Inclusive Finance Limited · DRN-6182362

The complaint Miss W complains about the service she received from Inclusive Finance Limited trading as Creditspring in relation to her loan. What happened Miss W entered into a loan agreement with Creditspring in 2025. The loan is repayable by monthly instalments and Miss W is also expected to pay a monthly membership fee. Miss W’s first repayment was scheduled for August. But she contacted Creditspring before the payment due date and asked if it could be moved to mid-September. Creditspring treated this as a forbearance request. It agreed to the request and confirmed this by email. In early September, Miss W contacted Creditspring again and requested a further adjustment to the payment date, asking if it could be moved back by one more day. Creditspring agreed to this request. The payment was made on the rescheduled date as agreed, together with the membership fee. But Miss W wasn’t happy with the way Creditspring had dealt with the situation and raised a complaint. She said that Creditspring hadn’t responded to her emails for several days and hadn’t provided information she was asking for. She also said that it hadn’t adjusted her account correctly and her payments had been wrongly recorded as missed. She asked for compensation of £150. Creditspring said that, when a payment date is changed under a forbearance request, the adjustment is reported to the credit reference agencies as a payment holiday. It explained that, due to a system issue, Miss W’s account temporarily displayed two sets of payment dates. It referred to an email it had sent to Miss W in August which explained that she could disregard the dates shown in red as they related to the cancelled schedule. It confirmed that the payments had not been reported as missed. And it recommended that Miss W view her credit report for full details of how the account had been recorded. Creditspring accepted that there was room for improvement in the way some of Miss W’s queries had been addressed. It said it had shared her comments with the relevant teams. But it was satisfied that her queries had been answered in a timely manner. Creditspring didn’t agree to pay Miss W £150. But, as a gesture of goodwill, it offered to waive two months’ membership fees. Miss W wasn’t happy with Creditspring’s response and brought the complaint to this service. She said she had received very poor service from Creditspring. She said it hadn’t responded to messages she sent via its portal. And that when she tried to put a payment plan in place, Creditspring didn’t respond to her messages or set up the plan. She thought Creditspring should pay her compensation of £150 and reduce her account balance by £100. Miss W subsequently reported further issues. She said she had been left overdrawn with no access to any funds. And that when she contacted Creditspring and informed it of the serious impact on her mental health, she received no response. Creditspring said that this

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related to an unsuccessful chargeback claim which Miss W had raised. It said it had taken the payment correctly but had refunded Miss W as a gesture of goodwill. It said it had responded on a Monday morning to messages she sent over a weekend when its customer services team was closed. Creditspring said it remained happy to honour its original goodwill offer to resolve the complaint. Our Investigator received limited information from the parties during her investigation of the complaint. Miss W explained that she couldn’t provide further evidence as all her contact with Creditspring had been through its online portal and she can no longer see the information from her side. Our Investigator made numerous information requests to Creditspring, but it didn’t respond to many of these and didn’t provide its full business file. So, our Investigator reached her view on the basis of limited information. Overall, she didn’t think Creditspring had acted fairly and recommended that it pay Miss W compensation of £100 for distress and inconvenience, as well as waiving two months’ membership fees. Miss W accepted our Investigator’s findings, but Creditspring didn’t. It said it had shown forbearance to Miss W on multiple occasions. It said that it had implemented payment plans where possible, but Miss W’s own actions had prevented this at times. For example, it said that she had cancelled her Direct Debit and initiated payment recalls, which meant no plan could be set up. Overall, Creditspring didn’t accept that it had treated Miss W unfairly. Our Investigator reviewed Creditspring’s comments but didn’t change her view of how the complaint should be resolved. As Creditspring didn’t accept the Investigator’s outcome, the complaint has been referred to me to make a final decision. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. After our Investigator issued her view of the complaint, Creditspring provided further information. This included a document which I was unable to view. I requested this from Creditspring again along with some additional information, but neither has been provided. So I’m making this decision on the basis of the limited evidence which is available. I reach my decision on the balance of probabilities – that is, what I consider is most likely to have happened, in light of the evidence that is available and the wider surrounding circumstances. Firstly, I find that Creditspring changed the payment date more than once, in line with Miss W’s requests. I think that was fair. And I haven’t seen anything to suggest that Creditspring reported Miss W’s account incorrectly to the credit reference agencies. But I think it could have communicated with her more clearly in relation to these issues and Creditspring appears to accept this. I have no reason to doubt what Miss W says about her attempts to contact Creditspring through its portal. But I haven’t seen evidence of those communications, so I’m unable to say whether Creditspring responded and, if it did, whether its responses were reasonable. The evidence provided by Creditspring shows that a payment plan was set up in November 2025, when Miss W’s monthly payments were reduced to half the original amount. The payment amount was reduced again in February, so it appears that a new plan may have been set up. But I haven’t seen the communications between the parties about this, or how any other payment plan requests were dealt with.

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Miss W says that she was left without funds earlier this year and approached Creditspring for help. Creditspring says this related to a chargeback claim which Miss W made in relation to one of the loan instalments. It says that the payment had been collected correctly, in line with the terms and conditions of Miss W’s account. It says that the chargeback was unsuccessful and it didn’t have to refund the payment, but it did so as a gesture of goodwill. I haven’t seen any details of the chargeback claim. But I have seen the payment schedule which shows the goodwill refund, so I’m satisfied that a payment was refunded but I don’t know the wider details of this. In terms of contact and support, I find that Creditspring did contact Miss W to provide support. But the evidence provided only shows one instance of this, on 5 February 2026. I haven’t seen any evidence that it contacted her on other occasions, despite Miss W’s testimony that she had been in contact on multiple occasions. Overall, I can’t conclude that Creditspring acted fairly and reasonably in all the circumstances here and I think Miss W has suffered distress and inconvenience. I think this complaint should be resolved in the way our Investigator suggested. That is, that Creditspring should waive two months’ fees (as it previously offered) and pay Miss W compensation of £100. My final decision For the reasons above, I uphold this complaint. Inclusive Finance Limited trading as Creditspring should: • Waive two months’ membership fees on Miss W’s account with immediate effect; and • Pay Miss W compensation of £100. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Miss W to accept or reject my decision before 15 April 2026. Katy Kidd Ombudsman

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