Suspect Banner Ads? Please tell me I'm wrong.

See also this thread which covers the saving stream operation.

IMHO not a suspect banner ad, but unfortunately saving stream have taken major shortcuts with their website - copying the style structure from Funding Circle, and as pointed out here using an internet advertising stock image photo.  Although I have not as yet invested with them, a number of members of both this forum and zopa's forum have dipped toes in the water.

ribs you'll never get flamed on here (unless your proposing a get rich quick scheme )

Thank you for making me smile with a very well written 1st post. 

Playing Devils advocate and having run my own web company i've made the mistake of outsourcing development to others and had it come back to bite me when it has emerged they've just ripped off images and/or design from others. I think SS are learning the hard way how to get started in p2x  on the other hand batchoy you could be right!

/beastie

Using a stock internet photo here is not doing them any favors. You imply in the post that they claim to offer zero risk, but I can't find any such claim on there site. When you use Zopa or Ratesetter they also are not zero risk, there provision funds are just a way to reduce risk. Taking security on loans does this as well. The rates don't look to good to be true, I've got on loan secured on property paying 10% at a 20%ltv for example with Assetz Capital to finance a golf related business.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the responses, and the warm welcome.

I was worried that I was "way off the mark" with this one and being an idiot. It seems I had some valid points.

It's good to see that the SS business isn't a total scam, as I first thought, but they are clearly new, cutting corners, generally misbehaving, and quite possibly something to be wary of. So, maybe on a forum for P2P lenders, where there will be many stupid and naive people visiting to get more information on P2P investing (such as myself), maybe that banner should be reconsidered? Or maybe they've paid a lot of money too have it there and I should shut the hell up.

I'll answer a few bits and pieces, if I may be so bold...

The website does a little more than that as well, sadly.

Looking at the website's source code (hardcore geek, like I said), the website actually gives alternative text to the image. The alternative text is usually shown if the image fails to load, or for people with sight difficulties, and is rarely shown by most browsers. The text for the image reads "A picture of James Marshall, a Saving Stream saver". So even the websites source code, the HTML that makes up the site, is tagging this picture as an actual picture of "James Marshall":
<figure class="content-box--image">
           <img alt="A picture of James Marshall, a Saving Stream saver" src="/images/jm.png" />
           <figcaption><strong>James Marshall,</strong> 2013</figcaption>
         </figure>I beginning to wonder if Mr Marshall exists. Could the real Mr Marshall please stand up?

1) Exactly! If your main point of contact with your customer/investor is your website, then you need to get the website right first time and not pull stupid like this. Exactly the same if you had a physical shop, or office. If they are cutting corners and being misleading (and downright lying) on their first point of contact with their customer, then I can only imagine what corners are cut elsewhere. For someone like me who has a fair chunk of money "coming in soon" and looking to invest, I would steer clear of this like the Titanic should've done that iceberg.

If you can't trust the website, you sure as hell can't trust the people behind it. I don't care if they paid someone to make it for them. They signed off on it, they have their name on it, they know damn well that isn't "Mr Marshall".

2) I can field that one. Back in the day, when I were a young lad, the grass was greener, people had money and jobs, and I wanted a new car, I had a Zopa loan, and it was awesome, I loved how it worked, and I paid it back a whole year early, saving a fair bit of interest. I vowed that one day I would at least look into the possibility of lending with Zopa.

Sadly, the risk of defaults really put me off, I heard horror stories of people barely breaking even. I've earned my money. I want it to grow and be looked after, I'm very much a "low risk" investor. Slow and steady and all that.

Then, I looked at it all again this year. With Zopa now have Safeguard, I was almost ready to lend, then I saw Ratesetter and went with them instead (higher rate, innit). I saw Funding Circle and the others, but I wanted a lot less risk, and a lot less messing about to get a return on my money. I'd much rather take a smaller interest rate and much less risk, than having to manually invest things and putting my dough at (in my opinion) much higher risk.

For many people, like me, it's more about the risk than the return. I don't like to take risks with my money, and I see Zopa/Ratesetter as a virtually (not completely, obviously) risk-free way of getting a tidy return, and helping others as well. Win-win.

For others, it's about the "fun" and "excitement". Good on you, but no thanks.
Good points, well made. I indeed thought it was being sold as "risk free". I was wrong about that. My apologies.

Also, of note in the website's source, but commented out (read that as "turned off for now") is this little snippet:
        <div class="content-box--titled">
           <div class="box__title">
             <h2 class="primary">Borrowers</h2>
             <p>Get a fast, flexible loan, up to £1,000,000 for any purpose. No credit checks are required. Loans are secured against assets such as property, cars, yachts and planes.</p>
           </div>
           <div class="box__footer">
             <a href="/borrowers" class="button--primary"> Find out more</a>
           </div>
         </div>See that? No credit checks, just like Bright House! So one could secure a loan on a plane or a boat, for example, and maybe... I dunno... Fly or sail away to another country, never to be seen again. Then again, I'm a cynical bastard. I'm sure they know better than me what they are doing here.

And just to round it off, and to the final nail-in-the-coffin reason I won't personally be using these guys:
Nope nope nope. Bad SavingStream, bad bad bad! No cookies for you! Santa won't be stopping by your offices this year. [Other metaphors I can't be bothered to type]

Again, The Internet, that great big wonderful thing, it is your primary source of customers, SavingStream. Don't mess with it. People like me will remember this much more than anything else you say or do in the future. It stinks, like burnt toast.

These guys may be legit, and making LOADSA-MONEY, but I'm never going to do business with people that pull silly tricks like this.

Whilst we are picking holes Saving Stream/Lendy Marine, their banner ad claims that your investments are 'Fully regulated', I would be interested to know which regulations those would be. Looking at the Lendy Marine site (by the way did you notice they are charging 4% per month for their loans 53.5% APR) they are claiming not to be credit checking borrowers.

Hi everyone, thanks for all of your posts.

To clarify a couple of points:

1) We take possession of all assets that loans are secured against. Marinas and boatyards hold keys and documentation and sign tri-partite documentation stating the owner cannot access the asset during the loan. We also have insurance policies in place in case of fire/theft/sinking. 

2) We apologise for the offence that using a stock photo has apparently caused. As I am sure you are aware, companies do use stock photos for advertising purposes.

Saving Stream seems to have sparked a great deal of interest in the past week with both positive and negative comments and thoughts being voiced. We apologise if we do not respond as quickly as people may like, however we do not have a designated member of staff employed solely for the purpose of updating forum threads, although the level of opinion may warrant it at some point.