after sending in my complaint – I did send it to the FOS after 8 weeks had passed but this is just Wonga’s investigation result.
They are upholding my complaint in part and are offering redress on loans 13, 15, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28 & 29 of 30 loans (they had previously written off #30). This redress is £2,868.88 compared to £5,020.56 that I paid to them, they are also offering £50 compensation for the delay in replying and £1,018.54 (8% interest) making a total offer of £3,937.42. So now begins the consideration of accepting this, which is after-all real money in my account!
Elizabeth says
Lily – only you know if it covers what you were hoping to get back so only you can decide but I think it is a great offer. It is real cash in your bank account.
I have a current complaint in with Wonga too and have viewed my loan history and broke it down into four separate ways they could look at it. (1- all loans
2- all loans over 50% of my income
3 – all loans over my current limit if I was to apply
4 – all loans that were paid back and reborrowed same day)
For each I have worked out how much interest I paid so I have a ball park figure in my head of what I would hope to get back. Hopefully my complaint will be upheld too.
Paul says
Hello all,
I have had some success with one of my loans (MyJar). They have lowered my debt from £550 to £160 which I am happy with but are refusing to remove the default.
‘due to the reciprocity agreement between us and credit reference agencies, we are obliged to provide them with accurate information regarding the statuses of all our customers’ accounts. Therefore, we will not be able to remove our entries from your credit file.’
Should I accept or is there anything I can do to have this removed?
Many Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Paul, it sounds as though the lender has decided they should have done more to help so they have reduced the balance. But they haven’t agreed the loan was “unaffordable” in which case they should have deleted the loan from your credit file.
Your options are:
1) to decide you don’t care. If your credit file is a mess, this one loan probably won’t make much difference!
2) to say you will take the case to the Ombudsman. It can’t be guaranteed you would win of course, but so far I haven’t seen a case where the Ombudsman offers LESS or nothing when the lender made an offer.
3) if you are in a position to repay the £160, you could say that you will do this if they will delete the record. they may still refuse, but may not.
grace says
I am having a meltdown! had an email from quick quid this morning saying they have updated my bank details for future loans! I rang them again and the guy I spoke to knew nothing of my complaint being upheld with the FO and the refund of over £2k he even thanked me for my repeat business!! I haven’t had a loan with them for over 5 years grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr – I have contacted the FO again this morning saying I am concerned that this company has my bank details for future loans!!! then ta da I had 11 emails yes 11 emails saying my refund will be in my account within the hour! I will let you know – talk about stressed lol x
Shanae says
Exactly the same thing happened to me, I had a mini meltdown too. But by the end of the day all the funds were in my account. They split it into 8 separate payments.
16th Feb, I received adjudicators decision.
2nd March QQ made an offer.
14th March full payment received.
Well worth the wait. I got back just over £8000
grace says
Hi Shanae surprisingly the same thing has happened! money is in the account – I have emailed them to delete my details and close my account as I am not sure why it is still open! thank you everyone for all their advice and encouraging words x
Elizabeth says
Grace – this is what I got told when I asked for them to remove my details…
“We regret to inform you that we cannot delete your customer account records from our system. Record retention obligations under the UK Money Laundering regulations require us to store your data for six years from the date of processing.
We respect your wish to keep your data private and will not release or disclose your personal information to any outside entity”
So whilst they may close the account they won’t delete your details it seems
Danielle says
Hi, I have had payday loans with 4 different companies QuickQuid, Wonga, PDUK and Mr Lender between 2011-2013. I am still able to login to QuickQuid and access my information and I am shocked to disover I borrowed over £8000 (Not including interest) from them between October 2011 and March 2013. I was made redundant in March 2012 but was in so much debt with QuickQuid and Wonga I was taking loans from one to pay the other. It was just an endless cycle until it was all paid. I dont really know how this works now though, Should i go onto part 2 above and email quickquid now that I have the information I need? What should I say exactly? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Kez says
Hi Danielle,
I think once you have the information you need you can move to step 2 – that’s what i done. I am currently at week 3 of waiting for responses.
I used the template as a guide and included details of my situation, income and expenditure at the time. I also mentioned how many PDL’s I had at the time and if i had missed my rent payments or other priority bills. What you say is going to be down to your situation at the time. I went through my banks statements at each time i took out a loan and used that to jog my memory of missed payments or other loans that i was paying off at the same time.
Hope this helps and good luck ;)
Kez
aga says
Hi Sara !
I had first success with Speedloan finance , they offer to pay 719.46 that is an interest of my 8 loans , however I claim a compensation as well for mishandling of my situation they refuse , they were threatening me with solicitors, I explained I had problems but I paid off as I was told court action , I don’t know if it is worthy to go to FOS for compensation
Markss says
CFO Lending has anyone had dealings with them? I had terrible time with them and have just emailed them asking for statement of account which they have promised in 72 hours. I intend to complain but need to see my account for the record.
Mat says
Hi Markss,
I was able to get a statement of account with them in about 3 days from initial request, but then I do have an open balance with them so they are probably more keen for the contact. They included the statement in a preemptive “we did nothing wrong, you knew what you were signing up to” e-mail as an attachment, without telling me, so perhaps check any correspondence from them for attachments? When I did lodge my complaint formally, they acknowledged it and stated it would be dealt with in normal 8 weeks. On week 3 now and heard nothing further as yet. Hope you get somewhere, I’ve read elsewhere that they are one of the worst…I guess being out of business means they have little left to lose.
Mags says
I complained to CFO Lending in February – they rejected my complaint in March so I have referred them to the FO. This is recent (last week!) so I have no further info as yet.
I will keep everyone posted with the progress!
Pauline says
Evening all.
I contacted Wonga over a month ago to get copies of statements of my account so I can work out all the loans I had before writing to them. They have today finally emailed back statements of account……for someone else!!!! This is completely confidential stuff they have emailed me as it contains names, addresses, loan details etc. A while later I got a further 2 emails with my statements. I am now worries that someone else got my personal statements! Any advice on what I can say to them about it, or advice of how this can now go in my favour? thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
aaarrghh! That shouldn’t have happened. No doubt it was a mistake but that is why financial companies should be fanatical about data protection.
I think you should now put TWO complaints into Wonga – first the one you were planning about payday loan affordability and second a complaint that you have been sent someone else’s details.