Hi all,

I've been a long time reader of this forum and first time poster. I have a mountain of debts, mainly payday loan companies and I'm looking for some advice.

I currently owe:

Wonga - £282.16

Quickquid - £402 (referred to ARC DCA April 2015)

Pounds to Pocket - £701.09

247 Moneybox - £162.60

Sunny - £640 (3 serparate loans)

Payday Express - £132.80

118118 Money - £1361.85 (£291 arrears)

Different Money - £294

Vodafone - £559

BT - £130 (passed to DCA, not sold May 2015)

This is all of my current debts and I am considering a DMP with StepChange. I am looking for some advice regarding my options and the best way to help clear the debt. I would argue that I shouldn't have got loans from a few of these companies due to already being behind on other loans and having a poor credit rating.

So yeah, any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Whilst it looks bad, nothing is insurmountable, they cannot have what you've not got!

This is why these loan sharks need to be closed down, immediately!

Who is BT using?

I can't remember the name of their in house DCA but they're from my home town in Bromsgrove, CRS I think?

Have you done your OWN I&E form?

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/steps/step2/Pages/Step_2_11.aspx

Have a look on the National Debtline site, some good info, and you can even ring them if you wish for some advice.

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/Pages/default.aspx

When did you take these out?

What income do you have?

What are you currently paying to these?

Have you informed them that you're in financial difficulty?

Keep everything in writing ONLY,

keep a diary of events also,

and if they ring, tell them ''In writing only'' and hang up.

Above all else, any DCA they use are NOT bailiffs, so they cannot enter your home, they cannot take any of your property, and most of all,

they CANNOT stop you from smiling,

Hi,

Collectd are being used by BT in this case. I've done an I&E and the total I can give each month is around £90-£110 very max. I'll start with saying I lost my job in February 2015.

I took the loans out as follows:

Wonga - February 2015 (had around 20 prior loans with them always paid in full on time)

QQ - October 2014 (same again, had quite a few before this all settled on time)

P2P - December 2014 (was behind on QQ when I applied for this and they still accepted me, only realised they were the same company recently)

247 - Feb 2015

Sunny - Feb 2015

PD Exp - Feb 2015

118118 - December 2014

Diff Money - Jan 2015

Vodafone - they passed my debt on to a DCA who pestered me for months after I lost my job. Told both them and Vodafone I couldn't pay as I lost a job but Vodafone weren't really interested.

BT - originally a £750 bill for cancelling early, negotiated it down to £130 currently

Should also point out that I forgot to mention Mr Lender, they've since offered me a 50% discount and I agreed to, it works out around £7 a fortnight.

They all know I've no money apart from JSA until I can get a new job.

Will stop all phone contact immediately and keep it to emails only

Should I proceed with StepChange?

I am surprised you were able to get a WONGA loan if you had 20 other PDLs. It might be worth writing to them and asking them to write this off.

In fact, I am surprised you were able to get most of the loans when it was obvious you were in such a mess.

IMHO, I would speak to National Debtline first.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?441280-Wonga-Complaint-Success

Have a read of the link above. If you took the WONGA loan out in February 2015, then you should have been subject to the new lending criteria and it looks as though they didn't apply it in your case ?

After having a read through that, I think I'll go ahead and give Wonga an email of complaint. Are there any templates or tips of what to include in the emails to these companies? 24/7 called me yesterday just as I posted the thread and said if I don't pay I'm going to owe hundreds more to courts? I asked to speak to a superior and the guy kept saying "if you want, email" repeatedly about a dozen times. When I asked again to talk to a manager/have one call me back, he said I was wasting their time and hung up. So so unprofessional.

Thanks again.

It is in your best interest to keep everything to writing if you are going to make a complaint to anyone. You should send to their Head /Registered office address.

No templates as each situation will be different and specific to the person/account.

You should ensure your letter is headed "Formal Complaint". You should point out that they were irresponsible when they provided the loan to you as you had several other PDLs and a credit check by them would have established this. That according to their Lending Criteria then they should not have loaned to you.

Have a look round other threads of a similar nature and see how they have dealt with this situation.

Hi CitizenB,

I have now emailed all the lenders with my complaint. I will be sure to update when I know more or need some more advice! Also thanks to Bazooka Boo for the much appreciated help!

Received an email back from QQ :

Thank you for contacting QuickQuid. The contents of your email were duly noted. We apologise if there was any delay in responding to your complaint.

