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Post by p2plender on Oct 7, 2019 23:38:45 GMT
8 places can't be filled lol.
Perhaps RS it might have been a better idea to talk to 'investors' before making all these horrendous changes. Like many, I'm voting with my feet and leaving after nearly 9 years, returning everything to holding account. Rates are now terrible which, funnily enough, matches the functionality of the platform. The business has made some terrible choices this last couple of years. I wouldn't like to be involved once the inevitable downturn comes. Perhaps save some money by holding the event in a phone box?
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aju
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Post by aju on Oct 8, 2019 7:37:15 GMT
You know they could have spent some money in CS and had a young recruit just supporting these forums rather than have a meeting with 8 people there are many very experienced people here bashing out what is essentially bad thoughts on this open forum that the whole world can see.
One thing that I have always been amused by is the way that many companies seem to think they can hide away from the customers and if they keep quiet and maintain a no comms perspective then no damage can be bestowed on them. It beggars belief sometimes that anyone in these markets or any field has not realised that the customer is always king and, to coin a famous song, these boots were very definitely made for walking.
I started with Zopa and am still making money with them but spend considerably less personal time there now - I have monthly routines I do and will bite back if I find anything wrong in my data that points to issues in their products after all vigilance can still be a good money maker as well as engagement. we've discovered RS in the last year and to be honest have had to relearn the best approaches over a few times. I'm amazed at how RS, one of the top 3 P2P platforms in the world seems to think the front end visibility is not an important factor in keeping and maintaining customers. Sadly both Zopa and RS has their faults, I know Zopa inside out compared to RS but I am getting more na more savvy by just being on these forums, so its a shame that RS and Zopa do not see the need for a bigger presence.
I'm looking forward to the outcome of this meeting though so whilst I don't know who is there lets hope they are all as annoyed as some of us on here are, I guess time will tell!.
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Oct 8, 2019 8:08:11 GMT
You know they could have spent some money in CS and had a young recruit just supporting these forums rather than have a meeting with 8 people there are many very experienced people here bashing out what is essentially bad thoughts on this open forum that the whole world can see. One thing that I have always been amused by is the way that many companies seem to think they can hide away from the customers and if they keep quiet and maintain a no comms perspective then no damage can be bestowed on them. It beggars belief sometimes that anyone in these markets or any field has not realised that the customer is always king and, to coin a famous song, these boots were very definitely made for walking. I started with Zopa and am still making money with them but spend considerably less personal time there now - I have monthly routines I do and will bite back if I find anything wrong in my data that points to issues in their products after all vigilance can still be a good money maker as well as engagement. we've discovered RS in the last year and to be honest have had to relearn the best approaches over a few times. I'm amazed at how RS, one of the top 3 P2P platforms in the world seems to think the front end visibility is not an important factor in keeping and maintaining customers. Sadly both Zopa and RS has their faults, I know Zopa inside out compared to RS but I am getting more na more savvy by just being on these forums, so its a shame that RS and Zopa do not see the need for a bigger presence. I'm looking forward to the outcome of this meeting though so whilst I don't know who is there lets hope they are all as annoyed as some of us on here are, I guess time will tell!. Whilst I would like more platform interaction on the forum, I fully understand why they have learnt to avoid it. Often it can become confrontational, which is never a good look for them. Probably even more often these days defending their actions is difficult, sometimes impossible. It would certainly not be a job for a young recruit, experience and knowledge aligned with great communication skills would be a minimum need. A middle ground where they provided requested information is probably the best outcome currently, but few platforms have the skill to get the balance right.
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Stonk
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Post by Stonk on Oct 8, 2019 8:15:39 GMT
The reason the available places will not be filled is because the changes have already happened and most of this forum has been aliented by (a) the changes; and (b) the way the changes have been implemented.
If RS had said some time ago "we are holding a meeting to seek your input on some changes we are proposing to make", then there would have been more interest. But this meeting will be more like "here's what we've done" (yes, we can see, and, err, thanks ever so much for taking us on that pothole-ridden journey of gradual tweaks), and "here's why" (oh, really, well we've already formed some pretty solid ideas about that).
I wish RS well, and I believe the changes will help them as a business, which is not a bad thing for my present investment, but I cannot envisage adding more funds in the near future.
Incidentally, with rather nice timing, over 10% of my 5 Year money repaid yesterday. It was at 6.0%, which is traditionally about my minimum, so current rates are way off the mark for me.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2019 10:25:35 GMT
Incidentally, with rather nice timing, over 10% of my 5 Year money repaid yesterday. It was at 6.0%, which is traditionally about my minimum, so current rates are way off the mark for me.
Hi, did you get an email telling you about the early repayment? I didn't get one for my recent one and wondered whether they've stopped sending them. There certainly look to be fewer email settings on the Account page.
