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Wageday Advance – administration now completed

Summary of the administration

Curo Transatlantic Limited (Curo) had two brands:

  • Wageday Advance (WDA), a mid-sized payday lender; and
  •  Juo Loans, a  small guarantor lender.

Curo entered administration on 26 February 2019 because of the number of payday loan affordability complaints they were receiving. They appointed KPMG as Administrators.

  • The Administrators published Proposals for the administration in March.
  • Outstanding loans, less any compensation calculated, were sold to Shelby or Lantern.
  • The Administrators used a Claims Calculator to decide which WDA customers may be owed compensation for inappropriate lending;
  • 256,000 customers owed compensation were sent emails inviting them to submit a pre-completed Claim. The deadline for Claims to be submitted has now passed.
  • In September 2019 it was announced that c.100,000 claims were received and that the administrators expect to pay c. 5p in the pound to customers who made a claim.
  • On 20 May 2020 the final dividend of 5.68p in the £ was announced and paid to unsecured creditors. The total amount being distributed was £7,232,445.
  • Three further payments runs were made to try to resolve problems where payments had bounced back.
  • No further payments will be attempted.  The administrators have sent the funds they held relating to unsuccessful dividend payments to the Insolvency Services Account, in line with standard insolvency procedure.
  • Any customer who did not receive their expected payment can claim it from this account. Email CustomerServices.EAS@Insolvency.gov.uk, and include your name, customer number, address and the name of the Company, being CURO Transatlantic Limited.

Background to the administration

Like other payday lenders, WDA had seen increasing numbers of affordability complaints for several years.

In June 2018 WDA asked KPMG to look at a Scheme of Arrangement (“Plan A”), which would cap its liabilities for historic complaints. At this point, WDA was already struggling with affordability complaints – the cost of refunds, the administrative overhead and the FOS fees.

From June-September affordability complaints increased significantly, with 16,000 being received during the four months.

In October WDA asked KPMG to also look at the alternative of a sale of the business (“Plan B”). CTL’s parent company, the American subprime lender Curo, said:

we do not believe that, given the scale of our U.K. operations, we can sustain claims at this level and may not be able to continue viable U.K. business operations without action by the U.K. business to reduce the risk of claims relating to historic lending.

In the autumn, WDA stopped responding to customer complaints within the allowed 8 weeks. Many customers did not receive a response for 16, 20 or more weeks.

As part of the planning, a Claims Calculator was developed to assess all previous lending. This estimated that the total potential liability for affordability complaints could be as much as £223m.

In January 2019, Curo announced it had asked the FCA to say whether it would object to a Scheme of Arrangement which would cap CTL’s liabilities to pay refunds for unaffordable lending at c £18 million. The Administrators admit that:

redress creditors would … have faced a very significant shortfall against the value of their claims in the Scheme.

It is hard to imagine why the FCA might have thought this was a reasonable offer.

On 19 February, the FCA said it needed further information about the proposed Scheme. At that point, CTL decided it was unlikely to get Plan A approved. It decided to appoint administrators and proceed with Plan B. At this time it stopped offering loans through the Wageday Advance website.

Loan sales to Shelby and Lantern

Immediately on administration – some accounts sold to Shelby

The Administrators announced a sale of much of CTL’s infrastructure to Shelby Finance for c £8.5 million. Shelby currently trade as Dot Dot, a very small payday lender, and are a subsidiary of the doorstep lender, Morses Club. This is known as a “pre pack” sale – it was all planned before the administration started.

50,000 CTL customers, including all Juo customers, have had their loans transferred to Shelby.

The accounts sold to Shelby were considered to be “in good standing” with no arrears. The Administrators say “a small number” of people who were transferred to Shelby may get some compensation for unaffordable lending – those affected will get an email from Shelby about this. But most people transferred to Shelby will not be getting any refunds.

650,000 other CTL accounts remained with CTL. Many of these are accounts that have not been used for some time. Many current and old customers may be owed compensation for inappropriate lending.

Outstanding loans sold to Lantern in May 2019

No payments for outstanding loans were taken by the Administrators.  Balances were frozen, with no further interest or charges added. Credit records will be corrected so no late/missed payments will be recorded because of this.

Many people with outstanding balances may have these reduced because of redress, see below.

In May 2019 the loan book – the legal term for all the outstanding loans – was sold to Lantern, a debt collector.

Borrowers whose loans were sold were sent an email explaining this.

