Contents
Quick overview
Provident’s Scheme of Arrangement is now in the final stages.
The Scheme was proposed because Provident could not afford to carry on paying full refunds to customers winning affordability complaints. The Financial Ombudsman was upholding 75% of complaints against Provident.
The FCA, Provident’s regulator, said it did not approve of the Scheme. But as Provident has stopped providing doorstep loans, the FCA did not object to the Scheme in court.
It started officially on 5 August 2021 after it was approved in court. The deadline for claims was the end of February 2022.
Provident has assessed claims and informed customers of their decision. The large majority of appeals have been held.
Provident is making payments to bank accounts or sending cheques:
- it is paying 4.2557p in the £;
- so if your redress was £1,000, you will receive about £42;
- a final letter will be uploaded to your portal account setting out the payment;
- the first bank payments will be arriving in accounts on Tuesday 5 July.
Here is confirmation from one reader (see the comments below for others):
FUNDS PENDING!!!
Hi all, I’m new to this to thread but just thought I would give an update.
I have a Monzo account, it is showing my Bacs credit as going into my account on Monday, for most people with standard accounts this means you will be be paid Tuesday 
I can also confirm it is 4.2557% as stated.
Glad it’s eventually been sorted.
But no-one should assume they will get their payment next week.
They may be going out in batches. And in any mass payment, some of them fail. Do not plan your July finances on the assumption that you will get paid early in the month.
Which loans were covered by the Scheme?
More than 4 million people were given a loan by Provident that comes under the Scheme.
These loans were given between 6 April 2007 and 17 December 2020.
The loans came from four different brands:
- Provident – often called “doorstep loans” or “home credit”;
- Satsuma payday loans;
- Greenwood – another doorstep loan brand that hasn’t been used since 2014;
- Glo – a very small guarantor loan brand.
If you have an affordability complaint about Vanquis or Moneybarn, these complaints are NOT included in the Scheme. You can still make a normal affordability complaint and get a full refund.
The definition of “unaffordable”
A loan is only “affordable” if you could repay it on time and still be able to pay your other debts, bills and living expenses.
You may have paid the loan on time, but it may still have been unaffordable.
If paying Provident left you so short of money you had to borrow more or you got behind with bills then it was “unaffordable”.
If you had several loans without a break between them, then Provident should have realised you were trapped in a cycle of borrowing and that these expensive loans were not affordable. Even a single loan can be unaffordable if it is large.
How much will you be paid?
The next stage is for Provident to divide up the £50 million in the Scheme between the people who have had their complaints upheld.
Customers who made a claim have been told which loans have been upheld and what the total redress for these loans is. You will be paid a percentage of this redress number, not all of it.
When the Scheme was voted on, many people thought they were being told that the payout would be 10%, or 10p in the £. I said at the time that that looked unlikely and it could only have been based on an unusually low number of people making a claim.
For several months Provident has been quoting a range, saying:
Based on the claims that we have received to date, we estimate that the pence in the pound rate of compensation to be paid to each customer will be between 4-6p.
Now it is known that Provident will only be paying 4.2557p in the £.
A final letter will be added to your portal account setting out what you will be paid.
Credit records will be cleaned
In other schemes and Administrations, some people say getting rid of a default was the most important result for them. Not the small cash refund!
For upheld loans, any defaults or missed payments will be removed from your credit record.
This clean up will be done at the end, when they can do everyone’s together. This is very annoying if you want to make a mortgage application, but there is nothing you can do to speed it up.
If your credit record is not cleaned in this process, there will probably be no-one to complain to about this. But there is process for resolving this sort of problem, see Correct credit records by “suppressing” them if the lender has disappeared.
Current loans
Loans that were sold to a debt collector
If your loan was sold to a debt collector, Provident is trying to get this settled. This seems to be taking some time, for example with Lowell saying they haven’t been given the right information from Provident. Several people are complaining about these in the comments below.
Loans that hadn’t been sold were written off in December 2021
In December Provident announced that it was no longer collecting any payments for existing loans.
Your credit record is being changed to show that the loan is partially settled or partially satisfied. If you are a Provident or Satsuma customer, you should have been told about this by email or letter.
That is a pathetic payout
Provident is a successful company with the profitable Vanquis and Moneybarn brands which are still in business. It is a disgrace that the regulator has allowed them to structure their business in a way that has permitted Provident to abandon all its doorstep lending customers and not pay them their proper redress.
