Hi,

I was trapped for a couple of years with a payday lender and

ended up borrowing constantly to repay the loan back, with roll overs of the loan

at one point 8 times in a row, then being offered a higher credit limit on the 8th roll over.

I wrote a complaint to the lender about them not assessing my affordability

and how I feel i was missold the product,

they even used to email me twice a week reminding me i had more money i could draw down.

they have offered me almost £900 as a 'gesture of goodwill' with a time limit of 2 weeks to accept but no admission of liability.

I am just looking for some opinion for you guys to see whether i should continue on to the ombudsman with my complaint?

I had asked for c£1700 in refunds plus 8% interest, so the 'gesture' only equates to 50%

Look forward to hearing your opinions on what you would do.

I'm thinking that the lender obviously realises that the things they did were serious enough to warrant such compensation.

Which did include telling me i would need to have died before a repayment plan could be considered.

Thanks,

I had asked for c£1700 in refunds plus 8% interest,

...how did you equate to this

tell us the background.

dx

It was all the interest I paid on each loan over the course of the time I was loaning from them. Back to back on a non stop basis.

I don't want to put too many details on here in case they identify me from anything I say.

pers we recommend name and shame

you usually get far better service.

simply adding the interest up is p'haps not the correct way if truth be known.?

I think you might be over gauging what they might 'owe' you

esp as you also added 8% statutory interest too.

dx

pers we recommend name and shame

you usually get far better service.

 

 

simply adding the interest up is p'haps not the correct way if truth be known.?

 

 

I think you might be over gauging what they might 'owe' you

esp as you also added 8% statutory interest too.

 

 

dx

Dear Payday Express,

In response to your letter with reference xxx asking me to clarify my complaint, please see below. Unless my requests have been met to my satisfaction, I will be referring this complaint to the financial ombudsman service.

I will accept communication by email or letter, no telephone calls as I want a full record of this complaint as evidence.

I am writing in relation to the loans which were provided to me during the period Xxx until Xxx on a continuous and exponential basis. I do not believe that these loans were sold to me correctly as these types of loan are supposed to be 'short term' and not intended for long term borrowing.

I have written below, a summarised history of your communication with me which I believe to be irresponsible in terms of lending and a failure in assessment of customer affordability and financial circumstance. It is quite clear that there was no appropriate assessment of my ability to the repay the loans and further to this, you consistently reminded me of additional monies available to be drawn down with numerous emails and text messages. The very fact that I had to take up the deferral option on almost a consistent basis was a clear indication of financial troubles. In month/year, you began to email me with 'assumptions' that I would like a deferral option, so you rolled over my loan on a continuous basis. There were 8 rollovers consecutively at which point it should have been evident that this was irresponsible. Further to this, you then offered me even more money despite rolling over my loan 8 times. I was struggling so badly with finances that I was borrowing just to keep up repayments to your loans. So when you offered me this additional balance, you surely should have recognised that this sum would be used to continue servicing your loans. You incessantly contacted me to tell me that I was not using the full limit available, sometimes more than once a week!

Getting involved in these loans kept me in a spiral for a long time, with no way out. You failed in your duty to continuously assess my ability to continue servicing the loans and as such, this drove me into a significantly impaired financial environment and affected my health. I did speak to your representatives by telephone and they were extremely aggressive towards me when I tried to get a form of cheaper repayment plan. I was told I would need to have died for 'hardship' to be considered.

I will expect a full refund of all fees (which I believe to be £Xxxx) plus 8% interest be refunded to me as a result of having these loans. I look forward to your prompt response to this email. If I have not had a satisfactory response from you I will contact the Financial Ombudsman Service to formally investigate my complaint with provision of all of the retained communications I have from your company.

I supplied a summary of all email comms - plenty 'no money for the weekend? Get yourself to a computer and use the rest of your credit'

Etc.

The balance I requested didn't include interest.

I had asked for c£1700 in refunds plus 8% interest, so the 'gesture' only equates to 50%

????????

dx

Sorry, in summary I've asked for a refund of all interest charges and 8% on top statutory interest which I know would only be instructed by FOS.

PE have offered me 50% as full and final settlement of my complaint.

I just want to know whether I should continue to pursue the full balance I asked for or just settle for the 50%?

within or outside an FOS complaint

you are still entitled to the 8%

because you have been deprived use of whatever money they have fleeced out of you

however, as said, simply adding up the interest they levied you is p'haps not the correct method.

can we see their reply please suitably redacted

dx

It was sent by letter, I would rather not put it on here.

Would you personally go to FOS anyway? I don't like the 2 week time limit they have put on my settlement offer. It almost puts me off going to FOS.

they cant put any conditions on their offer.

what I am trying to guage is what you asked for fair

and if they are taking the Michael by simply offering 50%

of what 'you' think is an appropriate redress figure

without the info its a bit difficult for anyone to comment.

posting the letter suitably redacted will not only help you but p'haps others in the future upon how to resolve such issues.