Determining complaints and calculating redress

WDA stopped its normal complaints handling when the administration started. It has not paid any refunds after administration, including refunds that were agreed before administration.

Under the Insolvency Act, the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) couldn’t carry on with their decision-making once a firm goes into administration. All WDA complaints with FOS were returned to the Administrators to settle.

The Claims Calculator

The Administrators put all loans from Wageday Advance, past and present, including those over 6 years old, through the Claims Calculator that has been developed.

The Claims Calculator was intended to give roughly similar results to typical FOS decisions. A loan was determined to be inappropriate by the calculator if it failed any of three sets of criteria:

  • affordable – looks at loan size, income and expenditure evidence;
  • sustainable – looks at the number of loans, the gaps between loans, roll-overs and how much loan amounts increased;
  • responsible lending – looks at what a CRA check showed eg defaults, debt management and numbers of other payday loans.

For inappropriate loans, a redress amount was calculated as a refund of interest and charges, plus 8% statutory interest.

For customers who had already had an offer or a FOS decision, the redress was set at the largest of:

  • what the Claims Calculator said;
  • any Final Response offer from WDA; and
  • the value of redress determined by the Financial Ombudsman.

Customers who still owe a balance

People who had a balance outstanding and who should get redress got an email from the Administrators with the subject Important information about your loan even if they haven’t submitted a complaint.

Here is an example of the key figures:

  • Outstanding loan balance at 25 February 2019 per CTL’s records 420
  • Less: balance adjustment (165)
  • Adjusted loan balance 255.

If your redress is smaller than the balance, you will still owe some money – £255 in the above example.

Where someone has only had one loan, the balance has been reduced to the amount borrowed less what the customer has paid so far. This is what FOS would have decided if the loan was unaffordable.

If the calculated redress is larger than balance the redress cleared the balance and a further email was sent about the remaining redress.

Customers who are owed refunds for unaffordable loans

The Administrators sent emails with the subject Important information about your redress claim. These say:

  • what your calculated redress amount is;
  • that you are an unsecured creditor with a claim against CTL for this redress amount;
  • there was button in the email to submit your claim before the deadline (which has now passed).

Credit records

The Administrators updates customers’ credit files to remove credit records for loans that they decided should be refunded because they are inappropriate.

20 May 2020 – payments made

On 20 May 2020 the Administrators announced all unsecured creditors, including people owed money for unaffordable loans, will get 5.68p in the £.

An email was sent to everyone saying what they would receive and payments started immediately. here is an example of an email:

a copy of an email being sent out showing how much people will be receiving. This is 5/68% of the amount your claim for unaffordable lending by Wageday Advance was calculated at.

Where payments bounced back, people were asked to supply updated bank details and further payment runs were made over the next months.

Related:

Refunds / For larger loans, overdrafts, car finance, credit cards and catalogues

Credit Records / “Suppress” records after administration

Comments

  1. bert says

    Did you use the switcher service to open your new bank? My money is pending tomorrow in my new account but they must’ve sent it to my old one as they don’t have the details for the new one. Could save you the hassle of chasing them if you did.

    • Stacey says

      I received a payment from Curo in my account this morning for under 30 pounds pretty sure this is the redress . For anyone wanting to know claim was 480 then revised to 280 and payment just under 28 hope this helps

  4. Daisy Land says

    I got my redress calculation email the morning. They originally owed me nearly £6k and I’m now getting the princely sum of £331!!! Absolutely disgraceful especially when you see how much KPMG cream off for their own fees

    • Len says

      Their fee is minimal in comparison to the overall debt. The amount they’ve taken would have had no significant impact on how much you got back. They’re not going to do it for free.

    • Amanda bennett says

      Hi,

      Im exactly the same! It’s disgusting my was originally nearly £1900 and now I’m getting £107.

      I just don’t see how they can say one thing, leave you waiting for months thinking that’s what you will be getting and then what they actually offer is nothing like the original.

      Does anyone know if there’s anything else that can be done?

      • Sara (Debt Camel) says

        To be fair, the administrators have been saying for many months people are likely to get about 5% of the amount.

        The problem here is not with the administrators, they have done their job.

        The problem is that there is no compensation scheme back up for this sort of problem.

        A few PPI firms went bust – their customers didn’t have a problem as they were paid the full amount of their PPI refund through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

        But the regulator, the FCA, decided a few years ago not to extend the FSCS to cover problem with loans. So you get no help.

      • Len says

        The administrator has said from day one that the amount you receive will be significantly less.

        There’s nothing else you can do as there’s no money left to pay anything more.

