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How to ask QuickQuid for a payday loan refund (old article)

UPDATE – on 25 October, CasheEuroNet which owns ate QuickQuid, Pounds To Pocket and On Stride brands went into administration.

See QuickQuid goes into administration – what will happen for details. That article will be updated with any more news.

This article will not be kept up to date.

QuickQuid (QQ) and its smaller brand Pounds To Pocket (P2P), which in February 2019 rebranded as On Stride, have been getting large numbers of affordability complaints from customers asking for refunds of interest.

You may be able to get a refund if you had loans from QQ, P2P or On Stride you couldn’t repay without borrowing again. You can get refunds for all type of loans, including instalment and flexi loans.

Summary –  QuickQuid complaints

QuickQuid is now the most complained about banking and credit firm in Britain (ignoring PPI), according to Finanical Ombudsman statistics.

At the end of 2018, there were about 9,000 complaints against QQ and PTP with the Ombudsman. Many had been there for two years as QQ had been refusing to give refunds on loans over 6 years old or for loans given after 2015.

In 2019 the Ombudsman started upholding large numbers of these cases. QQ then rejected many of these decisions.

But in August 2019 QQ agreed to pay thousands of outstanding Ombudsman decisions within the next 6 weeks. These are being referred to as “the spreadsheet complaints” as many customers were told by FOS they “were on the spreadsheet“.

How to start a complaint (this no longer applies now QQ is in administration)

The main Payday loan refund article has the template letters to use for making these complaints.

If you had loans from both QuickQuid and Pounds to Pocket, you only need to make one complaint, covering both sets of loans.

If you rolled a loan repeatedly or repaid the loan and soon after took out another one, this suggests the loan was not affordable.

One loan complaints can be hard to win, but if your loan was large, as some of the loans from On Stride are, read Getting a refund for a large bad credit loan which has better template letters for your situation.

A list of your loans is usually enclosed with the response to your complaint.

Has your data been deleted?

This is a new problem. In mid-April 2019, QuickQuid seems to have deleted information about some loans over seven years old from their records. See Why is QuickQuid going to delete old customer data?

This won’t be a problem for you if you have the details of your loans, from your email records or from your bank statements. Here tell QuickQuid you can supply them with a list of your loans so they can consider your case. If they refuse to do this, send it straight to the Financial Ombudsman.

If you don’t have all your records, ask QuickQuid if that is their final response and then send the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman. You can complain not just that you were given unaffordable loans but that QuickQuid has not treated you fairly by deleting your loan data when it should have known from other customers complaints that you may have a good affordability complaint. Ask for compensation for this.

You may feel that without evidence your case is very weak. But you have an excellent case that QQ has treated you unfairly!

If you have closed your bank account, it can still be possible to get old statements but there may be a limit on how far back you can go. So try to do this as soon as possible – don’t wait for several months until the Financial Ombudsman asks you for them as that may mean there are another few months you can’t get.

QuickQuid’s standard response was designed to put you off

QQ uses a template letter to reply to you.

When you read what they have written, you may feel depressed and that you don’t have a good case. That is what QQ want you to believe! But in many cases the checks QQ did were far from adequate and the wording in their replies may mislead you.

Here are some bits from one recent QQ response (in italics) together with my comments on them.

We have assessed loans funded before FCA regulations were implemented using the “other credit commitment” (OCC) value taken from your credit report at the time of funding and used a reliable average for all remaining expenses.

From some published Ombudsman decisions, it seems that QQ hasn’t kept the details of many credit checks it did for loans before 2014, see this decision for example. You won’t win your case just because QQ can’t produce this information, but if you kept borrowing or rolling loans for months then you shouldn’t worry that QQ has some brilliant way of showing they did great checks.

In assessing loans funded after FCA regulations were implemented, we used validated expenses figures. We arrived at those figures by validating your declared expenses for various categories from your loan application against credit reference agency and Office of National Statistics data.

Here QQ usually has kept more records. But they were validating your expenses against some national averages. that may have been fine for the first few loans, but if you kept borrowing, QQ should have wondered if your real expenses were larger than their estimates. So they should have done extra checks on your later loans, not just kept repeating the same checks.

