Malaya Garnet - Renewal DEFAULT (Partial Recovery Only)

I have been thinking about when it first became apparent to FS that the stone had been grossly overvalued. The previous loan 3975321368 ran from 03/04/17 to 02/04/18. FS were under a lot of pressure from lenders to just get on and sell the thing. Note the following extracts from the loan updates:



02/01/2018 we have arranged for the stone to be taken to be sold at the Tucson Gem Show in the US at the end of January 2018



12/01/2018 Our plans to sell the stone remain unchanged



17/02/2018 we have met with a Hatton Garden dealer who will take the stone to the Hong Kong Diamond, Gem and Pearl Show which starts on the 27th of February



It was obvious to me by April 2018 that FS were having great difficulty in selling the stone so I decided not to participate in the new loan. It seems inconceivable that FS were not aware of the true value of the stone by April 2018, so why did FS allow the loan to roll over into a new loan with the original valuation?

This platform is just as bad as Lendy and I no longer gamble with either of them.will probably take years to get some of my capital back but have moved onto platforms a bit less risky.FS and Lendy are just to much full of sh,the and have took lenders for mugs for to long.the deceit,incompetence,blatant lies,the whole lot of it just stinks.you could not make it up the way these two companies show total disregard to their lenders.

I know it's a bit like comparing dogsh*te with catsh*te, but I honestly believe this lot are WORSE than Lendy.

maybe the whole P2P industry needs to be looked at by a government dept who have been pushing for more P2P investment.as this forum shows now almost every platforms threads and posts are about negative aspects of each platform. nothing much good to discuss on loans, only problems.100s of millions of lenders money being shuffled around and nothing being done to safeguard[to a degree] lenders interests.not as described,massive over valuations,knowingly misleading lenders etc etc.all of these platforms should be answerable and fined heavily for their actions if the p2p industry is to continue to grow.it will not if things carry on as it is at the moment.

Going back in time, the early days of P2P everything seemed to be more open regarding disclosure and, purely IMO, realistic valuations. I always felt that valuations could never be an exact science so there was always going to be a little rough with hopefully a greater percentage of smooth. I never expected to be a lender/investor and not experience a loss. What seems to have transpired, is the growth necessary for any company to become profitable can now only be deemed as a reckless dash with little consideration for the underlying value of the security being offered.

There were several warning signs going back 3 or 4 years ago but nonetheless certain platforms continued regardless. The can-kicking is simply an unacceptable practice even though there may be a minority of cases for it’s justification. However lenders could be forgiven that it is simply a guise to massage those default stats.

How an item, valued ‘professionally’ at £xxx can only be worth lesss than 25% of that figure when sold is beyond belief. Nonetheless, many lenders are expected to believe some of the ‘fantasy island’ updates when the platform eventually gets round to posting them. In many cases, with loans that are seriously overdue but not necessarily conveniently defaulted, the updates over time become so repetitous that one has to wonder their authenticity.

There is also the question of loans to a related party directly connected to the platfom. Several loans to the same borrower. The failure by the platform to disclose material facts which with basic DD surfaces the negativity and therefore must be known to the platform but are conveniently omitted. The list is endless but nonetheless I feel many platforms simply do not ‘get it’.

I wish the FCA had never got involved with their ‘light touch’ approach. In other words do very little. All platforms have used the FCA to falsely promote a sense of respectibility and many lenders I suspect have been ‘suckered’ in by this.

The bottom line is that whilst many loans do successfully complete, it only takes one disaster to pull that return down. If you can dodge the bullet(s) then indeed you may finish up with a 12% return or whatever. One disaster can pull that return down hugely. So it’s no surprise that there exists a great deal of disillusionment with many P2P platforms and they only have themselves to blame.

don't agree - it is one thing if FS have a (registered!) first charge on a property but another if they have a loan on a piece of art where the ownership is open to question (as to whether FS actually have other charges on the problematic art loans I don't know despite asking them)...