        • Elaine says

          I think we are all aware of that!!! It’s just galling when you go through the financial breakdown from KPMG of who got what how much they pay themselves! I appreciate they need to be paid but the amounts are huge

  5. Dave l says

    Not overly impressed with the amount we’re getting however at least they have been far more helpful and efficient in paying the dividend than Grant Thornton with the Wonga debacle

  6. Angela says

    I am with Monzo bank… its brill! I can see it pending for tomorrow but with Monzo you can accept payments at 4pm the day before! So that’s me getting mine at todayyy :}

  7. Nats Daley says

    Better than wonga and hopefully it will come through as like some been waiting for wonga payment since january …

  8. R7one says

    I take it this is being done in batches as I’ve not had an email or refund as of yet

    • Sarah says

      Hi I’ve had the email from the administrators but no email about how much yets
      Hope you hear soon
      Sarah

  9. Amma says

    Thanks Sara. I actually think these guys have been much better than the Wonga administrators. They have always communicated May 2020 as when they would notify of any refunds. They’ve upheld this. They sent emails last year estimating any redress would likely be between 4-5%. It was at the top end of the scale which is a pleasant surprise. And they’ve already made the payments. No additional delays, no surprises. £250 on its way.

    Nice surprise

    • Mr Jerham says

      KPMG are one of the top Accounting firms in the World so I hope it would be better then the Wonga experience.

  10. Ian says

    Well if people who bank with Monzo (that show pending payments) are seeing payments for tomorrow, then there is hope for us all.

  12. Vanessa says

    Yeah I had email yesterday saying I’m getting £58 which is a bit less than the thousand owed but anything I’m grateful for.

    Email said they had sent it yesterday but still no sign in hoping will land tomorrow like the people mentioned up there.

  13. Georgina says

    £273 instead of £4800…. I suppose its better than nothing .. I just wish I didn’t know it should of been that much lol

    • Tan says

      Tell me about it, nearly £13K WDA owe me so now I am ending up with £700 something. Could have put down a deposit for a flat with £13K and the £9K Wonga owed me. I honestly don’t have the words to describe how I feel except cry. 😭😭😭

      Awaiting payment still from Sunny, Very, and few others.

      • T says

        Its awful isn’t it how we are not protected. I feel your pain as I had the same with both companies. Wish I had taken the initial offer so I am kicking myself a bit.

  14. Elaine says

    Ok it isn’t the £6 k if should have been but £331 just paid into my account (Santander)

  15. Kerri says

    Received my email 20th in the afternoon was due 3300 but ending up with £192 I guess it’s better than nothing!

    Has anyone received that are with NatWest??

  18. Nicola says

    Got my payment paid in at midnight :) bank of Scotland. Although it’s much less than I’d hoped, it’s better than nothing and yes they have definitely handled this better than wonga!!!

  19. Julie Dobby says

    Received email on the 20th, money in Halifax bank just after midnight the 22nd, I have to agree better than the Wonga experience

    • Dale says

      People need to stop this what I should have got, those of you with 10k etc tells me you loaned excessive amounts, I myself was in the trap as deep as possible and still was only 3k from WDA, if you have become reliant on this type of money you need to seek financial help where on this site there are numerous pages to accommodate. I learned the hard way and now respect the value of a pound coin. I have come away with £150 myself and it’s a welcome bonus, I will be spending this unbudgeted for money on a nice new BBQ. Thank you Sara for what is a truly fantastic website and you have for sure turned people’s lives around and clawed back hundreds of thousands for people, Martin Lewis gets all the credit but he’s very out of touch with this sector, you don’t get the recognition you deserve, although the government and media do like to turn a blind eye to it.

      • Charlie says

        You are spot on with all that you have said. I’m soooo grateful to have got anything at all and can’t thank this site / Sara enough for the initial awareness / prod to actually follow up.

  22. Lisa says

    I have received my payment this morning so fingers crossed everyone will receive theirs over the next couple of days 👍

  23. Kyleigh says

    Received payment on bank today. Thank you very much not a lot but very welcome 😃

  24. AllieBee says

    Mime did go in the morning. I bank with tsb so hopefully that is in for everyone. Thank you Sarah

  27. Denise says

    Got mine today , I am not bothered about how much I got £117 after all you reap what you sow, well done KPMG. Thanks Sara.

  28. Tan says

    Mine went in early this morning. Approx £730. I am with Lloyds Bank. Original amount owed near £13K.

