ozboy
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Mine's a Large One! (Snigger, snigger .......)
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Post by ozboy on May 2, 2021 17:58:03 GMT
For me, it was the first Wind Turbine, and/or The Jock Boatyard, can't remember which "manifested" first, but whichever came first it made me stop and think out loud to myself, "Hang on, this isn't right?", and the second was enoughto convince me to immediately start pulling out.
Unfortunately for me/us, by then (years ago) FS Zombie Loans was already establishing as a virtual Sister Company.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on May 2, 2021 18:10:19 GMT
For me, it was the first Wind Turbine, and/or The Jock Boatyard, can't remember which "manifested" first, but whichever came first it made me stop and think out loud to myself, "Hang on, this isn't right?", and the second was enoughto convince me to immediately start pulling out. Unfortunately for me/us, by then ( years ago) FS Zombie Loans was already establishing as a virtual Sister Company. I can't remember exactly but definitely a long time - at least a year - before they went publicly bust. Like you I then had to wait and watch around half get repaid and the other half to zombie into administration. One particularly nasty thing about investing in small p2p loans is that as soon as you get a sniff of something going wrong it isn't in your interests to broadcast that fact to other investors. Most investors stay quiet but some even post to give an air of everything being fine.
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Post by overthehill on May 2, 2021 18:26:28 GMT
A lot of luck and some judgement. Almost exactly a year before the administration I started withdrawing every repayment. My balance halved in that year so it probably saved me about 5k. The thing that sounded the alarm for me was , not a single loan was renewing at 6 months while new loans were appearing almost daily. The 6 month contracts were created for a reason, to ensure the borrowers were at least paying the interest due. I didn't realise at the time that so many borrowers knew the valuations were fanciful so there was no financial incentive or reason to pay the interest or the capital.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on May 3, 2021 7:47:46 GMT
For me, it was the first Wind Turbine, and/or The Jock Boatyard, can't remember which "manifested" first, but whichever came first it made me stop and think out loud to myself, "Hang on, this isn't right?", and the second was enoughto convince me to immediately start pulling out. Unfortunately for me/us, by then ( years ago) FS Zombie Loans was already establishing as a virtual Sister Company. In my case definitely the Wind Turbine in late 2016. It wasn't blatant lying that crossed my mind but sheer absolute incompetence and the cavalier attitude being shown towards lenders/investors. Thankfully I only lost £300 in that one but I rapidly decreased my involvement.
All that's left is the W***h H***l and I can go and whistle in the wind on that one. Overall though I consider I was lucky and came out with a small profit. But if it wasn't for the turbine loan I'd no doubt be well and truly out of pocket so I thank FS for demonstrating they were only in it for themselves and the rest of us well.......
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jonno
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nil satis nisi optimum
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Post by jonno on May 3, 2021 8:23:46 GMT
For me, it was the first Wind Turbine, and/or The Jock Boatyard, can't remember which "manifested" first, but whichever came first it made me stop and think out loud to myself, "Hang on, this isn't right?", and the second was enoughto convince me to immediately start pulling out. Unfortunately for me/us, by then ( years ago) FS Zombie Loans was already establishing as a virtual Sister Company. For me, I think it was when a certain "Egyptian Deity" appeared, spouting his utter drivel about how fantastic the platform was and how much he was making when clearly all the evidence was showing that he was at best a complete lunatic or else a malevolent spirit. By the way, I wonder where he is now?
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on May 3, 2021 9:36:08 GMT
For me, it was the first Wind Turbine, and/or The Jock Boatyard, can't remember which "manifested" first, but whichever came first it made me stop and think out loud to myself, "Hang on, this isn't right?", and the second was enoughto convince me to immediately start pulling out. Unfortunately for me/us, by then ( years ago) FS Zombie Loans was already establishing as a virtual Sister Company. For me, I think it was when a certain "Egyptian Deity" appeared, spouting his utter drivel about how fantastic the platform was and how much he was making when clearly all the evidence was showing that he was at best a complete lunatic or else a malevolent spirit. By the way, I wonder where he is now? Probably out somewhere telling people that as long as you put no more than 1% of your money in each crapcoin then no-one has ever lost money that way.
