What happens if I don’t repay my loan?
We make every effort to avoid that situation and the vast majority of customers repay our trust in them. So we hope it never comes to this, but here's a straightforward explanation of what could happen if you don't repay a cash advance as promised...
If our early morning collection attempt is declined by your bank - because you haven't ensured there are enough funds available - we will do our best to contact you throughout the day. We always hope to resolve the situation that day but, if we still haven't received full repayment by 5pm on the due date, you will incur a £20 missed payment fee towards the cost of a failed collection. We will then make further attempts to collect the money from your card and also keep trying to contact you to discuss the situation with you as soon as possible.
Your account will be handled by our professional collections team. They will do their best to come to an arrangement with you and help you resolve things, which is always our goal. Wonga doesn't believe in hitting you with multiple charges, like most traditional lenders will, but interest will continue to accrue on your balance for up to 60 days if we can't reach a fair agreement in the meantime. If you don't work with us and we can't recover the money over a reasonable period, your account may be passed to an external collections partner.
Continued failure to repay a loan will mean credit reference agencies (CRAs) will record the outstanding debt. This information may be supplied to other organisations by CRAs and fraud protection agencies to perform similar checks and to trace your whereabouts and recover debts that you owe. Records remain on file for six years after they are closed, whether settled by you or defaulted.
Finally, your Wonga trust rating will be hit hard and you probably won't be able to borrow from us again. In a nutshell, please don’t apply for a loan if you think you might struggle to pay it back in full and on time. It’s really not worth the potential consequences for a few hundred pounds.