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?
Anna says
I had outstanding balance with Peachy. I emailed them and within days got response that theyre not upholding my complaints but as a gesture of good will they will write the balance off. That was £140 . It was actually pssed to deb collectors and recived and email saying they will inform them and write all the balnce off .
Tom Hilkene says
Hi Sara/team,
Excellent website, many thanks for the advice.
Quick question, uncle Buck have come back asking for:
To assist with my investigation, please could you provide me with the following information:
– A copy of your credit file;
– A copy of your bank statements for the account details we hold on file, for the period during which you applied for the loans and re-paid them.
Do they need this to look into it? None of others i have approached have requested this so i find it a bit odd.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks!
Tom
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You could reply saying you would like them to consider your complaint as it stands, they can of course check your credit record themselves if they want to and that you will supply bank statements to the ombudsman if necessary.
UB are generally difficult to deal with, I think they are just trying to make complaining seem difficult so people give up.
BobBob says
Hi.
I have found this page so useful for figuring out what I’m going to do next and peace of mind knowing I’m not the only one who’s in a mess with payday loans. Looking for some advice.
I’m about to put my complaint letters in this week to 5 lending companies I have used recently.
If I pay my loan payments this month I am literally left with nothing, if I postpone my payments will it affect my complaint? (For example if I call them and ask for a payment break for a month)
Apologies if this has already been answered somewhere in the thread.
Dan says
Most will place a hold on your account if you call Andrew explain about the complaint, you might want to consider impact on your credit file if so – if they say it’s a repayment plan, should t make any difference if you win the complaint but if you don’t then it might do. Call them and discuss though
Liam says
Hi Sara, Do you feel I have a case here,
————————-[edited to remove standard stuff]
We have reviewed your account and can see that you have taken out six loans with Mr Lender
between April 2011 and July 2017…
On your second loan, you opted to use our rollover service by making two interest only payments on time before settling in full via an interest frozen repayment plan…
you settled your third, fourth and fifth loans earlier than the contractual settlement dates
During your most recent loan (ML63494121) which was taken out eight months after your fifth loan
on the 8th July 2017 and is currently outstanding; you stated upon application you needed the
additional funds of £550.00 for an engagement ring.
This was originally a six month instalment loan; however you failed to make your first instalment on
the 31st July 2017… We supported you by setting up a repayment plan you made one payment then
advises you were working with a Debt Management Agency (DMA). On the 11th September 2017 we received a chargeback for the payment of £150.00 debited via your repayment plan. Your account was set up on a
DMP and we have received two payments towards your loan totalling £33.78….
we do not believe we have acted irresponsibly and the loans issued were fair and should have been affordable based on the information you provided at the time and the checks that were carried out. However after taking into consideration what you have informed us of in your complaint, as a gesture of goodwill we are willing to reduce your outstanding balance from £784.62 to the remaining capital amount of £516.22.
Liam says
The summary of your monthly income and outgoings listed in your most recent email does not correspond with what was provided upon application. You confirmed the following upon application:
Your expenditure was £941 which consisted of:
o Mortgage and Rent – £450
o Electricity, Gas and Water – £90
o Food and Travel – £60
o Telecommunications – 55
o Council Tax – £86
o Other Loans – £0
o Other regular outgoings – £200
All of the above information was confirmed verbally over the telephone at the time of your application and would have left you with a disposable income of £359.00. We can confirm that based on the information provided your instalments would never have exceeded 57% of your monthly disposable income. This is in accordance with Mr Lender’s responsible lending policy. Our lending decisions are also based on the information a borrower provides to us, as a consumer it is your responsibility to provide the correct information to assist us to determine the affordability of
Sara (Debt Camel) says
These expenditures – how far out were they? the food and travel looks very low. Also the “other loans” – did you not have any? What were the “other regular outgoings”?
Liam says
Hi Sara,
After looking at this i agree that this is quite low, i know for fact that at the time when i hadn’t passed my driving test a weekly bus pass was £15 and i now know that i now spend at least £20 a week in fuel.
Im guessing that the other regular outgoings would be things like Broadband where i pay £25 a month, Play Football which is £20 a month, contact lenses £10 a month, Tv Licensing and i think with the regular outgoings i have. This would also include things like dentist, buying clothes, cosmetics and so on which would equate to over £200 a month on average. Looking at it now i am thinking that with the Travel i have only seen this as Travel and not Food and Travel. They have mentioned that i would of had a disposable income of £359 a month. I can see on my statement on the first month that the funds were transferred i made a payment to Quick Quid of around £167 and a payment to Wonga of £109, £180, £124, £335 and £69
Liam says
The Second Loan in 2014 is pretty much the same but this time has Bank Charges and payments to Lending Stream and Motor Mile Finance around that time but from the first loan to the second it is full of payday loans and there is also payments to Debt Collection Companies
Liam says
Do you feel i have a case here to go any further with this. I did mention about the Engagement Reason because i needed a reason and was desperate for money to pay off other debts.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So you borrowed 6 times and rolled the second loan twice, but then went into a payments plan for it – is that right?
Can you say how large each of the 6 loans was, how much you borrowed, not what you repaid.
And what were the gaps between the loans – how long from repaying loan 1 to taking out loan two, Loan two to loan three? etc
Mr Lender are pretty reasonable to deal with, so let’s see if we can make out a case for a bigger reduction in your current balance.
Liam says
Loan 1 lasted 1 month, Loan 2 was nearly 3 years later but took me 5 months to pay, Loan 3 was 18months after but took me 3 months to pay, the 4th one was straight after and again took me 3 months, the fifth taken straight after but paid 3 days later and the last one was in July of this year.
The 2nd loan i set up a payment plan and paid the interest only for 2 months and then the 3rd month this was in full.
I hope this helps
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK well it’s complicated because of the large gaps between the loans. But it’s well worth asking Mr Lender to improve their offer because they should have realised those supplied expenditures were not plausible and didn’t correspond to what showed on your credit records.
So something like “I would like you to look again at this again. I think I must have misunderstood some of the questions on my expenditure. My travel card was £15 a week, so I think the “Food and travel” amount of £60 was just for that. If you check the telephone recording, I expect that is what it will show. It should in any case have struck you as implausible that I would only spend £60 a month on Food and Travel! You could also see from my credit record that I had other payday loans (and other debts as well???) that I hadn’t mentioned so you should have known that I was confused when answering the questions and that you couldn’t take the figures as being accurate. This is especially so after I had had to have a repayment arrangement for the second loan – this should have been a signal to you that something was wrong with the expense figures you were using.
I therefore think you should refund the interest I paid on the 3rd, 4th and 5th loans.”
Liam says
Hi Sara,
I have gone back to Mr Lender and this is there response:-
Mr Lender came to the offer of reducing your outstanding loan down to the capital borrowed, as you still have an outstanding balance left to pay. We took into account your full loan history including that four of your previous loans were settled earlier than your contractual settlement dates. As you have an outstanding balance we wished to ensure no interest would be applicable on your most recent loan.
“Although for the reasons given we deem our offer to be fair and reasonable we would prefer to resolve your complaint amicably and in a timely manner. Therefore as a further gesture of goodwill we would be willing to reduce the capital remaining of £516.22 down further to £310.08, by deducting the interest paid during second loan where you settled via a repayment plan and also a payment of £33.89 which has been received today through your DMA.”
I have managed to get £440.65 back from you and i am more than happy. Across the 6 loans the interest would of amounted to £519.15 and i think accepting this is the right decision. If they had just refunded the 3rd, 4th, 5th and Last Loan Interest then this would only of been £359.40.
Many thanks Sara
Sara (Debt Camel) says
that sounds like a good improvement!
Gary says
Update 2 Safety net credit have agreed my account was unaffordable and wiped my balance of £672 which I’m happy with against interest/charges of £800 today is a good day ?? thanks for this amazing site £4000 back so far !! Still got my biggies with QQ and 247 Moneybox and Moneyboat to go
Scott says
Hi Gary
Thanks for leaving this feedback re SNC.
Can you be clear did they wipe your balance of £672 AND refund £800??
If so that’s a fab result – Can I ask how long did the process with SNC take – was it the full 8 weeks?
Gary says
No just wiped the balance took 5 weeks in total Scott
Scott says
Glad to hear it took 5 weeks I am currently at the 4 week mark.
Do you know how much interest you have paid to SNC over the time the account was open? If its a fair chunk then maybe just them wiping your outstanding balance isn’t the best result. As you can see from the ombudsman decisions website there’s a fair chance of getting a refund of interest paid in addition. Although that’s an individuals personal decision to make on what outcome they want.
Thanks
Gary says
I was happy enough with that as a result as it’s now off my DMP
SB says
6 weeks in and it’s been a great start.
The small wins are coming in first; MyJar refunded all charges and interest that comes to c.£150 but clears a debt off of the list.
SNC have refunded all interest and added statutory 8%. Again, only works out about c.£100 but clears another small debt from the list.
The biggest hitters – UK Trust Loans and Avant Credit (surprisingly being encouraged along by the debt collector!) have both been in touch to saying they aim to respond by the end of next week and interest/charges from them is over £4.5k. There are 4 other complaints all up to this figure but total ‘best-case scenario’ is over £7k if all come in! The little wins are certainly giving me some encouragement as these are the most recent and I though the least likely to come in.
