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?
Tony says
I have cases with the FOS for QQ, PDUK, PDEX and WDA. 6 years of statements supploed to cover an ungodly amount of lending over the years.
Cases submitted Dec 2017, supplementary information to adjudicator in Feb 2018, will keep you posted on the outcomes.
Thank you Sara and all commenters. ????
Richard says
Received an email from Pounds to pocket asking for bank statements and wage slips from the time I took my loans out in order to judge my complaint.
Do you think I should just ask them to judge my complaint as it stands? It relates to taking a loan out, paying it back, reloaning a week later and then topping it up in November. During this period my financial position was obviously getting worse and my complaint relates to it being unaffordable and them not spotting it.
I’ve cancelled the CPA and informed them I expect the loan to be frozen while they investigate.
Louise says
I have the same from PDA for 2011 and 2012 just a random month, I don’t have these. I have emailed them back as the bank said they don’t either as after 6 years? It is ridiculous.
Link says
How long do Sunny usually take to pay out after accepting offer from Ombudsman?
Shannon says
They took 9 days from returning acceptance form to adjudicator for my refund.
Louise says
Hi,anybody any news yet from.Cash Genies next.cheque run?..Thought the cheques would have been.sent.out by now.Thankyou.
Ben says
Received an offer from Wonga for £2,446.82 for 2 loans I had in 2012. They had already removed the last loan in 2015. So it’s a good result.
However, I have another 6 loans with them amounting to £2,500 not including interest but these are over 6 years…. Can I accept the offer – then if the FOS decide they must look into loans over 6 years can I go back? Or do I bite the bullet and send it to the FOS now.
I have also had response from PDUK and PD Express, the PD Express one, I’ve sent off to FOS. But the PDUK one is bugging me they said I had a one loan from July 2014 to June 2016… It defaulted in 2014 when I was struggling the most. I still owe the money to PRA. Is it going to stand up with FOS when I only used them once. I don’t think the complaints team at PDUK have really looked at the whole picture.
At the time I borrowed off them I had 3 defaults from Wonga, Capital One and the Black House totalling over £2000, but around that time I started borrowing from the Cheque Centre… I think I borrowed £9k just over 12 months. None of the cheque centre stuff is on my CR.
Oh and thanks Sara with out the website I wouldn’t have had the above offer to contemplate in the first place.
shaun says
Hi Sara
just received a rejection back from cashfloat on 2 small loans, but what concerns me is in the rejection letter they stated my income as between £3500-£3700 per month,so i emailed and questioned where they got this figure from and they sent me a breakdown which i apprently inputed on the application form and also stated that they use real time data which showed this as my household income for the month,These figures are knowhere near my monthly income,is this something i can send to the FOS to investiagte as it seems to me they have just made these figures up.
Thanks for the help
Louise says
Good Afternoon,
Sara – Can you help? Quick response in relation to PDUK wanting additional information.
They want bank statements from June 2011 and Dec 2011 along with Dec 2012 only. They also want my credit report and advised this costs £2. I do have a report from Noodle that I downloaded would that do?
Also why only these bank statements – I have looked at my statement of account and it appears that these are the only ones where I had a principal deposit however, the rest were all Principal deferrals. Is this why and don’t they take these into account? The account was from the 2011 – 2014 inclusive with a staggering amount of interest,
I don’t have these bank statements?
If you can advise please as they are awaiting for these prior to their final decision as they can not determine without them if they were lent irresponsibly.
Many thanks once again.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Credit report – I don’t know why they ask for these – they can access your credit record themselves if they want to. Your Noddle report would be fine if you want to send that.
They are asking for those particular statements as that is when they made the decisions to give you a loan. The other months were rollovers/deferrals. There is a good case that they should not have issued so many rollovers but that is rather different from the actual lending decision.
You don’t have to send the bank statements. In these cases if you don’t, they may reject your case, offer a refund on some loans or say that they can’t decide some loans without the statements.
To take the case to the Ombudsman you will need all the statements, so I suggest going back to your bank and asking again.
Louise says
Thanks Sara- I am going to respond today and tell them to access my report as they have always added onto my credit report every month.
I have rang the bank twice – I can order the 2012 bank statement but not the 2011 as it is over 6 years and they don’t have those records? I thought they had records up until 7 years?
It appears there were 3 loans and all the rest were principal deferrals. Do they take roll over / deferrals into account?
I will wait and see what comes back from them.
Many thanks,
Louise.
Lou says
Hi advice needed please. I had a loan with 118 in may 2015 but I had another loan and a payday loan at the same time. Is it worth trying for irresponsible/ unaffordable lending or not?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It depends whether the 118 repayments were affordable, or whether they meant you had to keep borrowing. Single loan cases can be harder, but if the loan was large and 118 should have known you couldn’t manage it, the complain. Lots of cases being won against 118.
gillian says
Hi sara i have just received an email from wageday advance it is on the 56th day of my complaint they have upheld part of a refund total of 3768 pound i am happy to accept as it is about 70 percent of interest paid they state if i supply my bank details they will faster payment it for me
just to say thank you again i wasnt going to bother with wage day and sunny until i worked out how much i had paid but as you made me aware of how simple it was to reclaim these intrest chargers with my lending stream quick quid and payday uk refunds last year i thought might as well that is 19000 pound total reclaimed so far though i am still waiting for lending stream to pay two weeks left till the date the ombudsman give them to pay
anyone thinking of asking for a refund just do it it is so easy and you have nothing to lose i started using these companies when my partner lost his job and even though he got another after 18 months i was so deep into them i could not get out thanks to sara all that is now behind us
Sara (Debt Camel) says
excellent news!
Louise says
How long for Wage Day Gill to make a decision- I am still awaiting for my statements from them after 14 days?
gillian says
hi louise i did not ask for my statements as i know how many loans i had with them they replied with the offer 56 days after i complained i rang them today to give them bank details and they said the refund should be done on monday they have been the easiest and quickest to deal with along with paday uk in my case both giving refunds with lending stream and quickquid having to go all the way to the ombudsman who upheld both goodluck
Louise says
Thank you Gillian – I have both these Payday Uk and Wage day. How long did Payday UK take they seem to be quick? They want two bank statements from me. Did they ask you for any?
