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?
Claire says
Hi after a year and a half after sorting through all my debts wonga paying me just over £1000 and other company’s writing off two other smallish loans.
A few days ago another company have brought my loan from lending stream..who at time (June 2016) agreeed to write off two loans and reduce one £900 down to £338. I thought I had an sorted the agreement (I had a good 4/5 other company’s to sort through) which Iv now discovered I had agreed with there offer but not paid anything towards the final offer of £338. It’s now been given to another company who are asking for £1900 not the £338. Have I got a leg to stand on here or not?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well probably but what did LS’s offer say exactly, did you accept it in writing and have they contacted you since about the balance?
Claire says
I didn’t recieve any thing more from them. I had accepted their offer, but I was on holiday and I have just seen I emailed saying I wouid get back in contact to set up a payment plan for the £338 which I clearly forgot about which is my own fault.
Email goes along the lines of this – not one of their emails states it’s a one time offer or anything like that.
We confirm that we have closed loan agreements 2047304 and 2075710. For loan agreement 2104969, post waiving the complete interest and charges, the sum to recover the originally borrowed amount is £338.34.
I have forwarded this email to the debt company to explain the situation and they have agreed to investigate. Just need to know my chances as lending stream have told me it’s nothing to do with them now And to only contact this other company who have brought my loan.
Thanks claire
Ian says
So after all my complaints going in to lenders first week of August I am now starting to make some progress;
PayDay UK Settled directly for £3800 went into my bank last week (More than I had calculated so accepted!)
Lending Stream offered to remove interest on my last two loans (£160) sent to FO (interest paid £4800 on 32 Loans!)
Sunny offered £800 declined sent to FO (Interest paid was £2600 on 10 loans)
Mr Lender accepted £70 goodwill gesture (1 small loan with them)
Quidmarket offered £0 sent to FO (Interest paid £525)
I guess being patient and just keep pursuing pays off! Good Luck everyone and thanks Sara – this site is changing my life!
I have had a message today from an adjudicator saying he has picked up my cases and will get his findings over to me ASAP.
Any ideas on how long investigations usually take once picked up by adjudicator?
Lisa says
Hi Ian,
Can I ask please when you submitted to the FOS? I am waiting cases to be picked up. I sent to the lenders earl July, and FOS early September and am awaiting them being picked up.
Ian says
Hi Lisa,
These went into the FOS first week of August. When I rang to ask for an update a few weeks ago, a very helpful lady told me that they try and allocate an adjudicator within around 90 days, but obviously some cases may take longer.
Ian
Lisa says
Really helpful thanks Ian. I guess Im not too far from the top of the queue then if they don’t see mine as complex.
Excellent results, well done! A nice Christmas lined up for you :)
Jon says
Hi, I referred my claims to the FOS last week. I have not even received an acknowledgment yet after doing it through the online form. Is this normal?
Brad says
It’s normal Jon. I submitted three claims four weeks ago and only just had a letter asking for bank statements etc on one. The other two, they emailed me after 3 weeks asking for the date of the final responses and nothing since.
gillian says
a quick update on my lending stream they had till the 3rd to reply to adjudicater who ruled all loans from 3 to 41 be refunded they came back with the offer of loans 17 20 21 23 25 to refund i have just replied not accepting they just seemed to have picked ramdom loans so off to the ombudsman que i think
Sara (Debt Camel) says
that sounds like the right decision! Try not to get too impatient…
gillian says
ty sara i wont i will let it go all the way to ombudsman as thanks to you i have allready won my case from quickquid 6500 after they offered nothing they settled full amount while waiting in ombudsman que dont think i will do anyworse by waiting a few more months ty
Craig says
I’ve had several loans with PDUK so I sent them the first template asking for statement of account and they replied saying they’ll look into it, that was 2 weeks ago, however the final loan is still outstanding and it’s been sold to prac and bw legal so I informed them it’s in dispute and today I received a letter from them with details of the last loan for £1530 and how to pay ?
What to do now. I had 5 loans with them in 2013
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The letter from BW Legal – does it look like the one described in this article, with the attachments mentioned https://debtcamel.co.uk/letter-before-claim-ccj/? Or is it a simple letter?
Craig says
Hi
Yeah it’s just a statement of the account not a pre ccj letter.
Craig
Sara (Debt Camel) says
good! Well just reply that as you have already told them, the debt is in dispute with PDUK.
Mr B says
Hi All, what an amazing find – I didn’t even know it was possible to claim on these until I stumbled on it today!
A quick question – at any point to credit searches etc show up on my credit record for doing this and how will it affect my credit record?
I am now fortunately out of the spiral but had loans from 2012 – 2015 with a variety of different lenders. My credit score is back to a healthy level and am about to apply for a new mortgage so I was hoping I might have some info on how it will affect it!
Thanks to Sara!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Lenders may make “administration checks” on your credit record, you can see these on your reports but they aren’t visible to other lenders and they don’t affect your score.
If you win a complaint, any negative marks on the refunded loans are deleted, which will help your score. Sometimes a lender just deletes the whole refunded loan even if it was repaid on time – this can actually harm your credit score, but it’s usually a very minor effect if the loans were old and you have other nice, recent, positive stuff on your credit record.
Are you going through a mortgage broker? I always recommend this to people who have old payday loans on their records. Most lenders don’t care about payday loans in 2012-15 but why take the risk and apply to a bank that does?
Good luck with your complaints.
Mr B says
Hi Sara,
Many thanks for the above, that is hugely helpful to know.
I have proceeded to contact the relevant lenders in question; fortunately only 1 has now gone into administration.
Yes, I am going through a Mortgage Broker who knows my history, so hopefully won’t have any nasty surprises!
Thanks again for your help, and I shall be sure to update you once I have further info.
Mr B says
I have just had this response from QQ / Pounds to Pocket following sending through my stage 2 email; not sure how I should respond as I have changed banks and changed jobs since I had the loans with them:
“To help us reach a fair complaint outcome in a timely manner (and where appropriate provide an offer of redress), please provide us with the following information as soon as possible:
• Bank statements (at the point/s you took out your loan/s with us)
• Payslips (at the point/s you took out your loan/s with us)
• Any additional information relating to your financial circumstances (at the point you took out your loan/s with us)”
Can you provide any advice on how best to go back to this?
Thanks again!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
see https://debtcamel.co.uk/quickquid-payday-loan-refunds/
Shyam says
HI There,
Firstly thank you for this awesome site. I have managed to put in complaints to all but the now closed and defunct lenders of mine.
My first complaint has gone to the ombudsman however I spoke to them and they said that they are waiting on LendingStream to confirm if they would look at loans over 6 years as 3/4 were just outside of that time frame. Lending stream did offer a refund on 1 of the loans and refused on 2 of the others because they were now sold to a 3rd party. I responded saying that they took over £1K in interest & charges prior to selling these off and therefore should be considered for a refund however they declined.
I was wondering if anyone has had experience of getting the loans over 6 years looked at by lendingstreat/FOS?
thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I’m not sure if you had 4 loans and 3 were over 6 years old or if you had lots of loans and three quarters of them were over 6 years old?
The two that have been sold to a third party – who is this? What date were the loans taken out? When did you last make a payment to these debts or have you never paid anything?
Shyam says
Hi Sara,
My apologies for the confusion. Please see below:
Total 4 loans taken out between March & July 2011.
Total Capital borrowed = £1,325.75
Total Interest + Charges applied = £1,949.90
Total Capital Repaid = £929.15
Interest repaid = £1565.50
Lending Stream have offered a refund on interest & charges on loan number 2 amounting to £438 + 8%.
Loans 3 & 4 were sold to 3rd party debt collectors however prior to them being sold below is a breakdown of what was paid to lendingstream prior to them being sold
Loan 3
Principal sum = £525
Principle repaid = £290
Interest & Charges applied = £945 (interest) + £22 Charges
Interest & charges repaid = £652
Loan 4
Principal sum = £395
Principle repaid = £237
Interest & Charges applied = £497.7 (interest) + £22 Charges
Interest & charges repaid = £402.90
I responded to them declining their offer of the refund on loan 2 and requested that they should also refund the interest and charges that they received prior to selling the loans.
I spoke to the FOS yesterday and they said that because the loans were over 6 years they have contacted LS to find out if they would consider looking at these prior to next steps.
I hope this helps.
Shyam says
The loans were sold to ACI & I cant remember the name of the other company as this was paid off already.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, the loan with ACI – Have ACI been in touch with you? Have you been making any payments to them – if so how much and when was your last payment? If you haven’t been paying them, when was your last payments to LS for this debt? Are ACI still adding interest?