Overall remaining debts of £9k in my DMP so I’m hoping to make a massive dent out of this and crack on with life again. 5 incredibly difficult years, now with a very bright end on the horizon.
Thank you Sara. I hope you’re planning on taking a well deserved break at some point soon!
Gary says
Good Luck mate, I’ve had some great wins also so far ????
David says
Hi,
This website is a gold mine of info and I appreciate the help that it has been to me! Like everybody on here I got into a mess and couldn’t get out of it. My fault initially but I feel I was exploited. I’ve worked my backside off to pay these guys off. I then stumbled on this website and chanced my arm.
In total I used 14 separate companies. To this point I have had a no go from 24/7 and Lending Stream but Payday Express and Payday UK have confirmed they lent irrensponsibly. Almost £4000 is due to be returned to me. I was just wondering if anybody could give me a timeline on when they pay it? I signed and returned the acceptance letters last Thursday.
Thanks again for this website. X
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s not much help, but they are a bit erratic!
I hope you have sent the 247 and lending Stream complaints to the Ombudsman?
Alan says
Could you tell me if there is a template to send complaints to ombudsman please Sara
Many thanks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No there isn’t a template. See the article above that looks at how to send the complaint in – it’s easy!
Tinkers says
Hi, how long did payday uk and express take?
My complaint been with them 11 weeks but sent to fos last week
Thanks
AK says
Payday express rejected my complaint on week 7, Payday UK asked for an extra time on week 8. It is week 11 for me as well, I haven’t heard anything from them yet. Both complaints are with FOS waiting to be allocated.
James says
Hello,
I’d first of all like to say a massive thank you to this site as a whole!
Looking for some advice really, its been 6 weeks since I sent my complain to the pay day loan companies, I have received most of the statements back from them but not them all. The emails I received stated they would aim to resolve complaints within 4 weeks, is it worth me chasing them for a response or waiting the full 8 weeks?
If I did need to contact the ombudsman could I contact them at once regarding all the pay day companies or would I have to contact them for each individual one?
Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No point in chasing, just sit back and wait.
You have to put in a separate complaint about each lender. But once you have done one, you will find it very quick to do the other ones! And the credit record and bank statements you supply for the first will be shared amongst your adjudicators.
Tim says
Has anyone got any advice on requesting bank statements for closed current accounts?
I seem to banging my head against a wall with Barclays. Customer Services tell me to go to local Branch>Staff in local Branch don’t know how to or if it is possible to order statements via their system, tell me to call Customer Services>Online chat service tells me to call Customer Services due to unsecure chat>Customer Services tell me if Branch cant help to send them a letter requesting the statements.
I’m happy to send a request via mail, but wondered if anyone has experience of this?
Maureen says
Hi, I had exactly the same issue with NatWest. My account was closed in 2013, they kept saying they’d been requested when they hadn’t, tried the branch, head office but was banging my head against a wall. I finally went down the complaints procedure route and that’s when I finally got them. This went in for about 2 months….I had an adjudicator who was waiting on them and kept extending the deadline a few time but eventually said if they didn’t arrive he’d have to look at the case with the info he had. Fortunately, they arrived shortly after.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I have to say this is unusual. Hundreds of people here have got their statements from closed accounts, few have had any trouble. But obviously some cases need perseverance!
sw says
I had a similar experience with Natwest and my account was still open! Statements requested, never came, requested again, never came….it turned out that as I has online statements ‘ticked’ they were never going to be posted! Simply unticked online statements and two sets arrived! Worth checking for anybody in a similar situation.
Maureen says
Yes this was my ongoing saga….frustrating as they always said they had requested them. I think when it went into complaints they must have picked up on that tick box! I eventually got a few sets too….was a nightmare though!
Scott says
Hi Tim
I had exact same problem with a closed Barclays account. The telephone support and branch staff pushed me back and forward between them.
In the end it was really simple – I wrote a simple letter requesting statements from the date the account opened to now. The letter was sent internally by Barclays to their central processing and a week later I got all statements to my home address by post.
I requested the branch staff photocopied the letter and date stamped it so I could keep a copy.
This didn’t cost anything- hope this helps!
Linda says
I had the same problem with Barclays and was referred to lots of different departments with no luck. In the end I went in branch and explained my problem. They insisted they couldn’t do it ‘in branch’ for a closed account saying they had no access to my account info now it was closed but I explained that customer services couldn’t do it either and eventually they printed off 18 months worth for free there and then in branch. Don’t think they liked it to be honest but I wasn’t having any luck requesting them over the phone and I made loads of calls so it was getting a bit silly.
Alan says
Latest Update
Peachy settled an amount lower than wanted but needed at time
Ferratum offered just over half but was only £39 roughly so happy with £20.
Lending steam says no so need to decide best way to pass to ombudsman
Mr lender says nothing wrong but will offer half total amount. Offer is just over £300.
All since 30/9/17.
Gary says
How long did ferratum take to respond and offer ? Thanks
Alan says
Approximately 6 weeks to offer but doesn’t mean will be same for everyone
Jax says
How long did it take for Mr Lender to reply to your complaint out of interest?
Gary says
Mr Lender were really quick on mine just offer 2 weeks including refund ?? I had about 5 or 6 increasing in size
Alan says
Approximately 6 weeks to offer but doesn’t mean will be same for everyone
Gary did Mr Lender offer full count straight away or did you have to fight it?
Gary says
Think I’m obsessed with this site , love seeing all the good refund stories. Sara deserves a damehood ???
Liam says
Me too Gary, i found out about this by chance and got myself into trouble with payday loan companies and took gambling which i have since stopped. I am currently in a DMP with Stepchange and have complained to all lenders about irresponsible lending via templates and i have today had £268 written off an existing debt with Mr Lender who i am going back too but this has now given me hope now with all the other that i borrowed from.
I can’t thank her enough
Jax says
I agree. Had a shock today. Decided to go through old bank statements and found I had paid 3200 in interest to PDE / PDUK from 2009 to 2012. I didn’t even realise at the time that they were 2 companies. Thought I was borrowing from just one. This one has to be worth pursuing. …
Lee says
Treat payday express and payday uk as 2 seperate complaints although the same company operates them. You can then mention other payday lending in your argument why you believe both lent irresponsibly. Mention if you had both loans from both companies at same time etc. Cross reference a bit. I work in finance so know quite a bit about doing these cases and got over 4k back so far. I just happened to get in a mess due to a gambling problem.
Helen says
I’m a little bit annoyed with my adjudicator. They’ve not upheld my PoundstoPocket complaint after only looking at the info PoundsToPocket sent them.
The adjudicator has sent me the details I have allegedly given to P2P at time of application, and one of the things I’ve told them is that I spend £75 per month on food. That’s for myself and two children.
I cannot remember saying that, and apparently I’ve quoted this exact same figure for two loans, which are almost two years apart! All other numbers are fictional but exactly the same. I can’t remember quoting thes figures but it sounds like an extreme coincidence that two years apart I “made up” the same figures? Also utilities are £75 per month at the time of both applications. Heating alone is more than that!
Adjudicator has not looked at my bank statements and has not taken into account that during the course of he first loan (12 month repayments) I made payments late + accumulated 4 defaults. (Due to not being able to make payments, not because I prioritised other things.)
Will send to ombudsman now but feel annoyed the adjudicator has not taken the time to look at this properly.
On a positive note, diffeeent adjudicator have ruled in my favour in my wonga case, asking them to refund interest on 6 out of 11 loans.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
is this a final decision by the adjudicator?
You need to go back to them with a detailed explanation of why you think this is is unfair. If it is a final decision, then ask for this to be passed on to the Ombudsman – do not wait for the ombudsman to get in touch, get your views there in writing now. If it iosn’t a final decision, ask your adjudicator to look again at it.
If you don’t recall saying that you spent £75 a month on food, then state that you didn’t, ask to see the evidence that you did. Be very clear that you deny saying this.
You could point out that in other complaints you have had, eg Wonga, there has been no suggestion that you deliberately gave misleadingly low figures.
You should also say that a lender should consider if an application seems reasonable – and £75 a month for food for an adult and two children manifestly isn’t.
And then also point out that the defaults on your first loan should have meant that they should not have given you other loans without looking in detail at your situation, which they clearly didn’t.
Even if the lender took your word for this on the initial application, your subsequent borrowing should have suggested that you were in much bigger financial trouble.
Helen says
Thank you Sara, you’re a star!
The letter is saying that if I’m happy they’ll co wider the case closed, if I’m not I need to get in touch by the 23rd November.
First loan Feb 2014:
Late payments June and July
2 defaults registered August, 2 December
(No defaults on these loans, the defaults were on credit cards and catalogue)
In December 2014 they give me a top up on this loan. Fully repaid November 2015.
Second loan December 2015. Repaid November 2016.
The details they have given are correct for income and rent. All other numbers insure are bogus. These are identical for both loans:
Utilities £75
Transport £150
Food £75
Credit commitment £150
Other £75
These numbers are so ridiculous I cannot for one second believe I quoted them. I had different jobs during application of both (one walking distance, one long commute), different housing so utilities would be different. (Separated from husband in November 2015.) Childcare costs would’ve been completely different.
