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?
Ben says
Ok so I sent an information request to Payday UK and Payday Express, they have said the accounts were sold to BW legal and should contact them accordingly…
In the interim I sent in my affordability compliant to both lenders because I meticulously went through my accounts and managed to work out what I had withdrawn and paid.
Should I now forward the compliant to BW legal, I’m assuming once they get the complaint they will offload the account back to the OC.
Now, this flags another question will PRAC (BW legal) then remove the defaults they placed against my CF and will Payday Uk/Payday Express apply a new default?
Once I have sorted the paydays out, my intention is to get rid of the defaults on my CF. I believe I have a better chance with DCA than the OC. So just after advice really.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Tell PDUK and PD Express that you want them to consider your complaint as they are the ones that made the irresponsible lending decision. You have to ask BW legal if you want a statement of account for the defaulted loans because PDUK and PD Express don’t know how much you have paid BW legal.
You are NOT making an affordability complaint to BW Legal, just asking for a statement of account. You should tell BW LEgal that you are disputing the loans with PDUK and PD Express as this will prevent BW Legal starting any legal action.
BW Legal have bought the loans from PDUK and PD Express – they will not consider an affordability complaint, remove the default or decide to “offload the accounts back” as they can’t do that
But if PD UK and PD Express decide you should have a refund on the last loan, they will normally buy it back from BW legal, settle/reduce it and remove any default. So this all comes right in the end.
So to summerise:
– the OC considers all affordability complaints and arranges for the last sold loan to be sorted if a refund is given
– tell a DCA you are disputing the debt with the original lender and ask them for a statement of account for the last loan if you need this.
Helen says
Does Sunny normally agree with the adjudicator? How long is it normally from adjudicators decision until Sunny confirms if they agree or not?
Adjudicator has partially upheld my complaint about Sunny today.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Often they do, but they still seem to refuse with some good cases. Fingers crossed yours is accepted.
Jon says
I’m really annoyed at my Bank.
When I rang up nearly 3 weeks ago to order historical statements. The bank were cagey and asked my reasons for ordering them, but ordered them. Then I ring up today and it turns out they were never ordered in the first place.
Can I complain to the FSO? I feel they’ve been deliberately obstructive.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You have to first complain to your bank. I hope they are sorting the statement now?
Maureen says
This rings so true of what I had to put up with, with NatWest! Months it took me to get them, I had 3 accounts with them at the time too that I was trying to get statements for. Go down the complains route….it’s the only way you’ll get them. Good luck!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This is pretty unusual – most people don’t have a problem getting statements, even from closed accounts.
Maureen says
Yes mine were all closed accounts and was unusual going by what people say on here…..complaints team were better at dealing with my request but it took around 3 weeks for them to look at and action my complaint. Moral of the story….start requesting bank statements right at the beginning of the process when you first lodge the complaint with the lender, chances are at least one of your complaints will go to the FOS and they are always required.
Francesca says
So my husband put in a complaint in with safety net credit a few months back which they decided they were not going to uphold. He then sent it to the ombudsman. An adjudication has emailed him today stating he only had 2 loans and that he doesn’t feel it was irresponsible. He also stated they weren’t actually pay day loans and were in fact a credit account. My husband lent of safety net credit over 20 times. Where does he stand on this? He has rang the adjudicator and asked him to have another look. When he lent from them he was also lending of other pay day companies at the same time which were all being rolled over. This went on for a period of 3-4 years. Any advice would be much appreciated!!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, this sounds as though it isn’t the adjudicator’s final decision, so you can go back with more information.
Points to make that often crop up with SNC (some of them may not be relevant for you)
– SNC could see from your bank statements what a mess you were in
– they always took the full amount of the loan each month by CPA, even though this was in theory a credit account, it left you unable to manage unless you borrowed from them again
– SNC may have treated your borrowing from other payday lenders as “income” when they decided you could afford the loan from them – this is nonsense
It can help if he picks a few months at random from the 20 – not the best or the worst, and goes through and analyses that month’s bank statements. So his balance at the start, his income, his essential expenditures , his payments to other debts, his additional borrowing from other lenders , his repayment taken by SNC and the extra borrowing from SNC. From this it is usually obvious that he HAD to borrow again from SNC to stay afloat – so the SNC repayment they took was not affordable.
if he then adds up
Francesca says
Do safety net credit have complete access to bank statements? I’ve just been through some from the time he was lending and there’s at roughly 4 other payday companies he was lending from at the time! If they could see this then surely they would have detected a problem? From what I can see they didn’t take it out by CPA. He wasn’t on a particularly low income however his debts and bills took it all. Does it sound irresponsible? I’m second guessing it all now with the response he had from the adjudicator.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well they do normally. If they didn’t take money by CPA, was it a DD? 20 months continuous borrowing from SNC with other payday lending at the same time is DEFINITELY irresponsible lending. Take this to the ombudsman level if you can’t get the adjudicator to change their mind.
Francesca says
Brilliant! Thank you! We’ve just sent ANOTHER email to him now!! What will happen if he still doesn’t agree? How do we get this to ombudsman level?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The next step is he will formally set out his decision and send it to you and SNC (who will obviously love it). Then you can say you disagree and want it to go to the ombudsman.
Claire says
Sara,
Just accepted a full settlement plus 8% from 118118 with no negotiation or debate – very pleased.
Slightly concerned as when i gave them my bank details they confirmed they were the ones they had on file – My loan was settled in October 2016 – should they still have these?!
Thanks,
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good result!
Lenders have to keep records for 6 years after a loan is settled. This doesn’t include keeping bank details, but I don’t think they are obliged to delete them.
Gary says
Quickquid complaint referred to adjudicator after a disgraceful offer of £12 , still being investigated but Quickquid have now come back with an offer of £1100 bit of a difference from £12. Just shows it’s worthwile referring to FOS
M M says
Interesting. I rejected their £30 against £2000 claim offer and sent it to FOS. I emailed QQ to tell them that I have done so, and all they said was they respect my right to do so, no counter offer!
AK says
QQ offered me £8000 + 8% interest after the complete rejection while in the queue to the adjudicator. Also my adjudicator said that QQ stopped to make second/third offers as they now understand how FOS works and usually their offers are pretty much on the spot.
Kara says
Gary, I had a £12 offer from QQ too despite having paid £5k+ in interest (some loans are older than 6yrs). I have forwarded it to the FOS and am interested to see if an offer might come in whilst I’m in the queue.
brendan says
Has anyone dealt with ferratum? How are they to deal with?
Gary says
I found them very easy to deal with Ferratum Brendan
Eva says
Hi all,
Just wondered. I’ve sent my first online complaint to FOS 15/12/17 and other 21/12/17 with all the documents they might need. Just wondering how long till i get sllocated to adjudicator? Thank you
AK says
I sent mine mid October – beginning of November, some of them haven’t been allocated yet, some were allocated in the beginning of this month but no decisions yet.
JohnC says
I put in a complaint to the FOS against Lending Stream end of Sept and still not picked up by an adjudicator. Every time I ring it’s “in a queue” so patience might be required if you’ve just put them in, in Dec. It also depends on how quickly the business you are complaining about supplies your file to the FOS team as this holds things up. They do say once they have this file and everything they need they aim to have a response within 3 months
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Lending Stream are exceptionally slow at sending their case file to the ombudsman – this is probably what the delay is.
AK says
One of my adjudicators when introduced himself told me that although my case has been assigned to him, he has 20 cases assigned before mine. And even the case itself only takes couple of days to look at it will have to wait in the queue for a while. 3 month decision time as well was mentioned.