Many thanks for your help Gillian and well done!
gillian says
payday uk took 9 weeks from me sending my complaint to them they did ask for bank statements but i asked them to asses without them they upheld about 70 percent refund as well but did state if i sent bank statements they would look at five they were not sure about i did not bother as was happy with the offer they made if you dont mind sending them do it they also paid out within 3 days of me accepting the offer if this helps
Louise says
Thank you Gillian for your help – I have said assess without them but I can gain access to them I think now. So we shall see what comes back and then I may send to them.
It is only 3 weeks since I complained so early days yet.
J says
Quick question about FOS complaints – if you submitted a complaint against a lender, but then withdraw it before it’s picked up by an adjudicator due to a better offer being received, does that remove the fee that the FOS charge to the lender?
Reuben Hanna says
Hi,
I have had a loan with My Jar, which was rejected by them and then rejected by the adjudicator. The adjudicator said I had enough monthly income to pay for this. My income was 1700 and they have said my outgoings were 400 pounds. I had a car loan at 250 pounds per month, an instalment loan worth 350 ppm, another installement loan worth 239 ppm. I also had 6 other pay day loans and they issued me a loan for 1000 pounds over 6 months. These loans were all on my credit file.
Any advice on what to say to the adjudicator?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you list the loans that were showing on your credit report at the time you applied to MyJar. They should have checked your credit report and if there was a large discrepancy between it and what you put on your credit application looked more closely at your situation, not assumed your application was the full picture.
And.H says
Hi,
Received an offer from PaydayUK which I think is a little low. If I send to FOS does this then void the offer I received or will this offer stand no matter what? Little concerned and thinking maybe I should accept incase Ombudsman rejects it and end up with nothing.
Many Thanks.
Steve says
With Payday UK/Express, you can accept their offer and it’ll usually take about 5 days to payout, and forward the rest on to the FOS. I’ve attached the text I sent to part accept:
To whom it may concern,
Many thanks for your reply and I agree with the decision that the [number included in offer] loans outlined in the FRL dated [date of FRL] were irresponsibly lent. I accept the offer of [£offer amount] to be paid to me plus the removal of any negative information recorded on my credit file regarding the [number of loans from above] loan deposits and any deferrals of those loans such as late payments statuses or defaults. I have forwarded the remainder of this complaint, including credit report and bank statements, on to the FOS to adjudicate on the other [number of loans remaining] loans which were found to be responsibly lent.
Bank:
Account name:
Sort-code:
Account number:
Best wishes,
[your name]
Chris says
That’s interesting Steve.
I’m waiting to send my response to payday express,
Out of 44 loans, they say almost half were lent responsibly, yet they were rolling over and back to back.
The offer is in excess of 7k so I am tempted, yet don’t want to lose out on another 17 loans in the long term.
Are you sure this can be done like this.
Thanks again.
Chris
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I wouldn’t do this without checking PDE are happy with that first- better safe than sorry.
I understand how tempting 7k is but it sounds like you could get a lot more.
Chris says
Thanks Sara.
Have you known this to happen before and be successful.
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Not this exact situation, no. But it does depend what PDE wrote to you. Check it with them first, don’t cross your fingers and hope.
Steve says
I’d certainly double check, but I can confirm that this worked for me. I checked with them before sending that part acceptance, so I have an email trail that confirms I can accept a payment, then forward the remainder to the FOS. It’s worth getting that trail for your own case though. Having said that, I don’t think you have anything to lose escalating to the FOS…it sounds like you could get a hefty further sum!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
excellent – but its essential to have that email trail IMO.
Chris says
Thanks Steve,
Will do and all the best ????
Louise says
Hi Andy,
How long did you wait for PDUK? Did they request bank statements? Sara – will be able to help. I am no expert however, I think you don’t lose the offer if it goes to the Ombudsman. Nothing to lose however, as I say I am no expert. Perhaps in two months I will know more.
Kind regards,
Louise.
And.H says
Hi, they were quite quick to be fair, around 5 weeks maybe and kept me up to date via email.
I dont want to send to FOS then lose the initial offer they made.
I will email and check if i can accept the offer then escalate others to FOS.
Kind regards.
AK says
I can only speak from my own experience but I had the offers from PDUK and QQ, in both cases the adjudicators asked business to refund me more. With PDUK it was the usual journey, they couldn’t decide on few loans, requested bank statements, I sent, they ruled one loan in my favour, the redress was in the region of £1,000. I rejected their offer, the adjudicator found in my favour on more loans, the total redress £3,600 is due to paid into my account next week at the latest.
The decision is yours I took the risk and received 3.5 times more. In QQ findings the adjudicator clearly said that as the offer on loans x-x was made by the business already he didn’t consider these loans and include them in his findings as they were offered. The initial offer was £9k, the adjudicator asked QQ to refund £12k before simple interest, QQ rejected , the case now is with the ombudsman.
jamie says
Hi sara
I accepted wongas offer for a refund and my adjudicator has sent them my bank details 9/3/18 I was just wondering the time scales for Wonga to pay out?
thanks
jamie
AK says
FOS sent my acceptance to Wonga on 5th March, Wonga acknowledged by email on Friday, the 9th. In the email they told me that the refund will be issued in 14 working days. Can’t wait, it’s one of two my biggest ones.
Jonnym says
Hi all, I have several complaints now all with the ombudsman. I have had a request for a copy of my credit file. I have access to Noddle and andvtrying to obtain a copy but so far the best I can come up with is to take screen shots of each individual bit of information. Is there a better way where I can download it all as one document or request a paper copy maybe. Thanks
Elaine mork says
Once you have logged in to Noddle, the first page shows your initial score and next to it – download full report. :)
Jonnym says
Is this on a pc as I’m on the iPad and it’s says show full report but no where to download it or save it
Chris says
Go on to App Store and download a free app called ‘Documents by Readdle’
This is where you can save it too and retrieve when emailing later.
Hope this helps and all the best.
Chris
Jonnym says
Thanks what do I click on to be able to download and save to that then? Sorry it’s just I need to be able to put into file to send on
Chris says
Is it via safari or on the app?
