carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 30, 2019 15:27:00 GMT
seems like most people here are responding with their feet rather than go down the financial ombudsman route. is anyone pursuing that? interesting with the £ being so weak, foreign buyers may be getting incrementally interested in high quality property assets but I can also see a case where all the assets get marked down hard in a no deal scenario I have complained formally to PP. They've acknowledged the complaint, shrugged and said they will send a final response in the post. Once I get that, I take it to the FOS. Yep, this is exactly what they've done with mine. They refunded my pending investment, at least.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 25, 2019 15:29:35 GMT
Well, doesn't look like they've had much success deploying this. 70% of investor funds now returned undeployed.
At least it's a chunk of funds returned which I can pull out of the site. Not very impressive that it's cost me ~six months of 0 return on that though.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 19, 2019 14:55:44 GMT
I have just noticed that the Account fee, is *not* £1/month, as described in the original email. Rather, it is £1+VAT/month as described on their help pages. Not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but another tiny bit of people's returns eaten away.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 18, 2019 8:48:56 GMT
I don't really understand where the benefit arises from having frequent updates on (defaulted) loans.
There is no action that can be taken based on any information one obtains from the update - we must wait until the recovery is complete, regardless of whether we know exactly what is going on at a given time. This is in fact made *worse* by the issue pointed out above - that any update that contains meaningful information carries with it a risk that the information is released, and that this negatively impacts the recovery.
People might find frequent updates reassuring - but I think this is a false reassurance. Either you believe MT when they say that a) they are working hard to get a resolution and b) that they will provide updates when there is something meaningful to report, or you don't believe them. But if you already believe them then there is nothing gained from pushing for more updates, and if you don't believe them then (apart from other questions this raises), why would you believe the accuracy of any updates you do get?
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 16, 2019 11:52:21 GMT
It may well be that the platform requires these changes in order to pay its way, unless the equity investors are willing to pump in money. Whether the cost/return is worthwhile will be for individual investors to decide.That decision took me about 30 seconds. I've no problem with a platform changing its fee structure for future new business, and I've no doubt PP screwed up their business modelling and now realise they must charge more if they're ever to cover their costs. But applying new recurring monthly fees to investments they sold years ago is unjustifiable. Imagine having bought your freehold house some years back (paying all the upfront survey / mortgage / legal fees at the time) and now being told you must start paying a monthly ground-rent as well. Farcical. This is where I am - changing the fee structure for new investments is understandable (although obviously makes the investments less appealing), but retroactively changing the fee structure for existing investments is ridiculous.
As for the "account fee" itself, well, the less said about that the better. A pretty clear attempt to force out smaller investors, but I suppose to be expected given their clear preference for fewer, larger, investors over the last few years.
I'd been looking to reduce my direct exposure to property, anyway, so at least PP have made my choice of what to drop easier. I certainly won't be investing any further (barring, as hazellend mentions, spectacular offers coming along), and I'll sell out of existing investments (assuming the SM doesn't crash too far as a result of the changes, anyway...)
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 11, 2019 21:06:48 GMT
Ratesetter gets my vote for worst UI.
Despite having perhaps the simplest lending concept, it somehow manages to be impenetrably labyrinthine. It requires hundreds of clicks to do anything, and needs you to navigate between a load of pages all of which sound like they should be the same page.
And then they update the UI and add yet another layer of useless pages.
I think my favourite at the moment is probably Moneything - very simple, but it's fast, clear, and easy to navigate.
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carolus
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Chat
Stocks
Jul 7, 2019 11:10:26 GMT
via mobile
Post by carolus on Jul 7, 2019 11:10:26 GMT
I'm aware this is at risk of diverging from the actual purpose of the thread, but what you've said isn't true. The house edge on standard (European) roulette is 1/37, or roughly 2.7%. The house edge on Blackjack varies a littel depending on the exact rules in use, but is normally about 0.5% (assuming you play with correct strategy). It's certainly believable that counting cards (was) a method of play that would give you positive expected value. The major problem nowadays, I believe, is that most casinos will shuffle a large number of decks together, and will reshuffle very frequently, making it difficult to get enough penetration into the deck to get a big edge.
As it is, there are better ways to beat the house edge at casinos and bookmakers, so I don't think the decline of card counting is really a problem.