Eva says
Thanks guys. I actually received a phone call from adjudicator that afternoon that they requested files from PDUK, PD EXPRESS and QQ which I only submitted 3/1/18. My lending stream submitted 15/12/17 has not been picked up
Chasabeth says
I had my QQ complaint looked at by an adjudicater just before Christmas and it has a decision but it has now been referred to another adjudicater because I had a loan which was a little different, I was given a limit and I could draw down money up to that limit… I must admit I don’t remember this, has anyone else had a decision made on this? Also how long did it take? The last phone call the lady I spoke to said there were only certain people who can look at this so my complaint has been delayed again. In another queue waiting to be looked at.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This is one of their flex loans. If you don’t remember this, and if your records show that you actually repaid the full amount then reborrowed, just like you would with a normal payday loan, I suggest you tell your adjudicator this. It may be that QQ have your loan labelled as a flexi loan when actually you thought you were taking out a standard loan.
Chasabeth says
Thanks Sara, I’ve emailed them to see if they can let me know the decision about the other loans without this one or if they could treat it as a normal payday loan.
Fingers crossed they will come back to me soon, this has been with them since August & I made the decision to discount the 3 loans I had which were over 6 years to get this looked at quicker.
Lesley McBain says
Thanks to this phenomenal site I have claimed back money from PDUK and PDExpress and the Money Shop all without having to go to the FO.
However having been turned down flat by Lending Stream I sent all my info to the FO and when picked up by an adjudicator he agreed with my claim except for the first 3 loans. LS replied within the time allowed and offered me £499 plus the 8% simple interest – I’d already printed out copies of all the interest I’d paid and even removing the first three loans the interest and defaults etc still came to over £1200!!
So I’ve phoned my adjudicator and he agreed to look into my records and I have now sent him a spreadsheet of all payments and interest paid plus a copy of all loans received and payments made from my bank account to LS.
Is this what they usually do to slither out and hope you accept a much lower amount?? I must admit I could do with the money – sigh but reading what others have said I wondered if this was normal for LS?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“slither out” yes that sounds like Lending Stream :(
Some people will be so desperate that they feel they have to accept a low offer. It is a very poor and unprofessional way to run a company.
Link says
Received a letter today from my adjudicator advising me my case has been passed to an Ombudsman because Wonga failed to reply to the adjudicator.
They had until the 3rd of January to reply. I contacted the adjudicator on the 5th and they advised Wonga we’re experiencing delays in getting through their mail due to the amount of complaints they had and the Christmas break.
Now I guess my adjudicator has decided they have had enough time.
Will the Ombudsman be likely to side with the adjudicator? They ruled I was entitled to a refund and 8% interest on all bar one small loan. I hope the decision doesn’t get scaled back.
Also, how long does it normally take for an Ombudsman to pick up and come to a decision?
Thanks folks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Most adjudicator decisions are just upheld, but a few are tinkered with (so you get one or two more or fewer loans refunded) and a VERY small number are overturned. If there was something really “wrong” with your adjudicator decision, Wonga would probably have said so by now and objected to it. It’s about 2-3 months for an ombudsman decision usually but there is a random element here.
Jayne says
Hi,
I had 6 loans with WONGA 2012-2013
10 loans with payday uk 2012 -2013
I have sent letters off to both from the template on here and have had a reply saying they have 8’weeks to investigate.
Do you think I will get a refund ?
Thanks
JOJO says
Hi
Firstly like to say thanks this website is amazing .I just wanted to know I have emailed Wonga regarding affordability claim twice they have not answered is there a length of time I need to wait.I have a reply from QQ,PTPD,Moneybox 24/7 /provident to say they looking into it .I still not tackled Lstream or sunny .
Karen says
Hi Sara
Thanks for all the useful information on this website :-) I have submitted affordability complaints to all the payday lenders I have borrowed from but I have a question regarding 118 118. I borrowed £2000 from them in June 2017 and I am repaying at £160 a month. I also borrowed from payday lenders around this time. Is it worth submitting a complaint with them and if so, what settlement would be reasonable given that I still have a considerable amount to pay?
Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes it is worth complaining to 118 money – the affordability for them are the same as for payday lenders – if you can’t repay the £160 a month without hardship or borrowing more, then the loan is unaffordable. The settlement offer in this sort of situation is to remove the interest so you only repay what you borrowed.
Karen says
Thanks for this Sara. I emailed my complaint to them on 17 January and on 20th received an email offering me a top up loan!!! Do I keep this as evidence in case I need to refer to the FOS?
Jackie crawford says
Hi
Received a response from casheuronet who said they had looked at both my quick quid and pounds to pocket complaints. Got the usual response that the loans were over 6 years old and as I didn’t tell them I struggled with payments, I wasn’t deemed to be in financial hardship and could afford the repayments. I was getting other pay day loans to pay these ones and was also in an Iva!
My letter will be going to the FO to complain so fingers crossed
Julze says
That’s interesting… txt a loan, wonga both refused mine. I’ve emailed tonight to inform them I’ve forwarded to the ombudsman as I most definetly don’t agree with their decision. I shall see if they reply to that..
So far only an offer from pay day uk.
Cheque centre told me they have went into liquidation. So I need to join the creditors queu for the £3500 intrest refund. I’ve sent that away and hoping for the best.
Tom bar says
Hi. I know I’ve asked a lot of questions on here now. I really appreciate your help. But I have another query. I’ve recently received a reply from lending stream. And this is what they’ve said.
“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”
What would be the usual solution here. I’ve tried reading up on this but can’t seem to find out what to do in this situation.
I’ve had 11 loans with lending stream so it’s definitely one worth perusing for me.
Thanks in advance
Tom
James says
https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-lender-wont-send-loan-details/
Have a read on there mate.
James
Steve says
Lending stream are the worst of the lot for trying to be awkward. All this is basically saying is they won’t send you a list of your loans. You may be able to log into your account to access this (your password to access agreements is your date of birth in format ddmmyyyy). Otherwise, just use the template above and say something along the lines of ‘I am making a complaint about irresponsible lending for all my loans with Lending Stream. Unfortunately, you have not supplied me with a list of loans, but I have borrowed from you significantly in recent years’
Another pet hate in their email is ‘with regards to’ – this is incorrect English and should say ‘with regard to’…illiterate imbeciles!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
And my pet hate – they write “in lieu of” when they mean “in light of”…
Tom bar says
Thanks for your help.
Just sent them an email asking for refunds on the 11 loans. I’ve got one reply from peachy today saying that they have rejected my request for a refund. So looks like lending stream and peachy are going to go to the FO. So that’s 2 out of 16 so far going to the FO. 1 paid up (wonga) . 1 in liquidation(cash genie) . Just 12 more to get back to me before the beginning or March. I can imagine at least half of them going to the FO. They shouldn’t have a leg to stand on really as at worst I was borrowing from 6 different companies a month just to pay off the other payday loans. And bank statements show that as well. Wish me luck.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Good luck … and send the complaints to the FO as you get the rejections, no need to wait and do them all together.After the first couple, you will find this gets really quick!
Louise says
How long did Wonga take to make you an offer? Was it proportionate to the interest you paid?