The other loan that was sold – how much did you pay to the debt collector? And can you confirm this amount isn’t in any of the totals you gave?
As far as I know Lending Stream have not agreed to refund loans older than 6 years. But the FOS thinks the older loans may be considered. I suggest you keep telling the Ombudsamn you don’t want to drop the older loans. This means the complaint may take a very long while to resolve – but does that matter?
Shyam says
Hi Sara,
ACI have put a hold on it for now and are awaiting £550.
Digging through some old statements at stuff the 3 companies involved in the collection are ACI who are currently seeking 550 on hold.
Mackenzie Hall who want nothing and PRA group.
567.06 was paid to PRA group which I am deducing to be for the higher loan i.e. #4. Another 449.74 was paid to Mackenzie which I am guessing was for #3. Loan 3 was cleared off in full.
Therefore in Total I paid in total £1509.06 for loan #3 and they are still wanting an additional £550 – they being ACI.
I paid a total off £1089.64 for loan #4.
I hope all of this makes sense.
Regarding waiting for ombudsman I am in no rush and happy to wait.
What would you suggest about the additional payments to the collections? I didnt even realise how insane those amounts were.
thanks again
Sara (Debt Camel) says
For your complaint to LS, what matters is all the money you have paid towards the debts, whether this is to LS or a debt collector.
Check your credit records and you should be able to see who now owns the debt and the ones that have been paid off. I suggest you ask ACI for a statement of account for the loan – this may clarify things. Emphasise that you are disputing the debt with LS, it is with the financial ombudsman and you would like them to keep collections on hold until this is resolved.
Shyam says
Thanks Sara.
So given that I have already passed the complaint to the FOS should I contact them again with the updated figures and should I also do the same with LS?
Michael says
Hi, I have had a reply from MyJar Rejecting my complaint.
I told MyJar i was in financial difficulties yet for this loan they had added an extra money on to what was originally owed. I am correct to reply to MyJar stating that they have added these charges and fines after i stated i was in financial difficulty, or should i go straight to the Ombudsman?
Thanks.
Emma says
Hi Sarah,
I had a loan with TM advances which was not a payday loan but a 5 year loan at an extortionate interest rate. When I was made redundant in 2014 they allowed me to reduce my payments slightly but still added a default on my credit file (despite telling me not to worry about the default notice!). I was in severe financial difficulty at the time, there is no way they should have given me the loan (although i’m sure I wasn’t quite truthful about my financial situation). I actually ended up repaying the loan early and i’m not too bothered about getting any cash back but I was wondering if it would be covered by these types of complaints? My main aim is to have the default removed as it is damaging my credit rating (it’s dated August 2015) and I would like to get a mortgage.
Many Thanks,
Emma
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There isn’t a reason for them to remove this default … unless you win an affordability complaint. So even though getting cash back isn’t your priority, asking for a refund on the interest you paid because the loan was unaffordable, and for the default to be removed from your credit record, is probably your best way forward.
You need to adapt the Step two letter to be clear there was only one loan and to detail all the problems on your credit record which they should have spotted and decided not to loan to you.
Emma says
Thank you Sarah! My credit score was so poor at the time that Wonga refused to lend to me. I must have had close to 100 payday and other personal loans on my record at the time over the previous 3 year period. I have already received an offer from wonga for this time (still waiting on many others!). Do you think I would have a case on the affordability side? Thank you!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds as though it’s worth a try – you are familiar with the complaints and it won’t take long to get a good complaint letter together. Do make it clear that you want the default removes as well as a refund.
Emma says
Thank you!
L says
Hi
Does anyone have any advice on WDA attitude towards having to pay out? They have until tomorrow to agree with the adjudicator. But not heard anything as yet.
L7 says
Hi,
Help please with quickquid, they have rejected complaint completley as outside of 6 years! My loans were 2010-2011 is anyone getting payouts for over 6 years from quickquid and will ombudsman consider?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
At the moment QQ aren’t paying out. But just send your case to the Ombudsman and sit back and wait… you can’t lose anything by doing this so you may as well!
L7 says
Thank you, do you know roughly how long will take for ombudsman to consider?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The older than 6 year cases are just sitting in a pile at the moment whilst QQ and the ombudsman argue about a few selected cases.
AK says
Sara, what is considered over 6 years old? Loans taken prior to November 2011 or 6 years ago from the date of the complaint? I have started to borrow from QQ in July 2011 and sent the complaint to them at the end of August, they rejected it at the beginning of October, at the moment the complaint is with FOS and not yet picked up by adjudicator. Latest communication I received from FOS was about final response’s date few days ago.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This always seems a bit of a grey area. I think it should be 6 years before the date you sent in your complaint. It can be argued it should be 6 years before the date you sent the complaint to the ombudsman.
It is certainly NOT 6 years before an adjudicator is assigned or before the adjudicator’s decision, so delays at the moment won’t affect this.
AK says
Thank you for the clarification Sara
Janet says
Anyone recently received payment from Payday UK ? They have my acceptance and bank details just interested in their current payout times.
Ian says
Had one last week – 5 working days from when they accept the acceptance form.
Money went in around 4pm in the afternoon.
Michele says
I received refund from them within 7 days of their offer
janet says
Thank you Ian and Michelle they received my acceptance on 31/10/17 so hopefully won’t be too long.
janet says
Just rang Payday UK, they advised that when you accept through the FOS it takes longer to process for some reason, should be within 28 days but will probably be around the 3 week mark.
Mike says
Good afternoon Sara,
I have just received the decision from the adjudicator who have not upheld my complaint against Lending Stream.
I have asked for it to be passed to the Ombudsman to assess.
Are you aware of the Ombudsman overturning the adjudicators decision?
Thank you.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Oh yes, it happens. Can you summarise what your case is – how many loans? Why the adjudicator thinks they were affordable?
Mike says
I had 12 loans over 11 months totalling £3150 including interest. 3 months were I had 2 fresh loans in the same month and at one point had 5 loans running concurrently.
The adjudicator believes that my after the loan repayments and other financial commitments my average disposable income of £151.67 per month (not including food, transport or clothing) was sufficient to allow Lending Stream to continue lending to me.
It is strange as it is very similar to my Wonga complaint which the same adjucator found in my favour.
Thank you for your help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Definitely one to send to the Ombudsman.
Milton williams says
Got offered £670 from quickquid on Monday they accepted responsibility on only two loans even though my adjudicator had indicated that 4 loans were seemed irresponsible should I accept the offer even though one of the loans was a flex credit so would have large interest it was also sandwich in between the 2 they are agreeing to pay out on or just be happy with what I have
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s hard to say no to £670, but it sounds as though you would get a lot more if the ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator…
Remember that £670 is now the minimum you will get. The “worst case” is that the Ombudsman will say you should accept QQ’s offer.
With QuickQuid there is also the possibility that QQ will offer more – sometimes two or three more increasing offers! – if you ask for the case to go to the Ombudsman. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/quickquid-payday-loan-refunds/ which has some examples.
Milton williams says
My adjudicator says I might end up with nothing that’s what’s in the back of my mind
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well theoretically yes I suppose, so the adjudicators probably have to say that.
But all I can say is that a lot more than a hundred Ombudsman level decisions have been reported here and although some are not as good as the adjudicator offer (“refund three” instead of “refund 4”) we have never seen a case where a lender has made an offer and the ombudsman disagreed and said less than the lender or nothing. Unless you think there is something very odd about your case, I don’t think this is anything to worry about.
Also some ombudsman decisions are better than adjudicator decision (“refund 5” instead of “refund 4”)!
Michele says
So, I’ve had refunds from Wonga & PaydayUk so far without any hassle but Quick Quid are being stubborn. Firstly, they avoided sending me a statement of account but opened a case on my complaint. They responded last week after 9 weeks saying they didn’t irresponsibly lend to me. Has anyone had any success with them?
Elizabeth says
Will provident consider loans over 6 years or would they have to go to fos?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what years did you borrow from them for?
Elizabeth says
Probably between 2002 and 2011, last 2 loans were December 11, think there was one or two at the beginning of 2011.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Get your complaint in right away as the last 2 loans are still within 6 years!
There is no chance of complaining about loans before 2007 as they wouldn’t have been covered by the Financial Ombudsman at that point. You can complain about the loans from 2007, but I haven’t seen any of these old complaints being won so keep your expectations low for all apart from the last two.
Christopher Aitchison-Knight says
Having finally got round to this I’ve raised complaints with several lenders. Some had already been sold to debt collection agencies and I’d notified them of the complaint and put down it was as a courtesy. SLL Capital said they owned the account and I had to complain to them. I replied saying” I had advice complaints should be made to the original lender, whilst I appreciate you have an interest you obviously won’t have the background on this to investigate. In such circumstances I’m told that it would not be appropriate to resolve matters with you.”