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adrian77
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Post by adrian77 on May 3, 2021 9:41:30 GMT
when I first joined this platform reading my first Sir Ozboy OBE tweet and coming across the above financial wizzard making 25% return or whatever - funnily enough given the pathetic results of this platform and his holding I estimate he has lost about £100K but I am obviously wrong as he clearly knows about investing then the rest of us put together - yes he has been very quiet - can't imagine why....
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iRobot
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Post by iRobot on May 3, 2021 13:11:14 GMT
For me, it was the first Wind Turbine, and/or The Jock Boatyard, can't remember which "manifested" first, but whichever came first it made me stop and think out loud to myself, "Hang on, this isn't right?", and the second was enoughto convince me to immediately start pulling out. Unfortunately for me/us, by then ( years ago) FS Zombie Loans was already establishing as a virtual Sister Company. For me, it wasn't these two loans per se, but rather that FS failed to give any indication that they had learned anything whatsoever from their mishandling of these loans: Turbine - ok, their hands were tied when the borrower co went into administration, but information that emerged during that administration certainly suggested their DD during origination fell short Boatyard - waiting 5 months before approaching receivers was certainly a sign of things to come; why didn't FS learn that the nettle is often best grasped early, without hesitation? None of their updates gave any indication why they hesitated. (One update in 08/2016 suggested that works to replace / repair the slipway were underway during the previous year, but it was only mentioned after completion) Perversely, this one returned 87% of capital; there are lenders now that would gladly give their left-doo-dah to get a result like that on some of the loans FS originated since! If any loan could be singled out for " blatant lying", the W'haven dev loan would get my money. Their continued mishandling of this development loan after photographic evidence had been presented beggared belief. The platform has at every turn proven itself incompetent at managing a portfolio of development loans. At the time of these three, I think my line of thought was aligned with that of mrclondon : Everyone on here seems to be leaving FS at a rate of knots. FS however don't seem bothered at all, I assume there's plenty of Newbies coming on board to replace us, and then some. Had you considered that longstanding investors who have been there since the very first loan may still be actively increasing their funds on the platform ? (e.g. me, typically by several thousand pounds a month, every month). Yes, there are poor value loans on FS (as there are on every platform), but equally FS has some of the best value loans anywhere in p2p. 12% for good first charge residential property / 13% for decent second charge residential property* is WAY over priced, 8% and 9% respectively is perhaps a better reflection of the true risk (even allowing for rollup of interest during the term increasing the LTV) I've had one (partial) capital loss on FS since launch - the L***n art, and as I posted recently I have current exposure to 3 distressed loans (2 x speedboats + wind turbine). I struggle to find good value on MT/COL/L. (* e.g. yesterday's Redhill renewal) Certainly I restricted any subsequent lending to simple bridging and pawn - no dev loans, nothing other than 1st charges, no renewals beyond maybe one (and then only if it was promptly made and the loan value hadn't been increased to cover the interest 'paid') and no loans to borrowers with other loans already in play. FS once brought a simple bridging loan to the platform and promoted that the borrower had successfully redeemed two other loans in the past. When I asked which loans they were, FS declined to answer. I didn't invest in that loan either. I also rejected every renewal when FS declined to say whether the borrower had other loans and luckily avoided some real stinkers as a result. As time went on, the number of 'decent' loan opportunities dried up and I found myself exiting the platform by reason of that, as much as anything else. It might be tempting to think if FS had avoided dev loans and stuck to pawn (plus, maybe, bridging) loans but the nonfeasance demonstrated across the multiple Art loans to a single borrower is a clear indicator that sheer incompetence (as a minimum) alone was going to bring the edifice down. Talking of "blatant lies", I wonder how much 'lying by omission' went on when Raj and, later, Vijay were sizing up FS as an investment proposition. On the one hand, it's difficult to think anyone would plough money into FS given the very public issues facing the platform and these must surely have been amplified with access to info not in the public domain. I suppose that taking on FS might have been regarded as something of a 'vanity project' and ego is not a an ingredient found in sound investment decisions. Plenty of lessons to be learned for all parties, I'd suggest.
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ashtondav
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Post by ashtondav on May 3, 2021 13:47:06 GMT
The speedboat
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on May 3, 2021 20:22:32 GMT
Talking of "blatant lies", I wonder how much 'lying by omission' went on when Raj and, later, Vijay were sizing up FS as an investment proposition. On the one hand, it's difficult to think anyone would plough money into FS given the very public issues facing the platform and these must surely have been amplified with access to info not in the public domain. I suppose that taking on FS might have been regarded as something of a 'vanity project' and ego is not a an ingredient found in sound investment decisions. It's my understanding Raj knowingly filled in the £1.5m black hole in the client account and was aware the FCA were investigating.
