People who still have a loan from Wonga that has not been paid are getting emails with what sounds like a tempting offer:
Loan settlement offer to restore your credit record.
The offer details are:
- you only have to pay about 25% of the debt;
- the debt will be deleted from your credit record if you accept the offer;
- it says the offer is “time-limited” but doesn’t give a date you have to accept it by.
Here a couple of examples:
Today I received an email from Wonga with a reduced pay off deal on my Wonga loan. The offer is £250 to pay off my £1000 loan.
I’ve had a loan outstanding with Wonga for £680 since they went bust, hence I stopped repayments based on a claim I had with the FO. I’ve just received a settlement offer from Wonga of £160.
If you have had this offer, don’t rush to accept it if you have made a Claim for a refund to the administrators for unaffordable loans!
Why is Wonga making this offer?
Wonga went under in 2018. The Administrators are currently selling off its assets to get money to pay Wonga’s debts. See Wonga – the Latest news about refunds for more details.
If you still have a loan from Wonga that hasn’t been paid, Wonga wants to try to get as much money from the loan as possible.
In this situation, Administrators normally try to sell all the loans to a debt collector. They have talked to debt collectors but in August this year they announced that they hadn’t had an offer which they thought was suitable, so they would not be “selling the book”.
The only other way for them to try to get any money is to offer the borrowers a discount to settle – hence this 75% off.
Is it a good offer for you?
This depends if you have made a Claim to the Administrators for a refund. If you haven’t already done this, it is too late now as the deadline for claims has passed.
There are three cases:
1) Wonga has agreed you should get a refund
[UPDATED] I have been told by the Administrators that these offers should not be going to people who are owed a refund that is larger than their debt.
A few emails were incorrectly sent out to some people in this situation. They should now have been contacted and told this is an error.
Also if you are owed a refund that is smaller than your debt, you should not have received this letter as a separate offer will be made to you later taking account of the refund.
2) You haven’t made a Claim for a refund – or it has been rejected
If you haven’t made a Claim, then these calculations aren’t relevant.
75% off sounds like an OK offer, especially as they will delete the default from the credit record. If you can afford it of course!
It’s not clear if you could get a better deal by waiting.
I suppose they could offer you more off in a few months. Or give up and write the debt off, where all you will have lost is the chance to get the default deleted from your credit record.
If your debt is in a debt management plan, you could talk to your DMP providers about what you should do. If it isn’t, then you can get advice from one of the Debt Advice contacts given in the email from the Administrators.
3) You have put in a Claim but it hasn’t been assessed
Here you don’t yet know which situation you will be in.
If you had lots of loans you probably will get a refund. If you only had two or three it will probably be rejected. But at the moment you are guessing.
I suggest you wait a few weeks. I doubt this offer will disappear soon, or they would have said what the time limit was to persuade you to act fast.
Comments are now closed on this
stephanie says
i applied for a refund from wonga ages ago but recieved any news since probably last year apart from them saying someone will be in touch soon .do you think i should contact them ive paid off my loan thankfully
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Hi Stephanie, have a look at https://debtcamel.co.uk/wonga-has-stopped-issuing-loans/ for the Latest News. It might be a good idea to check they have your claim.
Ricky says
I agreed a payment as “full & final” settlement last year with Wonga.
However, the account is still (12 months after payment made) shown as in default on my credit file.
I have emailed Wonga about this but received no response.
Any ideas how I can get this removed from my file?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Have you made a Claim for unaffordable loans?
Ricky says
I made a claim that was rejected. I don’t have a problem with that, but I am concerned that they have not updated my credit file.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
did they say they would update it when you made the settlement?
Ricky says
They offered me a “settlement” amount.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
It isn’t normal to offer to delete a default when someone makes a settlement. The Administrators are bending the credit record reporting rules by offering this at the moment…
But you could try emailing the Administrators and asking if they can delete the default, saying it seems to be unfair that they are now offering to do that for people but they didn’t with you.
