Post by sydb on Dec 13, 2018 1:03:15 GMT
grotdog You won't like my reply. And no, I am not in any way connected with Liam. I am simply another investor who has illiquid investments through Lendy and who will be lucky not to suffer from significant loss in the end.
What would the claims of a class action against Lendy be? I ask constructively. I understand your frustration but fail to see what good would come of it. Before legal action is considered, perhaps a list of claims should be considered? Who would pay out? Lendy has no money.
I believe Lendy has insufficient funds to pay back anything but a fraction of the money owed to lenders. If Lendy did go into liquidation due to a successful claim against them then, overall, we will be even further away from getting back our money invested. Obviously the successful claimants might win but everyone else will be screwed and, legally, I expect every lender would be part of such a claim anyway; not sure. It would be like everyone getting a couple of % back - other posters have given the numbers. Lendy do not have the capital, assets or diversification of a big bank, and I suspect their company structure is protected such that Lendy itself holds little money. I don't think anyone is expecting a bank style bailout from the government here. Go look at what is happening to COL investors to get some idea. Besides, P2P platforms do not work like banks and Lendy is too small to stimulate government toppling riots. We never gave them our money to keep safe; we gave them our money to loan on our behalf. Our loan contracts are with the borrowers.
I consider it lucky that Liam has not folded the company and walked away already; something he could probably easily do if he were without principles. I can't see what good taking Lendy to court will do, even if there are grounds, unless they have loads of dosh. We never lent our money to Lendy, we lent our money through them and were stupid enough to trust them to do so. I did not undertake enough due diligence as I simply did not have the time or skill to do so, but that is why I only invested 3% of my savings. I knew it was high risk. Should Liam get away with it? No, he should never be allowed to direct a company in the lending industry ever again. But he probably will. Nobody has convinced me otherwise that the best way to recover our investments, or as much of them as possible, is to support Lendy recover the money. Unless damage has been done 'criminally' and by a rich enough company, the only winners from court proceedings are the solicitors and other legal staff.
If you think you are skilled enough to form an entity to perform the recoveries from the borrowers without Lendy on behalf of all lenders, and are willing to undertake the administration concerned then that is something you could propose on here. I have not seen anything like that from anybody on this forum and do not know if it is even conceivable given our terms with Lendy, while Lendy exists. Or if you think we should, somehow, take control of the recoveries ourselves in some other way then propose it. It's certainly not something I have any experience in doing and nor do I want to.
We gambled with our money; we had the freedom to do so. Anybody that did not realise P2P is high risk must accept the personal responsibility for their lack of research. Furthermore, anyone that did not twig that a small platform offering 12% was at the extreme risk end of the P2P scale compared to more established platforms offering 5% was not using common sense. I am sick and tired of the lack of personal responsibility that so many people think they are entitled to after making uneducated decisions.
For most of my saving lifetime, relatively safe investments have been possible at inflation beating rates. Times have changed. I think the underlying problem here is that everyday working men and women have been trapped by a period of reasonably high inflation (in real terms; only moderate through the rosy spectacles the government hands out) and extremely low bank/building society interest rates, which are still falling. To avoid the erosion of value from inflation, even with the best cash ISA rates, we have felt forced to take greater risk with our money but haven't always made decisions fitting our risk profile due to a lack of experience and time to flesh out the risks. Many simply had/have no experience assessing such investment risks and have expected P2P platforms to work in a similar manner to a building society savings account. P2P platforms have certainly failed to point out the true risks of investments, over emphasising the fact that, in the 'worst case', the borrower retains a liability to the investor. Yes, that is true, but it doesn't mean the capital or interest is going to ever come back, and certainly not quickly. The London loan has even shown us that, feasibly, a lender could be taken to court by a borrower. That is something I never read anywhere concerning P2P investment risk. Small print is mostly ignored because it is long winded and difficult to read; something we can thank the ever increasing power of the legal profession these days with the litigation culture coming over from USA. Long winded small print, and its promotion of problems for the client/customer is encouraged by more and more claims and the avoidance of personal responsibility and principles.
In summary, you shout to Liam that Lendy will crash and burn and will pay the price. Well, actually, I can't see what satisfaction anyone would get from that. As a financial middleman, Liam has been happily taking his £100k annual pay plus £40k annual pension but, because Lendy is a privately owned limited company, I expect it can be folded pretty quickly if Liam really wanted to. The only thing that would make him more likely to stick with it is if Lendy started being successful again or if he believed there was a threat to his future; for example a physical threat to him or his family should he get out. Should the company fold, he would also have to live with himself knowing that he failed in his responsibilities, effectively robbing many of their savings.