Today I got a reply from SLL Capital saying they’d reviewed the account and written it off as a gesture of goodwill.
I’ll take that as a win and am still pursuing the original lender.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Interesting… still include the last loan in your complaint to the original lender – if you have paid more to that loan than you borrowed, then you should be due a refund on it.
Christopher Aitchison-Knight says
Oh I have. So far I have complaints in with THL, Trusted Quid, Provident, Morses Club and JD Williams catalogue for affordability. Robinson Way for a credit agreement that their parent company haven’t managed to produce in over 2 years now and Moriarty Law on behalf of MMF as the Peachy account was already settled as a complaint. Wonga and Wageday Advance to go. The latter of which have been marking my credit file with a 6 each month instead of declaring a default – Am I allowed to challenge that?
I’ve also got complaints in to Call Credit and Equifax about incorrect linked addresses and incorrect dates. Call Credit seem to think that 14 year old data is necessary
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“Wonga and Wageday Advance to go. The latter of which have been marking my credit file with a 6 each month instead of declaring a default – Am I allowed to challenge that?” yes but I suggest waiting until your affordability complaint is resolved, as your credit record may be sorted out by that.
Natalie says
Hi
Thanks to the information on this site I have just received £1435 (which is more than I expected) from payday uk after making my complaint 4 weeks ago. Just need to wait and see what the the others have to say now.
Thanks debt camel
Elizabeth says
Wow! That was fast! Waiting 10 weeks & just posted to Fos today
L7 says
Hi more help please
How are wonga on loans over 6 years?
Thanks
stuart says
Hi
Can anyone tell me if Payday Express look at loans over 6 years old and do they allow the ombudsman to look at these?
Thank youi
fiona says
They looked at my loans over six years ago & I got everything paid back, they were one of the easiest to deal with directly for me anyway other companies not so much
Paddy says
Would anyone no if payday express and wageday advance deal with the claims in the same way. I found wageday advance paid my full intrest bk without going to ombudsman just wonderin if payday express were the same or make you go to ombudsman
Rubes says
Hi Fiona
Could you please let me know how long you had to wait from your offer of acceptance until payment was received from payday express?
Thank you
Dave says
Hi, I have had several guarantor loans with amigo and T F S loans, which have included some very costly,top up loans,I have also had pay day loans at the same time with Amigo.
I have had a long history of gambling which is what these loans where for, At the time of applying if bank statements where checked they would have seen large payments to betfair and ladbrokes,plus payday loans.
Would there be a case that I should have never been lent this money as it was unaffordable,or would they only have to make sure my guarantor was credit worthy?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The affordability checks apply to both the borrower and the guarantor, so yes you can complain about guarantor loans. This is more likely to work where you topped up or took several loans. They weren’t obliged to check bank statements but should have seen the payday loans on your credit records… if your situation seemed to have got worse when you borrowed more, this is the point where they should have refused to lend.
Expect to have to send this to the Ombudsman – guarantor lenders usually reject every complaint, it doesn’t mean yours is weak.
But have you stopped gambling completely? If you haven’t, doing this is pretty pointless as any refunds will just end up with the bookies in a month or two :(
Dave says
Thanks for your help Sara, I am not Gambling anymore, hence why I am able to start these claims, with your help.
I have just emailed 12 payday lenders, some little ones,and some big ones,with lots of roll overs.I am now going to start the ball rolling with amigo,and flm quick which is now amigo,and TFS.
Do you have any advice on loanstogo,I found the behaviour of their staff totally unacceptable, They rang up all my family, continually texting them about a missed payment, part of the loan agreement was to give contact details if they can’t get hold of you, but this was abused, as instead of saying it was a private matter, They say who they are, which as you can imagine causes family rifts, As the initial response would be that you have used there address, As you have given out there contact details to get a Loan.
Ty,
Regards,
Dave.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I should include in your complaint to loanstogo their poor behaviour and mention this to the Ombudsman if that complaint goes to the FOS.Ask for some compensation for this.
Anne says
Pounds to pocket and quick quid.
I complained to these guys and have worked out the interest would have been 6.5k however they wrote to me saying they would refund £2832 plus write off the loan I had which was £1100 so I accepted the offer.
Since receiving the funds and them writing off my existing loan I have been bombarded with emails (2 per day) EVERY day offering me 10% off a new loan and text messages offering the same.
I contacted the FOS, given cashEuronets admission of my dependency the emails and texts are almost predatory. The FOS got back to me advising that they will take on the case and will also re look at the complaints (even tho I accepted full and final settlement)
I didn’t think they could do that given me accepting the offer?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Predatory is exactly right, a more vulnerable person could have been sucked right back into a mess again.
I don’t know what the FOS will decide in this case. The offer you accepted wasn’t that good, but you did accept it knowing what you were doing (and I know it’s so hard to “turn down” an offer like that!)
One point you could make to the FOS is that you feel that CashEuronet are not handling complaints properly. I’ve looked at the general problem of poor complaint handling here https://debtcamel.co.uk/dear-ceo-payday-loan-complaints/ and quite a few of the points on that page relate to QQ/PTP… you can probably spot them! So:
– if you were asked to provide payslips which you didn’t have, you may have been worried there was no point in taking your case further.
– If they didn’t explain why they selected certain loans to refund, you weren’t given a clear reply to your complaint you could assess.
– If they didn’t explain that a lot of the loan they were writing off was actually interest, their offer to write off the loan would have sounded more generous than it actually was.
– if they used very selective descriptions of your borrowing (section 5 in that article) you may have been lislead into thinking you had a weak case
– and overall it sounds as though they offered you a lot less than you could have got by going to the ombudsman. A lender is supposed to handle complaints in a fair way, using the approach the Ombudsman does, and QQ/PTP simply don’t do this, they come up with every excuse they can think of to pay you as little as possible.
I don’t know if this will get you anywhere, we haven’t seen one of these cases. You may only get some token £100 compensation for the loan offers – but well done for trying!
gillian says
hi sara i have just recieved a email off payday uk after asking for a list of my loans they say as no sums due they do not have to supply this so i have sent back a email saying i wish to put in a complaint for unafordable lending on all my loans from 2011 to 2017 i checked my credit report and it shows 27 loans all settled then the next one taken out straight away so i have a good idea of how much i borrowed and as the total repaid often was near double have a rough idea how much intrest was paid most of the loans were 4 month then after the last payment i would borrow again have i done right by putting in a unaffordable complaint without a list of loans ty
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, quite right. You know enough about the length of your borrowing and shortness of the gaps to be sure you have a very good case.
Freddie says
Hi, does anyone know Wonga normally agree with the adjudicators decision or force the ombudsman to review cases? I got a positive result today and Wonga are as yet to respond and I wondered if I might receive the adjudicators suggested redress before Christmas or have to wait in line for an ombudsman.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t… sorry, that’s not very helpful!
Shem says
Hi all
Anyone had an direct offers from sunny without the adjudicator or ombudsman? Getting to the 6 week mark after raising a complaint based on continuous borrowing over 3 years of at 4 loans at a time from them alone. wondered what others experience was?
Shem x
AK says
Hi Shem, I’ve got the full refund on all loans plus 8% from Sunny without going to FOS. They responded on week 8 and refund was in my bank 2 days after offer’s acceptance. They didn’t admit wrongdoing but admitted that their product wasn’t right to me. The refund was £2077.
Shem says
Thanks AK I know everyone is a unique case but it’s encouraging to know they don’t blanket reject
Shem x
Ross says
Hi Shem,
I complained to Sunny about my Quid account, as this then became part of Sunny and they transferred me to the Sunny product. Strangely, they chose not to uphold my Quid complaint, but refunded all interest & charges, as a goodwill gesture. They upheld the Sunny part of my complaint, saying they didn’t think it was suitable for me, and refunded this with 8% on top. I found them easy to deal with too. Good luck.
Shem says
Hi Ross
Thanks for this, again encouraging. I am confident I have a good case as utilised the maximum amount of loans allowed for 3 years month on month without a break, I often paid the remaining balance of the loans back using loans from other pay day loans to do so and then reborrowed the maximum amount from sunny again immediately, I’m just worried they don’t look at early repayment in context of the other pay day loan borrowing and ‘robbing peter to pay paul’ I developed a coping system by where if I paid off a smaller remaining balance early using a different pay day lender I could then instantly reborrow more than I paid off and also the next repayment would be rescheduled essentially deferring it another month. I was stuck in such a vicious cycle and have tried to explain this in my compaint so time will tell, im just hoping for a direct offer even if not 100% of my estimate as my immediate situation is so dire now that I have stopped borrowing and have endless payment arrangements in place. I’ve just not heard much other than FOS involvement with sunny so as I say it’s encouraging to know they do occasionallly make refund offers directly
Shem x
Jane G says
I’ve also been offered a refund from Sunny. I had thirteen loans from them, of which they’ve only upheld one. However, the ones they haven’t upheld were all small loans whereas the one they’ve made the offer on was substantial and included a number of top-ups. Like AK, they didn’t admit irresponsibility but do agree that the loan wasn’t a suitable product for me.
