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Post by Ace on Oct 23, 2020 22:05:37 GMT
It's been suggested I shouldn't use the term "missing money" and that the money isn't missing.
The amount displayed as "pending withdrawal" is now approx 3% higher than the investment balance from 5 days earlier.
It is surprisingly close to the 10% published expected return at 9.99% XIRR return.
The Zero late payments of 35days or less on the stats page that I most recently complained about on 18th of September is now showing as 2%.
The summary page today shows a "Lent Out" amount which is the exact same amount to the penny as it was on 9th of July.
The "pooled" amount is zero. The "investment balance" is 97.85% of this value. yup x+0 = less than x,
I am withdrawing an amount that is apparently 109.49% of the "investment balance"
Apart from the numbers not adding up and help pop-ups that make little sense there may be a clue in the fact that the "pooled" value drops and is calculated as a negative value. something is clearly not right but this may be why the money appears to not add up...
Lent out (value) plus pooled (zero value) - Investment balance (a value lower than the lent out value)
Er, so when you add a value of zero to somethign the value reduces - I just cannot see how the CEO can send me an email stating there is nothing wrong with the website and that I must not say there is.
View Attachment
I admire your persistence. If you've managed to get them to tweak some figures then you've had more effect than I did. I told them about the errors, inconsistencies and blatant contradictions in their platform figures a year ago. You would have thought that with all those millions from a new angel investor they would have been able to find someone with a basic O'level in maths and a calculator by now, but no. Their Ts&Cs allow them to keep our funds without paying any interest for 5 years, so they just can't be bothered.
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optimist
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Post by optimist on Oct 23, 2020 23:57:26 GMT
Thanks for the support Ace.
The silly thing is that if at the start they'd said "yeah, some people aren't paying" that would have been a believable sensible answer and I could have slept easy. Unfortunately the maths didn't add up so there's no queation as to whether it's wrong which bugs me. It may be a pyrrhic victory in that in the future people will not as easily be able to tell whether their interest rate received is right or wrong.
As far as keeping our funds for five years, I was wondering whether there may be a legal defense against that. How are we supposed to get our money back? Surely there must be a reasonable method.
What I mean is that FO either relies on the secondary market or it doesn't. If the secondary market is not working, then surely FO has some legal liability to allow us to get our money back some other way?
As I understand it, there is no way on the platform to say "I want my money back when each loan runs out" IE to stop reinvesting and just take the money as it arrives. I don't mind waiting 5 years for some of it if I get my interest on all of it. It seems fair that if we've made a loan and the terms are 5 years then it may take that long to get the money
Why should FO get to keep either the interest or keep all the money? My 10% interest from a one year investment turns into 1.67% which is basically zero or < underlying rate of interest.
With FO, once the money is there, is there any way to get it back without giving FO an interest free loan for the duration, however long it takes? If you don't make the withdrawal request they keep re-investing it so you can't get it back that way either.
I suspect i won't get the money from the secondary market, and so all I'm doing by requesting the money is giving them the interest that otherwise I'd be "making", except I can't get at my interest either so who cares. There is no point in making interest if I can't get my money out
There seems no benefit to asking for the money because I'm not going to get it, On the flip side, if I don't ask for it I definately won't get it. I have little legal arguement that I should be getting my money back if I haven't requested it.
If I even want to work out when I might get the money back I have to go into the loan and scroll through pages of terms and conditions to find the loan duration and calculate the remaining duration from the loans summary page. In my case I then have to repeat this process 255 times for the other loans
Once I've done that, I can calculate when to try to sell up to balace the loss of interest from trying to leave.
I would like to see written confirmation of what I was told verbally about 20% chunks being paid. I was told that it is a policy but not published but there is no written proof other than my written confirmation of the telephone conversation that I had with N which he is generally denying on most points now.
Let me know if I have missed something - seems like unfair Ts & Cs to me. I'll be discussing that with the Ombudsman / FCA as well, may have to start ringing them and making a nuisance of myself in a bit.
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Post by Ace on Oct 24, 2020 7:11:21 GMT
I agree that unfair Ts&Cs seems like your best chance of success. When I get some spare time and enthusiasm I'll start an official complaint myself. I had expected that he might have had the sense to repay those trying to escape from his latest windfall as the noise from disgruntled investors can't be helping the business. Good luck.
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optimist
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Post by optimist on Oct 24, 2020 16:13:39 GMT
I expect a number of complaints is more likely to get a reaction that one. More serious issues are likley to get more attention than less, supporting our claims through other appropriate and legal means such as the courts, lawyers, and other media may be options which I'm sure the ombudsman / FCA / other etc may be able to advise on, I expect others on the site may have some further info and thoughts on the subject.
I'd like to get a clearer picture to resolve all of this for the good of the site and all of it's users and in the end this also helps FO provide everyone a fair / decent service which is all we want
I can't speculate on motivation but believe that it's good to ensure that policies encourage good buisness practices and don't elicit suspicion:
If there is free money, why would a company replace it with money it has to pay for, if there is a legally defensible reason to avoid doing so?
That's like taking out an expensive loan to pay of a free one. This is of itself a good reason that the "no interest paid after withdrawal request" policy might be a good thing for FO to change, as it is likely to foster bad feeling and cause suspicion, because it might encourage poor service.
It's even possible that such a policy might be seen as encouraging a company to upset and annoy its customers who by leaving, then forfeit their interest.
I imagine that if that arguement were made appropriately, it might support looking into alternatives.