Jonnym says
I have tried both the app and through safari and cannot get a full page with all the info on. I have to scroll down so therefore just been taking screen shots but it’s a nightmare and want it all in one piece to send on to ombudsman. Thanks
Jonnym says
Thanks for all your help I have managed to work it out. Thanks again
Louise says
You can download your credit file from Noodle I think it is credit history and then a tab to download credit file and then save it to your computer before attaching.
L
Gail says
Has anyone else received a letter from FRP advisory regarding cheque centre in administration?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
what does it say?
Jen says
I got 1 2, I’m at work the now but it said if the unsecured creditors agree to the fee that frp are charging for them dealing with cheque centre administration, I called and asked them what it ment after reading their accounts on line as advised in letter, was told it doesn’t make any difference if I reply or not, it said it accounts they have set aside 175k for FOS complaints, I asked if they thought I should go to FOS they said it makes no difference, and probably later in the year I will receive a refund which will be prob 5% of my claim, orginal complaint was for all interest I paid £3800. I have the letter at home and login details on their site if you want to see them I can e.mail (can’t get into it without a claim ref number, think it’s just a wait and not much hope of a decent return
Sam says
I had an ongoing case with Cheque Centre for over a year. They claimed they did no wrong so I took it to the Ombudsman. I received a letter from my adjudicator November last year saying Cheque Centre had gone into administration, and their administrators had made me an offer. He said I could take it further if I wanted to, but he advised me that even though they had put a lot of money aside to pay these claims eventually the money would run out. I could win my case within a few weeks but there would be no money left to win. I accepted £1200 from them which was about half of what I could have potentially won had I taken it all the way. But I’m happy with that.
Andrew says
Hi Sara,
Before I send anything off, is it worthwhile requesting for a refund if I took out many loans with a company but then refused me to give me one since which I’m guessing is due to my poor credit score? Or am I wasting my time?
Regards,
Andrew
Sara (Debt Camel) says
yes still complain. Just because they later correctly turned you down, doesn’t mean that they were right not to before that!
Mark says
Hi all,
I haven’t been on here for a while as both my complaints have been with the FOS so I’ve just been waiting patiently but today after about 4 months of my Wonga complaint being with the FOS they came back with their offer which I accepted, my adjudicator stated in his letter to them that a large number of my loans were unaffordable and to my surprise they agreed with him with the exception of about 4 loans.
We agreed that 4 loans wasn’t really worth arguing with them over so I accepted a refund including the 8% of £2876.
I’m over the moon with this as I thought it would be a lot less.
FOS have been great and have said if I do not receive my refund within 28 days then to contact them and they will deal with it.
Thankyou to everyone who advised me and to Sara for her wise words when I started my complaints and was unsure of what I should be doing.
Once I receive my refund a donation to my local CAB will be on its way.
Just awaiting my QQ complaint to come through now.
Kind regards
Mark
Ben says
Hi Mark,
Were any of your loans over 6 years?
I’ve just submitted mine to FOS, I had an offer for 2 loans for £2470. But I have 7 other loans equalling around £3000. Just interested to see if they are moving on the +6 years.
Thanks,
Ben
Mark says
Hi Ben,
I had 2 loans over 6 years and they wouldn’t consider them.
FOS did say we could wait and see but they couldn’t put a timescale on it, if it had been more I may have waited a bit to see what happens but they were both relatively small amounts so I dropped them.
Mark
Sam says
Hi Sara,
Many thanks for the advice on this website which I have found useful. I have had some successes that I never thought would be possible, and that is due to this website. I have a question though and I can’t seem to find the answer elsewhere. I believe that the situation came about because of two bank loans that I took out several years ago. I was on a low wage at the time (possibly even minimum wage) and the bank offered me a loan of around £3k. After a year or so I was living in my overdraft and had pretty much maxed out my credit card (also with the same bank). They then offered me another loan (I think it was around £6k) to clear the previous one, which meant my monthly repayments went up and the length of this loan was longer. I continued to pay this amount but found when I was forced to move to a new house, the amount I had to pay in rent and bills also went up, resulting in these repayments becoming difficult to afford. My kind parents stepped in to clear the loan in full, but by this stage I was already taking out payday loans to cover the necessary bills. I know a lot of the blame lies with me for not being financially aware, but I do wonder if there is a reason to complain to the bank?
Any advice here would be very welcome. Thank you.
Sam
Sara (Debt Camel) says
How long ago were these loans? Was the second loan just to refinance the first, or also to clear credit card debt?
Sam says
Hi Sara,
I forget how long exactly, but I think the first was 2010/11 and the second was about 2012/13. The second loan was to cover the first and then to clear the credit card too. I should point out that they did reduce the limit on my credit card at that stage too (at the same time as my second loan), but the limit was (and still is) £650.
Thanks,
Sam
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This may be a hard one to win. Yes the second loan will have cost more than the first if it included the credit card debt. And the bank couldn’t be expected to know that your expenses were going to go up when you moved.
But details really matter for a case like this. If your instinct is to reply “yes but…” to me, then give the complaint a go because you know the details and you feel strongly about it!
Sam says
Thanks for the advice Sara. I will give it a try – nothing to lose I guess. I will let you know how I get on.
Vikki says
Hi i have contacted most of my loans , no answer from provident , and i cant find swift money this lender was acctive around 2009 i have phone number and ref number but this is no longer in service can anyone help please thankyou
Jon says
Update
Wonga came back today with an offer of £1100.00 which considering I’ve borrowed £27000+ over the last 5 years is ridiculous. They also didn’t mention my arrears. So I’m going to the FO.
Mrs R says
Hey Jon –
How long has it been since you logged your complaint to Wonga? I’m currently on week 7 but wondered if they take the full 8 weeks to respond?
Thanks!
Jon says
Wonga came back in the 8th week. I’m expecting a response from 118 this week.
Ross says
Hello, can I just say thank you so much for the information on this website it has been a great help to me!
Now on to the question, The financial ombudsman found in my favour regarding lending stream loans I took out, just wondering how long it takes them to eventually pay out do they always wait the full 4 weeks ? Is it worth calling ls and chasing them a little?
