The Wonga Administrators’ six month progress report to end February 2019 was emailed to creditors on 27 March 2019.
The creditors include the so-called “redress creditors”. These are the customers who complained to Wonga saying they were given unaffordable payday loans.
Collecting outstanding loans
When Wonga went into administration, the Gross Loan Book totalled £77 million. So far the Administrators have collected c£21 million.
When Wonga went into administration, c£56million of their Loan Book was considered to be in arrears and therefore less likely to be collected. So the Administrators have effectively collected the easy part of the outstanding balances.
The Administrators are exploring what the outstanding loans could possibly be sold for and have had enquiries from “a number of parties” about buying the remaining debts.
Number of affordability complaints
The Administrators have c 49,000 potential Redress Claims for unaffordable lending so far. 32,000 of these were submitted by Claims Management Companies.
Wonga had c.24,000 complaints at the time it went under, including those with the Financial Ombudsman that have now been returned to the Administrators. Since then a further 25,000 complaints have been received;
The Administrators are developing an online claims portal to enable further affordability complaints to be submitted.
UPDATE this went live on 11 April 2019.
The Administrators say that Wonga had lent to c 2 million people in the UK. They will be contacting all these customers by email to invite them to make a Claim via the portal and will also have an advertising campaign.
They expect significantly more complaints will be received.
A couple of weeks ago I said that I wouldn’t be surprised if the eventual number of people submitting affordability complaints to the Administrators is more than 100,000. That still seems likely to me.
UPDATE more than 500,000 complaints were submitted to the administrators who approved more than 400,000 of them.
An automated tool to decide the affordability complaints
The Administrators have developed an automated tool to determine which complaints will be upheld.
- how large a loan is compared to the customer’s reported income;
- the length of borrowing and number of loans, to identify repeat borrowing without a significant break; and
- any payments in arrears or customer reports of hardship.
The tool will take account of the right of set-off where a customer has an outstanding balance.
It will include looking at loans that are over 6 years old. In most administrations, the standard 6 years rule from the Limitation Act (1980) would be applied. But the FCA’s DISP rules let FOS look at complaints that are brought within 3 years of the customer becoming aware of there right to complain. In September 2018 the Financial Ombudsman published two decisions on over 6 year payday loans, deciding it can look at them and the Administrators have decided to follow these decisions.
The Administrators are proposing that anyone who is dissatisfied with the result can submit further evidence for a manual review of their complaint.
Overall this seems like a sensible way forward to me. As the Administrators described in October 2018, an automated tool is essential, otherwise the cost of determining the complaints would mean no money was left to pay those complaints. It is good there will be a manual review process and that they are looking at loans over 6 years old.
How much money will there be & how long will it take
There will not be enough money to pay these complaints in full.
The Administrators are selling the Polish and South African subsidiaries. A sale of the Spanish subsidiary has been unsuccessful.
The Administrators have decided not to sell the customer database after taking legal advice. That is very good news. Many payday loan borrowers may be vulnerable and their details should not be sold to firms looking to exploit this.
As previously advised it is expected it will take more than the normal 12 months allowed to complete the administration so the Administrators will be applying to the court for an extension of another 12 months.
The next report from the Administrators is expected to be on 27 September 2019, in 6 months time.
If you haven’t yet submitted a complaint
If you were given loans by Wonga which were unaffordable, so you could only repay them by borrowing again, you can still submit a complaint. Do NOT go via a Claims Company. All they will do is pass your name and address on to Wonga’s Administrators and take a large cut of your payout for doing this.
UPDATE the deadline for submitting complaints has passed.
Comments on this page are now closed.
Please ask any questions on the main Wonga Administration page.
Iain123 says
£1.7 million in administrator cost, so far. The extensions mean more money for the Administrators. Trebles all round for them, scraps for us if we’re lucky.
Ian says
Hi if 3rd partys buy the debts are they still repayable if they were sold to you when you couldnt afford them are they still live so to speak and are you better just reaplying via the tool if you claimed years ago so you know they will look again at compensation so its new in the system my complaint is with a claims company and with the ombudsman but it was 2year agobefore all this happened thanks.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
There is a legal right of set off between any refund you might get and a balance you owe.
Say you owe 700. If the new automated tool says you should have a refund of 1000, the balance should be wiped out and the remaining 300 would be reduced by the “12p in the £” calculation (all numbers just invented by me here!)
If the automated tool came up with a 500 refund, then your balance should be reduced to 200.
I don’t know if the administrators are considering selling the whole loan book or whether they would not include debts where there is an active complaint in. It is possible that there may not be a sale if the amounts debt collectors are prepared to pay for what may be a toxic book are not large enough to cover the costs involved.
If you have had any communications from the administrators your complaint must be in the system. Wait and see what is said when the online claim portal goes live, expected to be next month, but from what the administrators have said so far I do not think you will need to claim again using it.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The example calculations I just gave don’t take account of Claims Company fees.
GimmeMyMoney says
I’d complained to Wonga back in August and did have an email from the adminstrators at some point. I didn’t receive any email yesterday, am I reading the article wrong or should I have done as a “creditor”?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t know if the administrators are sending this report to all 49,000 people who have complained so far. They may be intending to do this but the emails are going out in batches. You could wait until next week and then ask them why you haven’t received this?
GimmeMyMoney says
Fair point. Thanks again so much for the site.
Jane says
Hi,
I received a copy of the report from the administrators this morning.It came direct from Wonga.com.Worth checking your spam box.
My complaint was made in August 2018 but,naturally didn’t progress as they went under.
Thanks to Sara for breaking it down clearly…it’s 42 pages long!
