How do I complain about a payday lender?
Start with the lender, then take it to the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery — (416) 326-6203 or CPOLicensing@Ontario.ca. What to send, and what the regulator can do.
Payday lending in Ontario is licensed, and licensing means there is somebody to complain to. Here is the route, in order.
Step one: the lender
Put it in writing to the lender first. Most disputes are a misapplied charge or a missed cancellation notice, and writing it down gets you a record with a date on it.
For us: support@instant.credit, (514) 600-0924, or by post to 2233 Argentia Road, Unit 302, Mississauga, Ontario L5N 2X7 — the address on our licence. Say what happened, what you think is wrong, and what you want done. We would rather fix it than have the Ministry ask us to.
Step two: the Ministry
If the lender will not resolve it, or you would rather not deal with them, complain to the regulator:
Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery Consumer Services Operations Division Telephone: (416) 326-6203 Email: CPOLicensing@Ontario.ca
What to include
Give them enough to act on:
- Your name and contact details
- The lender’s name and licence number. Every Ontario payday lender must be licensed, and the number must be displayed. Ours is 4741682, issued 3 September 2026 and valid to 3 September 2027. If a lender cannot give you a number, that is itself the complaint.
- The date of the loan, the amount advanced, and what you were told the total would be
- A copy of the loan agreement, if you were given one — and say plainly if you were not
- What happened, in dates: the calls, the debits, the emails
- What you are asking for
What is worth complaining about
Not just fraud. The Act is detailed, and each of these is a breach:
- Charging more than $14 per $100 of the amount advanced, or adding any separate fee on top of it
- Refusing to honour a cancellation made by the end of the second business day
- Refusing an extended payment plan on your third loan with the same lender inside 63 days, or charging you for one
- Rolling a loan over — extending it, or lending you money to pay off an existing loan with the same lender
- Lending to you again before seven days have passed since the previous loan was paid in full
- Advancing more than 50% of your net pay, or setting a due date before your next income date
- Adding any default charge beyond 2.5% per month non-compounding and the $20 dishonoured payment fee
- Calling outside the permitted hours — before 7:00 am or after 9:00 pm, on a Sunday outside 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, or at all on the eleven listed holidays — or using threatening or abusive language
- Advertising that promises approval before an application has been assessed
What the Ministry can and cannot do
It regulates licensees. It can investigate, inspect a lender’s records, impose conditions on a licence, suspend or revoke it, and prosecute offences under the Act. A complaint that looks minor to you may be the second or the twentieth about the same lender, which is exactly how patterns get found.
It is not your lawyer, and it is not a court. If what you want is money back and the lender will not pay, the routes are Small Claims Court or a lawyer. For free advice, a community legal clinic will often help — and for the debt behind the dispute, a non-profit counsellor accredited by Credit Counselling Canada costs nothing where you cannot pay.
One statutory remedy you may already have
If a lender made you a payday loan in breach of the seven-day rule — a new loan before seven days had passed since the last one was paid off — you are only liable to repay the amount advanced. The cost of borrowing is not payable. That is worth checking against your own paperwork before you write to anyone.