Thanks
Louise says
Hi, Thank you for all the advice and comments on this site, I am now ready to start my letters. I just want a bit of advice on two of the payday lenders.
The first is lending stream, I had probably a few loans with them and then they dropped off my DMP due to selling the debt on, they then tried to give me a CCJ in which never went through and when I called to find out what was going on they told me to basically pay up or they will send for a CCJ again so I paid, even though it never went to a CCJ can I still claim as the account was handled badly as well rolling over and having several loans?
The second is Wonga they had written off all my outstanding debt back in 2012/2013 which was great, should I still claim though?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Lending Stream – several loans and rolling over – definitely complain. The fact you eventually cleared the balance under pressure isn’t relevant.
Wonga – do you mean the write offs in 2014/5? Think of the write off as being the first part of a refund – if you had borrowed a lot before the written off loans, then its well worth claiming. But if the write off was large and you didnt have many loans before, you may not get much if anything.
Louise says
Yeah sorry that wasn’t clear it seemed like a little while ago, yes when they wrote off a lot of debts. They wrote off around 1k in debts, and I had around maybe 10 loans from them for about 11 months before defaulting on the last payment which was then written off.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ok, well unless the last loan was a lot larger than the previous ones, its probably going to worth a complaint.
Bob says
Hi, just accepted an offer from Wonga through the fos. Do they normally take the full 14 days?
AK says
They given 28 days as anyone else by FOS. I accepted via FOS on 5th, Wonga acknowledged on 9th and according to their letter 14 working days starts then. I’ll let you know when they pay.
Chris says
Evening all.
I had confirmation this evening from the adjudicator that they won’t consider my claim against 1st stop as they’ve ceased as of 18th January 2018.
Shame, it was a possible £2k for me.
Week 8 next week so hopefully some decent offers will start to come through on the remaining 8 lenders.
Chris
Aza says
Hi lending stream seem to be very slow at responding complaint went in 26/12
They come back to me about one loan saying they sold it to motormile and said I had 2 with them and will look into it after £10 charge ???
So I now complained to motormile not sure how it will work to try and get some money back and they sent a letter saying I owed them £120 six years ago
I’ve told them to prove I’ve not paid it which I’m waiting on
Wonga was easy offered me £1300 probley could of got more but I thought was nice size sum to take
Any thoughts on next step ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Go back to Lending Steam immediately and say you want them to consider your affordability complaint for both your loans – it is not Motormile’s (who this week have decided to change their name to Lantern) job to pay a refund because Lending Stream made irresponsible loans. If LS refuse, send your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman straight away.
Ignore LS asking for £10 – the Ombudsman will be able to get all the details of your loans.
Tell Motormile Finance/ Lantern that you
a) are disputing the original debt with LS
b) say you do not agree that you owe any money so you require MMF to produce a Statement of Account for the alleged debt (use that word “alleged”!)
c) ask MMF to produce the CCA agreement for the alleged debt, see https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/factsheets/Pages/getting-information/credit-agreement-advice.aspx and note you have to pay MMF £1 for this.
Come back here if MMF are difficult.
As a matter of practicality it may be a good idea to put money aside from the Wonga payout in case you don’t get any money back from LS – obviously this is worst case but a good idea?
Richard says
Just had my response back from Wonga,they replied that all my loans were affordable and 54 loans over 4 years totalling £16958 in loans and £2000 in fees and interest is normal,21 loans in a single calendar year normal?
They have stated that I can complain to FOS,ya damn right that’s where this is going.is this standard wonga practice?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There is a large random element in the complaints Wonga chooses to settle :(
gillian says
hi just a update it as been 3weeks since lending stream were orded by ombudsman to refund me i have not had any communication from lending stream at all so thought i would give them a ring just spoke to someone who said yes they had the ruling from the ombudsman and the date they had to repay me this is the 20th of march according to them and i will be recieving a email with the amount and asking me for my bank details in the next few days this makes me think they are just waiting it out to the very last day to pay refunds so if anyone else is waiting with lending stream you will prob have to wait the full 4 weeks but if it does not hit my account on the 20th i will be ringing the ombudsman to let him know they have not complied with his ruling good luck
Sally says
Hi Gillian
I am in the same boat. The ombudsman have given a provisional ruling in my favour and have given ls till the 27th to come up with further information.. does that mean they will give a further 4 weeks to LS with the final ruling?!
LS are so slow at dealing with anything and always leave everything till the last minute
Ashleigh says
hi,
was hoping someone can help has anyone had a loan with 118 118 money? they have given me another loan after 8 weeks of paying off the last during the first loan I had around 7 months of late payments and arrears and told them several times I was struggling that was only over a year. however this loan is over 2 years ( costing me more money in the long run) do I have a chance with the irresponsible lending complaint?
Thanks
MATT says
Hi All
I have started along this path. I put complaints into 10 lenders on 28/2/18.
I have just had this response from Mr Lender.
Please find attached the information requested regarding your account with Mr Lender.
We can confirm we have already received your complaint in regards to your loans and we are still in the process of investigating.
We can confirm your first five loans with Mr Lender were taken over six years ago and therefore falls outside the time limit rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service. As a result of this we will not be investigating these loans as part of your complaint.
As you have made us aware you are dissatisfied with the service we have provided, we can confirm that we will be conducting a thorough investigation into your concerns. This process can take up to eight weeks depending on the nature of your complaint. Once we have completed our investigation, we will be in contact to explain the outcome.
For more information, please click on the link below which will direct you to our internal Complaints Policy.
The interest for loans 6 years plus is £643.50.
The Interest for loans less than 6 years is £4931.03.
Obviously no offer is made yet but should I reply to this asking them to consider the loans over 6 years?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well they have said they won’t… to be honest if they refund the rest of the loans you will probably be very happy! I should wait till they make an offer.
Steve says
Great day so far – adjudicator got back in touch finding in my favour for the rest of my Payday Express complaint – about an extra £500 on what they initially paid out. I asked him about my ongoing Quickquid case which hadn’t been assigned to anyone yet. Got back to me within the hour to say he’s looked at the case and they’ve made an offer of £1,800 refund having initially rejected my complaint. Only downer is that Lending Stream have rejected his findings so got to wait for Ombudsman on that one.