Tom bar says
Jesus this is really hard when your so far out of your depth in this area of expertise. Mr lender just got back to me offering to wipe out remaining debt owed to them that’s with a third party company which is £700 and that’s it. The Total interest and fees paid on all loans works out £3847 plus 5 years interest. Do I respond saying the claim should be closer to £5000 (work out roughly what it should be) less the outstanding balance which would be £4300. And if they cant offer that it will be heading to the FO. In hope that they make a second offer?? Or do they not make second offers???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Mr Lender do listen to counter-proposals, but they won’t add on the 8% interest.To complicate matters further, the last debt should have any interest included in it removed, before some of your refund is used to repay it.
At this point you need to go back with a counter-proposal. You could say that you estimate that you have paid c £3850 in interest and you will be happy to accept your balance being wiped out PLUS a refund of £3200 and any defaults or late payment markers being deleted, otherwise you will be sending it to the ombudsman where you will expect to get 8% interest added.
If you want the extra 8%, then it’s going to have to go to the ombudsman.
Steve says
Hi Sara – in reply to your comment. I did manage to get Mr. Lender to add on the 8% interest onto my settlement. When they set out their offer, I replied with ‘However, keeping in mind what a pleasure you have been to deal with, I would be willing to accept the offer made, were you to add the recommended 8% simple interest to the refund outlined in your email this morning. This is my final offer in relation to this complaint. Should you not agree to it, I will be sending this to the FOS, to be considered alongside my outstanding complaints.’ – It’s worth a try!
Tom bar says
This website is priceless. I sent the counter proposal of the amount minus the 8% but reminded them that it would be x amount with the 5 years interest added on to see if they add the interest on anyway. Hopefully they do the same for me Steve. Cheers
Tom bar says
They’ve comeback with a final offer.
We have offered to wipe your outstanding balance with MMF and remove adverse information from your credit file. As a further gesture of goodwill, although we deem our offer to be fair and reasonable we would be willing to refund you the amount of £1,229.46.
This refund figure has been calculated by retrospectively applying the 100% interest rate cap, introduced in January 2015 by the Financial Conduct Authority, meaning that customers would never repay more than 100% of the amount borrowed in fees and interest. Although your loans were taken out before this cap was introduced, the offer will mean you are in line with these current rules.
Tempting to take it to keep things moving on and keep as many as possible from going to FO as I really don’t wanna drag them all out for months. I don’t think it’s too bad. Roughly £2000 in total. Not it all but definitely a nice chunk and one of many hopefully.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So £2000 out of a maximum c.£5000. It’s not dreadful and it’s a lot better than their first very poor offer but it’s not good either, is it.
The ombudsman will not use the “apply the payday loan cap” metric – they just don’t, it’s irrelevant.
Is this one of your “better” cases? ie where you borrowed for the longest period? Those are the ones you want to try to get the most out of.
Tom bar says
No this is one of my lowest. Only borrowed 5 times from these. Rolled over a few times tho. I had the wonga one before Christmas for 11k. I have money box 247 with constant borrowing every month for 2 years and my jar which was another 2 year borrow Every month. Literally paying it and re taking the loan to keep me paying my rent. They will both be around the 8-10k range Each. The rest were 4-5 loans. I’ve estimated on the lower end of things around 42k all Over the 3-4 years I was borrowing ridiculous I know. That’s 30k from the big 3. Then around 12k for the other 9 companies. I only estimated £1000 from Mr Lender.
louisa delahunty says
Hi I have just received this
“Can you please confirm how and when you found out you could make this type of complaint regarding your Wage Day Advance account. Please reply to this email by Thursday.”
from Wageday Advance – 8 weeks is up on Friday do you know why they are asking this
Sharm says
I received a similar question from them and was honest in saying that I was researching how to resolve a default from another PDL company and saw Sara’s website and read up.
My claim was settled 3 days later
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The question is irrelevant if the loans are under 6 years old. You can ignore it if you want. But it’s fine to say you found Debt Camel when you were trying to sort out your debts, or were told about it by your sister who saw an ad about refunds on Facebook, or know somene at work say they had a refund, or … well anything! Just say what happened, it’s not going to affect your claim at all, there are no “right” or “better” answers.
If the loans are over 6 years old what matters is WHEN you found out you could claim, as this has to be in the last three years. So just say how you found out but be specific about the rough timing.
Kyle Milne says
247 moneybox worst company there is they offered me a final response and uphold complaint now they don’t response (best idea to deal with This?
Now for a few questions
Firstly amigo loans well this one is interesting I raised a complaint and asked for all details and they broke data protection and sent me details of a completely different person I’m awaiting their final response but based on what they have done I assume they will pay out in light of a major screw up
Secondly avant credit declined my complaint but stated I only had one loan I can see atleast 3 totalling over 10000 and they say I only have 1 what can I do here?
Waiting for 118118 and bamboo but complaints have been sent
I have a question about a complaint I settled for it was my first settlement and Infact all the down was write off the interest and I’m still due over 700£ (payment plan set up) my issue here is that they pressured me with a very short time scale to make a choice can I bring to fos as I know they shut me out very cheap and my decision was based on the fact I thought I would lose offer (I even called the ombudsman stating I’m worried I will lose the offer)
Last question is during my ombudsman complaints I didn’t really write much I was kind of generic does this matter as I was writing so many complaints the information was not very in depth will this impact me
Sara (Debt Camel) says
247 moneybox – if it has been more than 2 weeks since you accepted their offer, i suggest you email and say as they are not responding to your emails, you intend to send the case to the ombudsman if they don’t pay you within a week.
Amigo – you should ask for compensation for the data breach. This doesn’t mean they are necessarily going to approve your complaint, but fingers crossed they do!
The complaint you have settled – could you go into some more details about this? Did they mislead you at all with what they offered?
Generic complaints to the Ombudsman. The question is, have you missed out something important for this complaint about this lender… read https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-refund-complaint-detail/ which may give you some ideas. At this point if you feel you want to add more some complaints (perhaps the biggest ones?) then just write another piece and send it in to be attached to that complaint.
Kyle Milne says
They never misled me but ultimately they never paid out anything all the offered was a write off of my interest due on my current loan and repay the remaining amount and put an end date of like 5 days to make a decision ultimately leading me to panic and chose to accept it as financial issues are high and it being my first one I heard back from I thought I would lose it
So did they mislead me? No but they most definitely pressured me into a decision with undertones if not accepting will result in no payout
I have emailed them yesterday (247 money box) I will await for response
Can I communicate with adjudicator once Cade is picked up adding more detail ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I would be surprised if you get anywhere with Moneybox 247. They are very difficult.
Yes you can wait until an adjudicator picks up your case, but if you know there is more details to add, I suggest you deal with this as soon as it’s convenient, not wait.
Tom f says
Have had to remove a few bits from response as too long to post, but no mention of my concerns to them, so half positive!:
Income: The data shared in the applications indicated that your monthly income was ranging. The disposable income on all your loan accounts was ample to complete the monthly repayments towards your loans easily.
Experian Scores: 515.
Multiple Loans:
We would also like to inform you that multiple loans offered in a considerable time frame are not considered as “irresponsible lending” if the disposable income of a customer (in proportion to the borrowed amount) is enough to meet the monthly repayments of the loans.
With the above being said, we would like to inform you that Lending Stream never retreat in extending their support and ensures that we provide appropriate help, whenever required. Hence, we offer to schedule a payment arrangement on your outstanding loans with outstanding balances £135.86, £183.46 and £1034.88 respectively, thereby freezing further interest.
Tom f says
This was a reply to the earlier comments Sara from weekend, about three loans, and third being 960! sorry it didnt post as a reply.
