vote for Lendy???!!

People have the right to invest 100% of their money on anything they like from loans to equities to the spin of a wheel on a roulette table. They must, however, take responsibility for the outcome of that risk taking and not blame others. This is particularly pertinent for P2P platforms because they are clearly not regulated to provide investment advice. So any investment decision is purely down to the lender. 

The most basic of DD would have shown any investor that SS was a platform started by two people who have no extensive background in property lending. So nobody can be surprised that SS didn't evaluate correctly the quality of some of the property deals they originated in 2015/16. Moreover, the whole front-loaded fee structure of the SS business model clearly favours "pump and dump" volume over quality. Their inability to get their accounts out on time and get FCA approval are further red flags. In terms of the underlying product, over 2015/16, SS offered bridge lending and speculative development projects where borrowers were paying often twice the typical yield. Clearly these projects are at the riskier end of the spectrum so higher default rates should be expected. Recovery data demonstrates that while senior, sub 70% LTV, loans often recover at par (or close to par), a significant minority recover at much lower levels. So no one should be surprised about the poor level of recoveries on some loans.

So all the information to see that this outcome was quite likely was available in 2013-15. Nonetheless, at a 12% yield, a 35% default rate and 67% recovery on a loan portfolio will still breakeven. At a 25% default rate and 80% recovery, lenders will return 6.75% which is perfectly acceptable and within the expectations for this type of asset. So, while there are a glut of complaints, it's not clear to me that holding a portfolio of legacy SS loans from 2015/16 will actually deliver the terrible returns that many are now complaining about. Of course, if you stuck it all in one loan or a few loans then your outcome may be far better or worse but again that was a personal decision.

Edit: As an aside, I have 35-40% of my net wealth in one investment so I am not against concentration risk. However, that investment is very transparent to me and I understand it's risk characteristics very well. It can't lose more than 5%, it's 90% in T-bills most of the time, the managers can liquidate the portfolio in <24 hours etc etc. I don't see P2P platforms as offering a fraction of that transparency, liquidity or stability so I size my positions in P2P accordingly. 

Yes, I've also been 4 years with Lendy and find I tend to agree. Simple interest return of 13.6%, and even after notionally writing off the two Exeter loans and taking the probable hit on IOW, I get a simple interest yield of 9.28%. OK there will probably be some other bad debts, but there's a long way to go before I would be making less than 'safe' alternatives. That said, I'm pretty heavily into AC, in which I have greater confidence and sleep more easily at night! But please don't let us talk ourselves into a crisis.

I suspect that Lendy's position seems to be so weak at present that anyone owing them a large amount of money probably has the upper hand and can run them ragged. They won't admit it to lenders, so their chosen option is to bluster it out. I haven't posted a review on Trustpilot as I feel that anyone bothering to read those already there before pitching in will have had enough warnings spelt out for them. I can't bring myself to give them a good review even if much of the messing about we are getting isn't directly down to them. 

What would you have them say?

There are a lot of Lendy investors who have not been in any of the bad loans who might still be investing away.

I think the col debacle has had a more negative effect than anything else, although I do find Lendy to have by far the worst communication skills than any other platform.

The major red flag is the field the tried to push on investors recently. At least they didn’t go ahead.