Since 2012 I have taken over 35 Wonga loans, these have been anywhere from £100 up to £1,000 a time, paying well over £3k in interest.

I submitted a claim out of desperation last year and when they offered me a refund on four of the loans for £800 I snapped and said yes due to my immediate need for cash.

Since doing that I have learnt that I was wrong to accept so quickly and that they were probably in the wrong for most of these loans as they were often being used in conjunction with up to 6 other pay day lenders.

Since i accepted this compensation for the four loans, does this close the door for me to appeal further?

Hi Gensk121 and Welcome to CAG

On the offers you accepted...was they direct with the PDL Companies or through the FCA/Ombudsman ? Were the offers agreed in writing as full and final settlement?

Regards

Andy

Hi Andy and thanks,

Direct with Wonga, I've copied the email below of the final response:

Our Understanding of the Complaint

You say:

* We did not take appropriate measures to establish affordability and the loans were not suitable for your long term needs. You experienced a cycle of payday lending and increased debts and your financial situation became worse because of the payday loans.

To resolve the complaint, you want the interest and charges applied to the loans refunded to you.

Our response:

Having carefully reviewed the records of the loans you took, we accept that five of the loans may not have been affordable in their specific circumstances. We have listed them in the table below.

We do not, however, accept the other loans were not affordable because;

* Looking at the loan amounts borrowed, we consider each amount for the loans represented what we considered a reasonable amount of your stated monthly incomes of £1000 and £1500 that you provided on various applications.

* We are not aware of any other factors that indicated unaffordability.

We do sympathise with your situation, however, we do not have any records to show that you contacted us about financial difficulties during the time you have taken your previous loans. Our Hardship Team is in place to discuss your circumstances and the way forward with your loans. Although we are expected to treat you positively and sympathetically, it does not follow that interest or charges are automatically suspended because you are in financial difficulties.

In regards to being left in debt due to the loans, we do not agree that we disadvantaged you financially by lending to you. You approached us for financial assistance and as we do on all the applications, checked if you were eligible for the loans. We feel it reasonable that you could have approached other lenders in the market if you were unhappy with our lending terms.

In regard to the loans that you may have taken from other lenders to repay your loans with us, while we feel this was your decision, you may want to contact them directly to discuss your situation.

Outcome

Based on the above, we intend to uphold the complaint in part. Therefore, we would like to offer you by way of compensation, £696.19 an amount which is equal to the interest and fees on the loans. Additionally, we will also request for the redressed loans to be removed from your credit record. This may take up to 30 working days to be updated fully on your credit file.

Date

Loan reference

Amount

15/04/2014

£243.27

30/06/2014

£166.38

15/06/2014

£124.15

16/05/2012

£126.52

26/04/2012

£35.87

Interest of 8% simple per year has been added to the total redress for each loan from the date the loan was taken out until the date of calculation. Please see the outline below.

interest and fees

£696.19

8% interest net

£104.83

total settlement

£801.02

Many thanks...well there is nothing there about F&FS so if you feel you require further redress then I would think the door is still open...although I do feel Wonga have been quite reasonable.

Andy