Good to know: We are a Claims Management Company (CMC). You do not need to use a CMC to make your complaint to your lender, bank, pension provider or intermediary. If your complaint is not successful you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Pension Ombudsman yourself for free if the firm is still trading. For eligible failed firms, you can refer a claim to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for free.
We are a long-established Claims Management Company in unaffordable lending. When you signed up with us, we agreed to act for you on a “no win, no fee” basis. Our charges are usually 30% (inclusive of VAT) on any compensation payout from Amigo.
No. Amigo will be paying out compensation in stages, and some customers will receive 3 separate compensation payouts. We invoice on an interim basis, under our terms and conditions. However, we do not expect you to pay us until you receive the first payout. Our invoices can be paid by clicking on a link and paying by card, or over the phone, or via internet banking transfer.
| Online (card payment) | You can click on the link we email to you, to go to our card payment portal and pay by debit card or credit card |
| Telephone (card payment) |
Call us on 0345 544 1563 and one of our advisors will take payment from your debit card or credit card. We are available Monday-Friday between 8.30am-5pm (excluding bank holidays). |
| Internet Banking
or
Speaking to your Bank branch |
You can transfer the fee payment directly to our account using the details below:
Sort Code: 60 24 77 |
Yes. And this is the easiest way of making sure Allegiant’s contractual fee is settled. With your consent, we will deduct our fee from the compensation funds, and pass on to you precisely what you are owed – to save or spend as you choose. It means no need to contact Allegiant to settle the fee, because it already would’ve been deducted.
To do this, you would need to make sure that Allegiant’s client money account details are put in to Amigo’s Scheme portal. You would need to do this yourself, as we cannot do it for you.
Go to https://www.amigoscheme.co.uk/ to log in to your Scheme Portal, and go to the section to review your bank details.
Put Allegiant’s bank details in:
Account holder name
Allegiant Finance Services Limited
Account number
30585948
Sort code
821107
Allegiant’s approved client account is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
You may hear from Amigo asking you to update your bank details. Bear in mind that Amigo’s correspondence is general to all its customers, and it may not take into account that you appointed Allegiant as your professional representative.
Amigo has already been making some customer payments to the above Allegiant client money account, for Allegiant to then pass on the appropriate funds to the customers.
Amigo’s Court-approved Scheme of Arrangement was put into place because it does not have enough money to pay all its customers their full compensation.
By the end of June 2024, many customers would have received compensation based on 12.5 pence for every £1 of Amigo Scheme ‘Total Cash Claim Value’. For instance, if your Total Cash Claim Value is £1,000, you will receive compensation of £125. Allegiant’s professional fee will then be payable from the £125 of compensation.
By the end of 2024, Amigo expects these customers to receive a final payout, which is expected to bring the total payout to no less than 17 pence for every £1 of ‘Total Cash Claim Value’. This would mean the final payout would be based on 4.5 pence for every £1, but the exact amount will be confirmed later on in 2024. For instance, it’s possible the final total will be a little higher than 17 pence – we just have to wait and see.
Your claim was automatically registered in the Scheme of Arrangement when the court order was approved. All customers represented by Allegiant were automatically registered in the Scheme. We emailed our customers via their Allegiant registered emails at the time confirming automatic registration, based on Amigo’s communications with us as your representative.
We are aware that Amigo sent all customers registration forms for the scheme in a mass email communication (even customers already registered). For customers automatically registered in the Scheme, you will have still been invited to sign up for their portal.
Amigo continue to treat us as your professional representative, and have shared the information about your claim. Customers are always free to contact a lender, but this does not alter our status as an appointed claims representative.
In general, when Amigo provides details about compensation payouts, they split it into two areas:
Not every customer will be eligible for this refund, and it only applies if you have made payments towards your Amigo loan(s) within the last few years.
If you qualify for this refund, you will receive the entire amount stated in Amigo’s letter. This payment was scheduled to be disbursed to you in the early months of 2024. So, if you come across a figure for ‘Total Refund Value‘ in a letter from Amigo, rest assured that you will receive this money (if not already).
The situation with this amount is quite different because you will not receive the full Cash Claim Value as compensation. Although Amigo has not officially confirmed it, there has been much discussion about the payout being approximately 17 pence for every £1. For instance, if you have a Cash Claim Value of £100, your actual payout might be around £17.