Your query raised several questions on what loan affordability is based on and what statutory checks are processed before assessing credit approval. Please be advised of the following information in relation to your query:

-We processed a credit check, the search id: XXXXXXXXXXX confirms one of the affordability checks that were ran. You can find additional information on checks by contacting Callcredit which is one of the Credit Reporting Agencies we use.

We also run various checks, which include but are not limited to, affordability assessment based on current financial commitments, as well as verifying any personal details provided on the application.

After the application was submitted, we send our customers an email which contains the pre-contractual agreement and also contains a hyperlink that leads to an audio version for your convenience.

Prior to making a lending decision, your loan application is reviewed and all of the information discussed above is analyzed and taken into consideration.

Once that information is reviewed, we make a decision and subsequently contact the consumer to advise of the final credit decision.

After careful review of your account and the information you submitted at the time of your application, we have determined that we diligently followed our processes and conducted a credit and affordability assessment on each credit application that was granted. Furthermore, your request for a refund on the charges and fees associated with your loans has been denied.

If you have any queries, our Final Resolution Team is here to help.

Kind Regards,

La'tasha

I have no idea how to proceed from here, sounds like I may have nothing to fight for?

IMO, that email is pretty standard garbage they auto spit out regardless of the complaint.

I would say you need to fully exhaust their complaints procedure so that you can escalate this beyond themselves to the FOS and MOJ.

They are hoping that all their 'claims' that they have acted ethically will put you on the back foot, and question yourself.

DON'T!!

Complain again to their, what do they call them? Oh yeah, 'final resolution team', ha ha, I doubt they even exist, but if it keeps them happy,

play along, stick at them.

I have no idea how to proceed from here, sounds like I may have nothing to fight for?

Are you kidding?

That is like a red rag to a bull to me!

That is them covering their backsides because they know they are nothing more than legalised loan sharks.

MOJ are very keen on clamping down these rogues,.

Haha, thanks for that. I have forwarded the email to their Final Resolution team. Will update!

Haha, thanks for that. I have forwarded the email to their Final Resolution team. Will update!

Excellent, email or in writing only......

They don't like having to justify their actions, but they know that we know they are on very, very thin ice!

That is almost exactly the same reply they sent me, except I dont recall a mention of affordability assesment based on current financial commitments. After sending a few emails back and forth with no change from them I filled in the complaint form at FOS. Quickquid then offered £150, I was away so wasn't able to respond to the offer so the FOS asked Quickquid to pay me the £150 to settle the complaint. Fortunately Quickquid refused saying they would only pay it if I accepted it. I then rejected it on my return and they made a new offer of £1,600 which I've also rejected. They were lending me more than my income so it's a straight forward case for me. I would say if you didn't fill in a budget or expenditure form prior to the loans you should pass it onto the FOS.

That is almost exactly the same reply they sent me, except I dont recall a mention of affordability assesment based on current financial commitments. After sending a few emails back and forth with no change from them I filled in the complaint form at FOS. Quickquid then offered £150, I was away so wasn't able to respond to the offer so the FOS asked Quickquid to pay me the £150 to settle the complaint. Fortunately Quickquid refused saying they would only pay it if I accepted it. I then rejected it on my return and they made a new offer of £1,600 which I've also rejected. They were lending me more than my income so it's a straight forward case for me. I would say if you didn't fill in a budget or expenditure form prior to the loans you should pass it onto the FOS.

Even if it's discovered I could "afford" the loan, I had a loan with Mr Lender and Wonga at the same time. Would this not work in my favour as it would surely have told them this on a credit check?

EDIT: I am referring to the latest loan I've had from them which I haven't paid back. I've had 37 loans totalling over 6k from them between June 2013-November 2014 according to my account history on their site. At most points during these 37 loans, I had Wonga as well. Also had Mr L as I stated already.

Even if it's discovered I could "afford" the loan, I had a loan with Mr Lender and Wonga at the same time. Would this not work in my favour as it would surely have told them this on a credit check?

I'm afraid not. I've recently lost a case with the ombudsman when I had 8 outstanding payday loans, personal loans and credit card debt, all showing on my credit file.The lender had an expenditure form and did a credit check, I argued that the credit check they did showed I was in difficulties and couldn't afford the loan, and a simple expenditure form shouldn't be able to overrule this. The Ombudsman disagreed, saying the expenditure form overruled the credit check because circumstances can change.

