locutus
Member of DD Central
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Post by locutus on Aug 21, 2018 9:26:29 GMT
Mods and Admin, I used to visit this forum for thoughtful analysis, loan due diligence, sharing of information, learning from those wiser than I am and to provide feedback to platforms to improve their offerings. What has changed? A casual observer would think the inmates have taken over the asylum now and we are lucky to have one or two posts of value per day. The noise to signal ratio seems to have completely reversed. I can't understand why you haven't banned the trolls who have an obvious agenda. They start multiple threads obsessing over the same loans and make constant predictions based on little real analysis. They are regularly confrontational, show little respect for other posters and create a very aggressive atmosphere that deters anyone else from posting useful info or opinions. P2P is obviously risky when returns of 12% are being offered compared to bank rates around 2%. Obviously, some loans are bad propositions and some platforms deserve critique but there is a way to present it that is more balanced and encourages improvement. I can think of numerous examples where the forum has helped a platform improve or even get a loan withdrawn but that seems very rare these days. I don't blame platforms for no longer participating with all the vitriol flying and the same posters who seem determined to bring a platform down with zero mod intervention. P2P needs new investors for the industry to grow and this place should be a gateway that educates them on the various risks and possible rewards rather than the incredibly hostile place it has become. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 21, 2018 9:52:42 GMT
I don't want to stir the hornets nest anymore (was stung by one yesterday, that was painful enough) but I couldn't agree more. When I first signed up the discussion was almost always worth reading, many of my favourite contributors have disappeared (although they have been relocated since). I eagerly pressed a charitable wing of the forum which has achieved amazing things but my enthusiasm is continuously stung by the state of affairs here.
It seems virtually impossible to discuss any topic without the first reply being a slamming indignation of said platform or an alternate failing loan which kills off any further chat of any value. It's the same small clutch of characters clogging up every thread repeating and repeating the same over the top nonsense.
I could name a few with 50+ posts where almost all are a carbon copy of each other simply selecting alternate derogatory terminology to spout the same message. I don't have a simple magic solution or claim to have better ideas than those in control but that's still my two pennies worth!
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empirica
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Post by empirica on Aug 21, 2018 10:39:31 GMT
Some moderator action taken: p2pindependentforum.com/post/283743/thread"I am temporarily locking a number of threads so that this message sinks in. I will unlock them at 11:40 a.m. Thanks to everyone for their understanding and I hope co-operation." _ _ I do hope that is 11:40am tomorrow!  |
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SteveT
Member of DD Central
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Post by SteveT on Aug 21, 2018 11:22:03 GMT
Sentence 1 of Forum Rule 1 is “Be polite and constructive at all times”. Posting the same moans, complaints and insults about a platform more or less daily is NOT constructive. And slamming anyone who posts anything even vaguely balanced or positive is NOT polite. Unless the boring, one-eyed trolls are warned and (if needed) banned they’ll continue to feed off each other and swamp attempts at reasoned dialogue and debate.
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michaelc
Member of DD Central
Say No To T.D.S.
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Post by michaelc on Aug 21, 2018 14:12:28 GMT
I don't particularly like seeing these repetitive posts but so long as they are not machine generated spam, they'll get bored and are rather harmless.
I would much rather skim over boring and pointless posts than lose money based on apparently sensible and objective posts which are not always what they seem and have in the past ended up in my investing too much in this or that loan or platform.
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
Posts: 11,315
Likes: 11,523
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Post by ilmoro on Aug 22, 2018 0:43:12 GMT
I don't particularly like seeing these repetitive posts but so long as they are not machine generated spam, they'll get bored and are rather harmless. I would much rather skim over boring and pointless posts than lose money based on apparently sensible and objective posts which are not always what they seem and have in the past ended up in my investing too much in this or that loan or platform. Crikey, didn't realise the Russians were manipulating p2P as well. Who are these nefarious types who are so alluring. Yours ilmorosov
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cb25
Posts: 3,528
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Post by cb25 on Aug 22, 2018 12:52:49 GMT
I must be living a sheltered life of this forum, as I've yet to come across any of the behaviour mentioned.
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JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
Posts: 1,323
Likes: 897
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Post by JamesFrance on Aug 22, 2018 17:58:58 GMT
mrclondon always said we wouldn't achieve more than 7% but people believed the marketing and are now upset.
Even the euro sites which gave me 14% have no availability above 9% today.
The good days are over.
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Post by Ace on Aug 22, 2018 21:42:59 GMT
Even the euro sites which gave me 14% have no availability above 9% today.
The good days are over.
There are 233 loans on Mintos SM in euros at 10% (I just hovered a few up at 10.5%). Quite a few available on Grupeer at 15%, though i find diversification a bit tricky on there.
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JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
Posts: 1,323
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Post by JamesFrance on Aug 23, 2018 6:48:00 GMT
Even the euro sites which gave me 14% have no availability above 9% today.
The good days are over.
There are 233 loans on Mintos SM in euros at 10% (I just hovered a few up at 10.5%). Quite a few available on Grupeer at 15%, though i find diversification a bit tricky on there. I am well aware of that, I have gained over 10,000€ at a true 13.4% after investing with Mintos from their first month in January 2015, I was responsible for the presence on this forum of martins who is their CEO and joint founder. I choose not to invest with Grupeer.