I worked out that the total interest across all the loans was around £1730 + 8% interest. I’ve been offered £1700 on that one loan including the 8% interest, so I’ve accepted that figure. That was a couple of days ago and they say they’ll pay out within five working days. Big thanks to Sara for that one.
On the other hand, of the twenty-two loans I had with Wonga, where I paid nearly £600 interest on £2600 worth of loans, I have only been offered a refund on one, of £161. I want more that so I’m sending it to the ombudsman.
I also requested a refund from QuickQuid/Pounds To Pocket, of the interest I paid on their loans – just shy of £2000. They’ve rejected my claim outright so I’m currently in the middle of preparing a case for the ombudsman.
Joe says
Hi Sara,
Moneyboat made me an offer to clear the balance.
Can I still make a complaint to the FOS regarding the loans?
Also, Satsuma and CashFloat haven’t bothered replying to me since April. Adjudicator said I need to send in the final response but its been 7 months now and I’ve had nothing.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Moneyboat – definitely. Clearing a balance is often not a good offer if you had a lot of previous loans or the balance isn’t large.
Satsuma & Cash Float – forward the Adjudicator a copy of your complaint emails (that shows the dates of your complaints) and say you haven’t had any response from them.
Joe says
Sorry forgot to mention that I accepted the offer to clear the balance.. can I still make the complaint?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Oh dear, probably not… read the offer you were sent – it probably said clearing the balance was in settlement of your complaint.
Brian says
Hi guys
I sent an email to wonga on Friday requesting account information. I received a postmaster email today saying it undeliverable to (customercomplaints@wonga.com) anyone else experience this? And if so any other emails.
Also I emailed sunny for account information, they replied telling me how to find this online. I cross referenced this with bank statements and at least 5 loans totalling £2000 are missing! Anyone else have problems with this?
Much appreciated.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Wonga’s email account seems to be dodgy sometimes. I suggest you try again and phone them if it still bounces back.
BUT can you work out the wonga loans from your bank statements? If you can you can just skip step one and go straight to step two.
Sunny – could you have used two different email addresses with them? I suggest you phone them up and try to resolve this.
Brian says
I could have used a different email which is why I specifically emailed them my details asking for a history of all loans. I have emailed them again and hopfully I get the response I’m looking for.
In regards to wonga I can only get my bank statements back to Feb 2014 without requesting them posted and paying a charge! I have a rough idea of the loans and have work out the ones I can see but I have a feeling the loans go back before 2014 hence why I have asked them for specifics.
I don’t want to say I’m
Complaining about loans starting for 2014 if I actually have loans before this date.
Thanks again.
Brad says
Hi Sara, strange one but Lloyds Bank have changed their fee structure on my overdraft with 2 months notice. I’m now being charged £200 per month for use of my £5k overdraft where it was previously £70 p/m.
I think this is ridiculously short notice and unfair. I have a complaint against Lloyds which I’m about to log with FOS for being given the overdraft along with two loans and a cc which had increasing limit. Would you include the change in O/D fees as part of the whole complaint?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes the Lloyds/Halifax changes (see https://debtcamel.co.uk/lloyds-cuts-overdraft-fees/) are now really shocking a lot of people. But legally they have given you enough notice and I don’t think it’s worth complicating an already detailed complaint with adding on a bit about the recent increase.
Brad says
Ok thanks Sara. Not what I needed currently an extra £130 pm of charges!
Satsuma have not responded within 8 weeks. They did email to say they have changed their processes and are handling many complaints so may take another 14 days!
Acee says
Hi Brad it is shocking for people with huge overdrafts such as yourself, mine was £3400 but they have stopped all charges as I’m paying my overdraft back via stepchange DMP is a DMP something to consider for your circumstances? If not just call them and tell them you cant afford it. It was announced in June/July about the changes so its more than enough notice for them.
Jampanda says
Hi everyone
Still waiting to hear about DRAFTY. Been with Adjudicators for around 4 months but not heard a peep.
Anyone had some luck with these cowboys (Lending Stream credit option).
Andy says
In same boat with drafty , sending me emails stating my account will be goin to debt collectors if I stay in arrears , even tho I have tried to set up a payment plan and asked for them to freeze account until outcome of complaint
Andy
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Include this in your complaint to the Ombudsman. It should all, hopefully, come out in the wash if the last loan is considered unaffordable.
Andy says
Thanks Sara, i think due to it being a credit line rather than a loan , it will take longer for outcome , but will include threatening emails and constant texts received, and my attempts to offer payment until outcome, also Sara, my pounds to pocket complaint has been assigned an adjudicator , is it worth asking him to pick up other complaints I have waiting
Regards andy
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good luck. Yes it’s worth asking that.
Andy says
Thanks will post my outcomes on this site , as started complaints late July , and now been picked up by adjudicator , so hopefully good news to come
thanks again Sara
Jessica says
Ok…some good news for you all, I think!
I took out several payday loans around 2012-2014. After looking through this website I decided to try my luck and try to get the interest charges back that I paid plus the 8% interest due.
I sent basic e-mails….and I mean basic! They were sent to the customer complaints departments of the companies(info found on their websites)
Luckily I found my account/ref numbers and quoted them on the e-mails.
I said that I was requesting a refund because of the following reasons –
* They had irresponsibly loaned the money to me
* They clearly couldn’t have checked my credit report at the time or something would have flagged up to them
* I was borrowing from them to pay back other pay day loans
* The interest charged from them was at such a high level that it made the situation worse
That was it!
All three companies e-mailed me back within a week asking for bank statements from the times of the loans. Easy if you have online banking, even so if you don’t just get them from your bank. These I sent straight back by e-mail.
One month on and two of the three have sent an offer of a refund. One is in full…!!!Over two thousand pounds.
Just waiting on one more but I’m happy with what I have so far so anything else is a bonus.
I just wanted you all to know that it really was a simple process.
Good Luck!xxx
Kat says
Hi, I’m not so sure if anybody can help me or not. I have taken out many payday loans in the past (2012-2014) and stupidly couldn’t afford to repay any of them. My situation has changed drastically since. I now have a good job and am stable, however, as you can imagine this had a terrible effect on my credit report. So, I have read this website through and through. I have followed the above steps today and emailed all of the companies that I had previously borrowed from. I’m not expecting any compensation but would like to try and get the defaults removed from my report. Has anyone had any success with this part or am I clutching at straws here?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So these were all complaints to a lender who you only borrowed from once and you didn’t make any payments to?
If that is correct, you can’t get any compensation. The best that could happen is that interest is removed from your outstanding balance and the default removed from your credit record. You are also likely to have to repay the remaining balance. One loan cases are hard to win.
D says
1 result in so far. 247 moneybox. Ive only had 3 loans at 80 per time. Currently owe 97 to them. E.ail back today saying they will clear outstanding balance. 1 down about 15 more to go ??
N says
Have they actually cleared balance yet? As I’ve had an email saying the same but now I’ve had an email of a default. Haven’t heard nothing since 2 weeks ago ?
D says
I logged on yesterday, balance not cleared yet. I did email saying I was looking forward to their email confirmation that the balance has been cleared. I would chase them up and ask to remove the default
N says
Just thought I’d say they have cleared mime now after 2 weeks of offering to clear it. Hope yours is cleared now too
Millie says
After some consideration I accepted my offer from quickquid I gave them my bank account details before what is there payout time scale usually like ps this site is the business keep up the good work
Lisa says
Hi
Not sure if you have received it as yet, but mine was 36 hours following the FOS sending the QQ team my acceptance. (I had a load of refund emails which alerted me to check my bank balance. And there is was £1500 shiny new pounds!
Bakey says
At almost 8 weeks after the initial complaint, I had a reply from Cash Converters today, upholding some of my complaint.
I paid interest of £2300 on what I borrowed and they have partially upheld my complaint and offered just under £1600. However, how do I calculate what amount the 8% interest is (it is included in their offer FYI) just so I know what is what? The loans were between 2011 and 2014.
Whatever I end up settling for, all thanks to this site for getting me to this point – I had no clue I could even claim!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So the 1600 includes 8% and you want to guess how much so you know how much interest is being refunded – that’s sensible as it lets you “compare apples with apples”.