Your assumption is an easy get out. If you play using the same strategy as the dealer is forced to the edge will be about 5%, but of course it's not difficult to improve on that a little. If you can ever manage to see a casino's internal accounts of profit per game you will probably see that they make more on BJ than R because players in general cannot beat the edge. Casinos generally have plenty of BJ tables, more than R, and they are not there for any other reason than to make money for the casino. There are plenty of books claiming to know "the correct strategy" which to my cynical mind suggests that there is more money to be made out of writing books for gullible punters than in playing BJ. If there were a sure winning strategy anyone who knew it would make a living out out of it and would be most anxious that knowledge of it did not leak out causing casinos to change the rules back in their favour. The last thing they would do is publish it. On the other hand, suggesting that there is one, known only to a few, is a good way for casinos to encourage play. This isn't correct, and it's not an "easy get out". There is a known, and specific, strategy "basic strategy" or "perfect strategy" tends to be how it's described. This describes exactly what the highest expected value play is in a given situation, and if followed correctly will minimise the house edge, resulting in a house edge of ~0.5%. Of course this is on its own just means you lose money slowly, you still need a further edge to make it profitable. You can read more about it on Wikipedia here. At a guess, casinos will have more BJ tables because a) fewer people can play blackjack at once and b) they typically play for longer (a blackjack hand takes much longer than a roulette spin). As mentioned, there are practical reasons why card counting is no longer particularly easy or profitable at most places, but that doesn't mean it isn't a real method. As for why you'd right a book about it - I assume once casinos have clamped down and the opportunity largely lost, you might wish to make more by selling the story.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jul 7, 2019 6:38:21 GMT
IMO the story that some people won at Blackjack by counting cards was probably spread by casino operators. The margin to the house from Blackjack is far higher than Roulette for example, and any possible improvement in the punter's chances by counting cards will be slight in comparison, spasmodic in occurrence and easily detected if the casino was worried about it. I'm aware this is at risk of diverging from the actual purpose of the thread, but what you've said isn't true. The house edge on standard (European) roulette is 1/37, or roughly 2.7%. The house edge on Blackjack varies a littel depending on the exact rules in use, but is normally about 0.5% (assuming you play with correct strategy). It's certainly believable that counting cards (was) a method of play that would give you positive expected value. The major problem nowadays, I believe, is that most casinos will shuffle a large number of decks together, and will reshuffle very frequently, making it difficult to get enough penetration into the deck to get a big edge.
As it is, there are better ways to beat the house edge at casinos and bookmakers, so I don't think the decline of card counting is really a problem.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 27, 2019 13:48:21 GMT
Unfortunate, but pretty much inevitable once they stopped accepting new UK investors. I assume it's related to their failure to get FCA authorisation. Possibly too that "guarantees" are offered on various loans, and breaching the UK rules about lending to other lending organisations (which effectively is the model).
Expect we'll see the other similar platforms follow suit sooner or later.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 26, 2019 10:41:41 GMT
I have never understood how the FCA ever allowed them to use the word "guarantee" and I suspect they have just woken up to the fact and told K to drop it. This was one of several questions I raised when they introduced it - never explained.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 25, 2019 20:28:08 GMT
kuflink , I feel that the change referred to as Part 1 Clause 20 (which is actually in Part 1 Clause 21 of the new T&Cs dated 19/6/2019) is a material change to the lending conditions. As such, I believe that this should be clearly communicated to investors, rather than being buried in a rewrite of the T&Cs. The text is: " 21. Kuflink Guarantee 21.1. Until the 30th June 2019, Kuflink Group Plc guarantees to cover losses up to a further 15% of the Gross Loan Amount of each Select-Invest deal that is put on the platform (in addition to clause 20.1) in the event that Kuflink is unable to recover the total outstanding loan amount. 21.2. The additional Kuflink Guarantee will not apply from 1st July 2019 on any new deals that go on the platform. 21.3. Section 20.1 will continue to apply." This is a huge change - and represents a further degradation of the investor protections. At least it means that I no longer need to worry about never having received a clear explanation of how the guarantee worked after it was introduced (still waiting for the promised response after more than a year!).
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 19, 2019 23:04:09 GMT
Currently for me it's whichever the highest rate easy-access saver is (i.e. Marcus at 1.5%). I also have the FD Regular Saver at 5%, and a nationwide one which is maturing soon and ha been closed for new accounts anyway.
Only other thing is the Bank switching bonuses - HSBC and Natwest/RBS both have nice big ones at the moment.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 4, 2019 12:25:38 GMT
It seems to me the 10% is totally unenforceable. Firstly it looks like you can self certify, but if thats not the case who polices it? Do they do a complete audit of you entire net worth?....obviously not. It's not supposed to be 'enforceable', obviously if people can self-certify. Its designed to make unsophisticated investors stop and think about risk and diversification, without acting like a nanny state and preventing people who really want to invest more. Yes, this is about right IMO. It's about there being much clearer information around risk disclosure etc.
Although I note that the full document includes:
Which would go a bit further (and be more in line with the risk questionnaires on e.g. stocks and shares platforms).
And there's then a further long list of aspects that platforms are supposed to assess customers' understanding of (see p19)
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 4, 2019 10:44:06 GMT
If the 10% rule did apply to existing lenders, hard to see how those lenders could suddenly get out of the market when many are in 5 year loans. I think it's pretty clear that this isn't the case - even the press release says it applies to "customers new to the sector"
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Jun 4, 2019 9:46:12 GMT
Now fixed. Weirdly worked in preview but not in the actual post.
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