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jonno
Member of DD Central
nil satis nisi optimum
Posts: 2,806
Likes: 3,237
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Post by jonno on Aug 23, 2018 10:24:36 GMT
Great!!!
So even this thread has taken a turn into personal tetchiness  You couldn't write it could you???
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bigfoot12
Member of DD Central
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Post by bigfoot12 on Aug 23, 2018 11:04:49 GMT
One thing to consider is that compared to 10 years ago when I first started posting (on the Zopa forum) there is much less to say. When I first started posting some thought that anyone lending more than £25k might need a licence from the OFT (not an issue for me at the time). We were told that we could offset losses on loans against interest. There was virtually no regulation to protect savers. Then we were told we couldn’t offset losses. Then there was a financial crisis and a fall in rates and the borrower's option to repay early was noticed by many. Then a new platform came along with a protection fund, and another platform that lent to business with losses that could be offset (at least against capital gains). Hardly anyone had any direct experience in P2P so piecing together the different experiences of those on the forum was very worthwhile.
And then there were more platforms claiming that they were filling the gap left by banks withdrawing from various sectors. And payday loan P2P companies and EUR lending and more. And then rumours of regulation and ISAs and claiming back losses and all the rest.
Recent innovation seems to involve slight changes in the way auto invest works. At the same time there is an influx of new members asking questions without bothering to search the forum first. Or whether they should report a platform to the ombudsman because it took one business day longer than they expected to make a withdrawal.
Several times recently I have written all or part of a response to a question and then before I clicked “create post” I closed the tab, deciding that in all probability the poster I was responding to didn’t want to hear my thoughts.
Of course society as whole seems to have degraded and polarised more in this sort of thing so maybe we should be grateful.
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m2btj
Member of DD Central
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Post by m2btj on Aug 23, 2018 15:26:14 GMT
I believe the Forum is a fair reflection of the current subdued state of the P2P market just now. Things have gone quiet all round & decent loan offerings have dwindled considerably. The uncertain property market & Brexit have made people nervous....well I'm certainly exercising more caution!
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reinvestor
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Post by reinvestor on Aug 23, 2018 21:23:44 GMT
I believe the Forum is a fair reflection of the current subdued state of the P2P market just now. Things have gone quiet all round & decent loan offerings have dwindled considerably. The uncertain property market & Brexit have made people nervous....well I'm certainly exercising more caution! I run a Hire Purchase and Personal Loan Finance house. We only provide funds to those with unblemished credit files. Since mid July we have seen a massive fall in the numbers of finance applications. Even more so than in 2008 when the world was on its backside (I’ve had the time to check our records!) As above, Brexit uncertainty and general economic uncertainty, higher borrowing in previous years and even the Trump factor can all be pointed to as reasons for this. Even those in the peer to peer realm of borrowers will still have the sense to sit back and assess the situation before jumping into big developments so it is no real surprise that there are no decent opportunities hitting the platforms and that new tranches of existing loans look unappealing to those already involved in p2p lending.
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Post by samford71 on Aug 26, 2018 11:48:04 GMT
My gripe with this forum, for a long period, is not that there is negativity. In some cases negativity is perfectly reasonable. It's more that so little of this commentary is actually backed up with quantitative analysis. This is first and foremost a numbers game; coupon rates vs. loss given default equals returns. Instead there is a preference for personal experience (absolutely no fear of small sample bias on this forum) and gut feelings. Posters continually complaining about default rates and recoveries without actually crunching the numbers, doing the loan cohort analysis, calculating actual total returns. Useless metrics are pointed to, such as the ratio of tradeable to nontradeable live loans, completely ignoring redeemed loans. As an aside, however, the forum statistics ( link) just published are possibly illuminating regarding the state of the forum. New threads for the quarter were down 32% vs. the prior seven quarter average. New posts were down 27% vs. the prior seven quarter average. There were some deleted posts in those numbers (but there were some deleted posts in prior quarters aswell), so the drop is probably not as large as the headline number suggests. Nonetheless, it would be easy to argue activity is falling. What I think is more suspect is to extrapolate the impact of this forum to the wider P2P investor base. It's notable that of the 13k of posts made in the last quarter, almost 6k (47%) were in the Lendy/SS/Col sub-forums. Add in Abl and MT, and those posts account for 61% of total posts. These 5 platforms are a negligible percentage of the P2P industry (sub 4%) based on this years origination volumes. In fact the only market-relevant platform that gets a signficant percentage of posts is AC (9%). This is forum is squarely focussed on a minority interest in high-yield self-select platforms. This forum has little or no impact on the wider P2P lending base because this forum is in no way representative of the vast majority of P2P lending. I'm thankful for that because based on some posts it's fairly clear some posters really have no idea of what they are investing in, how to evaluate risk-reward and how to manage concentration risks. To be honest, the wider P2P lending community is doing just fine without this forum, having earned a perfectly reasonable 6.3%/annum (source: Alt Fi P2P index) without any of the hassle, in "fire and forget" products. Perhaps we need to learn from them? |
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You couldn't write it could you???