Andy says
Hi all I have just received my account statement from PDUK and discovered I had 4 loans with them of £350 each time taken out between May and August 2008, nearly 10 years ago, I can see that each loan was taken same day as previous one was paid off I was also using Quick Quid and Wage day Advance at same time. QQ and WDA have already rejected my complaints due to being over 6 years old are PDUK just going to do the same if I email them, I have explained that I only recently realised I had a right to complain, what should I do?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
PDUK are actually paying out on these older loans so definitely worth complaining. Also depending on how much / how often you borrowed, think about sending the WDA and QQ complaints to the Ombudsman – they will be very slow but you may win in the end!
Jon says
well, ive just received my cheque from Cash Genie and is already lodged, looking at the report they published today it seem like they have paid out £330K to unsecured creditors. Jon
zoe says
I have just received a chq from RSM cash genie and it says its a interim payment can someone explain what this means? I worked out the 8% interest payment to be £900.00 more I am totally confused :-(.
So my first one was £90.00 interest charged 03/06/10
Interest charged £45 09/08/10
Interest charged £135 02/09/10
Interest charged £270.00 04/11/10
interest charged £45.00 14/09/11
Interest charged £45.00 03/10/11
Interest charged £7.84 28/10/11
Interest charged £75.00 02/11/11
Interest charged £60.00 10/08/12
Interest charged £19.00 17/09/12
Interest charged £120.00 03/10/12
Interest charged £80.00 18/04/13
Interest charged £14.79 26/08/14
I would really appreciate if someone can help me work out the interest I should have rec3evied back for the above.
thanks zoe
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Interim means it is a partial payment and there may be some more to come. Ask them for a copy of the calculation.
Dave says
When I started borrowing I paid the first few loans back fine. Then like most people borrowed more even though I knew I could not pay them back but borrowed it anyway. To try and pay them off I was just using the money to gamble to try and win the money back to pay the first company off. If I lost it I would just borrow off a different company. Currently I have at least 8 loans all with different lenders which I have not made any payments to at all. These are all at least a year old and all at the debt collectors. Where do you think I should start?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I think you should send an affordability complaint to every lender you have either used more than once or who you still owe money to. Tell the debt collectors you are disputing the debt with the lender.
Read https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-refunds-defaulted-loan/ which looks at complaints where you still owe money in more detail.
gillian says
well my phone call to lending stream this morning worked i am surprised just recieved email with refund total of 7200 asking if i wish it to be paid into the bank account they still have on file i replied yes and should be in my account within the week so looking forward to this ty again sara
Phusita says
Hi SaRa
Please help what should I do ?
I have accepted offer from mr Lender so They take out off interest for £500 and set up payment plan with them but I also setup my payment plane with StepChange so I stop make a payment with Mr. Lender . I got a Email from them today .
This is a final reminder that your repayment plan will be cancelled at midday on the next working day as your payment of £100.00 has not been received and you have not responded to our attempts to contact you.
If your repayment plan is cancelled your account will enter active collections. If no payment is received this may also result in your debt being sold to a third party debt purchase company at a later date.
What should I do please ?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Reply saying StepChange are setting up a DMP for you. It can take a month or so before everything is set up at all lenders – try not to worry and do not make any extra payments to lenders as that just confuses things. Remember the hundreds of thousands of people on StepChange DMPs wouldn’t be happy if they carried on getting hassle from creditors/
Robert says
I complained to Lending Stream in 2016. After some coming and going I accepted their settlement of around six loans to the value of 900 refund plus removal from credit file. Last week, I received an email from them saying because they didn’t advise in my original complaint that I could refer my case to the FOS, I now had the right to do so. I still have around 12 loans on my credit file, does anyone think I should now complain to the FOS about these other loans?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Honestly no. You made a complaint to the the FOS about two other lenders in 2016. I don’t think you can reasonably say you were unaware of your rights when you chose to settle with Lending Stream.
Emma says
Hi Sara,
I just wanted to say a HUGE thanks for your help and advice.
The FOS Adjudicator upheld all my Wonga, Quickquid and Pounds 2 Pocket claims. I am astonished and so grateful to you!
On to the waiting game to hear from them all now ????
Have lodged complaints re Avant Credit and Likely Loans too.
Likely loans accepted my affordable monthly offer and are still investigating, but Avant Credit have completely ignored my affordable monthly offer and point blankly refused my claim. I have put everything in writing several times.
Avant credit now with FOS.
Waiting to hear from Likely Loans.
I’ll keep you updated.
Massive thanks.
Chris says
Thankyou so much for all the advice here
I am a month and a half into complaining to numerous payday lenders for lots of loans over the last 3-8 years
Never thought I would get anywhere but have just received my first offer from my jar
To put things right for you, we propose to refund the interest and charges you paid on the loans highlighted above in the amount of £708.83.
We will also include an additional 8% statutory interest calculated on the interest and charges that you paid to us. This amount is subject to 20% tax and this has been deducted, leaving a net interest payment of £213.85 due to you. This brings the total refundable amount to £922.68. A tax certificate regarding this payment is available should you require one.
After receiving a few fob off final responses from quickquid and moneyshop I thought I might not be seeing any positive results
Hoping for more results and am passing the non offers to the Ombudsman
Thankyou so much :)
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Nice to get one sorted!
You can get up to £200 of tax deducted back from the tax man in each tax year, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/ppi-payday-refund-get-back-tax/. Sorry this one is just in the 17/18 tax year. Any from April 5 are in 18/19 tax year.
Joeb says
Good morning
Can anyone give me some guidance. My adjudicator has ruled in my favour against payday express for 11 loans from sept 2011 onwards. Do payday express usually agree or are they likely to go to the ombudsman stage and string it out? Has anyone any experience of this? The adjudicator has given them until 28th March to agree or disagree.
Mandy says
Hi Joe. I had my loans upheld by the adjudicator and payday express agreed with their findings.
lee says
The adjudicator found in my favour on all loans against QQ but the never replied to the adjudicator by the set date (given 3 weeks), So on it goes to the Ombudsman. I’ve been on with it since July 2017….they are a law unto themselves.
