GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Jan 8, 2021 15:01:06 GMT
I'm doing well with bitcoin and my other 2 cryptos, ethereum and stellar.
I put some money in around the beginning of December, spread across those 3 coins and by the start of this week the value of my portfolio had more than doubled, in part because I had some stellar which almost tripled after the Ukraine announcement. I withdrew most of it but they've continued to rise so I've put a bit more in again. I find it quite entertaining and a useful distraction in these troubled times, but I'd never risk a lot.
I was quite surprised how easy it was to withdraw in cash to my bank account. When I dabbled in bitcoin a few years ago I found it all a bit of a nightmare to understand and had to jump through all sorts of hoops to cash in my holding, but it seems easier now. I'm using coinbase and my money was back in my bank within seconds. For me, the hardest part was the ID verification process.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Jan 8, 2021 14:45:01 GMT
5 X £25 for me this month.
Last month I got 3 X £25, the month before only 1 X £25.
This is my usual sort of performance despite the prize fund being reduced a couple of draws ago.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Sept 16, 2020 1:22:08 GMT
Mine was 50% short, so i DEFINTELY replied, but no response as yet, just like the first time I told them Have they finally replied to you and sorted out your account? I think they said that a few outstanding discrepancies on investor accounts was one of the things holding back a possible interim repayment. That was probably back in July and, true to form, we've not heard a dickie bird since.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Sept 16, 2020 1:16:31 GMT
I recall that last autumn there was talk of sending a second letter to our MPs about the FCA's spectacular failings in the COL scandal and debacle. Then the general election was called and I think that plan was postponed.
My MP didn't change but others may now have a new MP. Regardless of that, and bearing in mind that there is no collective, COL action group and we need to keep the pressure on from every angle and shout from the rooftops that we aren't going away after suffering from the FCA's most egregious mess up in recent memory, would it be a good idea to send new letters to our MPs now if we haven't already (and I haven't)?
Or would that serve little purpose at the present time?
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Aug 19, 2020 15:24:44 GMT
Re: the above posts,
I was a bit disappointed with the brevity of the recent one line update which provided very little clarity, and because of the lack of reference to the additional potential issue that was flagged up in the preceding (May) update.
I think the 2 impending sales referred to must be new sales because the previous update reported 2 more having sold - it didn't say sales agreed or expected completions. If the sales reported in the Aug update are the same sales referenced in the May update, then the May update would have been misleading.
In relation to the A level results u-turn and students now getting higher grades, it seems there's now high demand for university places from UK students so I wonder if this will help fill the gaps left by reduced numbers of overseas students coming this year. (Again, I'm thinking about the issue raised in the May update).
A while back I wrote about how an interim repayment would be welcome. Some are starting to feel the financial pinch. This one has dragged on a long time and most of the units have been sold. There's quite a big kitty of OUR money sitting somewhere. The freehold won't be worth very much so we shouldn't be waiting for that and the occupancy rate for this September will be known imminently.
MT went into wind down mode last December and stated they hoped to complete most of the wind down work in 12 months. I recall they said they had financial arrangements in place to fund loan recovery costs etc. for that period. A concern is that if some investor repayments are not made before MT moves from wind down mode into administration (if that should happen) the loan repayments we get will be even less because there would then be platform administrators' fees on top of all the other fees.
The fees/costs to date are known and a sum can be retained to cover estimated future fees (which shouldn't be much) with a contingency amount added. I don't see the problem. Interim repayments have happened elsewhere.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Jul 9, 2020 1:07:27 GMT
In the report today, BDO mention having received many emails from investors about their loan breakdown spreadsheets. They say most people said theirs were correct but a few said there were discrepancies.
The BDO email last month said investors should email in if they had comments. Therefore I didn't reply at all as mine looked spot on.
Was I right to not confirm my statement was right or should I email them so they can mark me off as correct?
I was thinking it best to not trouble them and raise their time charged but it sounds as though most investors did.
Any thoughts. I assumed they would treat a nil response as tacit agreement to their figures.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Jul 8, 2020 15:51:49 GMT
It isn't quite as negative as I feared.
Some progress has been made, although the chattels situation seems to be stuck.
Encouraging that there's some movement on some of the larger property assets, although that progress could come unstuck given the economic circumstances we are in.
Unless I'm reading it wrong, it suggests that interim repayments can start to be made on a loan by loan basis once all investor discrepancies have been sorted out and all investors have agreed their personal spreadsheets and exposure to the various loans etc.
Maybe I need to take my rose tinted spectacles off.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Jun 19, 2020 18:17:00 GMT
My email was received at 18.11.
I was not one of the investors with a reconciliation discrepancy. My investment breakdown looks correct based on my memory (I foolishly didn't keep detailed records).
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on May 7, 2020 22:57:43 GMT
Now that the student flat sector is likely to be stalled and international students are not going to be coming to the UK this autumn in the same numbers, it may well be difficult to sell what's left for quite a long time. In the circumstances I think an interim repayment to long suffering investors should be arranged.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Mar 20, 2020 0:14:31 GMT
"Is the meeting normally held over a video link....and therefore presumably will still go ahead?"