If you are feeling mad that Provident has got away with paying you so little, this is the time to look at whether you can make other affordability complaints, not just for loans but for other types of credit.
I have a separate page for each sort, as they need slightly different template letters to complain:
- refunds for large loans, including Moneybarn and other car finance;
- refunds from catalogues and credit cards such as Vanquis;
- refunds from Morses and other doorstep lenders;
- refunds from Lending Stream, Safetynet Credit and other payday lenders;
- refunds from overdrafts.
Could a Debt Relief Order help you?
Can’t pay your bills or debts?
Can you really offer just £1 to a debt?
Julie says
I still haven’t had my money paid into my account. They are saying that my account was linked to another customers and that it has to be re assessed. Is anyone else having this issue?
Michelle Robinson says
I was told the office will still be open till end of august for all who went with the adjudicate
Kirsty Fletcher says
I still haven’t even had an offer keep getting told they are looking into it and still no response and the office is now closed
Lucy says
just realised I should have posted here instead of someones comment.
I contacted Lowell today both the automated service and customer service confirmed that my account for Lowell has been closed it was closed on 22nd July.
I enquired about the refund and they said they are sending out letters this month regarding refunds if this helps. They said if you haven’t recieved a letter by end of August then to ring them back.
Christine says
At last had a response of lowell solicitors my account has been put on hold and under investigation while they look at all the evidence I’ve sent them from provident, this had to be done through lowell as the solicitors department ( put in a complaint about there attitude regarding the issue) were just not interested will wait and see result, which says can take up too 8 weeks to investigate!!!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
at last!
Stuart Ridley says
I am the same ….still have not received my compensation payment…….the office is closed…..how do we contact you now ?
Mark says
Hi Sara,
I had an account with Provident which had already defaulted. It wasnt deemed unaffordable lending but they closed the account and notified the credit reference agencies that it was “Closed – Partial Settlement” with a zero balance.
The Experian credit record is still showing this as Default and not a closed account which is negatively impacting my credit score. The other Reference agencies have it as a closed account and my scores are good.
Will Provident been clearing all defaults or only those who won the unaffordable lending claim?
Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Only the loans upheld as unaffordable.
But in a couple of months you can ask Experian to “suppress” this record, see https://debtcamel.co.uk/correct-credit-records-lender-administration/
merveille says
i havnt recieved anothing at all from them, i have been told that the money was going to be senf through on the 31 july due to some delays all now nohting which is ashame. i have sent soo many emails , now i dont know what to do
Louise says
Hi!
I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience to me? I had multiple loans with Provident including a glo loan. This was not included on the first calculation so I appealed the decision and it was upheld by the adjudicator. They’ve since sent me a further calculation with the glo loan on it hut the compensation value as being zero. I’m not sure what else I can do now? Any help would be appreciated!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
if you think the glo loan was unaffordable you can ask for that to go to the adjudicator too.
Louise says
Hi Sara,
It already has and yjey upheld it. I just don’t understand why the compensation value is £0 on thr coaimd calculation!
Sara (Debt Camel) says
how large was the loan? How much have you paid to it so far?
Lynnsey says
I just received an email saying that I have a secure message in the portal. But I can’t access the portal. I never have been able to
Joe says
Me too but the loan amount total is totally different from the 1st redress email they sent me and there are home credit loans on there when I only ever used satsuma!!!! It’s over £3000 more!!!! But still reads I’m owed nil amount as owed more than my redress claim????? So confused!
Stacy says
I’m the same I can’t log in to my account either?
Sarah says
I’m in the same situation
Christine says
I’ve have had one to but it’s totally different to 1st one with outstanding balances increased from my 1st portal letter what’s they doing? 1st outstanding balance was £1300 now it’s £6100!!!
Christine says
Just read through it again and compared to 1st redress letter and loans deemed affordable had NO outstanding balances on but on one received today they now have outstanding balances I’m SO confused!!
Faye says
Hi I’ve just had a letter in my portal with outstanding balance of 3000, but like others first one had a nil balance 🤷🏼♀️
Rebecca Rogers says
Still waiting for replacement cheque was told Wes sent 3 weeks ago appalled to be in this situation
Kim Northcott says
I still waiting for my cheque from provident, first cheque they sent to my old address (even though they had my new one ) on the very last day 29th July was told they would send me another one! To date 13/08/2022 still no cheque! Will be very surprised to actually receive it