    Sara, as always thank you for everything. You are a Godsend. I am eternally grateful. I hope you and others remain well and safe. X

  29. Terry nicholls says

    Got mine tbis morning, going to treat the family to a take away, thank you very much Sara, now onto the money shop, and that will be the eend of the road for me, unless i try a few credit card accounts, that I will be looking into.

  30. Ray says

    Woke up this morning thinking what to do on my day off looked at news feed about a redress that i forgot about, then an email popped up, looked on here to see if it was true saw all these comments so i just checked my bank £190 in!!! However it was supposed to be £3,345 i didn’t realise i was borrowing that much. Nice little bonus for the BH too. Its better than nothing or a kick in the teeth. Thanks for all the help Debt Camel your are awesome :)

  31. Turtle says

    £14 for me today from Curo…. greeeeat. Has the data started being removed from credit reports is my question

  32. Turtle says

    I emailed the administrators at least 6 times requesting a list of the loans I took out with Wageday as i didn’t agree with the refund amount. I NEVER received the list or any information despite contacting them several times.

    The administrators made it quite impossible to communicate with them.

    Credit reports still contain all the loans I had with them.

  33. Charlie says

    Thank you for all the info you provide on this site. I had heard murmurings of people getting pay back a few years ago but thought I would not get a penny so didn’t follow up. Then received an email from these administrators about a year or so ago and found on your site that it was a genuine email.

    Using this information and your templates / suggestions I approached all other payday lenders that I used to have.

    I received £170 today into my Nat West account.

  34. Sarah says

    Hi I got the email from administrators on Monday but no email yet about how much I’m getting. Hoping there are no issues for me
    Sarah

  35. Rachel says

    Didn’t get an email yet but received a payment of £2.19 this morning (can hardy contain my excitement!). Will buy my son some milky ways – better than a poke in the eye :-)

  36. Steve says

    I had an email yesterday 21May and the money was in my account first thing this morning. That was a big surprise as I was expecting a 7 day wait. I hope Money Shop will get in touch soon as I had multiple loans with different arms of their organization, and it could be approaching a grand in compensation, based on the 14% prediction. Happy days I hope.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      you are very unlikely to get any money from the Money Shop this year.

  37. Steve says

    The information update from Money Shop still says they are hoping to inform us of the likely dividend within the next month and payment is expected to reach us before the end of the year.

  39. Valerie says

    I have had my wageday advance compensation for £36.15 it said on the email that I had an outstanding balance when the company went into administration this is not correct I had paid back everything and my claim was with the fos before the administration. Having looked at the other comments they all seem to have had around the £36 Mark in compensation and there claim in the £600 bracket it seems strange that the payments don’t vary by much has any one else been paid in the same bracket I definitely don’t think mine has been calculated right.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      So you don’t think £600 was correct? Did you not query this when you were told the amount?

      If you read the comments here you will see that people have had a wide variety of amounts paid today from £2 to over £700.

      • Valerie Harris says

        I have never received any email with what my claim was for just informed with yesterday’s email. I have always checked my spam as that is where all of WageDayAdvance emails go on my email account for some reason. Have sent them previous email asking for a figure response was they would inform me on the day of payment.

  40. Graeme says

    I received £41.49 this morning in my account from a £730.00 claim but I suppose it better than nothing as Wage Day Advance refused my initial claim and this was upheld by the Financial Ombudsman so happy with £41.49.

  41. N D says

    Received £67 in bank today but no email, had forgotten all about this tbh so a nice surprise, better than nothing I suppose.

  42. MissM says

    I received funds yesterday, nice birthday treat and happy to be done with it all to be honest

    Enjoy your payments people x

  43. Chantal Smith says

    I received my funds on Friday 22nd May. It was only 72 pounds in the end and was supposed to be 1250 or there abouts, but hey some money is better than no money. I’m still struggling to have any contact with the Wonga Administrators though as my claim has been ignored. I have heard nothing and you can’t phone anyone now. I’ve emailed 10 times now and had no response. This was between March and May as I was giving them time to respond each time. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

  44. Jess says

    Hi Guys
    Thanks for all the helpful info above.
    Can I please ask for your help to find out of I may be entitled to anything being paid back to me please? I had a history of borrowing with WDA directly however I paid back my loans and then some time later on seeing advice online here contacted Curo/KPMG who had said they were unable to take any new complaints on hand. This makes sense if I missed the deadline. However a family member also never actually got round to making an officially complaint and yet has received the email for a payment coming. Not that I would ever begrudge as I’m very pleased for them but I just wondered if I may be included in any redress maybe without the email or at a later date? Thank you guys.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      However a family member also never actually got round to making an officially complaint and yet has received the email for a payment coming
      Odd. I don’t know how that happened.