Steve says
Will the administrators be able to also remove negative markers from your credit report if they do offer a redress?
Ffionpearl says
If they lent to you incorrectly then they should remove the default as it was down to their bad practices and not your money management.
Matt says
Hi Sara. So what does this mean if I’ve already had a refund amount agreed and signed for just before they went into administration? Thanks
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Say your refund is £850. You don’t need to do anything, your case won’t be fed through the automated tool they are developing, your calculated redress will remain what it was*. When the administrators have sold all the assets they can and assessed all the complaints (this is going to be many months) they will know how much money there is to divide between the creditors so they will announce that everyone is getting 18p in the £ (I just plucked that number out of the air). So then you will get paid 850 * 0.18 = £153.
You don’t need to do anything. They have your complaint. At some point you will be paid a proportion of it.
* actually I think you will get more 8% interest added on for the delay in paying you. The administrators haven’t mentioned this specifically but that is what I expect to happen.
Mr and Mrs C says
I now have a different email address to when I got all my loans through Wonga, I have no access to this anymore.
I emailed my complaint from my new email address though. I have received no email from the administrators, do I need to contact anyone to update them with all my information, or will the FOS have passed this all on? I had just had my case acknowledged by FOS and then the administration happened the next day.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Wonga had presumably managed to locate your records when it replied to your complaint? If they did, then I don’t expect your change of email address to cause a problem. Wonga is aware of your complaint and your new email address. So that is what the administrators have.
Mr and Mrs C says
Brilliant, thanks Sara
Martin says
I was awarded £800, I was told what date the money would be paid directly into my bank account which was last year. Then I heard the news that wonger had gone into administration. Disgraceful I just want what’s owed to me it’s so unfair, when they were trading the soon charged and took my money if my payment was late, well now I want what’s owed to me not just a part of it. I’m so upset, these people should not be allowed to get away with it.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It does feel even more unfair for people such as you who already had an agreed amount settled.
There is nothing you can do to speed up or change what is happening though.
If you feel very cross, you could write to your MP and complain that it is unfair that Wonga customers do not receive the protection of the FSCS compensation scheme, but if a PPI firm went bust, their customers could get FSCS compensation for the refund they should have got.
Charlie H says
Hi Sara,
Sorry if you’ve already said this but may i ask – I sent my complaint to the FOS and they advised at the time (just before Wonga went to the Admins) that i should drop the loans over 6 year of which i had a high number, in favour of claiming just those that remained behind. Clearly, like everyone else, I am still waiting for the refund, or at least some of it, to be paid. Having said that, now that the Administrators have said that they will look at loans over 6 years old, should i raise another complaint so that the loans i discounted originally are now re taken into account? I appreciate that i wont get the full refund but im thinking that even a proportion of all of the loans that i believe should be taken into account, will be better than the proportion of the £750 I would have been getting?
Many thanks as always for your help
Sara (Debt Camel) says
My guess is that whatever you do now, Wonga will reassess all your loans for a refund. I don’t think putting in a second complaint would help. But that’s just a guess…
Julia Lee says
Hi,
just wondering if anyone has had emails regarding their complaints or redress yet? Are they being sent yet by the administrators?
It seems to be taking a lot longer than with WDA for example.
Many thanks,
Julia
Lewis says
Still waiting for mine. What should happen is people with complaints already should have it dealt with and then people who haven’t now complain through the new method.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
The WDA administrators had already been effectively working on the case for 6 months when they were appointed, so they had already developed the Claims Calculator. Also WDA sold the book of outstanding loans – Wonga decided it would raise more money by collecting them and there is no need with WDA to sell foreign subsidiaries to raise cash to distribute. Hence it looking like WDA is moving much faster than Wonga.
Julia says
Oh that makes sense, thanks Sara.
Vikki says
What will happen if you complained but was told your not owed any money back as affordable yet you had missed payments and numerous other payday loans
Vikki says
Sorry will I still be able to complain when template comes out or should I use wongs complaint website to try and claim again many thanx
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I expect that you will be able to put in a complaint when the Administrators publish their new page. Then your loans will be re-assessed using the automated tool that is being developed.
Vikki says
Thankyou so much for your quick reply I shall wait I have had an email from wda last week , Thankyou again
Emma says
I have received an email today from the administrators. The portal is now live and the form is easy to complete only took a few minutes. Will probably take years to sort and I’ll probably end up with nothing but it’s worth a try
Sam says
Hi sarah i have recieved an email from wonga today i had already had a complaint which was upheld and paided out do i need to fill the claim in again?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
See https://debtcamel.co.uk/wonga-claims-portal/ – I think you may come in case 4 – if you submit a claim they will look at your total loans and see if you should have got more than you had before. But I’m not sure – no one has asked this before.
I can’t see how you can lose by submitting the form.
steve says
The administrator has assessed my claim and upheld it. I have been awarded just over £3100, if I receive anything back I will be surprised.
Simon says
i too received conformation of my compensation at 3758.
think ill be lucky to get 10 per cent
Thomas says
I know a few people that work amongst the big 4 accountancy firms and they often have private bets between themselves about industry events etc.
I asked about the Wonga stuff and they said they don’t have anything specific/exact details, but they have done a sweepstake on closest guess to the pence in the pound and is the majority of guesses range from 6.8p – 9.7p is what I’ve been told.
Could be nothing, but it’s a guesstimate from people in the know
Goochey says
Do anybody think we are going to get our money!!!! As we were told we would get our money paid out by the end of January now it’s coming up to the end of March and still no money in my bank account.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
see the comments on the main administration page for what is happening: https://debtcamel.co.uk/wonga-has-stopped-issuing-loans/