Danielle says
Do you happen to know if anyone that’s already had their claim rejected have received this offer? Mine has been rejected which I expected and I haven’t received any email which to be honest, I’d have probably taken the deal just to have it out of the way. Makes me wonder if they are targeted people whose offer will be or has been accepted
Emma says
The recent email I had from wonga as my claim was made two years ago the administrator has taken it on and says my refund would have been £3075.00, but in bold writing this will be very less when final payment is made which is up to jan 2020
Jane says
Hi,
I made a claim to Wonga in early 2018, I didn’t hear anything from them until mid August 2018 when they told me my claim had been accepted and offered me £728 which I was happy with. Unfortunately I didn’t see the email until 3 days before they went in to administration. I emailed back accepting the offer but of course was too late. What I am concerned about is that a lot of people seem to be reporting that they are hearing from Administrators asking for bank details etc. but I’ve not heard a thing. Do you think I should be contacting them?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
See https://debtcamel.co.uk/wonga-has-stopped-issuing-loans/ for the latest news. Lots of people still havent heard, it seems completely random. I don’t think there is any point in contacting them.
Neil Westwood says
I owe wonga (or whoever it is now) and received a text message today saying pay a reduced payment to clear my balance and restore my credit report. (which looks tempting but googled to make sure it wasn’t a scam, hence why I’m here).
I never made a claim about anything so before I pay just making sure that’s the advised thing to do.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
If you haven’t made a claim for unaffordable lending, it is now too late to do that.
If you can afford the settlement offer, it will clear your credit record, so that may well be sensible. I can’t give advice as I don’t know your situation I would say don’t get behind with priority bills or have to borrow in order to do this. If you want to talk about the details to a debt adviser, contact one of the three firms listed in the Wonga letter.
Glen says
The bank message has come through so it’s a case of waiting, ive a tax bill to pay in a March of £360 , my offer was £8100 so if I get 4% that will be happy days, not expecting much and it’s a bonus to me so now we all sit and wait.
Peter OBrien says
I missed the 22 of November deadline due to being away for 4 weeks.Wonga only sent me notice of the offer on the 1st of November. I tried to settle on Monday the 25th of November but I was refused.Is there anything I can do.I could have restored my credit report. I’m gutted.
Matt says
I am in the same boat, was away when the settlement offer came and would have like the debt removing from my credit file!
I feel that they should remove the credit file entry anyway, they accept that some of the loans were unaffordable so how do they determine which of the loans were in default and reportable to the credit reference agencies?
Ricky says
Try raising a dispute on your credit file.
Although I made a “full and final” settlement last year, I was still getting emails offering me a reduced sum to clear the account, right up until the 22nd.
I raised a dispute through my Credit Karma account around 4 weeks ago due to the account still showing as in default despite my payment last year. A few days ago I got a letter saying that they had received no response to the dispute & so it would be suppressed from my file. It could reappear if they choose to report it again, but I have a feeling they wont.
Matt says
Thanks, and good idea. I will give this a try, on the basis that Wonga have accepted that most of the loans were unaffordable.
David says
Hi, looking for some advice if possible
I have an outstanding loan with Wonga. They offered me a low settlement offer which was a good offer but I couldn’t afford it until I was paid and now that time has passed. They are now offering me to pay 60% of the outstanding loan which is over double what I was originally offered. I’ll struggle to afford this. They said they cannot offer lower and the email I received from Wonga stated that they will no longer accept payments after December 19th. My loan hasn’t gone into default on my credit report, just been on late payments for a while. Does anyone know what will happen to my credit record if I do not pay by 19th December?
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I don’t know. This is all very opaque. I think the administrators are running our of options for what to do when people can’t afford to settle these debts.
How long has your loan been on late payments? what is the rest of your credit record like? Did you put in a Claim for a refund which was rejected/
David says
Hi Sara.
Its been on late payments for over a year. My credit record isnt great but its not awful. I had successfully claimed to the Ombudsman before about Wonga. I had 16 loans with them and the Ombudsman said Wonga were to refund me loans 3-14. The Ombudsman said Wonga didn’t have to refund loans 15 and 16 as they were taken out after the original complaint was made. When I claimed for a refund, they rejected it. I thought they would have accepted it for the last 2 loans as they previous 12 loans were deemed unaffordable by the Ombudsman.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
ah that was never very likely. The administrators designed their system to mimic what FOS would have decided, not to reverse FOS decisions. The small number of people who have had refunds calculated after previously winning or losing an Ombudsman decision tend to be those who had over 6 years loan not included.
Gayna says
I was offered a settlement amount which I paid before the date ran out and I’ve just received an email today saying there’s a default on my account ???
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Get back to the administrators and ask for it to be removed. It may be this will all be happening over the next month.