I believe it has previously been held face to face in London because we have heard about the sandwiches.
In the current serious circumstances that cannot happen but, with all the technology available today, I very much hope the terrible virus will not be used as an excuse to call it off and delay matters.
Obviously if 1 or 2 key participants are unwell a delay would be unavoidable but otherwise I would have thought it should all be able to be done at distance using some sort of video conference program.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Mar 6, 2020 23:01:00 GMT
On behalf of the many of us who have some of our life savings lost in this black hole, is there any reason why we can't be told when the next meeting is here on the forum. Surely the lame creditors' committee have not now signed up to a secrecy agreement on the meetings. Given the apparent waving through of exorbitant fees and and excessive time to value and dispose of assets, it all smacks of a bit of a racket involving people with cosy connections.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Mar 6, 2020 22:55:52 GMT
On the failed L platform investors/lenders are getting some money back as and when loans are redeemed or the assets are sold off.
We know that several of the COL assets have been sold for amounts that fully covered the loan, namely several smaller residential properties in the north of England.
Why haven't funders of those loans had a percentage of their cash back.
Presumably BDO are recording their time spent and therefore fees against each individual loan.
Also, when some people had cash balances/cash on account, why has this money still not been returned to them when we are now into the 3rd year of the administration/liquidation.
These are not rhetorical or sarcastic questions, I would really like to know.
I can't remember the last time I heard a peep from BDO. I know they may not be legally required to contact me more than once a year but in view of the massive fees they are charging and racking up it's a very poor show.
I remember being criticised at the time when I objected to certain people who were anxious to get on the creditors' committee coming on here telling us how we should back BDO and how BDO were ready to hit the ground running and sort it all out for us.
It all feels like a big stitch up to me but answers to the questions I posed earlier in this post would still be appreciated.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Feb 3, 2020 11:40:12 GMT
I'd put 31 January on my calendar as a backstop date for an update and statement but added a question mark to it after reading the last update which appeared to put that date back indefinitely when taking about waiting until there's movement.
I've given up on anything happening in the P2P world when we are told it will happen.
Considering well over half of these flats have been long sold and and there is rental income coming in, what I would like to see is an interim repayment made to long suffering lenders.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Dec 23, 2019 23:28:24 GMT
Can I just mention that I edited one line of my post shortly after making it but somebody was very quick off the mark and managed to quote what I wrote originally. It should be clear what I refer to and I don't wish to re-quote it.
I wrote what I wrote because I believed it to be true based on my recollection of connections that were revealed some time ago. I think it may have been at the time before the committee was formed and the applicants' credentials were being scrutinised. However I promptly realised I was not able to corroborate it with evidence and that's why I changed my post.
I thank Monetus for his response and I thank him for his efforts, on all our behalves.
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GeorgeT
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Post by GeorgeT on Dec 23, 2019 17:11:10 GMT
Thanks to the thread starter for the link to the 23/12 report. As an investor, it's disappointing, but unsurprising, that BDO didn't even bother sending me an email about it. I would guess most people with money in COL won't even know about this update. BDO continue to unimpress greatly.
On the update, in my opinion, just 1 small property loan recovery in the last 8 months is pathetic progress.
Secondly, the comment about not making any interim distribution because it's uneconomic is a bit insulting. It's not uneconomic to me. While I am not suffering hardship, I have had to pull in my horns a lot and put off spending decisions because of the money I have "lost" in COL. And I had money in all the small property loans that have so far been recovered (in full). Any sort of interim payment would be very helpful to me, and many others.
I'm far from being a millionaire investor. I, unwisely, invested some of my savings with a high return FCA authorised company to produce some monthly income to live on, only to find they weren't FCA regulated at all. With hindsight, it was silly of me to invest in the high risk P2P sector - but in my defence I would never have been so stupid to invest through an unregulated company that was operating unlawfully. As a victim in this, I consider BDO's performance to be inadequate, pedestrian and self serving and I find their attitude to be arrogant.
I shall be making a complaint to BDO, with a view to escalating it to the useless FCA if BDO completely ignore my complaint - like they did my previous email (which was a simple question not a complaint but they didn't even give me the courtesy of a reply despite charging me obscenely high fees for their work).
In February it will be 2 years since COL shut down and the loanbook was a trifling £17 million or so I believe. Not a single chattel has been dealt with. I know these things take a bit of time and there were some difficulties at first, but I find the lack of progress this year to be totally unacceptable. The creditors' committee meetings are getting increasingly far apart and the amount of feedback we are getting on what is happening is getting ever smaller. I'm unsure exactly what teeth the CC has but I had concerns at the start when I discovered the make up of the Committee. It's clear to me the interests of the people on the Committee do not align with mine and it's inevitable they will act in the best interests of themselves and those they represent, rather than individual, small scale 'man/woman in the street' type savers/investors.
It all smells a bit like a big, fatcat stitch up to me.
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