What would the claims of a class action against Lendy be? I ask constructively. I understand your frustration but fail to see what good would come of it. Before legal action is considered, perhaps a list of claims should be considered? Who would pay out? Lendy has no money.
I believe Lendy has insufficient funds to pay back anything but a fraction of the money owed to lenders. If Lendy did go into liquidation due to a successful claim against them then, overall, we will be even further away from getting back our money invested. Obviously the successful claimants might win but everyone else will be screwed and, legally, I expect every lender would be part of such a claim anyway; not sure. It would be like everyone getting a couple of % back - other posters have given the numbers. Lendy do not have the capital, assets or diversification of a big bank, and I suspect their company structure is protected such that Lendy itself holds little money. I don't think anyone is expecting a bank style bailout from the government here. Go look at what is happening to COL investors to get some idea. Besides, P2P platforms do not work like banks and Lendy is too small to stimulate government toppling riots. We never gave them our money to keep safe; we gave them our money to loan on our behalf. Our loan contracts are with the borrowers.
I consider it lucky that Liam has not folded the company and walked away already; something he could probably easily do if he were without principles. I can't see what good taking Lendy to court will do, even if there are grounds, unless they have loads of dosh. We never lent our money to Lendy, we lent our money through them and were stupid enough to trust them to do so. I did not undertake enough due diligence as I simply did not have the time or skill to do so, but that is why I only invested 3% of my savings. I knew it was high risk. Should Liam get away with it? No, he should never be allowed to direct a company in the lending industry ever again. But he probably will. Nobody has convinced me otherwise that the best way to recover our investments, or as much of them as possible, is to support Lendy recover the money. Unless damage has been done 'criminally' and by a rich enough company, the only winners from court proceedings are the solicitors and other legal staff.
If you think you are skilled enough to form an entity to perform the recoveries from the borrowers without Lendy on behalf of all lenders, and are willing to undertake the administration concerned then that is something you could propose on here. I have not seen anything like that from anybody on this forum and do not know if it is even conceivable given our terms with Lendy, while Lendy exists. Or if you think we should, somehow, take control of the recoveries ourselves in some other way then propose it. It's certainly not something I have any experience in doing and nor do I want to.
We gambled with our money; we had the freedom to do so. Anybody that did not realise P2P is high risk must accept the personal responsibility for their lack of research. Furthermore, anyone that did not twig that a small platform offering 12% was at the extreme risk end of the P2P scale compared to more established platforms offering 5% was not using common sense. I am sick and tired of the lack of personal responsibility that so many people think they are entitled to after making uneducated decisions.
For most of my saving lifetime, relatively safe investments have been possible at inflation beating rates. Times have changed. I think the underlying problem here is that everyday working men and women have been trapped by a period of reasonably high inflation (in real terms; only moderate through the rosy spectacles the government hands out) and extremely low bank/building society interest rates, which are still falling. To avoid the erosion of value from inflation, even with the best cash ISA rates, we have felt forced to take greater risk with our money but haven't always made decisions fitting our risk profile due to a lack of experience and time to flesh out the risks. Many simply had/have no experience assessing such investment risks and have expected P2P platforms to work in a similar manner to a building society savings account. P2P platforms have certainly failed to point out the true risks of investments, over emphasising the fact that, in the 'worst case', the borrower retains a liability to the investor. Yes, that is true, but it doesn't mean the capital or interest is going to ever come back, and certainly not quickly. The London loan has even shown us that, feasibly, a lender could be taken to court by a borrower. That is something I never read anywhere concerning P2P investment risk. Small print is mostly ignored because it is long winded and difficult to read; something we can thank the ever increasing power of the legal profession these days with the litigation culture coming over from USA. Long winded small print, and its promotion of problems for the client/customer is encouraged by more and more claims and the avoidance of personal responsibility and principles.
In summary, you shout to Liam that Lendy will crash and burn and will pay the price. Well, actually, I can't see what satisfaction anyone would get from that. As a financial middleman, Liam has been happily taking his £100k annual pay plus £40k annual pension but, because Lendy is a privately owned limited company, I expect it can be folded pretty quickly if Liam really wanted to. The only thing that would make him more likely to stick with it is if Lendy started being successful again or if he believed there was a threat to his future; for example a physical threat to him or his family should he get out. Should the company fold, he would also have to live with himself knowing that he failed in his responsibilities, effectively robbing many of their savings.