Steve says
This sounds like they’re not offering any refund of interest and just freezing further interest. Though you’ve not included all the details, it sounds like you will have to escalate this to the FOS. Do you know how much interest you have paid to Lending Stream over the years? On the face of it, this sounds a very poor offer indeed.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well it could be worse. Really the last loan should be reduced to the 960 you borrowed.
I think it’s worth arguing over the £75 on the last loan – they should never have given it to you.
zoe says
We are in receipt of your email dated 15 November 2017 regarding your account with PoundsTillPayday.co.uk. We have attached a detailed loan history as requested.
Please be advised that Northway Financial Corporation Limited no longer owns SwiftSterling.co.uk or PoundsTillPayday.co.uk. We are responding as we were the creditor for these loans.
Thanks and Best Regards,
Can anyone help with this? as I haven’t heard anything since I got this reply?
thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you actually sent them a complaint? See https://debtcamel.co.uk/swift-sterling-pounds-till-payday/ and future comments are better on that article, not here.
Kara says
Hi. Just a word of advice to anyone relying on their statements of account from Payday lenders.
Over the last couple of months I have been putting together a table of all payday loans that I had from 2007 onwards. Payday UK, Payday Express, Wonga and QQ all provided statements and I was able to check some of the loans off against bank statements, but not from the earlier loans.
It occurred to me that the Payday Express statement looked wrong as the first entry was for interest and it just didn’t look like the start of an account. I have just phoned them and it turns out that they have missed off nearly 4 years worth of loans! These may be continuous or they may be sporadic but I had no way of knowing when all of my accounts started as there were so many, I don’t have bank statements going back that far and unfortunately the e-mail address that I used has since gone offline. I’m now waiting for them to send the updated statement.
I have already submitted my QQ complaint to the FOS so I will have to provide them with a new table showing all my payday loans as the PDE loans may have an even stronger bearing on the unaffordability of the QQ ones.
Cross reference your loan statements with your bank statements and e-mails as much as you can!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, this is a known problem with Payday Express. At some point they switched systems and sometimes they aren’t linking up loans on the old system with your complaint.
Kara says
What’s worse is that they had already provided 1 incomplete statement due to the change from Payday Express to Express Finance so I had hoped that they had made sure the 2nd one was complete.
Nicola Handley says
I write in respect of the above complaint.
Unfortunately, I can’t provide you with a further update at this point. We’re still looking into your complaint, and hopefully I’ll have a more substantive update for you shortly.
Please accept my apologise for the length of time you’ve been waiting for an answer.
I have got this today from my adjudicator.he has had my case for 3 month.its a waiting game hopefully will hear from him again soon with a answer
Mark says
I have contacted Mr Lender and requested £1242.83 in interest to be repaid, Monday they offered me £262.00, I replied thanks but no thanks as I requested £1242.83, today they have offered £517.00! Thoughts please shall I decline? I was in an IVA at the time of the loans and think this is my case to get the full £1242.83?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The £1242 was the full amount of interest you paid? or does that include your calculation of the 8% extra?
It’s up to you what you think an acceptable offer might be. People don’t normally get a full refund at the Ombudsmna, there is often 1-3 loans at the start that aren’t refunded. On the other hand you would have 8% interest added by the Ombudsman.
So you could either go back and say you will accept £1000 (say) in the interest of a speedy settlement or that you want the full amount of interest. obviously they are more likely to accept the former but it’s your choice.
Mark says
The £1242 was just the interest, not with the 8% added, I’m going to give the 1k ago, thanks for your advice, I will let you know the outcome, so far this has only taken 2 weeks since sending in your template letter!!
Richard says
I’ve complained about previous payday loans from 2013-14 using this site but I’ve got a question about my current situation.
I’ve taken out so much credit over the last year – which I could afford when it was mainstream loans but I’ve now got about 8 payday loans plus a topped up loan from pounds to pocket from November.
I don’t want to enter a dmp but I’m in a situation where in the short term I need money from family to get through each month.
Surely when I was able to top up loans and take out payday loans they should have considered my recent financial behaviour?
Any thoughts welcome
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Of course they should have. But you really DO need a DMP – why line the payday lenders pockets by borrowing from your family? Talk to StepChange, cancel the CPAs and DDs, and then set about affordability complaints.
Jackie crawford says
Hi, I’ve got about 8 claims on the go at the moment and just wanted to share progress with you. Received an email from Sunny last week offering to wipe out 70% of the remaining balance of my loan and removing it from my credit file. Moneyboat emailed today to offer wiping off the rest of my loan. Both of these amount to roughly what I would have expected in refunds. The relief that these 2 loans are now closed outways fighting for more money.
Got responses from uncle buck, my jar and Wonga who are still looking into it – they have another 4 weeks so waiting for their final response. Lending stream, quick quid and pounds to pockets have all refused to uphold my complaint so these are going off to the FO.
I just want to thank Debtcamel for all the help and advice and Thankyou to everyone for posting. Knowing that I am not alone (but apparently 118 118 are….even though they are offering loans at extortionate rates ????) with getting into a pickle with payday loans has given me some much needed support and really helped me get back on track. I will keep you posted with my other refund requests, thankyou one and all x
L says
Hi,
I have received a final response from Wonga who have offered to refund £3,070.01 plus 8% Statutory interest.
If they were to refund all my previous loans it would be £3831.66 plus the interest. I am not sure if to take this to the FO for the £761.65 extra or whether to just accept what I have been offered. I know I need to make this decision just wanted to see if this was a fair offer. Do you know roughly how long it takes the FO, could this go on for 6 months or longer generally.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That’s a tough one. £3500 and you would take it I guess. £2000 and you wouldn’t. But this is in the middle. The 3800 would of course be more once the 8%s interest is added – how long ago was this borrowing? But the Ombudsman often won’t refund the first few.
You obviously have a good claim and we haven’t seen anyone get less from going to the Ombudsman after a Wonga offer.
Do any of the following apply, because they any of them help turn a good claim into an excellent one so you may be more inclined to hold out for more:
– did you borrow every month?
– did the amount tend to go up as time went on?
– did you ever need a repayment plan and Wonga then just carried on lending afterwards>
T says
Hi
Thank you for the quick response.
With the 8% interest it comes to £4170.24 so its tempting to just accept.
They are refunding me on 6 loans but not for an additional 10, so less £761.65. If the FO do not approve for the first few loans then this will be less I presume. I paid all the loans back on time but borrowed again as the amounts were high some months.
I borrowed on average every 1-2 months from end of 2010 to July 2012.
Yes the amount went up and I extended.
I was never in a repayment plan as I paid on time.
The loans they are refunding are from 09/2011 to 2012. The other loans apart from 1 they haven’t refunded. They said it didn’t matter about the date but whether it was affordable and that’s how they assessed it.
I am struggling to decide what to do. I don’t want to sound greedy but an extra 1k with the interest is a lot of money but do I want to wait 6 months.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“With the 8% interest it comes to £4170.24 so its tempting to just accept.”
EDITED I am not sure if you are saying that’s what Wonga’s offer comes to or that’s what 8% on your estimate of the total interest comes to.
It is 8% PER YEAR since you made the repayments. That’s why I asked when the loans were. As your loans were 11-12, you have more 5 years of 8% interest to add, so that would be a max of over £5,300.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
BUT a lot of your loans are over 6 years old. Can I just double check that Wonga are offering to refund some loans that are over 6 years old? They don’t normally! What date did you complain to them?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Wonga is pretty quick to send over a case file. At a guess 3-4 months if Wonga accepts adjudicator offer, 6 or 7 if they don’t. It seems a bit random.