Will write a letter tomorrow and will let you know how I get on.
Lee says
Helen part of your argument back needs to be although the figures stated were less than your actual financial commitments at the time. You either had a gambling problem / serious addiction which made you repeatedly borrow. Or explain why you borrowed again. Be honest. Or state your credit commitments were actually a lot higher as per bank statement evidence given.
You argue that as I repeatedly borrowed proper affordability checks should of been conducted at least after a short period of time. By requesting wage slips / bank statements. This wasn’t done and they accepted what I was saying on face value.
This then resulted in my payday loan debt spiralling, paying on provider off to pay another. Increasing my loan amounts etc. Requesting a new loan shortly after paying other off or shortly after payday etc.
Helen says
Thanks Lee, but these loans were my very first ones so at this point I didn’t have several on my record. I also didn’t have gambling problems.
I was struggling as I was married to a gambling addict (first loan) and then as a single parent (second loan).
After these as I never managed to get on top of things again I ended up with almost 50 payday loans.
I am also sure I didn’t lie (this much) on the applications. I would’ve estimated my outgoings and probably tried to make them more favourable, it not to the extent they claim I did!
Liam says
Hi Sara,
I know this is a place for payday refunds but i cant find the place on your site for refunds against bank charges and interests?
Good Evening, My name is and i would like to make a complaint about irresponsible lending you have made to me since 2013 where i have had a bad credit rating yet you have continuously allowed me me to get overdrafts and loans with yourselves despite you being aware of the financial difficulty and hardship i have been in. Since 2013 i have worked out that i have paid �1386.29 in interest to you and �1063 in Bank Charges. Things like this have crippled me where i was trying to gamble just to make ends meet where i could pay off other debts. The majority of my time you’ll be able to see where i was taking further loans on pay day just to settle existing loans. I would like you to know that i am now in a Debt Management Plan and the gambling has stopped and i am trying really hard to turn my life round and sort my finances out and i have also in the past arranged payment schedules with you to sort this out After checking through all my Statements despite me continuously being in my Overdraft and on my limit i managed to pay it off but when i applied again i was allowed loans with yourselves and even another Overdraft which i am still in now. I am asking today if there is anything you can do for me as these charges have really hurt me and everything has spiralled out of control and have left me in a cycle i was unable to break out of
Sara (Debt Camel) says
OK, some detailed questions about dates… depending on the answers this could be a good complaint!
So you entered a DMP on what date? which DMP firm?
Then you got a payday loan refund and paid off the overdraft – what date was this? Did you ask for the overdraft to be removed?
Then you borrowed money from the bank – how much? what date?
And you then ran up your overdraft again?
BUT why are you still borrowing if you are in a DMP and you have had payday loan refunds – are you still gambling? If you are, this all pretty pointless. Unless you stop gambling, any refunds will just end up increasing the profits of the bookmakers…
Liam says
Hi Sara,
I entered a DMP back in September with StepChange and made my first payment back in October and have stopped the gambling completely.
In May 2013 i managed to get an overdraft and by the end of the month i was at my 2k Limit. From then on i was constantly in my overdraft at the limit until 23rd Feb 2014 where i spent a couple of days out of it completely but was back in on it 5 days later. During this time Payday Loans were still being taken out however in March i was then allowed to increase my limit to £2500. For the rest of the year i was maxing out my overdraft but in dec and jan i was able to get out of it again but only for a couple of days.
I am unsure of dates with this but it was a few years ago but i also had a repayment plan with them for my first overdraft to get it paid off as well.
However Jan 10th 2016 i was allowed to take out a loan for £2200 which i paid back a few days later and second loan from them on the 17th jan which was paid on the 19th jan. I was gambling here and despite being able to pay the loans off i was able to pay my Overdraft off in full and got it removed. Back in May 2016 i was then allowed another Overdraft of £1750 and the following month this was maxed out.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Ok, well starting from the end…
if you borrowed 2 loans really quickly but repaid them in full, it’s going to be hard to argue you lost much by being given the loans. Also having cleared your overdraft in January and been out of it for months, it’s hard to argue they shouldn’t have given you another overdraft (one exception UNLESS you had told them at any point that you had gambling problems and you didn’t want an overdraft? I assume that wasn’t the case.)
But the earlier period, where they increased your overdraft when it should have been obvious you had problems – I think this is probably worth a complaint.
Suzanne fairclough says
Hello
I sent an email using the template above to Lending Stream for 2 loans I had with them. One is paid off in full and the other is still outstanding. There reply was they did credit checks and it said I was ok to have the loans even though I had been taking loans out with other company.
Resolution:
In lieu of the overall situation, we believe that Lending Stream has behaved responsibly in approving your loans.
With the above being said, we are ready to extend our support in clearing the debt and offer to waive all the interest and charges incurred on the outstanding loan and are ready to accept the remaining principal balance (Borrowed amount – Paid amount). The remaining balance on the loan would be £270.44.
Now I don’t know what to do and can I still claim back all interest etc back.
Thanks
Suzanne
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Is it right you have only had two loans? How much did you borrow on the first loan? how much interest did you pay? How much did you borrow for the second loan? what was the “gap” between repaying the first loan and taking out the second loan?
Suzanne fairclough says
Yes I only had 2 loans with Lending Stream. It was £539 on the first loan in Feb 2013 and £669 in April 2013. I don’t know the interest I paid as I can’t download my account statement.
Vickie9 says
Hi Suzanne, have you put your date of birth in the box so that you can then open your account statement?
Suzanne fairclough says
Thank you that worked. It says the interest on both loans when I took them out equalled £1083.
Sally says
Has anyone put in a complaint with. Cash4U Now and if so what were your experiences with them. Did they uphold the complaint? How long did they take to reply?
AK says
Sara, QQ after initially offering nothing at all and saying that they lent responsibly offered me the refund on the 3 biggest loans (£1500 each) of 14. Last week the adjudicator sent me an email telling that QQ won’t consider loans older than 6 year. Fine, I answered that I’m happy to drop these two loans from my complaint and today even before the adjudicator looked at my case they offered me £9,643 incl. statutory interest of £809. This also removes my outstanding balance with them of £640 (which they quoted as £1,143). I paid them all together £12,300 in interest in 6 years time. Two loans from 2011 were small, they don’t make any difference. There was a gap in borrowing after 2012-2013 which they refund until one loan in 2015. But since October 2016 until now I borrowed again pretty large sums. These loans in 2016-2017 and one prior to the offered ones in 2012 will make most of the £3k difference on interest I paid and their offer. Is £9.6k a decent offer then or should I go back and ask them to include more loans (one from 2012 and 3 in 2016-2017?
AK says
It’s actually a typo in their offer QQ said that the interest I paid on 3 loans is £809 when in reality it is £8,398, they didn’t tell the amount of the statutory interest. How £809 less £1,143 can make £9,643???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well 9.6k is clearly not a small offer but those figures seem very confused.
Have they listed the loans they will be refunding you on? Do you know how much interest you paid on these loans? How long ago were these loans?
The 2016/7 loans you have repaid – how large are these?
The last loan that is outstanding – how much did you borrow? how much have you paid to date on this loan?
AK says
Yes, they did. The interest I paid on 3 loans is £8,398 as above. Loans were taken in 2012 and 2013. Then I had gap until 2015 (borrowed from other lenders), one loan in 2015 and again borrowed in 2016-2017. The full list as below (date, amount borrowed, amount repaid, the interest). Last loan was for £750 I paid only the first installment of £109 and then stopped as they refused to provide me with bank details that I can include them in my self-managed DMP and I couldn’t afford to pay the second installment.
31/05/2011 400.00 -700.00 -300.00
20/08/2011 600.00 -735.00 -135.00
25/09/2011 1,000.00 -1,250.00 -250.00
20/10/2011 1,500.00 -3,375.00 -1,875.00
20/04/2012 1,500.00 -3,593.57 -2,093.57
21/11/2012 1,500.00 -2,922.00 -1,422.00
11/06/2013 1,500.00 -6,382.85 -4,882.85
20/08/2015 600.00 -953.28 -353.28
11/01/2016 600.00 -981.84 -381.84
23/04/2016 550.00 -793.32 -243.32
21/07/2016 1,000.00 -1,728.00 -728.00
04/03/2017 250.00 -296.00 -46.00
04/05/2017 1,200.00 -1,888.80 -688.80
23/07/2017 750.00 -109.20 640.80
AK says
3 loans they offered to refund are loans taken 20/04/2012 – 11/06/2013
Correction. There was no gap between 2013 and 2015. The loan taken on 11/06/2013 was so called flexi loan with the limit of £1500 and I constantly borrowed and made payments until August 2015.
Bobski says
I’ve just turned an offer down from QQ. How long was it before they made another offer?
AK says
This was my first offer, directly they didn’t offer me anything. I asked the adjudicator to check the figures with QQ as they don’t add up, waiting for the QQ response.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So the three loans they say they were refunding had interest of 8397 (ignoring pennies). statutory interest on that would be 2400-2800 ish.
But you have paid 13396 interest overall. so they are only offering you two thirds of the interest AND it sounds as though they are still trying to charge you the interest on the last outstanding balance.