If the loans were between 2011 and 2014, then they will have had between 3 and 6 years interest added on. My guess is CAsh Converters picked out some later larger loans… so let’s say an average of 4 years? That would make the interest about 1200 and the added interest about 400.
So you are getting about half the interest refunded. There is no way of being more exact unless you ask them exactly what loans they are refunding.
chris henderson says
Hi
Stumbled across this site by pure luck but glad i did. I followed your advice yesterday and sent 4 emails, 1 each to the companies i have had loans from. Of the 4 i have had a full list of my loans from quick quid within 7 hours, Sunny loans gave me a link so i could access a closed account where i then saw my loans which was also within 7 hours from sending them emails. Lending stream say i had 10 loans but want me to pay £10 for the information which ive replied i wont as i never requested a SAR and ive heard nothing from Wonga but alas it has still been less than 24 hours since i even realised i could even do this. I have now moved to stage 2 with the 2 companies that supplied the information and have fingers crossed.
Im happy to say im pay day lender free and have been for well over a year thanks to some belt tightening and Overtime at work. It was only when looking through the bank statements they wanted that i realiesd how bad this spiral had become.
Keep up the good work guys and thanks.
Shyam says
Hey All,
Has anyone had any luck with Cash Converters? They are currently at week 6.5 regarding my complaint and just trying to gauge how they are responding and if anyone has had any experience with them.
thanks
shyam
Bakey says
CC have been reasonable with me, they supplied me details of my loans within 3 days of my step 1 letter – even sending them Recorded Delivery to ensure they arrived and swiftly.
I got a response to my complaint just shy of the 8 week deadline partially upholding my complaint and offering more than I expected. I have accepted and they straight away responded saying it would be in my bank within 5 working days.
Hope you have a similar positive experience!
Bakey says
And the money is already in my account, 1 day after acceptance!
Vickie9 says
Hi all, just heard back from the FO re: Lending Stream. They upheld my adjudicator’s decision so LS have to refund loans 1-19. As there are three outstanding loans all with MMF then i’m not expecting a huge amount back but it was the principal with this one for me. Just Wonga left now but as some are over 6 years so I may be waiting a while. Thanks Sara, you have been a massive help.
Nick says
Hi Vickie, well done – hope you get a quick refund. Can I ask when your LS complaint was passed from Adjudicator to Ombudsman? I’ve been waiting since May/June to be passed to an Ombudsman after Adjudicator ruled all but 1 of my loans should be refunded (all within 6 years) and LS disagreed. I keep chasing every couple of weeks but still waiting. It’s my last complaint and I just want to finish this unfortunate chapter in my life!
vickie9 says
Thank you. It took just over two months for me so I would email or ring your adjudicator and ask where your case is at.
Helen says
Why is there such inconsistency in how quickly cases get picked up and how soon an adjudicator gets allocated?
Do they wait for the payday lender to send their information before they allocate an adjudicator? Is this the hold up?
This is whats happened with my cases so far:
LendingStream: Sent to FOS 30th August. Picked up by FOS 10th October. Yet to be allocated adjudicator.
Wonga: Sent to FOS 12th September. Picked up 21st September. Adjudicator allocated 23rd October. Adjudicator finding expected tomorrow.
PayDayUK: Sent to FOS 18th September. Picked up 21st September. Yet to be allocated adjudicator.
Satsuma: Sent to FOS 21st September. Picked up 5th October. Adjudicator allocated 31st October. Adjudicator finding 2nd November.
PoundstoPocket: Sent to FOS 21st September. Picked up 6th October. Yet to be allocated adjudicator.
Sunny: Sent to FOS 29th September. Picked up 5th October. Yet to be allocated adjudicator.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“Do they wait for the payday lender to send their information before they allocate an adjudicator? Is this the hold up?”
Yes that is a big factor.
Lou says
Sarah – I had an email from the FOS on the 4th November to say they had received all the information from Sunny and my complaint is waiting to be allocated to an adjudicator – how long should I wait before chasing?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how long since you sent the case to the FOS?
Lou says
Original complaint was 11th September.
I also have a complaint against Wonga which has moved a lot quicker – adjudicator found in my favour on 10 out of 15 loans – they gave Wonga until the 7th November – this has now been extended by a week as Wonga not yet responded so looks like it may go to the Ombudsman – are there many cases where the Ombudsman overturns the adjudicators decision.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
In most cases the ombudsman upholds the adjudicator’s decision.
Sometimes there is some tinkering, eg if the adjudicator said “refund all loans after 10 December 2013”, the Ombudsman could say “refund all loans after 4 April 2013” (so you would get more) or “refund all loans after 5 June 2014” (so you would get less).
We have never seen a case where the ombudsman awards less than a lender has offered.
Fingers crossed that Wonga accept the decision so this is all settled quickly!
Lee says
I’ve only had adjudicator ruling on 2 of my cases about 2 weeks ago from cases submitted to them on 23rd July (Both went in my favour – waiting for Lending Stream and Payday express to confirm they accept adjudicators findings, which I feel they won’t as seems to be a typical tactic they use to delay payments.
My other 4 – submitted around 5th September have not even been assigned adjudicator. Yet all information from both sides on all of these bar 247 moneybox (who don’t respond) is in. So they are ready to be worked. I have emailed my Lending Stream Adjudicator, who did a good report of findings of my case to ask him if he will pick up my other 4 cases sitting there waiting to be worked.
When you started this all in May – waited 8 weeks and then send to FOS, it can seem such a long process. I’m hoping for movement now on my remaining 4. I also am hoping the payday providers
Lisa says
5 of mine have been sat with the FOS since early September with the business files received within 2 weeks of that. I have 8 cases with the FOS in total with all bar 1 (PDUK) of the business files having been sent in. None as yet have been allocated to the adjudicator. Last week my Wonga complain was in the jurisdiction queue so I asked for the loans of older than 6 years to be discounted in case this was holding up all of my cases. (its more important to get my credit files updated quickly than hanging on for a possible few extra quid)
The FOS advised initially (if I remember right) that it was apx 4 – 6 weeks from having a case file that they try to allocate. So now its week 7 Im hoping for soon, however, they have said the levels have reached the same amount as PPI and they are trying to train more people up to deal with these so who knows when!
I do know they have everything they could possibly need so fingers crossed!
Heather says
Good news – Satsuma offered me a £750 refund, loan balance written off, 8% interest, loan removed from credit file. Bad news – the cheque (supposedly posted by 1st class post on the 2nd November ) has failed to turn up. They have to wait to see if that cheque has been cashed before issuing another one – a simple bank transfer would have been more useful but because I don’t have any active loans with them, they cant do a bank transfer (it is only 2017…) Very annoying.
Has anyone else had this problem from Satsuma?
Ross says
Hi Heather,
I had a refund from them, earlier in the year, after they rejected my complaint and the FOS upheld it. I asked for the refund to be transferred, as I DID have an active loan with them (the refund of interest paid this off, leaving £300 to repay back to me) but they said they couldn’t do an electronic transfer?! So, it would appear whether you have an active loan, or not, they will still be awkward as possible to send any refund by cheque. Thank god I’ll never have to deal with them ever again!
Heather says
The 2nd cheque still hasn’t arrived, this is just getting silly now…
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They do have your correct address I hope?
Give them an ultimatum – unless you receive a payment into your bank account OR a cheque from them by a week from today you will be sending your case to the Financial Ombudsman and asking for compensation for their poor complaint handling.
Acee says
Was refunded £1200 from PDUK last month and they said they had 3 loans still to decide on they said if I accept the offer they would look at the other loans again if I sent my bank statements, I was happy to accept the £1200 and hope for the best with the other loans – they asked me to send bank statements from the time of my loans to look at the other 3 they couldn’t decide on I thought as I had accepted the £1200 they would just say the other 3 loans were affordable however I received an email this week to say having looked through my bank statements they can see they have lent irresponsibly and have refunded me another £436 including the 8% this will be a happy xmas.
Gary says
Great Result
Sara (Debt Camel) says
thanks – useful information for other people in the same situation!
Acee says
No problem Sara that’s why I shared my story I was very dubious they would even look again at the other loans as I was happy with the initial amount, only decent company I’ve dealt with so far.
Lisa says
Well done Acee – excellent news for you.
I have only settled with QQ (sent an offer rather than the case file to the FOS)
I do have a partial offer from PDE 3 out of 9 loans, and also 2 out of 8 from WDA (due to process and not responsibility on this one) for £590 and £340 respectively, also lending stream settled outside of the FOS so fingers crossed more follow that thread!
Keep going and keep us updated!