My Wonga claim from that date has still not been allocated an adjudicator
Helen says
LendingStream are really starting to annoy me now.
I complained to them in July. Long story short adjudicator upheld my complaint, LendingStream countered offered and I accepted a lower amount end of jan just to get it sorted.
Two weeks ago they sent me an email asking me to confirm my bank details which I did immediately.
On Monday they sent me an email saying they had processed the repayment and that I should have it in 24-48 hours.
Guess what, money has still not hit my account! Funny seeing as when I originally borrowed money, they were able to pay it out within the hour!!!
John C says
Has it arrived yet Helen? What a terrible business LS are. On the 1st March I was told they would sort my refund as a priority. Last Friday I was told the very latest I’d see my money was the 16th. 3 days my calculations didn’t arrive when I’d been told they would. On Wednesday I received them and I replied 20 min later to accept on the basis the money was in my account that day as that is when the interest calculation was up to. On Friday (16th) I rang and was twice told my money would be in my account that day. Ended up ringing again at 9pm as no money. Utter incompetence at every level. Can’t wait to pass it to the FCA
John C says
I would also go back to the FOS to continue your complaint. Did you say you would accept the counter offer on the basis the payment was made within a certain timeframe? If it hasn’t been made in that time then they haven’t upheld their part of the deal, I would say you can continue to with the complaint for the higher amount. I’d at least use that as a threat. There is no urgency at LS. I’m now half hoping they don’t pay up by the 23rd just so I can file court papers through MCOL, ha ha
gillian says
hi sara just a quick question about the tax paid on intrest refund my quickquid one was 1769.21 intrest and they paid 353.84 tax payday uk was 950.16 intrest and they paid 189.87 tax lending stream was 1680.50 intrest and they paid 336.10 tax the problem is my wageday advance one was 1001.81 and they didnt pay any tax am i right in when i fill out the tax form to declare this i could reclaim 200 pound back but then would owe about the same amount on the wage day one so it would be about even i am a basic tax payer and the intrest refunds would not take me into higher tax band ty
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Were all these since April 2017?
gillian says
yes sara all since october 2017 to up to this week
Victoria says
Hi,
I’ve just accepted a settlement through the FOS and I was wondering how long it takes Casheuronet (quickquid and pounds to pocket) to pay out?
Thanks
Mr K says
Hello,
Does anybody have any advice for removing a default notice placed by Minicredit in October 2014, now in the name of Kapama.
I’ve pleaded my case to the FOS that the debt wasn’t assigned properly but the Ombudsman and Adjuicator and doesn’t stick to the FCA guidelines laid out to wind Minicredit down in 2014. The original loan I couldn’t afford and also the original company kept drawing down payments when I’d asked them to stop due to my financial issues.
The problem is now that Minicredit no longer exists, Kapama just say they have done no wrong and don’t accept any wrong doing. What’s the point in the FCA stepping in if a sister company just ignores it. Any advice on next steps as I feel exhausted by this.
Thanks in advance.
Mr K
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Was the first loan sold to Kapama by Minicredit? Have you already taken this to the Ombudsman and list the case?
Louise says
I also have got kapama popping up.on my credit file, I’ve emailed them for there notice of assignment back in 2014 and also a breakdown of the loan. A £100 which I only received 80 of, has of course interest but what shocked me is 515 of attempted charges. What is attempted charges? Can I argue this? It doesn’t feel right will me to pay back a 100 loan for 816…. any help would be great! I’m at wits end with it to be honest!
Andy says
I Had exactly the same problem, borrowed £100 more than once. They took over £500 one payday. I then borrowed another £100 and ended up owing £846. Spent past 18 months trying to sort and fos said kapama were correct to demand so much, so paid them off agreed settlement of £400 in January and they still haven’t updated credit record 2 months later so now noddle are trying to resolve.
Craig says
Hi Sara,
I’ve got 2 cases with FOS that have had rulings by adjudicator, one for Cash Float for 3 loans that they upheld in their favour, and one for WagedayAdvance which they ruled in my favour for 3/5 loans. I’ve asked for Cash Float to go to Ombudsman as I wasn’t happy with the decision, Wageday have come back partially agreeing with FOS for 2/5 loans and made an offer, I’m not sure whether to accept or send to the Ombudsman for final decision? I think if I’d of managed to get Cash Floats last loan interest back and defaults wiped I’d have took it but now I’m not sure, details of loans below, what do you think? I’ve settled with 7 companies direct before this.
WAGEDAYADVANCE
18.12.16 – £100 – fully paid 2 installments
01.03.17 – £200 – fully paid 1 installment
02.04.17 – £300 – fully paid 1 installment
30.04.17 – £500 – fully paid 3 installments
30.07.17 – £500 – no direct payments – went to stepchange 21.08.17
CASH FLOAT
05.05.17 – £200 – fully paid 2 installments
12.06.17 – £300 – fully paid 2 installments
30.07.17 – £500 – no direct payments – went to stepchange 21.08.17
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Cash float – I assume the debt with StepChange includes interest added on? If it does, I think it’s worth asking the Ombudsman for this to be removed. Without sight of your bank statements and credit record I can’t guess if yiu have a good case for the refund on the first two loans.
WDA – what did the adjudicator say? What has WDA offered?
Craig says
Thanks Sara,
Yes, Cash floats debt includes interest with StepChange, I asked the adjudicator to remove the interest and defaults but she’s forwarded to ombudsman, I’m not hopeful of them chafing their mind tho. My credit score was awful at the time, I’m a discharged bankrupt and there were a large amount of gambling transactions at that time, and a lot of rejected credit searches over the 6-7 months previous along with 8 open loans.
WageDay have offered interest charges & 8% interest back plus defaults removed on last 2 loans, whereas adjudicator wanted it on last 3 loans. The redress would leave me with a £90 balance with StepChange, but if I send to ombudsman and they disagree with wda it would wipe the whole loan and gave a small amount back, have I anything to loose sending it on?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t think you have anything to lose by sending the WDA case to the Ombudsman.
Abigail Earnshaw says
Hi,
I have just submitted a claim for loans dating back to 2011 to both Wonga & Quikquid. Is there a set number of days they should reply by? Anyone else had a good result complaining about loans from this long ago?