Definitely get some clarification via the adjudicator, but it doesn’t sound good to me!
AK says
Thank you Sara, yes, it seems that it is what they offering after all £8397+£2400-£1143=£9654 (their offer £9643) if I ignore their typo of £809 copied most likely from the email to previous customer (as Sunny did in their final response given me wrong numbers and calling me wrong name at first). £9.6k is a lot of money, my first instinct is to take and run forgetting QQ as a horrible nightmare but at the moment I’m in the position I can wait. So I think I ask for more.
Thank you again for this site, I’m already better off getting refunds from SNC, Sunny and Myjar but the biggest ones (Wonga, Lending Stream, Payday UK, Swiftsterling and QQ) are still work in progress.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It is a lot of money! it would be quite understandable to take the money and run! But I am hoping you should get an answer from the adjudicator pretty quickly.
Sean says
Hello, Looking for some advice please :)
After two weeks lending stream have responded with an offer of £524.00 (including the 8% interest). I took out 16 loans over a 5 year period (as well as other payday loans elsewhere)to the value of £5,760.00. The total paid back (including interest) was £11,972.50 (difference £6,212.50)
Not sure what I was expecting, so unsure if this is a reasonable offer or not. Any suggestions?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So it’s less than 10% of the interest you paid? It doesn’t sound good! Well worth getting the Ombudsman to look at this I would have thought.
Sean says
Thank you Sara – off to the Ombudsmen it has gone today. Fingers crossed :)
Thanks so much for this page and your advice – really appreciated
Lee says
Sean my lending stream one referred to ombusdman today as they counter offered adjudicator findings.
Adjudicator ruled on 28 loans. I should be refunded from loan 6 onwards and get 8% plus remove all these loans from credit file. I worked out due around £800-£900 in total.
Lending Stream counter offered picking random loans think around 9. Worked out £348 refund offered no 8%. Then would remove a handful of other loans that they would not get me refunds for. Didn’t take me long to decline this offer. Told adjudicator I agree with his ruling so send to Ombudsmen we go.
Also an hour later another adudicator has picked up the 3rd of 6 cases with the FOS. Just wanted to know a few extra details. Told me she will review my Wage Day Advance case and give me her findings by the end of this week. So finally feel like things moving a bit. Considering these were referred to fos between July and september.
Lending Stream then offered m
Sean says
Thanks Lee, hopefully when the adjudicator reviews he will find in my favor also. Got to say though, I’ve found extremely difficult to deal with so no doubt they will challenge the findings and it will go all of the way to the ombudsmen
Ross says
I can’t get my head round my adjudicators ruling against Avant credit . The ruling was to refund interest, add statutory interest from the date of payment to date of settlement and removal of adverse information.
I did the calculations however Avant credit came back with a lower figure based on the statutory interest . The difference is £400 and is due to them paying the interest on the payments I made had I not paid any interest (i.e loan taken 2014 and if all payments were principal payments the loan would have been paid in July 2016) they are therefore only paying statutory interest on the payments I made after 2016). I have checked with the adjudicator who in turn checked with a ombudsman (or 2) . The adjudicator has come back and said Avant credit are correct as calculating the interest on all the payments would penalise the company and result in me getting a better payment . I just wanted to find out if anyone could shed light on this as the ombudsman confirmed that if the return of interest had resulted in me still owing a balance I would not receive any statutory interest added to the account as there would be no overpayment of payments . Feel free to ask question if it doesn’t make sense.
Jon says
How long did it take them to reply?
Ask FOS for a breakdown of the calculation is it’s not adding up.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
First I think I replied to your previous question without a lot of thought, just assuming it would be like a serious of payday loans, where the statutory interest is added to each repayment then any balance remaining is deducted.
But actually for just a single loan (which I assume this was?) it can’t work quite like that.
Take one extreme case. Supposed you had borrowed 3000 from them 6 months ago, making monthly repayments of £150 for 3 years for a total repayment of £5400. Since then you made the 6 monthly payments = 900. The Ombudsman decides for whatever reason you should never have been given this loan and orders them to remove the interest from what you have to repay. Removing the interest means your balance goes to £3000 – the £900 you have paid = £2100.
There isn’t any question of getting any statutory interest here. Why would there be? You haven’t yet paid any interest amounts, so you just have to repay the remainder of what you borrowed.
Let’s use the same example but later on in the loan. If you were 2 years in, you would have paid £3600 so you would be getting a refund of 600. But the question is “which” 600 as this matters for the 8%.
(NB you would NEVER get 8% on the whole 3600 payments you have made – you can only get them on the “interest” you have incorrectly been charged.)
You could argue that each payment you made contained some interest and some capital repayment. But to be honest the Avant Credit approach just seems a lot simpler – to work out when you would actually have paid off the reduced loan and refund everything from that point on, plus statutory interest.
So for the figures in your case. You wrote:
“They claim their understanding of the calculation is to allocate all early payments to the principal then pay statutory interest just on the payments I would have overpaid (from July 2016 onwards). The loan was issued and Payments were made from 2014. Despite 2 weeks of back and forth, they are advising that’s how they have interpreted it. If it was a few pounds I would let it go but its the difference of £590 VS £112 (The statutory interest). The interest repayable which is correct is £1724.”
If this interest repayment was paid equally from say May 2014 until now, 3 and a half years later, you would get 3.5*8/2 pe cent interest = 14%. the “divide by 2” is in there because you paid interest in chunks through the 3 and a half years and this is equivalent to paying it all at the half way point through the contract and would be about £241. The £590 you have somehow worked out is 34%. I can’t see how this could ever be correct.
I would agree the difference between the £241 I have calculated and the £112 they have offered is annoying, but I don’t think their alternative calculation is that unreasonable, it is simpler and it’s not a huge amount of money.
Ross says
Thanks that makes sense now and I’m happy I replied earlier accepting their proposal . I think my confusion was calculating it as if it was multiple smaller loans as seen on here before in which case I would have paid off in full the earlier loans . Thank you so much for your help and the site it been a godsend .
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I’m glad you are happy – it looks like a good result to me :)
Alan says
Spoken to Mr lender today and they said total paid in interest across all 8 loans is about £1200. They offered £331 which is half interest paid across 3 consecutive loans so I’ve asked for full across these 3 loans which is about 662.
Jax says
Do PDE/PDUK send their response to your complaint by email please?
Gary says
Yes they do.
How are your claims going Jax ?
Jax says
Not too bad so far. Refunds received from Qq after sent to Ombudsman Wonga, Myjar settled directly with me. Balance was written off by CFO. Waiting now on 247Monetbox, Mr Lender, WDA, PDE and PDUK. Hopefully will hear soon. Not bothered with LS after reading on here but they were only 2 small loans of 200 each. You seem to have had some good successes, well done.
Gary says
Good for you , yep I’ve had over 4K back so far still waiting on 247 , QQ, Moneyboat, Ferratum and WDA so hoping for a few more ?? Fingers crossed
Jax says
Good luck with those :)
Jax says
Out of interest did 247 acknowledge your complaint? I’ve had nothing from them since submitting my complaint nearly 2 weeks ago except for a n auto generated email.
Jax says
I’ll be happy when they’re all done and dusted. Worst 5 years of my life trapped in this mess but they were all paid off in 2015, with the exception of CFO where my balance was written off earlier this year. When I think back to the stress especially after I decided enough was enough as I couldn’t afford to pay them and these lenders constantly harassed me. My fault I know but sometimes circumstances that get you into these situations just can’t be helped.
Gary says
247 did eventually but took them nearly 5 weeks then they offered to write off remaining balance on my DMP of 230 Quid,I refused as I can pay that off myself now thanks to refunds and my interest is about 2k plus with 247, don’t think it’s going to be easy with 247
Gary says
Keep emailing 247 Jax I sent about ten emails asking for a proper acknowledgement but like I said took five weeks to get a response.out of all of mine so far Mr Lender have been the best by far
Jax says
Thanks for the advice. I’ll persevere!
Mrs W says
Uncle Buck didn’t respond to my Adjudicator, so now off to the Ombudsman. Has anyone else had the same?
Mikie says
Sara, I have an issue, it’s regarding my recent quickquid refund.
I’ve now found that they have put a BALANCE of £2016 (one of my refund amounts coincidentally ) on my call credit file.
I don’t owe them anything (nor have I for several years) – what should I do?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s amazing how many ways there are to mess things up… Phone them up and demand that it is removed immediately and ask for £50 compensation.
Mikie says
Thanks, I’ll do that today, after everything they still manage to give me one last thing to worry about!
Mikie says
They aren’t answering their own customer service line! I’ve contacted the Ombudsman for assistance. Absolutely unbelievable!
Mikie says
They have contacted me by email the phone line is down apparently after getting in touch by online chat.
They are refusing to even consider my complaint without me sending them my ENTIRE Noddle credit file! They were even flippant enough to state that they only report to callcredit and not Noddle!
mike says
Just an update, they issued a final response stating that they had done nothing wrong, they had 45 days to remove the old loan account (they basically didn’t listen, it’s showing as live with a balance – how hard can it be?) and “your requested for compensation is denied” So I’ve had to send to ombudsman via the site and raised as a new complaint. I have sent QQ my credit file printout anyway – as well as to the ombudsman of course! I thought I was rid of this.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
deep sigh – let’s hope this gets sorted quickly.