If the current FCA regulations allow a company to have terms that would encourage that company to do something bad, It may be that the FCA rules or guidance should change. One might have to raise this in more robust terms with the FCA for encouraging said behaviour - not sure I'm quite ready to take the FCA to task on this yet but it't an interesting thought experiment.
In that example, the company in question has potentially done no wrong and is working fully within the FCA regs but the FCA regs encourage bad businness practices - again all hypothetically and just thinking around the potential arguements and comments that might be made on the subject.
I want the P2P/P2B community to be able to provide a great service to the public, businesses etc.
The question of Ts&Cs is partially a new situation with changes due to COVID and partly due to ironing out what is a reasobable expectation in P2P FCA regs.
It's worth being squeaky clean and perhaps other P2P businesses may also want to consider how this makes all of us look, some may have some influence or suggestions rather than having to resort to the FCA etc
People are focussing on Brexit, COVID and worrying about their own businesses and security. Fixing broken websites etc is not always going to be the highest priority even if it is genuinely on the todo list
Who knows, we might all start getting our money next week.
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Oct 24, 2020 16:42:48 GMT
I sent them an official complaint.
Not even acknowledged.
When I get a minute, that will be one of the things I tell the FOS. I am pretty sure they need to have a complaints procedure.
But in case anyone is in any doubt - do not give this outfit any money.
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optimist
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Post by optimist on Oct 24, 2020 18:22:52 GMT
After around 16 emails complaining that I have money missing from my account, with responses from FO titled "missing money" I asked for the process to make an official complaint
I recieved no acknowlegement of my complaint, titled "missing money" with no means given to make a complaint or any suggestion that it would be addressed or even read.
i continued complaining and got legal threats back, well, mentions of liability and the FO legal department anyway. I am quite seriously unhappy with this company at the moment.
I have supported them but, well, I'm adding a caveat to all prevous posts on the subject, my opinion has changed.
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Oct 24, 2020 18:37:29 GMT
I sent them an official complaint. Not even acknowledged. When I get a minute, that will be one of the things I tell the FOS. I am pretty sure they need to have a complaints procedure. But in case anyone is in any doubt - do not give this outfit any money. mailto:complaints@fundourselves.com The above is the complaints email, not sure if you tried that? Name, Address and User Email need to be included. Obviously with the complaint and your desired outcome. Certainly worth sending a few even if they don't respond its clear evidence you have given them the opportunity to put it right. In fairness I only really have 'a good night out' changing amount invested, but their total blanking of my emails has made it personal now.
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michaelc
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Say No To T.D.S.
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Post by michaelc on Oct 24, 2020 18:45:20 GMT
I got out in time but I'm certainly not here to gloat. I am very likely to loose money in other sites including L, COL and FS.
I came just to say, this entire site is starting to read like a graveyard of p2p and what a failure its regulation has been. Someone should print the entire site and dump its contents at the FCA's doors.
Yes there are are few bright stars but who knows what will happen.
The whole sector is an absolute catastrophe IMO.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Oct 24, 2020 19:07:18 GMT
Sounds really bad, good luck to all.
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Mucho P2P
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Post by Mucho P2P on Oct 24, 2020 23:39:17 GMT
In 2017 when WLU/FO initiated a major fund raiser on Seedrs, I contacted Mr Rocket Scientist, offering funds required, expertise and contacts to assist his company, more than just a raise on Seedrs would ever offer. Note, I had not even at this stage mentioned anything about the sky-high valuation of the company.
Normally at this stage, I am initially asked into discuss the matter with the CEO. Nothing came forth. I requested a meeting, it was ignored. Hence, if this is how a CEO behaves when seeking funds, it indicates to me that he wants the funds from a voiceless group that is unable to influence, nor advise his company.
I will add, this is only the second time in my investment history that I can recall an offer of funds not reaching the first stage of the investment cycle, being a preliminary chat with a CEO/existing Shareholder.
Needless to say, I started to withdraw my lending capital from WLU soon afterwards.
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optimist
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Post by optimist on Oct 26, 2020 21:11:46 GMT
I got out in time but I'm certainly not here to gloat. I am very likely to lose money in other sites including L, COL and FS. I came just to say, this entire site is starting to read like a graveyard of p2p and what a failure its regulation has been. Someone should print the entire site and dump its contents at the FCA's doors. Yes there are are few bright stars but who knows what will happen. The whole sector is an absolute catastrophe IMO. If we know the problem and the solution can we get them to listen to how to fix it? Who has the ear of the right people?
Hopefully there are enough good companies and knowlegable investors making money out of this induatry and with a voice, that we/they can drive it in the right direction.
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Post by Badly Drawn Stickman on Jan 4, 2021 16:15:42 GMT
I see the latest email is about payment holidays.
Honestly if they were deliberately sending these as humour they couldn't do better.
Always a handy reminder to come and have a moan about them.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Jan 12, 2021 0:15:25 GMT
Just noticed, despite me never explicitly tagging them as such, their "borrower focused" mailshots now seem to end up in my gmail spam where they belong.
But they are FCA authorised aren't they? They must be reliable and trustworthy and ...and and .... What the feck does FCA authorised mean?
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Jan 12, 2021 9:09:08 GMT
Just noticed, despite me never explicitly tagging them as such, their "borrower focused" mailshots now seem to end up in my gmail spam where they belong. But they are FCA authorised aren't they? They must be reliable and trustworthy and ...and and .... What the feck does FCA authorised mean?It means they ticked all the right boxes, produced all the right paperwork and said all the right things (at some point in the past).
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rocky1
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Post by rocky1 on Jan 12, 2021 9:32:24 GMT
you mean a bit like LENDY,MT,FS,COLL etc,etc. FCA have got a lot to answer for.
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