  45. Andrew says

    Has any more been said with regards to an online portal being made available for customers of 247 Moneybox, Peachy and Uncle Buck expecting payments in the future?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      Do you have complaints about those lenders? Have you sent your complaints in? Do you currently owe them any money?

  46. gordon says

    had my email; on 20th of may and still not got my money in my bank account its now day 7 !!!

  47. Chantal Smith says

    Did they have the correct bank details for you or have you changed banks since you had your borrowing with them?

  49. gordon nilsson says

    Hi went to my bank to check if old bank account was still active but it was not well it back to see if the F.O.B can push it forward it look as if they get more interest on the money or they credits keeping to get more money on intersest!!!

  50. Paul says

    Emailed bank details last Wednesday as the account number they advised is closed. Heard nothing back

  51. Scott says

    I received an email a long time ago telling me I was due a payment, I also received a response when I updated my bank details, however I am yet to receive a payout email. Should I be concerned? Or am I getting ahead of myself and should be thinking they are doing it alphabetically where I would be one of the last?

      • Sarah lou says

        Hi Sarah I emailed them and they said that the administrators will get touch.
        So see what happens
        Sarah lou

    • Nicki says

      I’m the same Scott. Had replies from them re confirmation of receiving my claim / change of bank / address etc last year but no email re amount and no payment. I emailed them on Sunday and no reply as yet but hoping to hear by the end of the week? Hope so anyway!!

      • Nicki says

        Scott have you had a reply yet? It’s been over a week and still no reply to mine :-(

          • Sara lou says

            Hi I’m the same I emailed and got a reply, but it just said that all refunds had been worked out and paid. They can’t assess anymore claims.
            I think they misunderstood what I was asking them so replied saying that I was told that I have been accepted for a claim. This was Friday and I have not heard anything back.
            Thanks Sara loi

  53. gordon nilsson says

    well had the email on 20th of may still awaiting for my money have sent email to adim and custom sevices no reply as yet
    has any one have same problem?

  54. D Anderson says

    Hi yes same here, responded back in July last year re change in address and bank details, recieved confirmation they had updated etc . Then when I recieved the pay out email it showed the old details tried to email several times and no response.
    I know they will be mad busy but just under £500 my payout and its taken so long to resolve, spent years getting out of the debt mess and this was the final end to it all, so nice little bonus esp when furloughed from work. Really worried now if I will ever get this back
    Fingers crossed

    • Lindsey Jones says

      Hi I too replied last yr to mention change of. Details and had confirmation back, but email still showed old bank account.
      Emailed them and had reply back yesterday to say they are extremely busy and would try again in 2 months to make payment to new account.
      Hope that makes sense.

        • Sara (Debt Camel) says

          This is what it said on the emails everyone had:

          We may then be able to make a second payment attempt to this alternative bank account if the first payment attempt has been returned to us. It is likely that we will make any second payment attempt within two months of the date of this email, as after that time we intend to close the Administration.

          • Nicki says

            Right ok. Unfortunately I didn’t get said email….
            Not sure why I’ve not had the email or payment but hopefully they’ll reply to my email soon.

          • D Anderson says

            Hi no nothing yet🙈 getting worried now that I won’t get it back, I know they will be busy etc but feel it’s unfair when they confirmed months prior that they had fully updated the details and I didn’t need to do anything else now

      • Liam Dean says

        Same here. I’ve sent 2 emails about them having my old bank details.

        Heard nothing from them. The first email was sent on the 20th may when they said what they was refunding and when

  56. James Simpson says

    I received an email sometime last week, and received my payment within 24 hrs

  57. Andrew says

    I got an email to say I was owed over £1500. That be nice to get back I thought. I then after this all happened got an email saying I will receive a whole £90. Gutted.

  58. gordon nilsson says

    L had email from custom services which they reply to it was about the claim although had reply to them before 31st of Aug 2019 and they sent a email in Dec19 to me and email on 20th of may still not got my money which is £134.32p

  59. Chantal says

    I was due 1257 and I received 72.38. Any money back is better than nothing. That’s what I thought.

  60. Nimesh sidhu says

    I sent multiple email and had no replies backs, this is feeling like wonga all over again. I’m owed £513 which was going to a closed account. How long will it will them to accept new details and send again?

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