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aju
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Post by aju on Oct 8, 2019 10:32:28 GMT
Badly Drawn Stickman , I agree a junior will not know that much but just someone having the time to actually peruse things, as Stonk says the changes have already happened, and interact rather than not actually even be interested is in my view not worth bothering with the meeting. My experience so far with RS CS is that its remit seems to be to just triage stuff aimlessly as it comes in - bounce it back and hope they go away or worse give up!. Recently Mrs Aju has been complaining about rate trends screen imperfections they are annoying at best. Date missing, worse the layouts after the recent changes are all over the show as anyone who simply looks at the graph and moves their mouse over the screen will see they jump all over the place in our browsers. So helped Mrs Aju to try and point out the errors and we had to literally spell it out as they could not see what the issues were despite them stataring them in the face they had not used it in my view. If only they had read the emails that we were using a chrome browser (this happens mostly on all browsers we have tried 4 of them most used ones in fact) and were struggling with the screens that at best it jumps all over the place at worst the layout simply does not fit correctly - basically whoever changed it was not aware of the impact of a simple text size changes (The underlying designs are re-using named text elements for multiple areas that are confusing the screen layout when someone changes the sizing without looking at the design docs to see the relevant impacts etc - I'm assuming they have designs on this. However, CS should have take the first screen grab and tried it but no they saw fit to respond there is nothing wrong with it, we sent it again underlining the relevant pieces in the screen grabs that were clearly misaligned but still they bounced it back as nothing wrong. They did point out they knew that the data field was no longer populating but there was little chance it would be fixed soon as all hands were on deck to fix more important errors - bit worrying if you ask me but hey I've been there before in my developer days one has to prioritise things. So I then gave Mrs Aju some info on how I had actually fixed the issue and that it was due to potentially bad layout design from day one but it could be fixed by adjusting the size of a single line of text that defines the box size in question. I also provided text that suggested, politely of course, that we were done providing this stuff to RS and we should just accept that their capabilities in design need to be checked by someone in QA and other experienced designer and developer and testing that should be checked inside their team - not easy to be polite here but we were. I pointed out to Mrs Aju and she also wrote in her email that indicators like this is small thing but can tend to show that there may be more serious underlying issues with more important code areas and could be affecting deeper more important server things or interest calcs etc etc. RS is not alone in these indicators but for me the RS beacon of what they are like as a company is quickly indicated by the only face of the company we can see their website and the way they treat customers in their interaction. For the biggest difference between Zopa and RS is the CS teams. Having engaged with them both, many times in the case of Zopa, less so with RS so far. For me Zopa CS is streets ahead of RS in their engagement when one points out flaws. They are instinctively still triage based - they have too much to work with and never enough staff - but Zopa does not force you to do their job in trying to report an error they investigate things thoroughly and then report back. The RS CS person did eventually get the message about perceptions and did agree to pass it on to a team who might be able to look at the issue - it's a very quick fix in my eyes - my stylish amendments for the error were one line I seem to remember. We are waiting patiently to see what comes back if anything. When will these people understand the damage they do by badly thought out designs if ever there were any in the first place!.
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jlend
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Post by jlend on Oct 8, 2019 10:35:08 GMT
Incidentally, with rather nice timing, over 10% of my 5 Year money repaid yesterday. It was at 6.0%, which is traditionally about my minimum, so current rates are way off the mark for me.
Hi, did you get an email telling you about the early repayment? I didn't get one for my recent one and wondered whether they've stopped sending them. There certainly look to be fewer email settings on the Account page. Seems these are the two you can currently select. Can't remember what was there before. Bank transfers received Notification when a bank transfer to RateSetter is received into your account and available to be used to place a Lend order Your orders fully matched Notification when the whole amount of any orders you place is matched and accepted as a loan contract The last "Your investment completed early" email for me was 1st Oct.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2019 10:44:06 GMT
Seems these are the two you can currently select. Can't remember what was there before. Bank transfers received Notification when a bank transfer to RateSetter is received into your account and available to be used to place a Lend order Your orders fully matched Notification when the whole amount of any orders you place is matched and accepted as a loan contract The last "Your investment completed early" was 1st Oct. Think there were quite a few more options before. I also no longer get the emails saying Rolling/Access loans have been rolled over (probably a blessing as they generated a lot of questions on here).
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Stonk
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Post by Stonk on Oct 8, 2019 12:35:23 GMT
Incidentally, with rather nice timing, over 10% of my 5 Year money repaid yesterday. It was at 6.0%, which is traditionally about my minimum, so current rates are way off the mark for me.
Hi, did you get an email telling you about the early repayment? I didn't get one for my recent one and wondered whether they've stopped sending them. There certainly look to be fewer email settings on the Account page.
I did not receive an email about yesterday's early repayments. I did however receive such an email for a repayment a couple of weeks prior. RS's automatic emails have been unreliable for the whole time I have been with them.
I usually check in on the website daily so I always notice early repayments, but I would be a bit miffed to find 10% of my investment paid out in to zero-earning cash unnotified.