In assessing whether your loan(s) were affordable, we evaluated whether your total repayment across the loan term was sufficiently less than your total estimated disposable income across the loan term, after taking into account your expenses.

They were estimating your income and your expenses, without verifying them.

Also did you have had one of QQ’s “three month loans” where they only charged the interest for the first two months then the whole of the capital repayment plus another months interest in the third month? If you did, QQ assumed you would save up money in the first and second months. But the Ombudsman often doesn’t think this is fair, for example, here is one Ombudsman decision.

We further assessed affordability by viewing your account history for hardship. If we concluded that any of your prior loans were in hardship status, we evaluated whether any subsequent loans were issued without an adequate gap in time in between.

But QQ doesn’t seem to take account of whether you had to roll a loan, ask for a top-up or ask for extra time to repay a loan, even though that is also evidence that you were struggling.

we closely reviewed whether you took out multiple loans in short succession and whether there were negative changes in your individual circumstances such as a decrease in income and/or an increase in “other credit commitments” between said loans. We further analysed dependency by examining whether you had any loan(s) with numerous extensions or rollovers and if so, whether any subsequent loan was funded in close proximity thereafter.

QQ says they “closely review” these, but often they just seem to reject a case even if often you had to roll a loan or borrow again soon after repaying one.

You may feel this letter doesn’t actually reflect your situation at all – and you are probably right! QQ doesn’t explain why they have refused to refund some loans, or why they picked the ones they did.

For several years QQ didn’t add 8% statutory interest to goodwill refunds it offered. But inAugust 2018 sent an unexpected additional refund to some customers who had been affected by this.

QuickQuid cases at the Ombudsman (you can no longer send a QQ case to the ombudsman)

The Ombudsman service is easy to use but has been slow for QQ complaints, but in summer 2019 that seems to be improving as a large number of cases have been decided.

Three things not to worry about:

  1. you won’t “lose” an offer from QQ if you go to the Financial Ombudsman. So far as I am aware, in every case where someone was offered an amount by QQ the Ombudsman has increased the amount.
  2. the Ombudsman won’t reject your case because you had a large income or your partner kept bailing you out etc. Lots of people have won these cases. If you kept borrowing then QQ should have realised you were dependent on the loans and stopped lending.
  3. cases where there was a lot of repeat borrowing and gambling are getting good refunds.

How do they respond to the adjudicator’s decision?

The Adjudicator is the name for the first stage of an Ombudsman complaint. Only 10% of cases have to go to the second stage is when it is looked at by an Ombudsman.

QQ accept have been accepting some adjudicator decisions.  But sometimes they offer a lower amount, in which case you have to decide if it’s worth taking that or asking for the case to go to the Ombudsman.

In June one person has just reported being offered c £8,000 by QuickQuid when the adjudicator’s decisions would have been about £9,500 – he decided that was a good enough offer to accept.

Rejecting too many adjudicator decisions

But QQ has been rejecting far too many adjudicator decisions.

The ombudsman could take all these adjudicator decisions through to the second “Ombudsman-level” where a decision is legally binding and QQ have to payout. But that would take a lot of Ombudsman resource to get thousands of cases through at that level. It shouldn’t be needed. the Ombudsman-level is intended for the few difficult cases, not for run-of-the-mill standard decisions.

Both the Ombudsman and QQ’s regulator, the FCA, have been pointing out that the FCA’s rules say a lender has to learn from ombudsman decisions and apply them.

This is why in August QuickQuid agreed to accept several thousand adjudicator decision it had previously rejected.

QQ started to send emails with the refund amounts and asking for people’s bank account details in September.

Good news that QQ is paying out on some FOS decisions but…

I’m very pleased QQ agreed to pay out on these decisions. Not just for those customers getting their refund at long last, but because by removing a large number of complaints from the queue for an ombudsman, I hope a lot of other FOS complaints will move forward faster.

QQ’s American parent, Enova, released its second-quarter earnings figures last month. Overall they were fine, but there were some comments in the Earnings Conference Call about Enova needing to reach a satisfactory resolution with the FCA and FOS about complaints. It’s not clear what they mean by this.

Enova’s third-quarter figures contained the announcement that they would be closing their UK business due to “regulatory uncertainty”.