T says
Hi Sara,
Well 1 of the loans was a few months after 6 years.
They have offered £3,070.01 and the 8% statutory interest is £1,100.23 added.
The other loans that they haven’t included, the fees interest and charges amount to £761.65 and these were 2010 and 2011.
So if they were to give me the refund on these also and with the 8% statutory interest would this amount to approximately £5300 in total?
That seems a big difference, still cant decide what to do.
I will email you the offer.
Thanks
gillian says
just a update on my lending stream my adjudicater found in my favour at beginning of oct despite writing to them 3 times they still disagree i have just recieved a email from my adjudicater saying they have responded to her last letter but the reasons they give again do not make any diffrence to her desicion she as given them a week to reply agreeing to pay full refund and as promised me if they dont she will pass it on to the ombudsman anyone dealing with lending stream they are being hard to deal with just stay posative it may take time but it will be sorted i wrote to them in dec of 2016 to start my claim with no loans over 6 years they are just so slow at providing anything in the hope you may give up ty again sara
Sara (Debt Camel) says
at least you will be getting an extra 8% or more interest because of the delay. LS are very difficult.
LS007 says
Finally an update on Lending Stream. I have received a payout after 8 weeks from Ombudsman decision. My last call to them I threatened to go to court and instruct the FOS decision to be executed as a county court order. (form N322A) if it helps anyone.
Received funds 1 day later!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
At last – now I suggest you complain to the FCA about the way LS have handled your complaint put all the dates in about the delays. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/lending-stream-complaints/
LS007 says
Will do! I’m already constructing a detailed summary for the FCA. Let us hope it has a positive effect for future complainants.
Linda says
Wow thats a hell of a wait and a mickey take by Lending Stream. My complaint was upheld and the adjudicator who has given them 4 weeks and told me to contact her again direct if they dont respond to me by then so maybe the FO are catching on to their delaying tactics. I’ll definitely be putting my thoughts to the FCA if I dont hear anything by the deadline. They’ve done nothing but faff and delay things from day one. Unfortunately Im also dealing with 247 Moneybox, another one who doesnt respond. Looks like im in for a bit of a wait. Well done on your refund by the way :)
LS007 says
Thank you! LS will undoubtedly use the full 4 wks or more. I got fed up of ringing their switchboard and being subjected to the monotonous on hold music playlist they use before the complaints department answers. I finally threatened County Court and all costs to be added to claim and it seemed to work. Good luck!
Linda says
Can I ask please regarding your settlement (as I’m in a similar position) when you got it sorted did Lending Stream email, write to you or telephone? Thanks in advance
LS007 says
Email. With full breakdown of payment plus interest and of course 20% deducted. The attachment file was a bit amateurish though!
paul says
Hi can anyone give any advice or there updates on payday express I’ve gone to the fos my adjudicator says the majority of my loans were irresponsible borrowed to me and that I have a good case to be refunded I’ve not heard out back for a while and was wondering what the stages are and if they admit and payout
Stephanie says
Hi there , I’ve been recommended to this site!
I recently applied to payday loan companies for refunds. Payday lenders helped me get into a real mess! At one point I was borrowing from 8 different ones to make payments and live.
So I didn’t realise pounds to pockets and quick quid are the same people. They acknowledge my account with quick quid but not with pounds to pockets even though I have provided bank statements showing both trading names taking payments monthly! Can I do anything? Coincidentally the one they are ‘investigating’ apparently has a balance oweing on it so I’m assuming they’ll wipe it as a ‘gesture of goodwill’
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have they denied that you have PTP loans or just ignored that?
Kelly says
Hi just a quick question after reading through pages and pages – what would happen if a lender wrote to you (letter in the post) with their response but they don’t have your up to date address? I’ve seen a few posts where people say they’ve received responses via letter but I know a few of my lenders don’t have my up to date address as I’ve moved a couple of times in the last 3 or so years?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
When you send a complaint, you need to give up to date contact details.
Tony says
Hi I’ve had several payday loans that have cost more than money, most of them have asked for bank statements, payslip and my credit report which I thought they should have seen when I applied, should I sent this info thanks in advance
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You don’t have to send this information if you don’t want. The lenders can check your credit account now if they want. You could reply telling them to consider your complaint as it stands and you will provide any further information to the ombudsmna if necessary. The Ombudsman never asks for payslips.
Sam says
I wanted to say that if it wasn’t for this website I would never have thought to make a complaint, great work.
Some success:
Mr lender agreed to remove £1500 off current loan, leaving £450 to pay back.
I took out around 30 loans with 247money over the course of 3 years, some rolled over but pretty much a loan every month.
Total interest is around £2500. I have a current loan with them which I agreed a payment plan to pay back £50 a month to clear the balance of £478. I made a complaint because during my loans with them over the years I have taken out over 60 loans with 10 other lenders. They responded with 8 days saying they believe they done nothing wrong but a good will gesture to write off my current loan of £478.
I feel if they done nothing wrong, why would they write off my loan.
Has anyone else been offered refunds from them? I have replied saying I have more than enough evidence so will take complaint to FOS.
Also has anyone had a refund from Wageme, I have had similar amount of loans and similar amount of interest.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Moneybox 247 often only offer to write off a debt – that sounds like a very poor offer for that amount of borrowing so I suggest the Ombudsman.
Wageme are a small lender – this is the only reference to them that I can find: https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-loan-refunds/comment-page-65/#comment-240715
Acee says
Been a decent couple of weeks.
PDUK have agreed to refund a further £1800 been waiting a week so far though.
Adjudicator advised Lending Stream to refund loans 4-16 they have until 31st Jan to reply, Wonga 6 out of 9 loans they have until 24th to reply and Moneybox 247 loans 3-12 and 17-22 (was a big gap between loans 12 and some of the rest until 17) have until 1st Feb reply.
Only one I’m waiting for is Sunny which was only 5 loans. Only loan I’ve had rejected by Ombudsman was WDA and only had 4 loans with them.
Are Lending Stream, Wonga and 247 likely to not respond and for it to go to Ombudsman? Also do PDUK wait the full 28 days to refund? They paid up straight away when they partially agreed with my complaint.
Brad says
Hi Sara,
Had an adjudicator response on my complaints against Wonga, LS, Satsuma and Moneyboat.
They have requested I’m refunded just over £3k from £4.5k interest paid which is fab news. Wonga having to refund 25 out of 31 loans.
Slightly disappointed about lending Stream as suggestion to refund £102 out of £1k and for loans 4,5 in 2016. The two loans I had in 2017 were at my worst financial position and the second was a top up. Is it worth challenging that one and referring to the Ombudsman do you think?
Thanks again for all your help I will be donating to CAB when money comes through
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you have had several decisions and you think the LS one isn’t as fair as the others, given the facts of the LS case, then definitely send it to the Ombudsman.
Brad says
Thanks Sara I think I will. I already had defaults etc when I took out loans 6-7 with LS. FOS seemed to think it was affordable and it was 9 months after my previous loan with LS.
Jon says
I’m waiting to hear back. But I cannot afford to make any payments to either Sunny or Wonga. Both have contacted me to say they are investigating.
Will collection activity stop? I am still waiting for bank statements about Wonga. But the last years loans total £6000. Sunny have all the records. But if my claims are rejected, is the FO the next step?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Cancel your CAPs with your bank immediatley. You need to take control and stop these repayments if you can’t afford them.
If a lender rejects your complaint, send it to the Ombudsman.
