wonga complaint

[colin1096]

i had numerous loans with wonga over a period of 3-4 years and other companys and was just borrowing to pay them off . below is my email to them and there correspondence .

I have had numerous loans from you between 2011 and 2014. I have been borrowing more often and the amounts tended to go up. Your payday loans trapped me into a debt spiral, with the loan repayment taking so much of my wages that I had to borrow again from you to cover my next month’s living costs.

For this period my income averaged about £1000 a month.

 

My living expenses varied but were roughly: rent/mortgage £400. Council tax £130. Utilities and bills £200. Transport costs £200. Clothes £50. Food £100, toiletries £20 . Other debt repayments £130. Total £1230 per month.

 

This shows that there was no way I could afford these loans. When I repaid them, I had to borrow more to survive the next month. You should have realised from my loans that my debt problems were getting worse and it was not responsible to continue to lend to me.

My credit reports would have showed my other debts and problems including late payments / defaults / CCJs / debt management.

You should never have given me these unaffordable loans. I would like to ask you to refund the interest and extra charges I paid. The Financial Ombudsman suggests that statutory interest is added to this sort of refund.

 

I only became aware I could make this sort of responsible lending / affordablity complaint in this year So I understand the financial Ombudsman will consider all my loans, including those that are more than 6 years old.]

I do not want you to pass my email or other contact details to any third parties. If I have ever given you authority to do this in the past, I withdrawing this authority.

The amount of loans i had total £ 5432.00 and my repayments were £ 7031.81

I look forward to hearing from you

 

Their reply was they would get back to me in 8 weeks.

 

Then received this..

 

 

 

We apologise for the delay in responding to your complaint. We are currently experiencing a high volume of complaints so our normal timely response has been delayed.

 

We thank you for your patience and aim to respond within the next 6 weeks. The attached letter confirms the status of your complaint as well as providing you with important information regarding your rights. We would like to reassure you we take your complaint very seriously.

 

If you have any questions please call us on 0800 316 6745.

 

Kind regards,

 

Complaints Team

0800 316 6745

Wonga.com

 

Then this 15 weeks after emailing them numerous times

 

Thank you for your email dated x December 2016.

 

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to your complaint. We appreciate this delay will have been frustrating to you. As such, we are offering £50 as compensation for the delay and inconvenience.

 

We have investigated your concerns and our findings are set out in more detail below.

 

Our Understanding of Your Complaint:

 

You state that you had numerous loans between 2011 and 2014, with borrowing becoming more frequent and the amounts generally increasing. You feel payday loans trapped you into a debt spiral, with the loan repayment taking so much of your wages that you had to borrow again to cover the next month's living costs. You have questioned the affordability of these loans and feel that we should have realised, from the pattern of borrowing, that your financial difficulties were getting worse and it was not responsible to continue to lend to you.

 

Our Response to your complaint:

 

Our approach to assessing affordability

 

Having reviewed your complaint we can see that you had 25 loans with Wonga from August 2012 to September 2014.

 

Before approving a loan, we carry out a credit reference agency check. This information is accessed instantly by us when we receive a loan application. When you applied, we combined that data with the personal data you provided to us including salary, employment, marital status, dependents, home ownership status, motor owner status amongst other information, and we also considered your repayment history. All of this information was entered into our underwriting system so we could carry out an assessment of affordability. You achieved an acceptable underwriting score and the loans were approved on that basis.

 

Financial difficulty and pattern of borrowing indicating unaffordability

 

In investigating this complaint, we have considered the question of affordability of the loans based on information available to us at the time of application, including:

 

Frequency of borrowing;

Personal circumstances;

Amount initially borrowed and any additional borrowing against stated income; and

Any other factors which indicated financial difficulties, such as arrears and repayment arrangements

 

You have indicated in your complaint that you experienced difficulty repaying one or more of your loans. You did not, however, contact us at the time to let us know that you were in financial difficulty. Had you done so, we would have been aware of your circumstances and could have put in place a suitable repayment plan or other arrangement.

 

We should mention that if you are experiencing any financial difficulties, we would encourage you to get in contact with your lender to discuss your circumstances with them. They will be able to put in place a suitable repayment plan in order to help you to repay in a sustainable way. You can also get free debt advice from a number of organisations including:

 

Step Change Debt Charity - 0800 138 1111

National Debt Line - 0808 808 4000

Citizens Advice - 03444 111 444

 

Please note that your loan dated 19 September 2014 has already been assessed under our affordability forbearance programme. As a result the interest and fees were written off and all records of the loan were removed from your credit file.