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wapping35
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Post by wapping35 on Oct 8, 2019 15:05:41 GMT
Well at last years Q&A session (it was actually called an event last year) we eventually (Oct 5th 2018 i.e. post event) got told by the RS rep that. "The assets of the Provision Fund are audited each year as part of our statutory financial audit and the operations of the Provision Fund are audited as part our rolling internal audit programme. In the future, we also plan to have independent annual audits of the future contracted income and future expected losses."
========= Given it is now over a year since that was said (by RS) and it has not been actioned I really so no value in further Q&A sessions.. i.e. If feed back and indeed promised future improvements (Q&A driven), do not occur nor get acted upon in a timely manner.. I take the point RS said in the future so may be this is running on glacial lines as an aspiration.. p2pindependentforum.com/thread/13350/ratesetter-event?page=4
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mark123
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Post by mark123 on Oct 8, 2019 16:10:05 GMT
I attended the previous session and will attend this year's one.
The last session was very useful as it clarified many issues where forum posters had misunderstood RS systems and intention.
RS appeared to be open and keen to engage with lenders. Even though only a handful of people attended, I noticed that forum post for many months afterwards were more informed.
The new website functionality has made many investors feel that RS has lowered its commitment to transparency. The meeting should confirm or contradict that. And, in my view, transparency is fundamental to the P2P business model.
Lower transparency => lower trust => higher perceived risk => increased minimum interest rate => lower lending
The session will also provide an opportunity to rebuild (or not) trust in the capability of RS management after the website implementation fiasco.
I encourage anybody who invests a significant amount in RS to consider attending.
Good luck, Mark
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dermot
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Post by dermot on Oct 8, 2019 19:15:55 GMT
I went to the big bash a couple of years ago and found it educational and came away with some renewed confidence leading both of us to throw a bit more cash in.
Sadly that confidence has vanished like a Brexit promise.
Every change seems to be less transparent, rather then more, rather flying in the face of what the FCA wants to see.
I would like to know, for instance, what the interest rate applied to recent orders is - yet if I download transactions, the last three fields are blank - be nice to see what rate is actually being achieved.
I know RS is very much a 'black box' platform, but not a black box buried in a black hole singularity, from which no information can be retrieved after one's money crosses the event horizon.
Unless there is some major improvement, I'll be pulling out more cash from now on.
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aju
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Post by aju on Oct 8, 2019 23:01:19 GMT
I went to the big bash a couple of years ago and found it educational and came away with some renewed confidence leading both of us to throw a bit more cash in. Sadly that confidence has vanished like a Brexit promise. Every change seems to be less transparent, rather then more, rather flying in the face of what the FCA wants to see. I would like to know, for instance, what the interest rate applied to recent orders is - yet if I download transactions, the last three fields are blank - be nice to see what rate is actually being achieved.I know RS is very much a 'black box' platform, but not a black box buried in a black hole singularity, from which no information can be retrieved after one's money crosses the event horizon. Unless there is some major improvement, I'll be pulling out more cash from now on. I did a data transfers to my local spreadsheets on the 4th and both my accounts and Mrs Aju's accounts seem to have all relevant fields populated except the fee field, we have not incurred any fees so thats to be expected. Do you mena on screen/text or csv data drags. We do not as yet have new products but the existing products seemed ok. Edit: I also just checked my everyday account and it seems ok in text or csv modes. I've never really bothered with onscreen output but I notice the onscreen has different info to the downloads. The csv and the text expects the user to collate the data correctly and provide running totals. To be fair I never even noticed those fields myself. Perhaps you mean the onscreen. To be honest I performed all the other data not in the csv using excel functions and my own tables etc. I'm a bit of a do it myself geek if I have access to the raw data.
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aju
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Post by aju on Oct 9, 2019 15:42:06 GMT
RateSetter You might want to consider the "Repaid Loan" option in the "On Loan" section of any given product. A "Year" option as well as "Months" would be useful as it seems that if one mislays the email that may or may not give notification of an early closure of a loan then simply having to wade through every month to find any closed loans is a bit of a faff if not impossible. Donald (Rumsfeld) was spot on when he made the famous quote that includes the phrase "we know there there are known unknowns!" and is very fitting for this curious section of the RS pages. Just a thought. Sorry if this change is already in the pipeline.
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Post by tom1 on Oct 10, 2019 7:57:59 GMT
A reminder that we are holding a Q&A session next week, 2:30pm to 4:00pm on Monday 14th October 2019 at RateSetter’s office in London. There are still places available, so if you'd like to attend please send us a personal message via the ‘Messages’ facility (places allocated on a first come, first served basis). Thank you. I live in London and would like to be able to attend a Ratesetter Q&A, however, like most working people I cannot take 2.5-3 hrs off in the middle of the afternoon (allowing for travel to/from). Perhaps you could arrange future sessions to be at a more suitable time?
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