Matt S says
Well after the Adjudicator finding in my favour in my irresponsible lending complaint against Nationwide regarding my overdraft, yesterday I received the following email from him.
“Nationwide came back to me this afternoon confirming they were unhappy with my revised view.
It seems likely this complaint will need to go to an ombudsman for a final decision in the near future. Both consumers and businesses are allowed to escalate a case for a final decision. I’ll be in touch once I know for sure, but I think that looks the most likely course of action at the moment.”
I’ve asked the question of whether this means they have actually asked for it to go to an Ombudsman or whether they have just asked for more time to consider, and also whether they have supplied any further information. My adjudicator spent about 3 months deliberating on this one, including getting as much information as possible from Nationwide and speaking to his senior colleagues so surely if Nationwide haven’t provided any further information then the Ombudsman is likely to go with same opinion as adjudicator? So cant see what they would gain by dragging it out further.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The Ombudsman agrees with adjudicators about 90% of the time. (It’s a bit lower for payday loan cases because the Ombudsman often tinkers with the award, changing “everything from the 5th loan ” to “everything fro the 7th loan” or “everything from the 2nd loan”, so sometimes customers get more, sometimes less.)
It sounds as though your adjudicator has done a very through job with this case – I would guess that means it’s more likely that they have thought of every angle already and covered them in their decision.
Matt S says
Thanks Sara. I agree, I think he has looked into everything. He continually questioned them on their claim I had no adverse information on my Experian report (even though I had provided a copy of my report which shows that there was) and said they couldn’t provide any proof of their claims and their answers when questioned were vague.
As he only mentioned that they were unhappy with is findings but didn’t state that they had actually asked for it to go to the Ombudsman but just that it was just likely this would be the case, I’m hoping they are just looking for a bit more time to discuss internally. I really don’t see what they’d have to gain by taking it further considering the thorough job that the adjudicator did, other than taking more payments and interest from me in the meantime (but then they’d have to refund this anyway if Ombudsman does agree with Adjudicator).
Anyway will see what happens!!
Lou says
Hi has anyone had any luck with WDA or Lending stream? The adjudicator agreed with me but they haven’t got back to him yet and the decisions were made end of October.
james says
WDA gave me a refund of £3000 refunding all the interest payments, charges and interest on that money since. I only sent one email and they replied 8 weeks later saying exactly what I wanted! So slow in my experience but worthwhile!
Kathy says
My complaints are just starting to be picked up by Adjudicators, all asking for the same information. I sent in bank statements and a copy of my credit file when I received my first letter, what do people reply to the subsequent letters … I really don’t want to send it all in again!
Gareth says
Give a list to the adjudicator who has picked up one of your cases ask them can they also look at your other complaints and provide the case reference numbers for each one.
Good luck
Vikki says
Has anyone had any luck with Wage day Advance – my loans are over 6 years old – they have rejected my claim (huge letter from them on this) and said I should have realized 3 years ago (only found out this was an option in September this year!)
Thanks
Vikki
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Send it to the Ombudsman. This may take a long while to go through but if you had quite a few loans from them it’s well worth trying.
Vikki says
Ok will push through the ombudsman – paid about £3k in interest to them over the years so worth a go!!
Louise says
Hi Sara, I received an offer from QQ just over a month ago – if I wanted to accept it now, could I? I didn’t accept at the time as I sent it to the FO but I haven’t heard anything from them yet and I am thinking if I accept now I might just get the money in time for Christmas.
The interest totals £4,300 including the interest I haven’t yet paid. They offered me £1100 plus a write off of £950.
Also if I accept the offer would they also give me the amount I have paid since? I have paid a small monthly payment as agreed with the debt collector. Would I get that back in cash or would I lose that as the write off part of the offer would be reduced? Many Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You would have to ask QQ. It doesn’t look like a good offer so my guess is they would be happy for you to accept it! As I said before the £950 “write off” is not really a refund as a lot of that will be interest.
I don’t know what they would do about the extra payment you have made.
Kate says
Hi I’m looking for a bit of advice, payday uk agreed a settlement at the end of September which was to reduce my balance and remove negative report from my credit score, I agreed to this however they have not done so and I’m unable to send them an email as it keeps failing
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you phone them up about this 0330 024 1642 and say you will be sending your complaint to the Ombudsman if this isn’t sorted within a week.
Kate says
Thank you Sara for your reply
AK says
Some while ago I asked the question when 6 years time period is starting. Today I received a clarification from my adjudicator that they calculate the 6 years time period from the when the complaint was first brought to their service.
Wiggles says
Just an update on My QQ case, The FOS said yes and QQ paid out today after a few hiccups (they didn’t process the Flex loan at first)
Refunded interest and charges £3,684.22
Interest at 8% simple £1,257.05
20% tax withholding on interest £251.41
Amount paid to your account £4,689.56
Just waiting on the final Decision from Lending Stream from the same Ombudsman and its all good
AK says
Wiggles, congratulations. How long did it take to get a decision? I have an adjudicator assigned just recently, how long it takes after their pick up the case to send you their decision?
Wiggles says
well i put the initial complaint in october 2016, august this year i decided to forgo the loans that were outside of the 6 years, and then it got assigned to an adjudicator, got the ombudsman was assigned and i got a final decision on the 6th nov
AK says
Long journey! How long the adjudicator looked at your case before making a decision? If I just assigned the adjudicator when can I expect for them to send me their findings?
gillian says
sara i know this page is for payday refund but i have just put in a complaint for ppi on my tsb credit card and they have sent me a form that is 4 pages long it as questions like who did you speak to what did you spend the money on who was your employer and what was your income how much did you have in savings and other questions since this card was taken out over ten years ago and went to a debt collecter in 2012 with a balance of 2500 pound now paid in full thanks to payday refund i can not recall most of this what should i reply if you could help please ty
Sara (Debt Camel) says
i have no idea why they want to know the answers to those questions. Try asking on here about it: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=169. If you had PPI then you will probably get some refund under the new “Plevin” rules even if they decide you shouldnt get a full refund for some reason.
Jamie says
Evening all.
Just had my final response letter from PayDay Express. They say that the 3 loans that i received on the 17th April 2012 to 18th of May 2012, 28th August 2014 to 1st of December, 1st of March 2017 to 1st of September 2017 were lent responsible.
The 4th loan i took out on 23rd of April 2012 to 12th July 2012 they say that they could of asked for more information before approving the loan. They have been unable to determaine the affordability of this loan, and as such have been unable to review it. But they say if i send bank statements and my credit report at that time they’ll be happy to review it an do a redress.
As they haven’t upheld my complaint how can they say they’ll be happy to redress?
Jax says
How long did it take them to decide they couldn’t determine affordability?
Jamie says
Put the complaint in 6th of September. I’m tempted to reply back saying well why can’t you redress the last loan
Jax says
Maybe send it to the FOS? I’ve seen others on this thread have however sent them their bank statements and been successful that way.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Would you be happy if the only loan they refund is the 23/4/12 loan?
If the answer is No, then you may as well send the complaint to the Ombudsman immediately, no point in delaying things. If the answer is yes, then you may as well send them your bank statement and credit record, saying that unless that loan is refunded you will be sending the full complaint to the Ombudsman.
There are large gaps between your loans. They are obviously dubious about the one they have picked up as it overlaps with the first loan.
The large gaps make it harder to win an ombudsman case, but it does depend on the facts of your individual borrowing. If the loans were large in relation to your income or your credit record was very poor, you may still be able to win a case with the ombudsman for other loans as well.
Jamie says
How do i find out my credit report for that time?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You can’t – just send a copy of your current credit report.
Sasha paton says
Hi Sara
Just wondered if anybody is getting news on loans over 6 years old i have a few biggies with the fos that are from 2010 as that was the height of my borrowing wonga along i had 16 loans in a 12 month period and interest was about £3000 same with qq. Theyve been with fos since august when both said they wont consider due to being too old!
D says
Ok so just some advice, got an email today from the ombudsman. Asking for the final response details and dates I took out the loans. Does this mean it’s now been allocated and getting looked at?
Brad says
No probably not mate. I got that and then called up 2/3 weeks later and they said they have everything and it’s now in adjudicator queue
Stuart says
Kicked the process off on Monday with 8 lenders, Peachy already back with a final decision saying the 3 loans I had (couldn’t remember the number) were affordable, they won’t uphold my complaint but will offer £35 good will gesture. Going to request old bank statements and confirm the volume of loans and amount with all lenders first before considering any offer, especially those lenders (QQ being one of them) who I borrowed most often from.
QQ asked for statements and payslips, sent a version of your suggested response. :)
Tempted to accept the Peachy offer but have 6 months to respond so no rush.
Thank you for sharing this info, great website! Will update in due course.
Stuart says
Update…
My jar have upheld my complaint about Txtloan from 2012 – 3 loans of £100, £100 and £200 taken in 30 days of each other. Amount offered = £145.20, which they say is what I have asked for – interest and charges! I’m tempted to accept immediately but again going to hold off until I have my statements from the banks to confirm that it was only 3 loans.