Helen says
I’ve got an outstanding balance with Sunny and asked them to cancel the CPA in September after I’ve made the complaint. Sunny cancelled the CPA and have not been chasing payments since. When I log in to my Sunny account it says ‘payment overdue’ but that’s it. They have also not updated my credit file since September so it does not show up as late payments. So that’s my experience with them.
Kyle Milne says
Question
I have a loan with Cash4unow
There very unreasonable and don’t offer any financial support at all and are very threatening when asking for support
As I have a complaint with the ombudsman for them (and a very strong case)
What should I do if I can’t afford payments
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You should cancel the CPA with your bank immediately. Then they can’t take the money yiu can’t afford. You can offer them a monthly payment that you can afford, even it’s only £1.
Ross says
Just wanted to check what experience people have had with LS . My case went to the FO who upheld my complaint. LS said they would pay within 29 days which would be 15/1. Called and they said could take up to 24 hours . I have called every day since and they claim to have sent the money on 15th but every day keep telling me it will be in by the end of the day . They have confirmed my bank details which haven’t changed but I’m just getting frustrated now and everyday they confirm it was sent and advise me to wait till the end of the day.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Other people’s experiences are dire… see LS007’s comment yesterday – he only got paid by threatening to take them to court.
Ross says
Thanks I’ll see how I go . I have e-mailed my adjudicator again to try and progress things.
Linda says
My complaint against 247 Moneybox was upheld by an adjudicator but 247 chose to ignore the decision and never got back to her. It was placed in a queue for an Ombudsman to look at because of this who also upheld my complaint and informed the business. Im just a bit nervous now that 247 choose to ignore the Ombudsman also,. They’ve been a nightmare to deal with, blatantly not communicating for the greater part throughout the complaints process. I just wondered if anyone had any experience with them getting back to the FO once it had reached Ombudsman level?
Stevie says
Hi it says if you’ve ever been bankrupt don’t apply for a refund. Even if you are out of you bankruptcy by 5/6 years?? What if the Loans where part of the reason I became bankrupt? Also I see that the money shop lent me money while I was bankrupt, surely this is grounds for irresponsible lending?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Oh it’s definitely irresponsible lending and you may win your complaint, but the money will probably go not to you but to the Official Receiver. I’m sorry, but that is the way it works with PPI refunds And I don’t think it will be any different for other refunds.
Dawn says
What can you do sara if the company says they can’t find any record of your loans please
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Could you have been using a different email address? Who is the lender? How long ago were the loans? Bank statements will normally be clear evidence.
Dawn says
I will ask myniece but she used to go in and pay or they collected.yes she was at different address but they still saying no records. What would be the next step if they still say this . Thank you
Dawn says
Hi sara my niece been in touch with provident and they say they have no record of her at either properties she lived at or her previous name. An agent used to call and collect so nothing thru bank. Yet she can remember the agents name and also they keep sending her mail and emails saying come back for another loan. What should she do
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well she could ask for a Subject Access Request, this takes a month and after May 25 2018 it’s free.
S says
Sara your website has proved invaluable – I only complained about this as a result of another poster who had a positive result also.
118118 loan query, any advice appreciated.
I had two loans in 2017. One was taken in the early part of the year and paid back early (using money from a bank loan taken 6 months after the 118 loan), the other is only 3 months old.
I complained and they have said that the first loan was responsible, the second may not have been. They have cleared the interest off the 2nd loan (£1,300 approx) and I owe approx £1,100 of the loan amount which I can pay per month for 10 months. I paid approx £800 in interest on the first loan. I have a long history of multiple payday loans and whilst the number had reduced per month by 2017 I was still stuck in a cycle (which I am now taking real steps to fix).
Do I accept their final decision or complain to FOS about the 1st loan?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That’s a hard one for me to say anything useful on. If your situation may have looked like it was improving (fewer payday loans) and if you told them the first loan was to repay payday loans, you may not win a case at the Ombudsman. But equally your situation could have looked so dire that anyone who checked your credit record and income should have seen the first loan was not affordable even if you did use the money to pay off other loans.
I hope you are not borrowing any more at the moment? And have complained to your payday lenders.
S says
Hi Sara
All borrowing has stopped which has brought immediate relief. I can now focus some energies doing exactly what you have said.
Thanks to your website I have secured (approximate values):
Vanquis ROP: £770 – card cleared and cheque in the post for the balance.
MyJar (Txtloan): £190 on 3 of 3 loans.
NextCredit: £370 on 6 of 9 loans.
I have FOS Complaints submitted for QQ/P2P, Payday Express/Payday UK, Lending Stream, Ferratum and Mr Lender. I have also submitted complaints to almost all lenders, even if I only had one loan with them – I have nothing to lose and it costs me only my time. With the volume of payday loans I had over the last 6 years (which disgusts me when looking over the bank statements), I think it is fair of me to complain, though I am only pursuing those with multiple loans/rollovers with the FOS.
Thank you again for this website and your help to date.
gillian says
ty again sara anyone dealing with payday uk in my case they were the easiest and nicest to deal with they wrote after 4 weeks saying another 4 weeks needed them at 8 weeks saying they needed more time but one week later they replied upholding over 60 percent refund i was happy to accept this i replied by sending next day delivery letter then rang them up 2 days later to make sure they recieved it the man on the phone was very nice and said it would be in my bank in 10 days he would start the ten days from the day they recieved my letter yesterday day 8 it was in bank ty sara ps, i also thanks to you helped my sister claim over 1000 pound back from bank ppi using that new prevlin rule
scott says
Did you have to send them bank statements? They have requested mine with payslips and credit report.
Steven dandy says
I’ve just received the same response
Dawn says
Sara I’ve copied the template to send to Wonga but can’t remember my wage at the time, do I need to put this in
Thanks
Dawn says
Wonga! I meant to say lol
Sara (Debt Camel) says
no – just remove any stuff which is irrelevant or you don’t know. If you aren’t putting in your income, it’s probably best to remove the bits about expenditure too. Then add anything else you think matters – the template is just a starting point, change / adapt it how you like.
gillian says
they did ask but i told them to consider with the facts they had u can send bank statements if you want you will need copies for the fos if you have to go that far it is up to you i do think if i had sent the bank statements they might have upheld one or two of the loans the refused but i was very happy with the way the delt with me compared to the way quick quid and lending stream did with both going full way to fos and being upheld in full good luck
Steven dandy says
Just been sent this email regarding my payday uk refund any ideas what I should reply?
Thank you for your recent email regarding our request for further information.
Where we have requested further information we are doing so as we have been unable to determine with certainty the affordability of the lending and so we are coming to you for evidence to support your own claims.
Our complaint process is in line with how the Ombudsman investigate complaints and we are trying to save you time by considering the matter in full without you having to refer the matter and potentially wait longer for a resolution we could have delivered to you ourselves.
I’d be grateful if you can confirm if you would be willing to provide us with this information (bank statements and/or credit report) or not.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How many loans did you have? Have they asked for bank statements for all of them or just a few?
Steven dandy says
I had 7 in a previous address they are asking for bank statements for just 2 of them the other 5 they are saying we’re responsible lending.
A further 9 from current address they want just 3 bank statements and the others they say we’re responsible
Steve says
I sent my statements and they did find in my favour, however, they won’t review the loans that they claim were responsibly lent, even if you send your statements and credit report. If you think those loans were also irresponsible, then you’re wasting your time sending them your statements and might as well just provide them to the FOS when you escalate your complaint.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
So if you send the statements they will think about 5 out of 16 loans – I don’t think that’s worth bothering with because even if they offer a refund on all 5 loans, that will still be a poor offer. Send the whole case to the Ombudsman.