Nari says
So I sent a complaint to PDUK 8 weeks ago today. And I’ve received the “still looking into it” email earlier and will be sending it off to the FOS in the morning. What are other people’s experiences been like with PDUK?
suzanne says
Terrible. Mine is at 12 weeks and 2 days and no response since the 8 week mark email off them. Sent mine to FOS too
Dan says
I had and accepted a decent offer (60% plus interest = 90% of interest and charges I paid) on about week 11, from there service was very good. Could of got more but saved a long wait and as I still had debt on high interest it meant I could reduce that straightaway. I did leave them alone until week 7 then sent a chase, week 8 I mailed to say I had raised with FOS but that I would remain open to negotiation until an adjudicator was appointed, no idea if that helped but still.
anna says
Morning everyone. First of all thank you Sara for all your help. I already got refund from Wonga and very old debt from Peachy was written off. I have also received a letter from Vanquis about ROP and awaiting the cheque just now:) also made a complaint to Sunny and was not so lucky. I sent it to FOS in August and received an email few weeks ago requesting bank statements and all other paperwork. I sent it all and keep receiving email to send more info. Now they want to know how I split the bills with my partner, who contributes more towards household, receipts for childcare etc. Is this normal practice?? Thank you for your help.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It sounds normal, things can get complicated with joint accounts, if you split bills with someone, or if large expenses such as childcare don’t show on your bank accounts. It can sometimes feel as though the adjudicator doesn’t believe you, but usually they are trying to help you by getting the evidence they need to uphold your complaint…
I have seen people post here that they are desperate because their adjudicator says their loans are affordable, when actually the adjudicator is just saying that they have to see the bank statements for another account or they won’t be able to say the loans are unaffordable.
PS Are you getting a Vanquis ROP payout?
anna says
Thanks Sara for your help. I will send all the remaining info today.
And yes, I am getting Vanquis payout. I sent them an email on the 25th October and received a letter with the good news on the 4th November. So very quick.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
incredibly quick! Would you mind posting the details about how much (how much was ROP, how much associated interest, when you had the ROP) and those timescales over on this article as I am trying to keep track of what is happening: https://debtcamel.co.uk/vanquis-rop-refund/
Alan says
My Update
Peachy have made a settlement after about 1 month (a lot less than wanted but needed at time).
Ferratum have offered half interest back Only paid out about £40ish so get £20 back
Lending stream says no as was fair (deciding whether to pursue and how).
all others waiting on since 30th September (about 6 companies).
Cheers so far Sarah
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you borrowed more than once from Lending Stream send the case straight to the Ombudsman – there is no point in trying to reason with LS, they don’t listen.
Lisa says
Hi Sara,
Just some info for you. I have just spoken to someone in the FOS and they have advised they are not allocating based on when the file was received from the business, they are allocating based on something called the ‘conversion date’ which actually is the date at which point they initially write to the business and ask for the case file.
Anyhow, all 8 of my PDL complaints now have submitted the casefiles so when they do get allocated, they should be good to go and wont hold up at that stage.
Aside of the QQ offer, I have already rejected offers of £925 so thinking of this as savings with 8% interest as we’ve never heard of the adjudicator saying don’t pay!
The one I am most worried about is Lending Stream. I currently have 5 defaults, 2 of which are due to be removed as a result of this (thank you!) but the other 3 are with Lending stream registered in July 2013 and it seems like these guys are the most difficult to deal with! Given that I’ll be looking to buy a new home in around march/April next year, I am hoping I can resolve favourably by then. The rest of my credit file has been almost perfect since Novemeber last year, so hoping that goes in my favour. I will also have around a 50-60% deposit so just hoping that I can get a mortgage, and even better with a good rate!
Any thoughts appreciated….
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I have heard a lot of different things – all I can say is that it seems to be the lenders who are slowest about responding where the delays are the longest. But there is also a random element. Fingers crossed your cases are picked up soon.
Lisa says
Thanks Sara,
I had the following mail on Saturday from the FOS Starting with ‘We’ve received the information we asked Express Finance to provide and have begun reviewing your complaint.’ I can only assume this means its been assigned to an adjudicator as they have asked for incomings/outgoings etc.
This is was submitted to the FOS first (back on Sept 12) however, they didn’t get the business file (PDE) until 31/10, so maybe they are changing how the allocate to take into account some of the companies who are struggling to keep up with demand.
Maybe useful for you/others.
ZT says
Hello
Just after some guidance – I submitted a complaint with the FOS re 247 money box back in April , it was allocated to an adjudicator in June and the complaint was upheld by him in July. 247 MB disagreed with his decision so it went in the queue for an ombudsman decision. It was finally allocated to an ombudsman on the 26th Sept. I rang for an update about three weeks in (Oct) to be told the final response was in the process being drafted. I am wondering how much longer I will need to wait for a decision. How long have other people cases usually been worked on? I have already been told no further information was required by the ombudsman for the case and none of the loans are over 6 years. Thanks in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
it sounds like you are nearly there… If the Ombudsman is going to issue a “final decision” this usually means they are upholding the adjudicator’s decision, otherwise they normally go for a provisional decision first.
vickie9 says
Does anyone know roughly how long adjudicators take with cases over 6 years? She told me that as I wanted loans to be considered from Wonga that were over 6 years it had to be referred to another part of their team before it could procend. It’s been almost three months, when I emailed she just said it would take as long as it takes. Does anyone have a rough estimate?
Acee says
Had a response from my adjudicator saying that he can’t see my expenditure corresponds with my bank statements and wants to know exactly where the payments were taken. For e.g I was paying around £500 per month for payday loans but didnt split it into each company that £500 was covering repayments of about 6 loan companies. How much detail do I need to go into I thought they would know by looking at my statements which was a payday loan etc and work that out themselves?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If something isn’t obvious to an adjudicator, explain what is going on in as much details as is necessary. You could say pick a “typical money” and go through and label what all the debits on your banks statement are.
Liam says
Thank you for contacting us!
We are sorry to hear that you have not been satisfied with our service and have raised a complaint regarding affordability assessments made on your account.
We have investigated your complaint competently, diligently and impartially. We have assessed the subject matter of the complaint and would now like to provide you with our response and decision on it.
Firstly, we would like to bring out that in total you have had only 2 loan agreements with us with 1st loan signed on 18/07/2013. Before issuing the 1st loan, we have conducted a credit check and a security call making sure that your banking details were correct and that loan details were suitable for you. Credit checks were conducted for both loan applications.
You have repaid your 1st loan in full.
For your 2nd loan you borrowed £250.00 and repaid back to us £15,02. The balance has defaulted, being sold to external debt collections partner – Motormile Finance UK limited.
You borrowed from us more than repaid back.
Liam says
1. You state that you have been borrowing more often and the amounts borrowed tended to go up. – We kindly advise that it is impossible to make a well-informed statement about borrowing pattern based on 2 loans only. What is possible to state, however, is that you had very small number of loans and amounts borrowed were low.
2. You suggest that loan repayments were taking a too high share of your wages and your income disposable was not high enough to afford loans. You also provide your income and expenses information in support of your statement…. You stated that your income was £1400.00 and that your monthly credit commitments were £0.00…
3. You claim that your Credit Report should have shown you were experiencing financial difficulties and could not afford loans. – Please be advised that credit checks conducted on your account showed that your total monthly repayments on any fixed term accounts which were active were smaller (£157.00) than your income declared (£1400.00). This suggested that your loans were affordable for you.
4. We can also confirm that none of your loans were extended or rolled-over.
We can assure you that as creditors, we abide by our statutory obligation under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 [standard stuff deleted]
We would like to point out that the OFT … does not consider that the creditor could be held culpable under circumstances in which it made a reasonable request for information from the borrower, in order to conduct its assessment of affordability, and the information provided by the borrower was substantively incorrect/untrue and the creditor was not aware of this.
We would like to remind you that by signing the Credit Agreement, you confirmed that you were not:
a) in a Debt Management Plan etc [standard stuff deleted]
Additionally, we can confirm that based on the information you provided us with, you should have had more than enough income to cover your loans’ repayments. In case the provided information was incorrect, then you would make it impossible for us to evaluate correctly your loans’ affordability.
We would advise you to contact Call Credit UK to check if all of your creditors have reported accurate information on your Credit File to make sure that when you make a loan application, the information received from the Credit Reference Agencies is correct.
[lots more standard stuff]
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So they have rejected your complaint? How large was the first loan? Was it repaid on time or rolled? Your second loan, what date was it? What is the current balance with MMF?
Liam says
Hi Sara, i am still trying to send the rest of the email, but the email is too big so i am sending it in parts
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I’ve edited out a lot of standard stuff. Who is this lender? the idea that you should complain to Call Credit if your credit record was inaccurate is hilarious.