Amigo has also announced that they will distribute these amounts in stages. For example, the initial stage is set at 12.5 pence for every £1 claimed. This much has been officially confirmed.
We have noticed that some customers are questioning the accuracy of the Cash Claim Value figure provided by Amigo, as the other figures mentioned do not align perfectly. This may be because Amigo might not be disclosing all of the loan history details, as certain factors can impact how the Cash Claim Value is calculated.
Here are some factors that can influence the amount of the Cash Claim Value (please consider if any of these apply to you):
You are the borrower, but your guarantor made some of the loan repayments
If your guarantor has made payments towards the loan(s), those payments will not be included in the compensation owed to you personally. Instead, your guarantor will receive their payments back, provided they have made their own claim through Amigo’s Scheme of Arrangement.
You have an outstanding balance on an Amigo loan
Amigo will likely utilise your compensation to pay off any remaining liabilities you have with them first. For instance, this could include loans where you have not yet fully repaid the amount originally borrowed. Furthermore, for loans that Amigo has assessed as affordable for you, they categorise them as ‘Defended’ and expect the loan, including interest, to be repaid as usual. Consequently, some of your compensation might be used to cover unpaid interest (which you are still liable to pay for).
You are receiving an amount back in full (‘Total Refund Value’)
If you are due to get some of your loan repayments back in full, then these amounts won’t be included in the Cash Claim Value, because doing so would mean the same compensation would be accounted for twice.
You received some compensation before the Scheme of Arrangement
Again, you can’t get the same compensation twice. So, if Amigo already compensated you before the Scheme of Arrangement, then this won’t be included in the Cash Claim Value.
Some customers have been getting a full refund of all the payments they made to Amigo after 26th May 2022. Some other customers (who started their claims particularly early) may get a full refund of payments made after 1st December 2021.
Here’s when this refund applies:
For instance, if you haven’t made any payments to Amigo in recent years (maybe because your loans with them were already paid off several years ago), this ‘full’ refund doesn’t apply to you.
For the customers eligible for the full refunds of their payments (mainly after 26th May 2022), let us take a look at when Amigo have said these customers will be receiving their refunds. In summary, it depends on the date of the ‘Final Response’ letter you received from Amigo. This is the letter which sets out the outcome of your claim. The timetable for expected payment also depends on if you are challenging the outcome of your claim with a Scheme Adjudicator:
It’s important to note that not everyone will receive compensation from Amigo:
There can be a few reasons for this. It could be down to the ‘pence in the pound’ award of only 17p in every £1. Lenders like Amigo are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme – so when the business fails there is sadly no protection for the customer – and customers don’t get the full compensation they truly deserve from irresponsible lending practices.
Also, not every loan in the claim will be upheld and have compensation due. And no compensation will be due if the repayments towards the loan weren’t enough to repay the amount of money borrowed. In other words, there is only an interest refund if you have made payments towards the interest in the past. Furthermore, a customer only gets compensated for what they paid back to the Amigo loan in the first place; so if all the payments were made by a guarantor, the borrower won’t be due any compensation, and vice versa.
Some people feel strongly that the claim has not been worth the time it has taken. These feelings are understandable, but it is worth remembering that you are not in a worse financial position for having made this claim.
The vast majority of customers, who approached Allegiant for claims assistance against Amigo, first came to us several years ago – before the ‘Scheme of Arrangement’ had been agreed by the Court. No one could have realistically predicted the delays and the final dividend payment.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the regulator. In February 2023, the FCA publicly criticised Amigo for not carrying out sufficient affordability checks before lending to customers. The FCA would have issued a hefty fine to Amigo – of £72,900,000 – but didn’t, because fining Amigo would have meant it couldn’t pay customers compensation through the Scheme of Arrangement.
You are one of more than 200,000 customers who have been through Amigo’s Scheme of Arrangement. Their compensation to customers for their irresponsible lending practices has ultimately led to them going out of business.
Amigo says it updated customers’ credit records in November 2023, if it acknowledged irresponsible lending on some or all of the loans. Credit records will continue to be amended into 2024, including the removal of Amigo loans from the credit file, if they were irresponsibly given in the first place.
