Credit and borrowing money
If you have a complaint about a business that provides consumer credit – such as a payday loan, or home credit business – we can help.
On this page
Handling credit complaints?
See our guidance for business on consumer credit.
Every year we receive complaints from consumers about businesses who offer credit products and services.
Consumer credit covers a wide range of credit, lending and borrowing – for example, payday loans, debt collection, home credit and catalogue shopping. We look at complaints about other types of lending and borrowing too, like mortgages.
How to complain
You should give the financial business you’re unhappy with a chance to sort things out before bringing your complaint to us.
If you haven’t complained yet, see our step-by-step guide on how to complain to a financial business.
If they don’t reply, or you’re not happy with their final response, you can contact us. Our service is free and easy-to-use.
You can start by answering a few questions online to check you are ready to send your complaint to us and make a new complaint using our online forms.
Make a new complaintTypes of complaint we see
What we look at
We’ll look at the facts and circumstances of each complaint. We’ll listen impartially to both parties when deciding what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances. We’ll take into account any relevant laws, regulations and codes of practice. And we’ll look at any supporting additional evidence, which may include reports from third parties or independent experts.
Once we’ve considered everything, we’ll set out our findings, explaining whether we think the business has treated you fairly, or not. If we think the business has treated you unfairly, we’ll set out what we think needs to be done to put things right.
How long it takes
In general, for most types of complaints about credit and borrowing money, it takes one to two months for us to allocate cases. However, it can sometimes take longer, depending on what your complaint is about.
We’re working hard to reduce the time it takes to allocate cases for investigation, so you may hear from us sooner than this.
- Find out more about when you can expect to hear from us once we’ve started to investigate your complaint.
- If you’re facing financial hardship or severe ill health, please let us know.
- If you’re experiencing financial difficulties, you may also find the Money Advice Service website useful, it contains a list of online debt advice services where you can get immediate and personalised help.
Useful resources
If you’re worried about money and finding it difficult to know where to start, the government-backed MoneyHelper service can help you find a way forward. Whether it’s living on a squeezed income, working out how to prioritise your bills and payments, or access to free, expert debt advice, they can help you take the first step towards getting on top of things.