Carol says
Afternoon,
Advice please. I’m in a DMP and have pay day loans within it but am about to be made redundant. What should I do? Do I go back and claim or go on a self managed DMP then go back to them or ask about F&F’s. I’m sorry I’m so confused. Thank you.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
You have two different problems here.
First you can’t afford your current DMP if you are being made redundant. Talk to your DMP firm (who is it?) about the options – if you are getting any redundancy pay, think twice before agreeing to use it to cover your DMP payments… unless you can get another job soon, you may need that money to live on. Switching to paying a token £1 a month to your debts is an option until you get another job.
Second, making payday loan affordability complaints. These should be done even if you weren’t being made redundant! Assuming you win some, the first thing will be to clear any balance you still owe, improving your overall situation even if you don’t get any cash. If the refunds are bigger, you could use them for full & final settlements…. but if you are still out of work that money could be useful for just living on.
Carol says
Thank you for your reply. Do I just have to send a letter or e-mail to the creditors and then wait? Will they want statements from when I took the loans out because I don’t have them any longer as I swapped banks when I went on the DMP with Stepchange (as advised) plus the majority of them are quite old. I have 2 credit cards that went on the DMP (Barclaycard and 1st Credit). I have loans from my old bank and the rest are pay day loans.
I would have never thought about paying a token £1 either or even speaking (how thick am I) to Stepchange.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It’s very scary losing your job. You are doing the right thing to be thinking what to do about your DMP – I expect StepChange to be sympathetic.
The article above has templates you can adapt. Email is best – it’s free, instant and you have a record of it. If you get an offer you aren’t sure about, come back here and ask?
Some lenders ask for bank statements, some don’t. You don’t have to send them, they all have to consider your complaint even if you don’t. For any complaints that have to go to the Financial Ombudsman, you will need bank statements but you can get these from closed accounts. Most people have found this easier than they expected.
Carol says
Thank you again for your help and guidance. I’ll get my bits and pieces together and got for it before I back out and get scared. Is it worth sending something to Nat West or they just say no and ignore (this is one of the biggies) as I had loans and normal bank accounts with them.
Chris says
Another result from payday uk this time ????
£1600 as a settlement
Debtcamel is the shizzel ????????????????
Chris says
Good job ????
Louise says
Chris did they request bank statements from you PDA? They have told me they can only look into the loans to make the correct decision with them?
tracky3011 says
Hi Sara
I have had a small offer from Wonga with respect pay day loans (most were over the six year period- so only last two loans were looked at).
I sent the acceptance letter and confirmed my bank details. They have now emailed back to ask for a photo of my bank card (with the long number blanked out). I asked my bank and they said it is not secure and a strange request, is this a standard practice as with fraud so prevalent seems odd to me. I phoned them and confirmed all of my security details and gave my bank details again but they are insisting on more evidence.
David Sullivan says
Hi I have just received a letter from a company called dollar uk saying they search my credit file and offering me 75pounds … I have a loan our with payday UK so how does that work and I put in for irresponsible lending of payday UK and got no where with them
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This article looks at these £75 offers: https://debtcamel.co.uk/payday-uk-sends-75-for-a-credit-record-error/. THese have nothing to do with your previous comnplaint.
David Watson says
Hi everyone. I hope I have done right.. I sent a complaint letter (Templet) to wonga about my 37 loans between 2012 & 2018 and asked for a full refund of interest paid as I was borrowing month to month almost to pay them back on time… Was killing me and I am still paying loans to get out of debt to this day.. hopefully this time next year I will be free. I am just hoping they see the pain they have caused. Do you think I have done the correct thing??? Do they also remove info from your credit file of they rule in my favour? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Right thing to complain – definitely!
But if you are still borrowing from that has to stop. So unless you can repay the current loan and manage without borrowing again, you need to tell Wonga you need a payment arrangement and cancel the CPA to Wonga at your bank. It can take many months to get to the end of these complaints so you need to get yourself in a safe position financially to get through.
The normal thing is they remove negative info from your credit record.
Chris says
Has anybody had success with getting loans removed from credit history as part of their refund. Is this actually possible, I’m not just talking about negative info, I mean the entire loan.
Thanks I’m advance
Chris
Eva says
I had success with WageDay Advance and MY JAR..completely disappeared from my credit file
Chris says
Thanks Eva
Was that with a refund or negotiated.
Thanks
Chris
Eva says
I requested it in the complaint and it was also written in their final response letter that they will remove it. When I sent back my acceptance I again mentioned that I’m accepting the offer and removal from credit file. The removal was done within 10 days.
Eva says
Sorry yes it was with refund and written in their final letter. I did negotiate the mkbeh though which they agreed quite easily.
Chris says
Thanks for that Eva, appreciated.
J says
Hi Chris,
Yes i’ve just negotiated this with Mr Lender too. Had to keep asking, but eventually got it in writing from them.
Chris says
Great job J
Gives me hope for some of mine.
Best of luck ????
J says
Thanks Chris, good luck with yours too.
Mr Lender took some going back and forth but all resolved, closed and paid within three weeks. I have the worst companies/largest amounts left to deal with now so will keep checking in here for the strength to carry on! You seem like a really positive support on here, thanks and keep it up ????????
Chris says
Thanks for your kind words J.
All our stories will be different, but we all have similar struggles with these lenders.
Will keep you posted as this week is week 8 for me so hoping for some decent offers.
All the best????
Jen says
Erm so I have put in complaints with ombudsman against 15 odd companies but 5 have been picked up by the same adjudicator and I know this sounds nuts but I feel like she has something against me – her emails are very stand offish and She has agreed with the companies each time despite saying she thinks they should have done more checks, the first of these has been overturned by the ombudsman.
Is it possible to ask for another adjudicator or her not to pick up anymore of my complaints?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suspect adjudicators don’t like having their decisions overturned by an Ombudsman and this may change how they see future cases! How many of these 5 have actually had a decision?
lee says
Hi Jen,
I found the same scenario on a claim. Two claims and one was fine, but another claim the emails from the adjudicator were condescending in all his correspondence. He even said that Lending stream hadn’t followed lending checks on all but two, but only found one loan was unaffordable.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
“He even said that Lending stream hadn’t followed lending checks on all but two, but only found one loan was unaffordable.” This could be correct – you will only win an affordability complaint if (a) the loan was unaffordable for you AND (b) and the lender should have known. The lender may not have done proper checks, but if your bank statements suggest you could have repaid the loan without getting into more debt, then you aren’t going to win.