It doesn’t answer my questions: How large was the first loan? Your second loan, what date was it? What is the current balance with MMF?
Liam says
Sorry Sara this is from Peachy
Loan 1 – £134 but i only received £100 into my Bank on the 18th July 2013. I paid this 1 day late on the 17th August 2013 and was charged a £26 penalty and £29 Interest. In Total they said i paid £160 but this was paid in full. The 2nd Loan was on the same day and was for £250 in total and this went to MMF for £511
I have checked my Credit File and from what i can gather the Loan did default but it is saying that it is satisfied with a balance of 0 in January 2015 and this is now Closed .
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ah Peachy – I should have guessed, they often send out replies that seem designed to make people anxious. Impartial they certainly are not :( Let me rephrase your borrowing in a more positive light…
You took a loan of £100 (not sure where £134 comes from? if you got £100, that was what the loans was) which you were late repaying by one day and the same day you took out a loan of £250, more than twice as much. This by itself should have caused Peachey to stop and look at whether this was actually affordable for you.
You said you had no monthly credit commitments but a check on your credit record showed that you had repayments of £157. This is a discrepancy that Peachy should have noticed as they were aware of your credit record before making the first loan. The OFT guidance they cite states that “Failing to take proper account of relevant information contained in databases when these are referenced. Relevant information could include, for example, information on credit reference files such as notices of correction” and
“Failing to take adequate steps, so far as is reasonable and practicable, to ensure that information on a credit application relevant to an assessment of affordability is complete and correct”
are all examples of practices which may amount to irresponsible lending.
Of course there could have been many reasons why you didn’t complete whatever info that asked for on the application accurately apart from “not being truthful”, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/. Back in 2013 it was common for lenders to not ask for a great deal of detail about expenses. The fact that the loan was a lot less than your income says nothing about the affordability – that depends on what your other expenses were.
So I suggest you go back to Peachy and say that
– you do not remember what information you gave on your loan application, it would not have been deliberately incorrect but you were under a lot of pressure at the time
– they should have noticed if your credit report was not in agreement with your loan application and asked for more details, not rely on information that may have been incorrect. If they had they would not have given you the first loan.
– the fact that first loan was paid late and you applied to borrow a large amount more the same day should have made them look in more detail at the second loan
– suggest that unless they have the added interest removed from your outstanding balance, bringing it down to c.£235 so you only repay what you borrowed, you will be sending the whole case to the ombudsman.
Liam says
Many thanks Sara and i will email them right this once however i am slightly confused with something you have wrote?
“– suggest that unless they have the added interest removed from your outstanding balance, bringing it down to c.£235 so you only repay what you borrowed, you will be sending the whole case to the ombudsman.”
As far as i’m aware on my Credit Report this has a balance of 0 and there is no outstanding balance. My Credit Report says this account is Closed and 0. should i still write this?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you cleared the debt with MMF?
Liam says
This is the thing Sara i want to say yes i have because my Credit Report is showing it as Closed and Satisfied with a balance of 0 and they haven’t spoken to them since 2015. I’m sorry to be a pain
Sara (Debt Camel) says
When a debt is sold, the entry for the original creditor (Peachy) should show zero and there should be a new debt entered with the debt purchaser (MMF). Has this happened? Is the MMF debt showing as zero?
Liam says
Hi Sara,
There is nothing in any Open Accounts on my credit report from MMF, but there are quite a few entries on Closed Accounts with a balance of 0 from MMP Financial Ltd who i think are somebody completely different.
I haven’t got many Open Accounts
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I am afraid it is likely that you do still owe this money to MMF and they just haven’t got round to adding it to your credit record.
I don’t know why you made this complaint when it looked overall as though you had repaid Peachy a lot less than you borrowed and MMF weren’t asking you to repay the balance… it would have been better to wait and hope MMF never contacted you.
But you are where you are. Your options are:
a) to drop the case and hope MMF never get in contact – if they do you can’t then put in a new complaint as you dropped the previous one.
b) to pursue the case and accept you are likely to have to repay a lot of the last loan and possible the whole balance if you don’t win the complaint.
Liam says
Thanks Sara, i have decided to leave it, i have checked statements and have made payments but not the full amount. I am unsure whether a settlement figure was agreed because there was no entry on my credit file from them and i dont want to call them.
I am learning though
John Smith says
Hi Sara,
All of my claims I have had was with the same adjudicator, who has been excellent (as well as you Sara!) and agreed that the 6 of the payday companies I have had loans that all my interest should be returned, so I have received in Total £8k.
Today I received a email from another Adjudicator, I believe it went to another one because this one was with 118 118 loans and not a payday loan an they came back to say that my loan was affordable.
I borrowed £1,500 over 12 months my monthly expenditure was £1,500, which when 118 118 did a credit check it was actually £2,238.25 which would leave me £60.62 a month left to live on.
They said they listened to the conversation I had with them when I called them in May 2014 and during the call I confirmed with the agent that the repayments of £177.13 were affordable for me.
I also hadn’t missed a loan repayment – so I don’t feel it would be fair or reasonable to say that the loan was unaffordable, if you were making all your loan repayments on time. 118 118 money has checked your credit file and taken into account that your expenditure was higher than what you told them it was.
Do you think it is worth pursuing to the ombudsman with a final decision?
The amount of debt I was in and still am and if they asked for my bank statements 118 118 they would have seen loads of gambling transactions where surely I would have been a high risk but they never asked for bank statements.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“I borrowed £1,500 over 12 months my monthly expenditure was £1,500, which when 118 118 did a credit check it was actually £2,238.25 which would leave me £60.62 a month left to live on.”
Complaints about a single loan come down to the detailed facts of the case at the time the loan application was made. If 118 money were aware (how?) that your expenses were larger (how much larger?) than you stated, then they should have looked more closely at your case. If 118 reckoned your expenses were £2238 then they should not have given you a loan with repayments of £177 a month UNLESS you had said the loan was to clear some payday loans or something else that would have reduced your expenditure.
Do you remember what you said on the call?
John Smith says
Hi Sara,
To be honest I cannot remember what I said on the phone call, I would have said anything just to get that loan, it probably helped at the time but I would have had a number of payday loans, overdraft, credit card, other loans on top of this. The Adjudicator said that if I do take it with the Ombudsman they are likely to side with the Adjudicator. Did you think I should go Ombudsman anyway?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Adjudicators always say that, it doesn’t mean your case is especially weak.
“which when 118 118 did a credit check it was actually £2,238.25” where does this number come from?
John Smith says
Not sure where they got the figure from, this is what the Adjudicator said “You asked to borrow £1,500 over 12 months. Your monthly income was £2,476 and you said that your monthly expenditure was £1,500.
118 118 money checked your credit file and discovered your expenditure was actually £2,238.25. So 118 118 money took this into account including its monthly repayments of £177.13 – this left you with £60.62 a month.”
I don’t think the Adjudicator has fully investigated and looked at my bank statements, I’m going to reply back and tell them that I want it to go to the Ombudsman
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK but I think you need to do the work here – look at your credit record for the month before you took this loan and also analyse your bank statements.
Ro65 says
Sara – Thank you so much for all you do on this site. Today was the deadline for Cheque Centre to respond to my adjudicator on the 2nd batch of loans I had with them over 6 years. After I rejected their initial offer of £1670 they have agreed with my adjudicator and are now paying me £6125. I’m absolutely over the moon! Thanks to you and this site I have now received £24k in the last year in redress. I can’t thank you enough. I’ll be making another contribution to my local CAB! That’s all my loans dealt with and I can now put it all behind me and continue to build my family’s future. Thanks again!
Bakey says
Is it worth replying to a Wonga ‘final response’ letter? I had 3 very small loans with them and repaid and re-borrowed one after another but the final one for £180 I defaulted on and it has gone to debt collection and the balance is now £380.
Their response said they refunded the interest from the first years ago when the industry was rumbled and they made small adjustments to some people’s balances. They said the other 2 were not irresponsible but I had 2 other payday loan companies on the go at the same time so they must have known and still lent to me.
I really want the interest/charges removed on the final loan and it removed from my credit file. Not sure it is worth going to the FOS for essentially such a small amount on 2 loans.
Do Wonga negotiate at all?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They don’t negotiate.
There is no downside to sending this case to the FOS – it will take you perhaps half an hour. It’s not so much the money but the credit record implications will be with you for years. 3 loans, repaid & reborrowed is a good enough case to take forward. you may not win but worth a try?
Bakey says
That’s true, Sara, thanks for the sensible response.
I suppose it would be less hassle for all sides if Wonga just rolled over and accepted the one loan rather than be liable for all 3.
