Customers of Provident, Satsuma, Glo and Greenwood can claim for mis-selling up until 5pm on 28 February 2022.

An estimated four million people may be able to claim a share of £50m under the scheme.

Here’s what you need to know…

Provident sold ‘doorstep’ loans where the cash was delivered to customers’ homes and payments also collected in cash. Loans had a typical APR of 535.3%. Satsuma sold short-term loans with the same typical APR.

But Provident faced a wave of mis-selling complaints, partly driven by claims management companies. Following the influx of compensation claims, Provident stopped lending in May last year.

If you received a loan from PPC or Greenwood, or guaranteed a loan from Glo, between 6 April 2007 and 17 December 2020, visit the Provident scheme page to claim.

Mis-selling claims include customers being sold unaffordable loans. Some borrowers couldn’t keep up with repayments while others borrowed money to pay them – and got into more debt.

Sara Williams, who runs the Debt Camel website, added: “If you had one of these loans you can make a claim. It doesn’t matter if you paid the loan on time, if you still have a loan, if you defaulted, or if the loan was sold to a debt collector.

“If paying Provident left you so short of money you had to borrow more or you got behind with bills then it was “unaffordable”.

“You can still make a new claim if you had complained before. Provident rejected too many complaints and only made low offers on others. You can complain again if your claim was rejected or you accepted a low refund or your case was at FOS [Financial Ombudsman Service].”

Cheques that weren’t cashed

Provident is now making arrangements to pay customers who received compensation cheques but which were never cashed.

Williams explained: “It goes back to the very poor offers Provident often made to people from 2018-2020 who had made affordability complaints. They frequently used to offer to refund just a few loans, often not the largest or the most recent.

“These cheques were being sent to people who were often in need of money and who weren’t sure what a good refund would be.  So many people cashed the cheques. That meant they could not take their complaints to the Financial Ombudsman as they had accepted the cheque in full settlement of their complaint.

“But others kept the cheque and sent their complaint to FOS. When the Scheme was announced, they tried to cash the cheques but for some, the cheque they had kept was too old to be bankable. Until now Provident has refused to send out a new cheque.”

If you have one of these cheques, you should receive an email from Provident telling you you’re within your rights to claim this money. If you haven’t received the email, call 0800 121 8034 and explain the situation.

Williams added that if someone has made a claim in the scheme, they should still ask for their uncashed cheque amount to be refunded. For those who haven’t made a claim, they can ask for the cheque money to be paid and they can still make a claim.