Ombudsman or Court?

National_Debtline

Hi MikeMouse,


I agree with Thrugelmir. Before considering any court action, you should seek some legal advice. Also, are you able to briefly outline your query? Although we cannot offer legal advice, you may have a similar issue to someone else and they may be able to offer you advice from experience.


Laura
@natdebtline

MikeMouse

Hi All,

I was avoiding going into the case as there are so many other threads on the topic and I did not want to change the topic or attract the trolls that go with it!

OK - Here goes

A few years ago I got into debt and took out a lot of payday loans to survive. When I say a lot I mean a lot!!! I am following the stories of huge amounts of people who are now complaining about this and in most cases getting all or most of the interest and fees refunded by going through the lenders complaint process and then the ombudsman. There are thousands of posts on this topic on this site and others like debt camel.

My case is clearer than those I have followed. My financial situation when I was approved was worse than most. I was already hugely in debt, had CCJ's etc etc. The amounts I borrowed were larger than most. The loans more frequent. The roll over of loans more frequent. My income less ......

The standard procedure for pay day lenders is to take the maximum amount of time allowed - 8 weeks - before rejecting the complaint or offering a settlement of a small % of that claimed.

The complainant then goes to the ombudsman's office. Another wait before case is assigned. Then wait for adjudicator decision. The pay day lender rejects the adjudicators decision. Another wait then the case then goes to the ombudsman who upholds the adjudicator's decision. Finally about 4 weeks later the pay day lender pays out.

So why consider not following this process? The time frames posters are reporting between sending their complaint to the ombudsman and receiving their money is often between 4 and 6 months. As the volume of these complaints has shot up over recent months the ombudsman's backlog, through no fault of their own, is getting longer and the payments further delayed. It can be 8 or 9 months now depending on the pay day lender in question.

Were I to file a MCOL the pay day lender would need to reply within 14 days and file a defence within a further 28 days. They have no defence as the thousands of recent payouts demonstrates.

So I believe as my case is more clear cut than others who have won through the ombudsman process they would settle and pay out within a month instead of needing to wait 4 - 6 months and having to work with the ombudsman, communicate over and back etc.

I don't want to turn this into a thread about pay day lenders or my foolishness in getting into that mess a few years ago. However thats the context for considering a MCOL rather than the ombudsman process.

Thanks for all your comments so far - it helps me a lot.

glentoran99

can the lender reject the adjudicators decision? I thought hat was only the customer?

MikeMouse

According to several posters on other threads they can but I don't know for certain either way.

Gambler101

Straightforward it is not lol

-taff

Yes they can.

And I have no idea how successful complaints with the SMCC are, but I do know that they're fairly successful with the Ombudsman.

Is there a reason you're so hell bent on spending more money?

bris

Small claims court is the last place you want to be, they just look at the facts and they are simple. You borrowed money, you either paid it back or you didn't, you got penalties due to your breach or you didn't and you got charged interest according to your terms.


The courts will look at this and decide on the contract, they will have no interest in the morals of it all that's not for them to decide.


You want the morals of how you are such hard done by with your irresponsible borrowing go to the ombudsman.

matttye

I think the Ombudsman is probably more likely to get you a favourable result than court.

The court is very black and white - they will decide cases on the law only. The Ombudsman will consider not only the law but other factors such as fairness.

At the end of the day, you borrowed money under the terms of the contract and accepted the terms of the contract. I appreciate that people do silly things when they're desperate and that may have played a part in your decision making, but you have to shoulder some of the blame.

MikeMouse

Thanks Everyone - really helps.

The ombudsman seems to be the majority view so I will go with that though I still hold out hope that I can settle without going that far!

Thanks again

John

-taff

Why don't you take a look at the payday loan complaints thread on the debt free wannabe board