Clairey says
Wonga have just replied to my complaint telling me they are willing to pay our compensation on 1 of out 16 loans taken out.. Would you advise taking this to the FOS or accepting the offer given…?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
1 out of 16 loans sounds like a very poor offer! I suggest sending it to the FOS.
Village Idiot says
Can anyone think of a shortcut for me at all? I have 65 loans and/or topups with QQ totalling £18,100, but the interest I will have paid out against this will be less than otherwise expected because my partner is self employed and paid daily, so we always paid those loans down as soon as we could in dribs and drabs. For those 65 loans there will be probably well over a hundred little repayments.
I can only calculate the interest paid by totting up what was borrowed and what was paid back, because the statements from the lenders etc are not online, is there anything I could do to save going through 4 years of bank statements and totting up each little repayment? Before I plough into doing it?
And then there’s Wonga too!
Thanks
Village Idiot says
The Wonga figure is £20,763
Lisa says
Hi Village,
Its not as onerous as you would think. If you are able to download your bank statements in a spreadsheet (.xls) put them all in 1 sheet, and then just filter on QQ in, and then QQ out. Take one away from the other and that’s your interest amount.
(took me about 30 minutes)
Village Idiot says
I’ve never done that before but I’ll have a go!
Thank you.
gillian says
with my quick quid one they sent me a email and all my payments in one row and at the end there was a total of amount borrowed and a total of amount repaid them a final total intrest paid i had 27 plus loans with roll overs and a flexi loan if that helps
Kara says
That’a interesting Gillian, QQ provided a separate document for each of my 13 loans.
Ross says
Just wanted to see if anyone can advise . I saw a post a few days back about PDUK/PDUK missing some loans on an old system . Can anyone advise what companies may have predated an merges into these companies . I e-mailed to ask them to check which they replied all loans from Payday UK had been assessed . I’m not sure if they are being clever with their wording …
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The problems I remember are for Payday Express, not Payday UK.
Kara says
My problems were with Payday Express/Express Finance. I also think there are some instances on my bank statements where one company deposited the money and a different but associated company took repayments! Makes hard work of compiling a diary of it all!
Nicola says
I love this website! thank you so much Sara. I was struggling with payday loan debts for many years and kept on borrowing to get through the month. Success so far…
Satsuma- They wrote off a £1000 balance
MyJar- Refunded £762.86
Safetynet Credit- They wrote off a £500 balance
Mr Lender- £150 Goodwill payment (only had one loan which was rolled over twice so didn’t think they would offer anything)
The Money Shop- Refunded £123.21 (for 1 loan, they said the other was lent responsibly)
Ferratum- Only had 1 active loan- but they waived all interest on this.
Others- Argos Plevin refunded £221
Vanquis card ROP- Ex-gratia payment of £280 refunded to account
Referred to FOS…
Lending Stream- Absolutely awful to deal with when trying to set up a payment plan for existing loans. Have given the standard response about a credit score of above 700. So sent this straight to the FOS.
Wonga- With the FOS as some of the loans are over 6 years ago. In total I have had 54 loans with them!! one of which is currently in a payment plan.
Payday UK- With the FOS. Did not uphold. Some over 6 years also, so fingers crossed I get somewhere with the FOS.
Quick quid and P2P- Both gone to the FOS. Some with QQ also over 6 years.
I think these FOS complaints will be a long wait, but well worth it in the long run! These refunds have helped me to become almost debt free. I have not borrowed again since and will never do so again!
Lee says
My lending stream case started in late May last year. Went all the way to the Ombudsman before Christmas who ruled in my favour. Lending Stream have confirmed the refund amount on 22 of 28 loans first week of January but not paid me yet despite having all my bank details. They apparently have until the 30th January to refund me. So expect a long long drawn out wait.
Nicola says
Crikey, a very long wait then! But good news on the refund. Hope you receive it soon ????
Pamela says
I need advice 247 money box allowed me to take out 12 loans in the space of a year when I had 4 other payday loans the total of interest I paid was 348 now i have a current outstanding balance of 82 left to pay, they have said they would wipe this out as a full settlement should I refuse and take this to the ombusman?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how large was the last loan? have you made any repayments to it?
Pamela says
The last loan was 300 and I have 82 left to pay on it
Pamela says
Also Sara how do I word it to the ombudsman? I had other payday loans back to back and the interest I paid back to them is in the thousands as I had 5 payday loans at once though I was only on minimum wage
Tempest says
Hi,
I have received the same email after sending initial template for loan details…
“As a gesture of goodwill, we are happy to resolve today by writing off your outstanding balance of £1358.04, in full.”
No loan details received!
I have declined their offer at the top of the refund claim template. I had many large loans with them, month after month… The last loan was for about £600, which I did not pay due to snowballing circumstances, so the outstanding amount is huge interest and charges being added.
I finished by requesting the loan details again too.
Will keep you updated.
Linda says
I took out 12 loans in 12 months from 247 like you, I had other payday loans also. I complained and they made me a weak offer of writing off the balance and £150. I declined and took it to the FO as the interest and charges worked out a lot more than their offer. My adjudicator upheld my complaint as well as an Ombudsman (as they didn’t respond) now they have 4 weeks to come up with an offer. The Ombudsman recommended all interest and charges refunded, 8% simple interest as well as the removal of adverse credit entries. It’s up to you which way you go but I’m glad I didn’t except their rubbish offer and escalated it. You’ll wait a while as they’re slow at communicating but it will be worth it if your complaint is upheld
Pamela says
Linda how did you put it in writing to the financial ombudsmen? I’m not very good at explaining things?
Linda says
On the initial referral online I just used a bits out of Sarah’s complaint form really about being trapped in a debt spiral, which I was, and added other more specific things to explain. I said I felt the 12 loans had been irresponsibly lent because my credit file showed an increasing amount of defaults and a couple of CCJ’s and that I was Lending from other payday loan companies at the same time in order to keep my head above water. I added they should have realised I could never repay this amount off without reborrowing because of my other loans. I requested a free credit report and attached that to the referral. 247 didn’t send me a final response so I attached the last letter they sent and explained it had been over 8 weeks. To be honest it was when the adjudicator got in touch with me that I sent most of my evidence. They’ll tell you what they need like bank statements income/expenditure etc but in my opinion it’s always best to explain everything on a personal level as well. E.g how you got into the mess. In my experience as I’ve had a few complaints upheld they do actually listen and take this into account. As I say though that was when it was picked up by an adjudicator, in the initial referral I just did a brief summary. Everyone’s financial situation and struggles are different, tell them as much as you can about yours. I was a bit embarrassed at first but they don’t judge and are friendly. Good luck if you decide to refer your complaint
Jed Richardson says
Hi Sara,
I’ve had an offer from wonga. Bit confused with the interest and tax bit though.
Been offered £4972.52
8% interest net £1632.59
Total Settlement £6605.11
Tax
8% interest gross £2040.74
Basic rate tax deduction £408.15
Does this mean I’ve been offered £6605? Or £4972.52
Cheers
Sara (Debt Camel) says
They are offering a refund of 4972 plus 8% interest of 2020 minus tax on the 8% interest of 408 … so in total you would get 6605.
(You can also reclaim some of the tax deducted back if this is your first refund this tax year, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/ppi-payday-refund-get-back-tax/)
Can I ask how old your loans being refunded are?