Gary says
Hi Sara,
Have a total of 9 complaints lodged in September with the FOS . Called the FOS for an update yesterday regarding any progress on each individual complaint. They advised that all complaints are currently awaiting to be assigned an adjudicator.
Low and behold I strangely received an adjudicators decision on my Uncle Buck complaint today advising that they do not feel UB provided irresponsible loans. The adjudicators explentation is purely based on the UB case file and UB set of events. The adjudicator does not mention my credit score, any attempts by UB to check my credit, they do not relate or mention any of my bank statements provided, they do not mention the significant number of other payday lenders used at the same time as UB. Etc etc
I find it really strange that I got a response one day after, and it feels like the adjudicator hasn’t actually read my complaint or gone through my statements.
The FOS advise that I can get in contact to provide any additional information.
Is this usual for an adjudicator to make a decision without taking time to review all facts?
Thank
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No, it’s not usual! I suggest you reply with some detailed points about what they seem to have missed.
Bobski says
Anybody got anywhere with AvantCredit?
Mikie says
I’ve put in an affordability complaint against them stating specific details about the amount of payday loans I had live at the same time, that they could see on my bank statements and my credit file, and my income / outgoings not being suitable. They’ve acknowledged it, I’ll update how it goes. I’d be interested in how others have got on against them?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Ross posted on 14th November that he had had interest removed from his loan.
mike says
I’d be delighted with that. I paid it off as you advised from the proceeds of another complaint so it would be a massive win if they then had to pay me some of that back! Thanks again!
Gareth says
So my SNC complaint finally got to an ombudsman who didnt uphold my complaint basically regurgitaTed what adj said about affordibility and nothing about me paying them 249 every 2 weeks out of my fortnightly pay deemed the loans were affordable .
I believe SNC didnt explain how they took my payments, re the full balance will only be taken if there is funds available. Which meant they were taking the payments in the early hours when my pay had cleared before anything had been paid so of course there were funds available. But this ruling was made by an ombudsman without me having a chance to address their ruling it felt very abrupt and final and left me very worried and concerned about my final complaint with the FOS.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
did you reply to the adjudicator setting out why you disagreed with their ruling?
The Ombudsman will usually go straight to a final decision if they agree with the adjudicator.
What is you final complaint with the Ombudsman?
Gareth says
Didn’t get a chance to reply to the ruling as it was made within the 6 weeks they picked it up on Sept 1st ( did not get a provisional ruling)wasn’t told or asked to make a final argument only found out it had gone to an ombudsman in the middle of Sept when I rang up for an update. Final complaint is provident really not hopeful anymore.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, you should have replied to the adjudicator setting out why you disagreed when you asked for the case to go to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman doesn’t normally issue a provisional ruling if it is the same as the adjudicator’s because you have already had a chance to respond to that.
Have you sent in your detailed reasons why you disagree with the adjudicator’s Provident ruling? The adjudicator thought you could afford the loans – you have to show that you could only repay them because you were borrowing more. If you can’t show this, you are not going to win an affordability case.
Nicole says
Hi Sara
Looking for some advice, back in 2012 I started taking out payday loans, right up until Sept 2017. I’ve been in a debt management plan since 2015 but in this time I’ve had to take a reduced income, taken out more payday loans to cover this, had my debts sold to various debt collection companies and had to renegotiate the payment plan everytime this happens, so it’s a bit of a spiral. Trying to get sorted and stumbled across your site. I didn’t take out large amounts, as at the time I was a student and knew I couldn’t afford to payback large amounts, but the loans were several even if slightly smaller.
Back when Wonga were getting into trouble in 2014 I had my remaining balance of £1600 written off… would I still be able to complain despite this, as I had borrowed month on month with Top ups for 2 years?
I also took out an unsecured personal loan with Springcoin, now Avant Credit in August 2014. I had made regular repayments to them via and reduced the debt from £2100 to £716, they then sold it on to Asset Collections in July 2017 and have stated the balance owed is £1400, to give Asset their due the account has been on hold since then while they investigate this… but still…
Add in a several other payday loans and instalment loans, and two closed bank accounts that were used when all of this was happening and its all a bit of a mess, do I have any ground to stand on or am I dreaming ?
Nicole
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It does sound a mess. The write off by Wonga – do you know how much interest you had paid to them before that?
What is your total debt at the moment, assuming the Asset Collections debt turns out to be £716 as you hope?
How much are you paying to your DMP? Who is it with?
Lisa says
Morning all
Has anyone had any experience with THE MONEY HIVE…
I put a complaint in, I know its 8 weeks till I can refer on to the fos.
I just want to see if people have heard of them and what they are like.
This is my last complaint I have as I have done them all and been successful with all, even against lender where I have had one loan, so thank you to this amazing site…
Linda says
Hi all I’ve had 2 complaints upheld by an adjudicator at the FO for Wonga and Lending Stream. The adjudicator has written to them with her decision and given them 2 weeks to reply. We’re coming up to the 2 week deadline now and I’ve heard nothing, has anyone had any experience as to whether these two companies reply or is leaving it to the last minute usual?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The last minute and beyond – sometimes they will reply after the adjudicator has given up and put your case in the ombudsman queue.
Chloe says
Hi so a question for anybody that might have had a similiar situation. My partner has a guarantor loan with uk credit for £6000 so we got £4500 and then another top up of £1500 and have to pay back over £9000. Most of it is paid back now but we still have a year left which is now just all interest. I don’t know where he would stand in putting in a complaint? He had lots of payday loans before this with many defaults and had entered a debt management plan this was just a few months before getting this loan out.
What I wanted to know mainly was does the guarantor have to have anything to do with the complaint because he no longer has any contact with them at all.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The guarantor isn’t involved with a complaint. If your partner had a DMP before he took out the loan and then was allowed to top it up, I think this sounds like a good complaint, that doesn’t mean you will succeed but it means it is well worth sending it to the Ombudsman if (actually probably when) the lender rejects it.
Mark says
So far I’ve had refunds large refunds from Wonga and payday express. Quickquid, lending stream, payday UK and swiftsterling all offered goodwill gestures but have been passed onto the FOS.. They were very large compared to my monthly salary so am hopeful I will get a decent return..They were also all before 2014 unlike 247 moneybox whom I had 12 loans continuely reloaning month after month for just over a year from October 2014.Their reply says they did nothing wrong even though they still loaned to me after a pay plan which again a pay plan was how it ended.. All loans were low compared to the previous lenders with them being from £200 – £350 and my salary being £1500 pm so is it worth sending to FOS or will they say the loans were low.
Elaine jones says
Hi. I e had lots of payday loans some repaid some defaulted. I’ve contacted lenders previously but many just ignored me like uncle buck and wage day advance now suddenly I’ve had a letter from MMF with details from 4 payday lender saying they have the accounts now and want them paid. Should I complain to MMF or the lenders who ignored me previously and also shouldn’t I have been informed these debts were sold on. Thanks I’ll be grateful for any help am getting very stressed
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Complain to the original lenders and inform MMF you are disputing the debts with the original lenders and ask them to hold any enforcement action until the complaint is resolved.
If the original lenders (who are they?) say the debt has been sold and tell you to contact MMF don’t get fobbed off. tell the original lender you want them to consider ALL the loans you had with them, including the last defaulted one, and if they refuse send the complaint immediately to the Ombudsman.
Don’t accept an offer from the original lender for the other debts unless you are happy to settle the debt that MMF has your self with no further complaint (HINT very unlikely to be a good idea.)
Emma says
Hi Sarah,
I have complained to TM advances who have (almost instantly) come back to say they will not uphold my complaint because the information I provided to them at the time confirmed the loan was affordable.
Do you think it’s still worth me complaining to the Financial Ombudsman?
Thank you!
Emma
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes if you say the loan was unaffordable and your credit history was very poor – what do you have to lose? The lender should have checked the info you provided against other information eg from your credit records.
Emma says
Thank you Sarah!
Another of my complaints (Peachy) has come back to me saying they will not uphold my complaint regarding 3 loans and £600 in interest as my application said it was affordable and they are not obliged to do any credit checks.
Should I go back to them or forward straight to Ombudsmen?
Thank you!
Emma
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I can’t remember anyone be successful with going back to Peachy. Unless they have got the actual number of loans wrong, I don’t think it’s worth trying.
If this was recent, then they certainly should have done credit checks. If it was a while ago it can be argued that they didn’t need to at the start, but as you continued borrowing, particularly if the amount went up, they should have looked in more detail at your situation. A lender can’t simply rely on what you put on an application if you carry on borrowing – there could be all sorts of reasons why that wasn’t the full story: https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-says-lied/