Updated October 2019
Comments on this article are now closed. Please put any questions on
QuickQuid goes into administration – what will happen

Comments

  1. James says

    I received the below email yesterday after several emails and calls with the usual excuses from them, wrong bank details provided etc. I accepted offer with correct details on 20 th Sept and this is the first email I’ve had back. In light of yesterday’s news still hopeful of getting paid!!!
    Has anyone been paid since the news?

    Oct 24, 7:32 AM CDT

    Dear

    Thank you so much for your email. My apologies if you haven’t gotten an update. Please know we are working diligently on processing all offers. Your settlement offer will be processed as a priority and in order. Please know multiple emails could delay the process. Great news you are ahead as we have received your updated banking details which would definitely help make the process much faster. Please be aware that we will send you an email once we have processed the offer. Again we thank you so much for your patience as we work through this.

    Tawanna
    QuickQuid Support Team

  2. Alex says

    Hi,

    I am in a position where I have an offer from QQ but haven’t accepted it yet (been considering should I take to FOS or not).

    I recall with the Money Shop if you had an offer before a certain date you could still accept it. Any chance this will be the case here? Should I just go and accept now and see what happens?

    Thanks in advance for any guidance.

  3. DB says

    Just seen on Sky News that Enova, QQ’s US parent company are going to pay a £58M one-off charge to leave the UK market, with £33M of that being in cash and used to support the end of its lending in the UK.

    Do you think that money will be used towards the outstanding claims?

      • DB says

        Ok, thanks for replying.

        I suppose we’ll maybe find out more in the coming weeks, but the fact they’ve chosen to close the company and pay the one-off fee to leave the market would suggest they’ve completely washed their hands with QQ and that administration is unfortunately imminent!!

    • Ash says

      Yes… I emailed my adjudicator last night (I’m day 15 waiting for my redress to hit account). He responded this morning saying

      Thank you for your email.

      At this moment in time we don’t know anything more than what’s being reported in the media, so we don’t know at this point what it means for your complaint and refund.

      We’ll be able to let you know what it means as soon as we receive more details.

      • M says

        Thank you. I hope we get a final answer soon. This uncertainty is awful. You would have thought that CashEuroNet would have made a statement about the Redress it has already agreed, they know whether they are going to pay it or not.

    • Mr and Mrs C says

      This was our reply from the FOS this morning:-

      Unfortunately, we are aware of this news also. We are currently looking into what these means about complaints such as yours and the effect it will have on offers that are due to consumers. Once we know more we will be in contact with you. I can only apologise that this has happened, however I will keep you updated.

      They probably know as much as us, but it leaves me feeling that if our case had been picked up in July 2018 when we referred to them instead of August 19 when they actually looked at it, we personally wouldn’t be in such a bad position now. i.e. there are not enough case workers at the FOS

  5. James says

    Just called the 0800 0561515 number and basically asked in light of yesterday’s news, if I would be getting paid out, the lady advised it was business as usual and they are still issuing refunds, I’m down as priority as been waiting since accepting and providing bank details on 20th Sept. Was told it could be 48 hrs. Although this could be another blatant lie from them as they have continually given false information since I initially accepted!!

    • Rel says

      I rang the 0800 0561515 number yesterday evening twice and spoke to two different people at QQ – QQ agreed with my adjudicators findings last week and I was told to wait for their offer to accept. Both people at QQ I spoke to yesterday said that I should refer back to my Adjudicator for next steps (not what FOS told me,) and when I explained situation (that I was waiting for direct contact from QQ) they said that an email had been sent after my first call to Adjudicator as a matter of urgency to hurry my acceptance along.

      Just spoke to mu adjudicator, who has received no such email (so QQ are literally just lying to me on the phone) – FOS are not aware of next steps yet apparently and do not know any more than we do

      I am now on hold again currently to QQ to get to the bottom of it…. not giving up without a fight!!!!

      • Chris says

        Good luck! My problem is that I have an Adjudicator ruling but QQ rejected nearly 4 months ago. So, not only are QQ being vile but the FOS has just dragged its feet.

        • Stacey says

          I also have a ruling that was rejected and in queue for an ombudsman. I had hoped a second spreadsheet was being done or would have been done. But alas seems like nothing will happen

    • Mr and Mrs C says

      We have been told the same this morning, that the bank details have been confirmed and “not to believe everything you hear in the news!” we should be getting the refund within 28 days. How do these people sleep at night?