I’m not saying your adjudicator was right – you should ask for the complaint to go to an Ombudsman if you disagree. As Jen’s comments show, you can get a poor decision by an adjudicator corrected.
African Queen says
Hello All,
Just has success with Peachy. Received an offer of £1598.00 which I am happy to accept.
I sent my complaint in on the 6th of March, received an acknowledgement the next day and an offer arrived today.
I just want to say a huge thank you to Sara. I would never have thought to claim anything so this is a welcome bonus and I am now Payday Loan free :)
I have some other complaints on the go and I will advise as I go on.
Sara, have you got a favourite charity that I can make a donation to – just to show my appreciation?
Thank you
Sara (Debt Camel) says
A small donation to your local Citizens Advice would be lovely. They are all individual small charities and many are struggling with funding cuts from the local council.
African Queen says
Thank you Sara. As soon as I get the funds, I will make the donation.
You have no idea how many lives you are changing with the advice that you are freely giving to us all.
Thank you again and I will continue to post my updates as I get them.
Helen says
Hi Debt Camel,
I have already had some successful write-offs so far with your templates, thank you!
Now, I would like to tackle one huge debt – Everyday Loans. I can’t seem to find anywhere if this lender would be considered the same as a payday lender? Their interest rates and fees are unmanageable and I have already tried speaking to them and they do not want to help to come to an agreement. Do you know if I can file the same type of complaint against them? Has anyone been successful with Everyday Loans? Thanks!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
people have been having some success against the high cost large loan lenders such as Everyday Loans, 118 Money, Avant Credit, Likely Loans etc.
The affordability rules are exactly the sale for all lenders. If you can’t afford the monthly repayments without borrowing then a loan is unaffordable. It is harder to win a single loan case, but these loans are much larger so the lenders should have checked your situation and your credit record more carefully before lending.
Take the standard template letter and adapt it, remove any reference to payday”, multiple loans, trapped in a spiral etc. Don’t be put off if Everyday Loans reject your case and it has to go to the Ombudsman.
Andy says
I currently have a complaint against MyJar on the go for 4 loans taken out in 66 days between June & August 2012 and I am wondering if I should ask them to remove history from my credit record, there is no default showing but it does state that it took 4 years for me to satisfy the final loan with a 1 month late marker showing every month from 2012 to 2016
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes, if they agree the last loan should not have been given they should either delete it from your credit record or remove the 1 month late markers.
If you do not win this complaint – either with the lender or with the Ombudsman – than you can also ask MyJar to add a default date in late 2012/early 2013 marker to this last loan. Although that makes your credit score worse, a defaulted debt will drop off your credit record 6 years from the default date. See https://debtcamel.co.uk/debt-default-date/. But don’t bother with this now as your complaint may resolve the issue.
Andy says
OK that is great advice, so just to confirm a default dated August 2012 would drop off my report in August 2018 whereas a loan taken out in 2012 but satisfied in 2016 will stay there till 2022.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Yes that’s right – but the “correct” default date for a loan taken in August 2012 would be 3-6 months after you failed to repay it in September 12 – so Dec 12 to March 13.
John M says
I received the following from one company. I had my loans with this company 5-7 years ago:
I note you have stated in your complaint that you only became aware you were able to make a complaint relating to irresponsible lending recently.
Therefore, please could you reply to this message as soon as possible to confirm whether there have been any extenuating circumstances which have impeded you from sending the complaint to us previously (e.g. medical/ hospital appointments/ stays or operations and/ or any other issues you have experienced if there are any) and also how you became aware you were able to make the complaint.
I was told by a friend who is in a similar position and I wasn’t aware this was even possible before that. Is that a suitable response as no extenuating circumstances that they mention in their email?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That is fine – just tell the truth about how you heard. Who is the lender?
John M says
WDA is the lender. Thanks Sara
Jackie crawford says
Had some good news this week, wage day advance upheld most of my loans with them ( the ones going back to 2010 we’re not looked into and there were only 3 small ones so not going to quibble over these). I’m accepting their offer of £3000 which is brilliant. Is going to be used to pay off other debts and leave enough for a little holiday. I’ve still got more complaints with other pdl,s in with the FOS so fingers crossed. Thankyou Sarah and all at debt camel, took half an hour of my time to collate the information and send the email, 8 weeks later…result ???? good luck to everyone else with your complaints ????
Josh says
Hi Sara,
I’ve just had an update with regards to my QuickQuid complaint. I had 7 loans, and one of which entered into a CCJ for a total amount of £1259.
The adjudicator found in my favour with 3 loans, and total refund was £1400 roughly. They have settled the outstanding principal of £650 and waived £609 interest on that loan. And the amount that will be refunded to me is £819.84!!
Thank you so so so much for your help, and for this website giving people hope when in a big hole. £819 isn’t alot in comparison to what others have got. But it wipes off all the bad credit on my credit file, the CCJ I shall contest with the court displaying the letter from the adjudicator and the acceptance from the business and hope that it gets removed from my credit file also. If that’s the case, my credit file will be in impeccable form as I’ve been using a credit card to build it up. (Only small amounts £20 a month and repaying at the end of each month) plus the refund.
This is such a huge weight of my shoulders and it wouldn’t have been possible without you and this website. So thank you again.
Josh
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Apart from the money, was the decision clear on what would happen to the CCJ?
Josh says
They were clear in that they couldn’t do anything with regards to the CCJ. However, without “advising” me they told me to send a letter with their findings on the loan in question and that it was unaffordable. And also show the email showing the business accepting their findings and see if the court will offset or remove the CCJ from my file.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Ok, I suggest you should either talk to National Debtline 0808 808 4000 or post on the Legal Beagles forum https://legalbeagles.info/forums/forum/legal-forums/court-claims-and-issues about how to approach this.