It is worth keeping hold of any old versions of your credit file, together with the letters Amigo sends to you, as these can act as evidence if you needed to make an unaffordable lending claim against a different lender in future.
Amigo Loans was a UK-based lender that offers loans with a guarantor. In this setup, there are two main parties involved: the borrower and the guarantor.
However, the presence of a Guarantor does not necessarily mean Amigo’s loans were given responsibly.
Scheme of Arrangement for Amigo Loans
Amigo faced significant challenges due to its failure to conduct adequate affordability checks on its borrowers and guarantors. This led to the mis-selling of loans, particularly to vulnerable consumers, resulting in unaffordable lending and placing a burden on guarantors.
The Emergence of the Scheme of Arrangement
Amigo’s financial difficulties became apparent when it acknowledged that it was not generating sufficient revenue to meet all of its creditor obligations. To address its liabilities and avoid insolvency, Amigo proposed a Scheme of Arrangement and created a special purpose vehicle, ALL Scheme Limited (ALS), to promote the scheme.
The initial scheme proposed by Amigo was rejected by the High Court after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) objected, citing concerns about fairness to customers. Amigo then revised its proposal, addressing the court’s and the FCA’s concerns, and in March 2022, the FCA confirmed that it would not object to the proposed scheme.
High Court Approval and FCA Censure
The High Court sanctioned Amigo’s New Business Scheme after a creditors’ meeting where the majority voted in favour of the scheme. This new scheme was considered an improvement over the previous failed proposal and was supported by the Independent Creditors Committee.
The FCA later publicly censured Amigo for its failure to conduct proper affordability checks between November 2018 and March 2020. The FCA would have imposed a fine of £72.9 million, but Amigo demonstrated that such a fine would cause serious financial hardship and threaten its ability to meet its commitments under the High Court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement.
Conclusion
The Scheme of Arrangement for Amigo came about as a response to the company’s financial difficulties and regulatory issues related to the mis-selling of loans. The scheme aimed to provide redress to customers who were due it for being mis-sold loans. The FCA’s censure occurred after the scheme was already in place, and the decision not to impose a financial penalty was influenced by Amigo’s precarious financial position and the need to ensure that customers received redress.
Both borrowers and guarantors can make a claim through the Scheme for unaffordable lending. A claim could be made by either, both or neither. Allegiant could be representing the borrower, whilst the guarantor has made their own claim without a professional representative, or vice versa. Remember that if the loan is not upheld in the Scheme, then no compensation is paid out to anyone anyway.
Whether it’s the borrower or guarantor making a claim, the customer will only get back what they’ve personally lost out on by having to pay for an unaffordable loan. However, there are some differences with how the redress works.
The borrower will be compensated if their payments have gone above the amount they originally borrowed. For example, if they took a loan for £2,000 and paid back a total of £2,500, their redress will be based on the £500 – as this relates to the interest on the unaffordable loan. They will get 8% interest too.
However, if a guarantor has also made payments towards the loan, then the guarantor’s payments won’t count towards the borrower’s compensation payout amount.
The guarantor will simply get back the payments they made towards the loan (with 8% interest). So, it is arguably a better situation for a guarantor making a claim. That said, the guarantor would not have benefited from the borrowed funds in the first place – as they weren’t the borrower!
What some people might consider to be unfair is that, if the guarantor has not made a claim through the Scheme, then there could be loan repayments that neither the borrower nor the guarantor is going to get back. And this money would be distributed to others customers – who had made a claim – instead.
If there are disputes and ‘civil’ arrangements between the borrower and the guarantor, such as promises from the borrower to pay the guarantor back, etc, then neither Amigo nor Allegiant can get involved in these disputes.
Generally speaking, the person who personally paid towards the loan gets their money back. However, there will be a few unusual circumstances and exceptions. For example, if a borrower entered into a Debt Management Plan and had a company, like StepChange, make payments to their Amigo loan on the borrower’s behalf, then these should be treated as if the borrower was repaying the loan.
Good to know: We are a Claims Management Company (CMC). You do not need to use a CMC to make your complaint to your lender, bank, pension provider or intermediary. If your complaint is not successful you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Pension Ombudsman yourself for free if the firm is still trading. For eligible failed firms, you can refer a claim to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for free.
