Well after what seems like forever my complaint with Payday Express is over. The Financial Ombudsman have agreed with what I said and Payday Express are going to pay me compensation for the way my account was handled. A good result considering how long this complaint has been going on for.

It just goes to show that persistence pays. I never did get any form of response from Payday Express and so that’s why I ultimately ended up making a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman. I gave them every opportunity to respond but got nowhere.

Making the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman was easy. They have a form to fill in and you are also asked to provide evidence of what you have done so far. In my case I included copies of all the e-mails I sent. They will then look at your complaint and decide whether to uphold it or not as sometimes might be the case.

I suspect that a lot of people who have taken out Payday Loans have grounds to complain. Citizens Advice even recently spoke out and said the very same thing. So if you feel that you have been mistreated, for example if your account was emptied then complain is my advice. Normally you would take up your complaint with the lender and they will either ignore you or issue you with a final response. Once you have a final response you can then make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.

What next?

The next complaint I am going to send to the Financial Ombudsman will be about my Aqua Card and the amount of charges they added on when it was clear I was unable to repay my account. I will update you all with my progress on that once things start moving. That particular complaint has been ongoing for a couple of years now so it will be nice to bring it to a close at some point.

Who are the Financial Ombudsman?

They were set up to independently resolve complaints between individuals and financial organisations. Their website is https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/. It can take some time for your complaint to be looked into but eventually you will get there.