    • James says

      Just called the 0800 0561515 number and basically asked in light of yesterday’s news, if I would be getting paid out, the lady advised it was business as usual and they are still issuing refunds, I’m down as priority as been waiting since accepting and providing bank details on 20th Sept. Was told it could be 48 hrs. Although this could be another blatant lie from them as they have continually given false information since I initially accepted!!

  8. Jo says

    My adjudicator contacted me today to say poundstopocket have now agreed with there decision they originally refused says they will contact me seperatly with a break down, do hopefully they’ll pay out does anyone know if I’m better off ringing with my bank details if so does anyone know what number to call

  9. Jo says

    This is on instride Finsncial website so looks like our complaints are not getting paid anytime soon or any real amount not sure why they decided to accept my complaint today

    If I have an unaffordability claim, when will I be paid?

    The Administrators will assess all redress claims during the course of the administration. No payments will be made until all of the assets have been sold or realised.

    The Administrators are working with CashEuroNet to identify whether, following determination of your claim, you can be notified of the status of your claim. Currently, we do not have a date for payment of any claims. Further updates on unaffordability claims will be posted here when available.

    Please be aware, if successful, the payment you receive will be considerably smaller than your accepted claim amount. This is because it is expected that the total value of all accepted claims received will significantly exceed the money available to be shared out. The money available to be shared out will not be known until all of CashEuroNet UK LLC’s assets have been sold or realised and certain costs and deductions have been taken into account.

  11. Jeff says

    Hi Sara, they emailed me on Tuesday 22/10/2019 to say they’d processed my refund via electronic Funds transfer (EFT) which would 7-21 working days for me to receive it.

    Do you think there’s any chance they’re not telling the truth here.

  12. SK says

    No, Nick Drew and Enova will NOT get away with this and take OUR money!

    I will contact my local MP – as suggested by Sara in a previous comment – and everyone else not getting their redress should do the same.

  13. MR says

    QQ have given the FOS the run around from the very beginning, sending solid claims to the ombudsman to create a bottle neck, delaying tactics, lies and treated FOS with such distain. Even blame the FOS for their administration and not being able to reach an agreement. ‘Give them a little more time’ was the answer from many adjudicators for people awaiting redress, they now have nothing. If anyone needs to toughen up it’s the FOS because it will happen with another company soon!

  14. Kim says

    Food for thought … my asjudiacator ruled in my favour, I was on second “extension” given by FOS for c £9k, now seemingly gone. However, under liquidation rules a company may not be seen to have preferential creditors or people paid out in advance on knowing they were going that way. That is a criminal offence and if challenged the reprocussions could be huge for QQ. Ie by pay paying some but not all claims, they are guilty of preferential creditors. I for one won’t be letting this go.

  15. TC says

    I feel for everyone who are still waiting for their redress from Quick Quick. I was a lucky one and got my payout in July before all of the stalling tactics over the past couple of months.

    We were constantly told that Quick Quids parent company were in great shape and that they had a strong UK business, even though they were aware at the time of the FOS and FCA changes. However, this was at the time they thought they could get away with not paying out on historic loans. When they finally started offering redress to customers they suddenly bring in the administrators blaming the FCA and FOS.

    They inflated their own costs by not offering a reasonable redress when originally contacted by customers, forcing them into long queues – mine was just under three years and increasing the amount of interest they had to pay. I was paid out £3,464, I probably would have taken much less had they offered a reasonable settlement back in 2016 rather than rejecting my complaint out of hand.

    For some companies going into administration is a disaster – for CashEuronet UK it’s a greed tactic.

  16. Madeline Clelland-Harris says

    Super pleased they paid out to me for pretty much all of my loans including old ones

  18. Elaine says

    I only got my redress paid out last week. Over £6000. Missed out on a similar amount with WDA when it went into administration before I got my payout. Disgraceful that this is allowed

    • Graeme says

      I had a complaint In against quick quid for years of unaffordable loans. Got a £12,000 settlement paid by them last week. I was so lucky but I know there will be thousands of people who will have their complaints stalled.

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