This article is being updated following the January 10th emails that were sent out to previous Wonga loan customers. During the course of 2019 after Wonga’s demise into administration, customers have been following the Wonga story closely. This is following the collapse of Wonga on the 30th of August 2018 when they were unable to pay refunds on all the affordability complaints they were getting. This post has been updated to show the latest developments along with a rough timeline of what’s happened so far.

UPDATED: 20th January 2020 (See comments at end of the post for latest views from others).

What is the lastest Wonga update for customers following its collapse?

Following the provision of an online claim page back in early 2019, the following has happened.

• Wonga has been assessing the affordability complaints on a case-by-case basis. This is believed to be an automated service where loans are compared to the customer’s circumstances along with any hardship factors helping to determine if the Wonga payday loan was unaffordable.
• Part of this process would then decide whether it was unaffordable and then calculate how much interest should be refunded to the customer.
• The deadline for submitting this complaint was the end of September back in 2019
• Following a successful claim, customers should be informed that they will eventually receive an email detailing the amount to be refunded.
• The amount in terms of value that your refund will be based on a PERCENTAGE of the amount quoted in these emails.
• Around 400,000 claims to Wonga on the grounds of unaffordable payday loans have been accepted.
• On the 10th of January 202o, Wonga started emailing its customers detailing these percentages that would be paid to them.
• There was also the attached guidance that the administrators expected payments to be made by the 30th of January 2020.

What did the Wonga claim email and refund emails look like?

The latest emails to arrive from the wonga administrators are simply laid out with a case number, third-party reference and details of your bank account including the last four digits of customers bank account numbers. In particular, the most important part to note is that email states:

you should be aware that the payment you receive will be considerably smaller than your accepted claim value.

What is a Wonga claim payout?

This is the payment that customers should hopefully receive before the end of January 2020 in regards to their affordability complaint. The administrators gave the guidance that it should be before the 30th of January 2020. The payouts are in place because a payday loan is classed as “unaffordable” if repaying means that you had to get into more debt by borrowing more, getting behind on payments, or endure additional hardships. Even if some customers have repaid their debts they may still have a valid claim for a refund of interest paid in such an unfair manner.

It’s worth noting that the letters being sent out to people on the 10th of January state that your payment will be made but do not refer to the percentage you will be getting. To a certain degree, the amount is still unknown. To date, on the 11th of January 2020, I’ve seen no concrete indication of payment amounts of percentages confirmed other than speculation.

When is it likely that customers will see Wonga refunds in 2019 & 2020?

For applications made to the Wonga administration via the Wonga claims portal, payments should be made by the 30th of January 2020. This was the guidance laid out in the Wonga refund emails and the latest Wonga updates for payday loan affordability complaints.

NOTE: This post is now for information only for existing claimants as the deadline for making new claims to the administrators passed back in 2019.