Lending Stream – acknowledged and investigating.
Quick Quid – 2nd response after I said no to my payslips and bank statements, now investigating.
Peachy – not upheld, £35 good will offer on 3 loans from 2012.
Next credit – acknowledged and investigating.
Mr Lender – acknowledged and investigating.
Payday contact – no response.
Pounds to pocket – no response.
Ferratum – acknowledged and investigating.
I won’t accept anything until I have my bank statements to verify all of their investigations and then to calculate charges and interest independently.
Gary says
Update – QQ/ pounds to pocket had just over £5000 in Loans with nearly £3k in interest some over 6 years ago came back today with an offer of £12 what a joke , definitely sending this to FOS , what’s the process to do this Sara ? I knew these would be a joke.
Thanks
Gary
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Process is discussed in the article above ^
Mike says
Hi All,
i’ve had a response from Lending stream this morning even though i stated that this wasnt a Subject Access Request asking for me to pay £10
We see that you are requesting to investigate your concern regarding the affordability analysis and credit checks conducted when the loans were approved. We would like to inform you that such nature of query falls under the purview of Subject Access Request (SAR).
Therefore, in order for us to provide you with the information, we would request you to send us a written letter addressed to Lending Stream with a £10.00 cheque (in favor of Lending Stream LLC) as per the Subject Access Request (SAR) requirements under the Data Protection Act 1998.
To ensure that you understand and agree to the terms and conditions of your loans, please refer to the agreements which were initially sent to your registered email address at the time of borrowing. We would request you to refer to our emails for all the information shared by Lending Stream with regards to your loan accounts.
Upon receipt of the request, we will be able to share the information within 40 calendar days. As a regulated organization under the FCA, we make sure that we treat our customers fairly and provide the appropriate resolution.
has anyone else had this trouble with them? i’ve gone back and stated that in my original email this was not a subject access request!
any help would be appreciated
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes it’s common :( Just tell them to get on with your complaint or it will be going to the Ombudsman at 8 weeks.
Denise says
@ 2009-2011 i had about 8-9 payday loans ongoing, eventually it became too much and i then approached a debt management company to handle my payments, and managed to get it under control.
Around 6 months ago i read that claims could be made against payday lenders for irresponsible lending – which then lead me to your website.
I have since then approached ALL the payday lenders i held current loans (being handled by the dmp) and a couple that had already written off.
Each company has offered me to write off my existing debt with them and offered a refund – not high amounts- but when i started i only wanted to reduce my current debt and was happy with the writing off of the debts any cash refund was a bonus. The companies i no longer hold debt with offered refund of interest on my last loan with them.
Anyone thinking that its not worth trying, i would say give it a go, send an email/letter, you have to resend a few times to get them to take you seriously, i did not get back anything near the amount of interest that i had paid to them over the years, and this is partly due to the timeline – i was not aware before now that irresponsible lending was ‘thing!’ until now, and yes, maybe if id went to the ombudsman i would have got more, but my feeling is that i got myself into the mess, i just wanted these companys to admit that they should have been a bit more productive in checking circumstances after the 3rd or 4th rollover loan and they have. Good luck!
Gary says
Update – Ferratum have agreed to wipe my o/s balance of £700 and refund me £250 cash very happy with that and just over 6 weeks in total from start to finish. Another one off the list
Gary says
Accepted Ferratum offer around 4pm today had email confirming my account now closed and refund was in my bank within half an hour. Nice to see they can return it as quick as they deposit it. V impressed with their speed after accepting the offer. Good luck fellow refunders with all of your claims ??
Lisa says
Well done Gary – hope it was a nice amount for Christmas :)
Darren says
Afternoon all,
looks like there may be some positive movement regarding 247 moneybox. called the ombudsman for an update (was assigned to one on the 31st October) and I have just been told they are working with 247 in batches and they are starting to find cases that were rejected at adjudicator level are now being accepted by 247. don’t know if this is just a delay 247 do to everyone but thought I would share as my original complaint to them was in March and finally looks it will be over in a few weeks time :) should be a good £2.5k due back.
Gary says
Referred my Quick Quid complaint today to the FOS ….. just a waiting game now on that one ☝️
Lisa says
My cases that were referred in early September (12th) the first one has been picked up just yesterday if that helps with timeframes.
She did say that they try to get an adjudicator response out on all complaints within 90 days.
AK says
Sorry for the stupid question. 90 days since the case was picked up or 90 days from the day when FOS first received the complaint?
Lisa says
I ask enough myself AK :)
They said 90 days after they receive the complaint on the system (normally about a week after you have sent, when you get your first email)
Lisa says
Welcome mate. I was beginning to feel like there must be so much work it would take forever. Im now hopeful that I will get an initial outcome on most if not all ahead of Christmas. My last acknowledgement = 90 days is Dec 21st.
Although I am expecting about half of these for the business to not bother responding or disagree, but hoping that maybe 4 will come to a conclusion :)
SalGal says
Hi,
From my memory, the 90 days is calculated from when the FOS has ‘enough information to consider the case’ i.e. when they receive all requested information from both the business and the consumer e.g. business file, debt management information, joint account holder info etc. So, if they ask you for more information on your case provide it ASAP – the clock will only start ticking when the adjudicator has enough information to look into your case.
Lisa says
Hi Nicola, thank seems like an awful long time if you have had an adjudicator assigned for 3 months. Is there anything in dispute i.e. over 6 years old? Have you tried giving him a quick call to find out what the delay is?
Nicola Handley says
I emailed them yestarday and not heard anything back from them.i still a wonga loan out standing they put it on hold for 30 days but will be due to be payed next week.no there is nothing in dispute.all loans are under 6 years Mark
Heather says
MyJar refunded interest & charges on the loans I had but when I emailed them to get the details of the loans taken off my credit file, they emailed back to say “we are unable to remove the MYJAR entries from your credit file as we are obligated to share accurate information with the credit reference agencies” Is this correct? Or can I complain to the FOS about it?
AK says
Only negative information has to be removed when FOS make a decision, paid and closed loans could stay on the file even after Ombudsman decision. If the offer came directly from the provider then it is their decision to keep the information or remove. So far I don’t have any negative information associated with Myjar, they told me that once I repay my outstanding balance which we agreed (refunded interest wasn’t enough to cover the outstanding balance), they will permanently close my account, but removal of the information hasn’t been mentioned. As it is not negative I don’t bother as I don’t plan to apply for mortgage in the near future and for other credit applications closed payday loan account has no impact.
Lisa says
I would suggest if you did not specifically agree that they would do this when you agreed to the closure of the complaint as full and final (When you said you will take the money) then there is nothing you can now do. In any event, I’m the same as AK, the rule is via the FOS to remove ‘negative’ imformation from a credit file i.e. defaults, but only if this was specifically part of the settlement.
Jess says
Hi been told by QQ that basically my loans taken out in 2010 are too old and to contact the ombudsman. I’ve asked my bank for statements but got a letter to say they don’t keep statements for older than 6 years ago. I have a couple of statements though that I can see all my payday lenders on what do I do?!!
AK says
My adjudicator sent me an email last week that QQ won’t consider any loans older than 6 years, the 6 years period starts from the date the complaint was submitted to FOS. My first loan they will look at is from October 2010, if I want to complain about loans older than that I have to wait until FOS resolves the issue with QQ. I have only 3 small loans prior to October 2010, so, I asked them to be dropped from my complaint. If you have a significant number of loans in 2010 you will have to wait, some people in this tread said that they waited for a year and then asked their adjudicator disregard loans taken prior 6 years time limit as the waiting time is unknown.
drew says
Jess
I just got my bank statements about 2 weeks ago from Barclays going back from 2001 – 2013, I needed these for 6 of my complaints, don’t listen to the bank, if they refuse to give you statements then they can still give you a copy of your ledger.
Jess says
Ok – thank you both for your replies !! Will ask the bank again xx
SalGal says
Don’t ask the bank for statements – technically they don’t keep these past 6 years. Ask for a list of transactions. They’ll basically send you a list of all transactions on your account between the dates you specify.
Jess says
Ah right brill will do thanks!!! Xx
Michael says
Hi,
I have an issue with 247 Moneybox.
Last month the sent me a vague email:
“I have reviewed your account, and e remain confident that the required assessments were carried out prior to the advance of all loans. We are able to substantiate fully the information on which lending decisions were based.
However, in addition to removing all negative reporting to the credit reference agencies we can, as a gesture of goodwill and without admission of liability, offer a goodwill payment of £xxx.
Please confirm this acts in full and final settlement, and confirm the sort code and account number to which payment should be made.”
I accepted this, but today they have emailed myself with a detailed final response, saying i accepted this goodwill offer in October…. But all the details on the final response appear to be about another individual. (No loans, Job, Location, Income etc etc all do not relate to me)
Therefore can i raise the complaint with the Financial Ombudsman for this as the offer i accepted doesn’t appear to be related to me account and the complaint doesn’t appear to be handled fairly.
Thanks.
Lisa says
Not sure what you mean. I believe the offer you accepted last month was based on your details, but appears that today they have mistakenly sent you someone elses final response?