CAG is about helping everyone, not solely about 'an' individuals plight or issue.

less than 1% of people that read cag thread post anything but read threads.

dx

oceanic,

i had similar deal with payday express based on rollovers and unaffordability.

I needed the money so I did the deal early based on a similar figure.

I estimated that it would be 6 months or by time it got to ombudsman

and then whatever it took for them to pay up

so I couldn't wait that amount of time.

I was also interested in getting credit file entries removed

so attached that as a condition of the deal which they accepted.

based on similar decisions on the FOS website,

you will probably win a full refund given the amount of extensions

and the blatant lack of affordability checks

but from what I have seen, the ombudsman can also throw the odd curveball so its not entirely a shoo-in

The other concern I had is how many of these companies will exist in the next year or so

- if you look at my post today on the minicredit thread,

you will see i have had a result against them with the FOS

but havent a clue if I'll ever see a penny of it!

It was sent by letter, I would rather not put it on here.

 

Would you personally go to FOS anyway? I don't like the 2 week time limit they have put on my settlement offer. It almost puts me off going to FOS.

Hi

Just wondered if you accepted the offer. I have just had an offer from them but it was only 25% of the interest even though they did not uphold my complaint. Said it was a gesture of goodwill.

Hi,

I decided not to accept their offer, and went through FOS. I submitted all my information for my case including my bank statements and credit file (to FOS - not to Express).

FOS responded to say that they have upheld my complaint and it is now coming up to 2 weeks since the complaint was upheld so I expect FOS will come back to me shortly with the result unless Express appeal it.

I submitted a similar complaint against TXT Loan, they offered me nothing. Then FOS got in touch to say that all of a sudden TXT Loan were willing to offer me around 50% but it was an abitrary figure plucked out of nowhere, so I rejected that also.

I also have another 2 complaints with FOS - one about Quick Quid and one about CFO Lending.

I have another 2 complaints to lodge shortly, one for Wage Day Advance and one for Lending Stream - who are definitely not going to win. For them I had at least one loan account open with them for 26 consecutive months and had a maximum of 6 loans at one point with them. Unaffordable, but times were desperate. Taken proper advantage of me at the time.

Hi,

 

I decided not to accept their offer, and went through FOS. I submitted all my information for my case including my bank statements and credit file (to FOS - not to Express).

FOS responded to say that they have upheld my complaint and it is now coming up to 2 weeks since the complaint was upheld so I expect FOS will come back to me shortly with the result unless Express appeal it.

 

I submitted a similar complaint against TXT Loan, they offered me nothing. Then FOS got in touch to say that all of a sudden TXT Loan were willing to offer me around 50% but it was an abitrary figure plucked out of nowhere, so I rejected that also.

 

I also have another 2 complaints with FOS - one about Quick Quid and one about CFO Lending.

 

I have another 2 complaints to lodge shortly, one for Wage Day Advance and one for Lending Stream - who are definitely not going to win. For them I had at least one loan account open with them for 26 consecutive months and had a maximum of 6 loans at one point with them. Unaffordable, but times were desperate. Taken proper advantage of me at the time.

That's good to know. Well done. They offered be £500 when I had paid £2500. I think they think they can offer small amounts thinking we are desperate. I am not in that place anymore.

I also have claims in with Wageday Advance, Lending Stream and Payday Uk. Waiting for their responses. More than prepared to take them to FOS if they don't offer what I think is fair. Its about time we fought back. They took us for every penny we had for too long.

Excellent - good luck.

I'm hoping for £4000 from QQ, £850 from txtloan, £2100 from express, £1000 from CFO, £1500 from WDA and £3000 from lending stream.

Will be like winning the lottery if all comes my way. Goodbye credit cards and overdraft.

well done oceanic, hope it all works out for you. as i said before my experience is that fos throws a few curveballs in despite some if the complaints being identical, it seems to depend on the adjudicator. are u asking for credit file entries to be removed as well?

Yes I guess it will depend on the adjudicator. A lot of my argument surrounds poor practice by the lender. For instance with quick quid I had long term lending then ended up getting a repayment plan, then they lent to me again the next day then again into repayment plan, then they called me and texted twice a day advertising further loans. It's all very irresponsible knowing that I was struggling financially. I hope everyone who makes these claims gets a fair refund.

I didn't ask for the loans to be taken from my file, do you think it's too late?

that sounds pretty nailed on with quickquid, you would imagine the need for a repayment plan indicates financial difficulty! most of my loans involved excessive rollovers ( in one case over 25) so that was the angle i took.

you should give the credit file entries a shot- id put it as a condition on your fos complaint form on the basis that if the loans should not have been granted in the first place tben u should be put back in the position u would be in if you hadnt received them

Thanks I will definitely drop an email in the morning to request that

Will udate here on progress.

Email today from txtloan giving me all charges and interest plus 8% plus £150 compensation

Happy days

great result thread title updated

Payday express complaint upheld and just over £1700 awarded. No 8% interest from FOS though. Still happy though

Lending stream have emailed to say they've wiped my debt, must be fearing the cost which is going to follow my complaint to FOS.