Jed Richardson says
There were constant loans from 2010-2014 and they’ve offered refunds on all of my loans within 6 years, I think there’s another 5000 interest from pre 6 years ago but I hear that’s taking a long time to sort out if they will refund them so I’m pretty happy with this offer.
Julze says
Got my first lot of payment from payday uk. Took 5 days… still awaiting a response from bank statements I sent.
Kara says
I sent my QQ complaint to the FOS about a week ago and received an e-mail today asking for the date of the final response
from QQ (which was on the correspondence that I sent the FOS) and also asking me to complete an attached complaint form which wasn’t attached and was presumably the same complaint form that I have already submitted.
Does this kind of thing happen a lot?
Beaker77 says
I had the same thing, i had sent copies of the final response email from Quick Quid which was dated but had to confirm the date again to the FOS. I was also requested to send a statement of the loans – which I had already sent, however I sent these again.
I am waiting for bank statements to send, all of my loans are over six years old so I imagine its going to be a long drawn out process but hey ho i have nothing to lose.
Steve says
Did QuickQuid reply to your initial request? Ive been waiting 6 weeks with no reply?
Cheers
holly says
Hi,
I am trying to get a mortgage and pay day loans are leaving me with rejections despite paying them all off last year (my dad did and as a result have spent the last year in debt to him rather than interest) – any money back would be a bonus but I’m more concerned about my credit file. Do the loans that are seen to be ‘unaffordable’ get wiped from it or is that another process?
Thanks in advance.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, if a loan is unaffordable any defaults or late payment markers are deleted and sometimes the whole loan is deleted. So put in an affordability complaint and ask for a refund and for the loan tone removed from your record.
Jo says
So, I sent complaints to: Sunny, Wonga, QQ, Payday UK/Payday Express, Piggy Bank, Safetynetcredit and also to 4 credit cards providers. We will see.. Fingers crossed!!!! So far all sent acknowledgement letter/ e-mail aparat from Wonga and Sunny. Thank you so much for this website and for all your comments!!!!
Paul says
My complaints against Casheuronet (QuikQuid and Pounds2Pocket) went to the FOS end of September after they rejected my complaints and offered NOTHING.
Has been picked up by an adjudicator last week and she’s just written to me to inform me that she hasn’t started the full investigation yet but they’ve made an offer of £1900 for the P2P loans and £1200 for the QQ loans. Makes me laugh that they’ve gone from nothing to this, just because they’ve been contacted by adjudicator. This is WITHOUT a full investigation yet.
Obviously haven’t accepted as the interest and charges I paid were about 10 times as much. Hoping they keep upping their offer so it doesn’t go to Ombudsman.
So people, if you get rejected initially from the company, just persevere and they’ll more than likely change their mind.
Brad says
A lot of people have seen this. They rejected my complaint so I sent it to FOS and offered me £1,700 out of £2,000 interest before the investigation!
S says
I’ve had 2 loans from 118118. I borrowed £3000 and paid £2842 interest, this was over a period of 2 years. So it was a full term loan and not just a payday loan. Can I claim back on that or is it just payday loans??
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The affordability rules are the same for all borrowing. People have got refunds or write offs from 118. Change the template letter so it doesn’t say “payday” and list the two loans you had.
Mills says
Hello just to say a big thank younto this site !’
Had several loans with Wonga from 2011 and they have just upheld my complaint and are giving my £4500.00 ! So more than happy with that. Have also complained to others but all of them not witheld my complaint.. so will be referring them to the Financial Ombudsman. Any advice on how easy this is to do and what information they will need and ask for ??
Jon says
Hi
Wonga and Sunny have acknowledged my complaint. I’m still waiting on bank statements and Wonga have sent me a default notice with a late payment charge and nothing more. I did request all collection activity stop.
T says
Hi
Has their been any dealings with Loans2Go, I followed the same process for my sister who took out a loan a couple of years ago. She struggled with it but paid the interest sometimes late as her car was against the loan.
I sent in complaint and they said they are looking into it.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Not many people have complained about logbook loans, but I do remember one about Loans2Go – read https://debtcamel.co.uk/bad-credit-loans-avoid/comment-page-1/#comment-236400.
Expect them to refuse your complaint, send it to the Ombudsman and double check their figures!
Gary says
Hi Sara,
My complaint with wonga was upheld by the FOS and wonga agree to pay out loans 3 to 23 amount to a refund of £2258 which has been credited to my account after 4 days, in addition i received an email from wonga confirming that all loans will be removed from my credit file. All of which has taken since July last year after Wonga refused any wrong doing in connection to my original complaint. So its fantastic that this is now resolved.
Unfortunately I have just checked my Wonga account and my current open loan which i assumed was loan number 23 is still active, after further investigation it appears that the current loan would be number 24. This loan was not detailed in the adjudicators assessment as wonga did not include it within my case file as i think it was taken out after i originally complained. What should i do? My complaint is no closed with the FOS and the refund received, should i open another complaint direct with wonga?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
you took out a loan after you had complained to them? and they let you?
what has happened to this loan in the meanwhile, did you ever pay anything? did Wonga contact you about it?
Gary says
Hi Sara,
I have maintained the last 3 monthly payments, with another 3 payments to make on the 30th of each month all as per the initial loan agreement. Yes there was no issue when i applied online, the loan went through, it was stupid but i needed the money at the time. Wonga have never contacted me about the loan, they have only collected each payment on the agreed date. Should i raise his with them, the loan was not a huge amount with 6 payment of £65. The weird thing is that upon review of wongas refund, they itemise each of my 23 loans and the amount of interest im due as a refund. The 23rd loan notes refunded interest of £175, however the loan amount was for £200 where i paid £275 including interest, so they have refunded me an extra £100 on this loan. Not sure why, possibly this has something to do wit the outstanding loan? I would have thought that wonga would close the outstanding loan and use my refund to pay off the outstanding amount.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
TBH I suggest you use your refund to repay the rest of this loan. If yiu were given 100 more than you should have been, then that probably covers most of the interest on the last loan. It doesn’t seem worth the hassle of a complaint.
John C says
Gary I would also make sure that what you pay them does close the loan down. I eventually received a refund in October for loans I had with Wonga after going to the FOS. Part of the deal was they paid off the outstanding amount on my last loan, and deleted all of my loans after loan 5 on my credit report. My calculations came through, my payment was made and I forgot about it. In December a debt collection agency got in touch about my Wonga loan that was outstanding. Not only was the loan still open on the Wonga website, my credit report showed the loan had been defaulted and it has resulted in other credit accounts of mine suspended of mine, through no fault of my own. They tried to argue that the last loan shouldn’t have been removed from my credit file, but no idea how they could say that. Anyway I’ve had confirmation that the loan is to be deleted and an investigation is still underway. I wouldn’t trust Wonga as far as I could throw them
Richard harrison says
I’ve been a CG for a number of years now and because I’m in low paid work I’ve funded my addiction with payday loans mainly WONGA.since 2013-2017 I’ve had 54 loans including 21 within a 12 month period totalling including fees £18900 pounds,I declared myself bankrupt in 2005 do I had a compensation claim?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
All you payday loans were taken out after your bankruptcy so that won’t be a problem for your complaint.
It sounds like a very good case of unaffordable lending. BUT you really need to get clean of gambling first. Otherwise any refund is just going to end up in the bookies pockets after a fun couple of months…
If you can stop gambling (and I know it’s not easy, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/gambling/ for ideas and help) then getting a few thousand back from Wonga could be life changing.