Michael says
The offer i accepted, didn’t contain any specific details… just a offer of goodwill. Today it appears they have sent a final response, including that i accepted the goodwill payment etc, but all the information in the final response appears to be related to someone else, the job is different, the income is different and they state i had 3 loans, but i actually had 22 Loans. This all leads me to believe they investigate my case incorrectly not using my account details at all.
Kerry says
So today is 8 weeks since I started my complaints and things are going well so far!
Ferratum – Balance write off and refund
Lending Stream – Low offer so sent to FOS
Moneyboat – Settled with refund of about 75% of interest paid
Payday Express – Email to say they needed more time. Will send to FOS today
Peachy – Low offer so sent to FOS
Piggybank – Settled with refund of about 70% of interest paid
Quickquid – Wouldn’t uphold so sent to FOS
Safetynet Credit – Balance write off
Satsuma – Wouldn’t uphold complaint so sent to FOS
Sunny – Balance write off
Uncle Buck – Wouldn’t uphold so sent to FOS
Wageday advance – Wouldn’t uphold so sent to FOS
Wonga – Low offer so sent to FOS
247 Moneybox – No reply after 8 weeks so will send to FOS today
Lending stream and Quickquid are my big ones with many years of repeat borrowing. Paid over £5,000 interest each to both so hoping once an adjudicator picks them up they’ll be found in my favour.
Looking back over my history has been a shock to say the least and I cannot believe the mess I got myself in! Thankfully I’m now at the end and in the next 6 months that should be me completely debt free! The best feeling ever!! I cannot praise this website enough!
Is it still 2-4 months for adjudicators to be allocated? And can I ask the same adjudicator to look at all my complaints?
Lee says
It’s around 2 to 4 months to be picked up for adjudication. Just got adjudicator findings on my wage day advance case today, which was submitted in early September and ruled in my favour on loans 5 to 19.. And 3 weeks ago my July cases sent to FOS were finally picked up.
I asked an adudicator who ruled in my favour on Lending stream case to pick others up at time but depends on their workload and was unable to do this. But My payday express and wageday advance ones were picked up by same adjudicator.
But basically they have started looking at September submitted complaints atm. So probably looking at end of January / Feb if submitting now.
Shannon says
Yes it is still 2-4 months. You can ask the adjudicator to pick up your other cases once assigned. I asked and my adjudicator did.
stephanie says
what was your experience with uncle Buck? very interested to know as I found them patronising and unhelpful and they emailed me back a final decision within minutes of my complaint also stating they will not give the ombudsman permission to access my accounts. Bank statements sent to FOS yesterday
Matthew says
Hi
I am in financial difficulty with credit cards and my overdraft which is costing me £500 per month interest just of £8000.
My overdraft is £5000 pound. When I got this overdraft I had a serious gambling addiction. I applied for £1000 and got accepted, within 5 minutes lost that and applied again for another £1000 lost that and so on to £5000. So within 30 minutes I had applied 5 times and got accepted each time and ended up with £5000 overdraft which I have been in ever since. I have paid around £100 interest each month for it and now the new rules which came out on the 2nd November I am paying well over £200 a month interest only which has been compared to payday loans at a 52% interest rate. My bank is Halifax.
I think the bank should not of let me increase my overdraft thousand after thousand within less than half an hour and I think it’s really unfair that I was allowed such a large overdraft without being informed of the future changes. Do you think this is worthy of a refund letter? I know you can ring them up and they might possibly freeze the interest but I am wondering if I do that will it effect my chances of claiming back a refund? I am also nervous of contacting them incase they just cancel my overdraft which I know they have the right to do at any time.
Any help/advice or info would me extremely appreciated (advice probably being stop gambling which I haven’t for last 6 months)
Thank you
Matthew
Lee says
The fact that it is your bank they can see all your transactions. Could see gambling history on statement is strong case. I would also stress the fees incured.
I think the increasing overdraft multiple times in same day with no breathing space is irresponsible and the amounts you were allowed to increase by is significantly high and forms the main argument you need to stress in your complaint letter.
Then mention fees and figure paid so far.
Worth a try.
They will probably only refund you interest and fees incurred not the overdraft amount itself. But really argue it..dont give up. Send to Ombudsmen if required after 8 weeks and mention you are lodging a compliant with the FCA aswell if a satisfactory outcome is not reached asap. As their overdraft process needs to be reviewed- should have to wait at least 24 hours before you can even request another overdraft increase from a security point of view if your account had been hacked for example.
Lee says
I have gambling problem but work in finance / fraud prevention so know quite a bit about this.
What bank do you use?
Matthew says
Hi lee cheers for your reply and info. I bank with Halifax. Yes that’s what I think, they should of atleast given me 24hrs to reapply for a increase. You say you worked in fraud prevention, should they have waited 24hrs? And I think it definitely can’t of been reviewed in person because I remember the day it happened and it was late at night and it all happened within minutes.
I will work out some figures and have good think what to write and send them an email. I have had this overdraft a few year now so the interest I’ve paid will be quite substantial.
Lee says
Other banks it’s 24 hours before another request can be made. (As if your account was hacked it reduces the potential loss / refund required by the bank to customer.)
Do it bullet points in arguement part of letter including figures.
Bullet Points to stress
* As my bank provider, you can see my bank statements and adverse credit commitments and multiple gambling transactions), which is evident for years on these statements. Therefore it was irresponsible to allow me to have such a high overdraft facility in the first place.
* Before taking out this loan I was always in my overdraft facility, since ……. which demonstrated I was consistantly financially struggling.
* Then 5 overdraft increases in less than an hour that were significant increases of £1000 per time. No preventative safeguards in place to stop irresponsible lending or reduce potential fraud loss taking place.
* Then my overdraft Fees incurred as a result were excessive. This resulted in further hardship of how much over how long so far. (Halifax did nothing to help me when I notified you I was initially struggling – include bracket bits if applicable)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I agree 5 overdraft increases so rapidly should have caused the bank to stop and have a human look at the request. I don’t see any point in mentioning the prevention of fraud issue – you are making a case why what they did was irresponsible lending to you, not trying to improve the banks systems generally – so for example of the following week you had paid off the whole of your overdraft you wouldn’t have any grounds for complaint as you hadn’t lost anything – even though what the bank did was stupid that wouldn’t get you a refund as you hadn’t lost anything.
Brad says
Hi Matthew, I am in the same situation with Lloyds. My OD was £4,990. They rejected my complaint and I had taken out loans and had a credit card with them.
I’ve sent it to the FOS based on lack of affordability. Lloyds have said they will agree a payment plan with me and stop all interest etc but I would be closing my accounts down. I already have another bank account so I will be taking this option.
Lee says
They should refund you at least fees incurred to date. Then stop any future fees being taken, by arranging an affordable reducing overdraft facility for you both each month.
Given what you both said I think £100 – £200 reducing facility per month would be fair as your overdrafts are so high and remember you wont be paying the overdraft fees instead your facility will be reducing. Remaining disposable income should be around 350 per month when taken everything out.
And with Christmas coming up ask for the reducing facilities to start from the 1st January then the 1st of every month just after you get paid.
Steve says
This website has been phenomenal and I’d really recommend reading Sara’s guidance and giving it a go. I’ve already had £2.2k refund from Wonga due in next few days. I spoke to PDUK/PD Express and they’ve changed their policy in last few days about sending out loan details. Asked them earlier and had details of loans with both companies sent this afternoon. It’s a complicated document and takes some deciphering but will give you an idea how much interest you’ve paid for determining whether their offers are decent.
D says
Hi sara,
If I had a balance which was written off by Sunny, (£750 sold to another debt company, which I have since paid off) and then an adjudicator says im due a refund of £450 from sunny. Does that mean ill not get anything from them?
Shannon says
As long as you have paid the balance, as you say you did, then you should receive the full refund.
Jax says
So I have received an initial response from 247 well after the 5 days they quote in their complaints procedure. As a gesture of goodwill they have offered to remove any negative information from my credit file. They go on to make a statement about templates on the internet and say that it is wholly inappropriate to compare their actions with other companies under the wholly subjective banner of irresponsible lending. I find this rather ironic as I understand this is a templated response to my complaint that others have received. Needless to say I’m not going to accept this goodwill gesture especially as the default they registered on my credit file will fall off next week. The debt that was outstanding when they defaulted me has been paid in full for some time.
Gary says
No keep chasing them Jax
Liam says
Jax ive just had exactly ther same and my loans were in 2011.
What have you replied back with?
I don’t want to say something to aggressive to them.
Jax says
I advised them that I would not accept that offer and asked them to continue to investigate my individual complaint that wasn’t based on a template as suggested.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would ignore the bit about using a template letter. It’s irrelevant. Just keep it simple and say their goodwill offer is inadequate and you will be sending your complaint to the Ombudsman at 8 weeks if they haven’t made you a satisfactory offer.
You should expect this to have to go to the Ombudsman as many of your loans will be over 6 years old.
Chris says
Hi, thanks very much i’ve Just received a response turning a £1000 debt into an offer of £1500 less the outstanding debt. However they have refused to look at some of the loans as they can “see that I entered debt management and at that point should have been aware I could complain”
I never entered into any debt management plan, I briefly looked into it but never received any advice or attempted to set up a repayment scheme. I’ve requested a statement to see how many loans are excluded from this offer but would assume the interest would be significant given they leant to me 4 months later when I “was no longer in debt management”
They’ve asked for a £1 fee to furnish me with a statement also. Would you agree that the Offer will likely be set to tempt me to accept? Also it’s unclear whether the defaulted loan has had the interest refunded in the offer – would this be expected?
