If you don’t think your lender is dealing with your case sympathetically
or fairly, put in a complaint to the company and, if necessary, then
take the matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).
1 Collate all your evidence
If
you have an unresolved issue with your payday loan company, you can
issue a complaint directly to them. Financial providers must deal with
complaints within eight weeks.
Make sure your email or letter is
clearly headed with 'Complaint', is succinct and includes the names of
people you've spoken to as well as the dates on which you talked to
them.
Remember to detail how you would like the matter to be resolved.
2 Dissatisfied with response
In
line with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Rules, all banks and
financial providers should have a set of internal procedures for
handling your complaint.
Any staff dealing with complaints should
know what these rules are so you can be informed if the need arises.
Procedures should be clear and well defined.
If the payday loan
company is unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction by the
close of business on the day following receipt of your complaint, then
it should provide a prompt written acknowledgement that your complaint
is being considered.
You should be kept informed about the bank’s
progress in dealing with your complaint, and within eight weeks receive a
final response or an explanation as to why a final response has not yet
been reached.
3 Complain to the Financial Ombudsman
You should also be informed that you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).
You can take your complaint to the ombudsman if you've exhausted the payday loan company’s internal complaints procedure.
The
payday loan company should respond with a final decision to you within
eight weeks, or have issued you with a final deadlock letter before then
if the situation cannot be resolved.
It’s not just problems with payday lenders that the FOS can deal with.
If
you’ve asked your bank or credit card provider to cancel a continuous
payment authority, for example, but it hasn’t, you can complain to your
card provider and, if you’re not happy with the response, take your case
to FOS.
Your bank should tell you where FOS complaints are applicable, and how to complain to the FOS.
4 Clean up Credit campaign
Following a new Which? investigation, we believe that payday lenders are acting unlawfully by charging excessive default fees.
10
of the 17 leading payday lenders we looked at have default fees of £20
or more, and four charge £25 and above, with Wonga topping the table at
£30.
We believe that excessive default fees are unlawful under the
Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
We
want the industry to clean up its act and lend responsibly. We’re
calling on the Financial Conduct Authority to set tough rules on credit
lenders.
Tell us your story and help make the financial regulator take action as part of our
Clean up Credit campaign.
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