I'm afraid not. I've recently lost a case with the ombudsman when I had 8 outstanding payday loans, personal loans and credit card debt, all showing on my credit file.The lender had an expenditure form and did a credit check, I argued that the credit check they did showed I was in difficulties and couldn't afford the loan, and a simple expenditure form shouldn't be able to overrule this. The Ombudsman disagreed, saying the expenditure form overruled the credit check because circumstances can change.

I'm sorry to hear that. From what I understand based on the success stories, it seems that you possibly got a raw deal? If not, can you explain how others have won cases similar to your own? Again I'm sorry to hear that these loan sharks are getting away with this.

I'm sorry to hear that. From what I understand based on the success stories, it seems that you possibly got a raw deal? If not, can you explain how others have won cases similar to your own? Again I'm sorry to hear that these loan sharks are getting away with this.

I dont think they're similar cases. Most cases I've seen are for historical loans from 2009-2014, the new affordability budgets that lenders started doing with applications only came in about a year ago. I've recieved some money back from loans in the earlier period. I would say that even if most of your loans are recent you may still get some offers from them or goodwill gestures.

I dont think they're similar cases. Most cases I've seen are for historical loans from 2009-2014, the new affordability budgets that lenders started doing with applications only came in about a year ago. I've recieved some money back from loans in the earlier period. I would say that even if most of your loans are recent you may still get some offers from them or goodwill gestures.

Are the affordability budgets done along with the application? Any time I applied for a loan all my details were already saved and I only had to confirm they were correct before applying. Don't remember anything about giving them my affordability. Then again, I could easily have done with the recent ones and just forgotten!

Are the affordability budgets done along with the application? Any time I applied for a loan all my details were already saved and I only had to confirm they were correct before applying. Don't remember anything about giving them my affordability. Then again, I could easily have done with the recent ones and just forgotten!

They are now but I dont know when they started doing it. You have nothing to lose anyway. What's in your favour is the amount of loans you had with them, these are supposed to be short term loans so paying off and taking a new one out straight away is a clear sign its not affordable or suitable.

Just has this email back from them, they noted my P2P account number in the email even thought it was from their QQ team.

Thank you for contacting the Final Resolution department. It is our highest priority to resolve any client issues as soon as possible.

Our records indicate the response you received on 03/06/2015 was from the Resolution department. The email sent in response to your email stated the following:

Your query raised several questions on what loan affordability is based on and what statutory checks are processed before assessing credit approval. Please be advised of the following information in relation to your query:

We processed a credit check, the search id: XXXXXXXXXXX confirms one of the affordability checks that were ran. You can find additional information on checks by contacting Callcredit which is one of the Credit Reporting Agencies we use.

We also run various checks, which include but are not limited to, affordability assessment based on current financial commitments, as well as verifying any personal details provided on the application.

After the application was submitted, we send our customers an email which contains the pre-contractual agreement and also contains a hyperlink that leads to an audio version for your convenience.

Prior to making a lending decision, your loan application is reviewed and all of the information discussed above is analyzed and taken into consideration.

Once that information is reviewed, we make a decision and subsequently contact the consumer to advise of the final credit decision.

After careful review of your account and the information you submitted at the time of your application, we have determined that we diligently followed our processes and conducted a credit and affordability assessment on each credit application that was granted. Furthermore, your request for a refund on the charges and fees associated with your loans has been denied.

If you have any queries, our Final Resolution Department is here to help.

Kind Regards,

Tiara

The exact same reply - should I take this further now or sit tight and give them another email, and if so what should be said?

Send them one final email advising that in respect of their reply to your complaint, you would like them to confirm this is their final response. If so, would they please send you a deadlocked letter so you can escalate your complaint to the Ombudsman. You don't actually need this, but it puts the company on notice that you are not going to leave this and will continue to pursue. Then, download a claim form from the Financial Ombudsman website - and escalate your complaint.

The exact same reply - should I take this further now or sit tight and give them another email, and if so what should be said?

That shouldn't surprise you!

Typical procedure for them. As CB says, fire off one more email too them asking if that is their final response on the matter, if so demand they issue you with a 'deadlock' letter, and inform them that you are escalating your complaint further.

Hi richard123,

If you'd like any help from me with the Vodafone side of things, email me with your details via the Contact us form here.

To access the form you'll need to enter the code WRT135.

Once sent, you'll receive an automated reply with a reference number. Post it on here and I’ll check I've received it.

Kind regards,

Lee

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