Finally is statutory interest 8% on the interest or 8% per annum?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you reply that you have never been in a debt management plan and unless they send you a full statement of all your loans you can’t consider their offer properly and will be sending the case to the Ombudsman.
How old are your debts? Who is the lender?
Statutory Interest is 8% per annum on the interest payments you made.
Chris says
Hi – the lender is PDUK. I don’t have a full record of the loans as I moved banks to get out of the debt spiral. The letter says that they can’t look into the loans pre-October 2011 on account of the alleged debt management/over 6 years old.
I responded saying I may have explored debt management but never entered into it and would require a statement to evaluate the offer but received a response almost immediately advising I’d have to apply in writing with a £1 fee.
My rough recollection is that there may be 3 or 4 loans in this period. I’m confident that debt management was never an issue – if I pursue the complaint a) could I lose the existing offer b) can loans of 6 years plus be investigated?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I’m not sure if you are saying there were 3-4 loans within 6 years and a lot more before, or only 3-4 loans over 6 years.
If most of your loans are within 6 years, it may be worth trying to settle for just those. But until you get a statement of account it’s really hard to tell if the offer you have is good, OK or pretty poor… You could ask PDUK what you would get for your £1 – if it’s a complete statement of all your loans you may decide this is worth it just to be able to make a decision. But there is a chance they will just send you the statement for the last defaulted loan!
If most of your loans are over 6 years, then I suggest you send the case to the Ombudsman. The ombudsman will need your old bank statements, this is possible from closed accounts and most people have found it straightforward despite being worried about it.
The Ombudsman is looking at loans over 6 years and PDUK have paid out on many of these. I think debt management sounds like a red herring – just because you knew you were in trouble doesn’t mean you were aware you could complain to the Ombudsman and that is what matters.
We haven’t yet seen a case where someone has got less by going to the Ombudsman than the offer a lender had made. I don’t think there is a rule to say this can’t happen, but the “worst” is usually that an adjudicator tells you that you should accept the lender’s offer as it seems fair.
Jon says
Hi, I had a response from an adjudicator regarding at least 7 payday express/uk loans. It basically says that as I was in a debt management plan in 2012, I should have known about the obligations with the lender and that I should had complained sooner. Then he apologises that there’s no more he can do.
Just my luck! Has anyone else had a similar response?
Jax says
When were the loans from? Before or after the DMP?
Jon says
Mostly before but they told me they can’t investigate anything older than 6 years
Jax says
Who’s the lender? I’ve had loans over 6 years refunded and after I entered into a DMP.
You could respond saying you weren’t aware you could complain giving the timescale that you did realise. Ask for it to be referred to an Ombudsman. There are loads of cases on here where people have complained about loans and they have subsequently entered into a DMP and they have been successful.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Don’t give up – ask for your case to go to the Ombudsman.
The fact you were in a DMP means that your finances were a mess. It doesn’t mean that you knew you could make a complaint about irresponsible lending!
The DMP firm you were with wouldn’t have told you what an affordability complaint was because no one was making them back then. It is a point in your favour that you got help from debt experts and they didn’t tell you about irresponsible lending.
Lewis says
Hi Sara just after a bit of advice,
I’ve have had an offer from lending stream and don’t know whether it’s good or bad, how can I work out whether to take it? I had 5 loans in total but they have told me they only believe that’s the last one was unaffordable? Would you take it further? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So they have offered a refund of interest on the last loan – how much? It doesn’t sound a great offer, but I think it’s good to look at all the facts before making a decsion.
The previous 4 loans, can you give some details…
How much did you borrow for each loan? How much interest did you pay on each loan? Were they 1-month payday loans or longer instalment loans? What were the “gaps” between the loans – how long from repaying loan 1 to taking out loan 2, etc?
Sam says
Hi, hoping someone might be able to offer advice here. I’ve had a few PD loan refunds made possible through this brilliant site! (Thanks Sara, you are amazing!) Today I have had a credit land in my account from ‘ virage pl 2 ltd co ‘. Normally, I have paperwork from the FOS or the secondary company (it was before I found this site!) but nothing with this one. Does anybody have any idea which company it relates to?
Thanks in advance!
alan says
a quick google search shows this
https://www.google.co.uk/search?safe=strict&hl=en&ei=gLgPWsO8D8Xyaq33iNAI&q=who+owns+virage+pl+2+ltd&oq=who+owns+virage+pl+2+ltd&gs_l=psy-ab.3…3853.3853.0.4014.1.1.0.0.0.0.81.81.1.1.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0….0.mpbxX_mlryE
ignore the random letters that somehow came up the link worked when i tried
Sara (Debt Camel) says
No idea. It looks as though they are some kind of payment intermediary, not a lender themselves. Is the amount large?
Sam says
Around £600 which is why I’m confused.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it could be a random error, nothing to do with your payday loan complaints. Or it could be a refund you haven’t yet been told about!
If you can manage to, the safest thing is to move the money into a savings account and not touch it until you find out more. If you don’t hear anything in 6 months you probably never will…
Mrs W says
Hi Sara, I just want to say a HUGE thank you. My complaints have been picked up by an Ombusman only one month after being forwarded from the adjudicator for both Uncle Buck and Wonga! I am in complete shock as expected to wait 6 months. So so pleased, now to just wait on the funds. Over £6000 from Wonga and £1200 from Uncle Buck, both originally offered me nothing. I only submitted my complaint emails in the middle of June so feel very lucky to have had such a quick response. Thank You so much.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That’s good news, recently the average wait seems to be 2-3 months but let’s hope it is getting quicker!
Steph says
Some disappointing news from the FOS today. Despite the adjudicator ruling in my favour for a PDL with lending stream (it was only one loan, but was taken whilst having PDL’s with 3 other companies), the ombudsman has rejected my complaint.
I’ve been sent a letter asking me to confirm whether I agree or disagree with those findings. On the basis that this is the final stage I could take it to, why do the FOS ask me whether I agree or disagree?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If the Ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator the decision usually becomes final straight away because you and the lender have both had an opportunity to comment on the adjudicator’s decision.
If the Ombudsman changes the adjudicator’s decision, then this is usually a provisional decision and you have an opportunity to comment on it – is this what is happening?
Steph says
Yes, the ombudsman changed the adjudicator decision. They gave me a provisional decision and opportunity to comment on it. I didn’t – as I didn’t feel there was any more to add on the basis of already told the adjudicator about the amount of debt and other PDL’s I had.
I’ve now received the final ombudsman decision with an attached page asking me to confirm whether I agree or disagree with their findings.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, it’s a shame you didn’t comment on the ombudsman’s provision decision, it’s now too late :(
You don’t have to accept the final decision – it is binding on a lender but not on you. But as your only further option is to sue the lender, this is the end of the road for your complaint I am afraid.
Nigel says
Moneybox 247 watch
Update for Saturday 18th November
No refund paid yet. But they actually acknowledged an email i sent asking when they would be paying. That was remarkable in its self, i did point out continued failure to answer or reply to my emails would result in a further complaint to the FCA seeing this has taken 17 months from start to finish! The refund is due by the 27th November.
Heather says
Finally got my refund cheque from Satsuma this morning, nearly £750, my current loan written off (over £3000) and credit file info removed! Thank you Sara, I am so glad I found this website.
Anon90 says
Did they send you a resolution letter with a cheque or did they email you first? I have spoken with someone today saying they have written off my loan and a resolution letter has been sent out I’m wondering if they have an offer for my other 2 loans as well as I’ve paid £800 in interest and they have written off my current one of £500 which was just interest.
Anon90 says
Hi I have made a complaint against satsuma. At the time of complaint I had missed 2 payments but was setting up a payment plan with them. Today I had an email of my borrowing summary and when I logged on it says I have paid up £497? What does this mean as I have a payment plan set up starting next week ?
Lee says
Hi recently had 3 of my 6 payday complaints left to go looked at by the adjudicators. Already got back over 4k with 7 other providers over the summer within the 8 weeks.
Lending Stream case won on loans 6-28 (Of 28) including additional 8%. Worth around £900-£1000. Lending Stream counter offered adudicators findings with £348 offer on 6 random loans. Not the full 22 advised. So referred to ombusdmam queue to rule.
Payday Express case ruled in my favour by adjudicator on loans 4-12 with 8% around £500-£550 due back. P.E Haven’t accepted adjudicator findings yet.
Wage Day Advance case ruled in my favour from loan 4-19. Smaller loans but worth around £450 back. Awaiting if they accept adudicator findings or not.
So around another 2k hopefully on my day making hopefully 6k back but 3 still to go.
Does anyone know if Wage Day Advance normally accept adudicator findings or do they drag it out to the ombudsmen?
Gary says
Has anyone had much luck with Money Boat ? They have 2 weeks left for final response?
Thanks
Gary
Kerry says
They emailed me 3 days before the 8 weeks were up and offered a refund which I accepted and had transferred to my account 48 hours later. Good luck!