 

However, having reviewed your case, we accept that the loans in the table below may not have been affordable in their specific circumstances.

 

Outcome

 

Based on the above, there may have been more that we could have done to assist you in relation to the loan in the table below.

 

Additionally, we will also request for the redressed loans to be removed from your credit record. It may take up to 30 working days to be updated fully on the credit file.

 

We would like to offer you £175.31 by way of compensation which is an amount equal to the interest and fees on the following loans:

 

Loan reference

Date

Interest and fees

xxxxxxx

xx/xx/2013

£175.31

 

 

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

£175.31

8% Interest net

£46.80

Compensation

£50.00

Total settlement

£272.11

 

Tax

8% Interest gross

£58.50

Basic rate tax deduction

£11.70

 

 

Compensatory interest is subject to income tax at the basic rate under UK tax legislation and, therefore, tax will be deducted at the basic rate of 20% from any payments made to the customer. If the customer does not pay tax, they may be able to reclaim some or all of this tax reduction from HM Revenue and Customs.

 

If the customer is a higher rate tax payer, they may have to pay additional tax on the compensatory interest via their tax return. Please see HMRC.gov.uk for more details.

 

Please note the offer outlined in this letter is made in full and final settlement of all aspects relating to this complaint. If customer wishes to accept this offer, please reply to this email typing their details in to the relevant boxes of the acceptance form below. Alternatively, you can also print, fill and sign the below form and send it back by post or as an attachment in a reply to this email.

 

Upon receipt of the completed form we will arrange payment to your account number ending 2654. If your account details have changed, you will need to provide us with proof of the new banking details. This can include a screenshot of an account statement, but will need to show their name, the sort code and account number.

 

This is our final response; however, if you are not satisfied with it, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge but you must do so within six months of the date of this letter.

 

If you do not refer their complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider the complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances. For example, if the Ombudsman believes that the delay was as a result of exceptional circumstances.

 

For more information on the Financial Ombudsman Service, please see the consumer information leaflet found at: http://financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/consumer-leaflet.htm. If you want a hard copy of the consumer information leaflet, please call us on 0207 138 8330.

 

The address of the Financial Ombudsman Service is:

The Financial Ombudsman Service

Exchange Tower

London

E14 9SR

 

Telephone: 0800 023 4567 or 0300 123 9123

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://financial-ombudsman.org.uk

 

Your Sincerely

 

 

Ross Cussens

Complaints Handler

Wonga.com

0800 316 6745

 

 

 

Wonga Settlement Form

If you wish to accept our offer, please reply to this email typing your details in to the relevant boxes of the acceptance form below. Alternatively, you can print, fill and sign this form and send it back by post or as an attachment in your email reply.

 

To: Wonga Complaints Team

Wonga.com

Sheffield

S95 1AR

Email: [email protected]

 

 

Ref: Complaint regarding Loan affordability

 

 

I confirm my acceptance of the Wonga’s offer (as outlined in the attached letter) in full and final settlement of all aspects/loans relating to my complaint.

 

 

Customer Name :

 

 

Date:

 

 

Customer Signature (please type your name again if replying to email):

 

 

 

 

To enable us to process your payment as quickly as possible, please also provide details of your bank account. If this bank account is different to the bank details we referred to in our final response letter above, you will need to provide us with proof of your new banking details. This can include a screenshot of your account statement, but will need to show your name, the sort code and account number:

 

I have emailed all this to the FOS but just wondered should i accept this as part payment or just wait for the FOS to decide.

 

Also complained to sunny and they refunded all loan fees 8% interest and wrote off nearly £500 aswell

 

 

Any help would be appreciated thanks in advance

[fkofilee]

This is on my to do list tonight to read. Bear with us.

[fkofilee]

Hi Colin

 

Thanks for being patient on this one. quite a story eh.

My only come back on this is that you could reasonably say that you buried your head in the sand, and Wonga cannot hold you accountable for that.

 

If you are going to settle, Id say take what they might be offering, or rebarter for more compo from them for the amount you have paid to them, but demand that all of the loans be removed from your CRA.

If you go to the FOS, the payout maybe more, or they may disagree, you always have that risk.