More serious allegations that the purchase was tactical to prevent a borrower from obtaining furthers monies is progressing through the courts as we speak.
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grumpsimus
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Post by grumpsimus on May 3, 2021 21:20:20 GMT
I have never been a big investor on FS, which was fortunate. I put some money to see how things worked. Out of five P2P platforms I invested in, FS is the only one that will make a loss.
I came to see that FS was a waste of time, in a rather roundabout. I began to have a few of the zombie loans, which had increasingly bizarre and risible updates, but nothing ever happened and the chance of ever getting any money back increasingly unlikely. I looked at the FS figures, which appeared to show relatively modest figures for bad debts. I realised that all the zombie loans were excluded from the bad debts, which were really much than stated. The zombie loans were just kept going to make the figures look better.
After this no more money in FS and I started withdrawing funds when I could two years before they went into administration. However, I still have some of the zombie loans and do not expect to get any money back from them.
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starfished
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Post by starfished on May 4, 2021 9:03:15 GMT
I have never been a big investor on FS, which was fortunate. I put some money to see how things worked. Out of five P2P platforms I invested in, FS is the only one that will make a loss.
I came to see that FS was a waste of time, in a rather roundabout. I began to have a few of the zombie loans, which had increasingly bizarre and risible updates, but nothing ever happened and the chance of ever getting any money back increasingly unlikely. I looked at the FS figures, which appeared to show relatively modest figures for bad debts. I realised that all the zombie loans were excluded from the bad debts, which were really much than stated. The zombie loans were just kept going to make the figures look better.
After this no more money in FS and I started withdrawing funds when I could two years before they went into administration. However, I still have some of the zombie loans and do not expect to get any money back from them.
Trust is a funny old thing. It wasn't a specific event but the collection of quite opaque updates meant that I stopped adding money early 2016 (albeit my investment was never very large) and stopped renewing during 2016. I do still have some zombie loans with them. Bizarrely, purely due to luck, FS is still my highest performing P2P platform...
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adrian77
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Post by adrian77 on May 4, 2021 10:45:10 GMT
Mousey - thanks for all your efforts with this farce - I know you are very busy but can I ask a couple of questions
1) Could you re-post the link where you detailed the court hearing over this one i.e. the one which named the developer claiming he was stitched up by Raj found it - 2) Not sure if there is anything illegal in preventing a dodgy borrower from obtaining further monies? (found your post - I think this is abuse of process which sounds very technical to me) I have wondered if FS have been a pawn in a very nasty game played by very nasty people - whatever I feel at the moment (and I realise there is an on-going court case) that there is a lot more under the surface to this one which doubtless will surface sooner or later...any comments or would you prefer not to which would be perfectly understandable..
Thanks
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song
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Post by song on May 4, 2021 11:45:57 GMT
2017 When being told on the phone that the Uffa Fox yacht was moored in South Wales when i was stood by the said yacht in a Falmouth boatyard at the time a very fortunate phone call, and out i came as fast as i could with a small profit. I should have known better as i had already sussed the powerboat valuation was hopelessly adrift
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on May 5, 2021 13:21:03 GMT
Mousey - thanks for all your efforts with this farce - I know you are very busy but can I ask a couple of questions 1) Could you re-post the link where you detailed the court hearing over this one i.e. the one which named the developer claiming he was stitched up by Rajfound it - 2) Not sure if there is anything illegal in preventing a dodgy borrower from obtaining further monies? (found your post - I think this is abuse of process which sounds very technical to me) I have wondered if FS have been a pawn in a very nasty game played by very nasty people - whatever I feel at the moment (and I realise there is an on-going court case) that there is a lot more under the surface to this one which doubtless will surface sooner or later...any comments or would you prefer not to which would be perfectly understandable.. Thanks Well both a lawful and unlawful means conspiracy was alleged by the borrower. Mr Kumar it should be noted denied this:
"The pleaded facts in relation to Mr Kumar are consistent with innocence. The fact of becoming a director of a lending platform, or the alleged fact of preventing that lending platform from advancing funds to a (on any view) problematic borrower in circumstances where the company is in financial difficulty, does not justify the inference of fraud, and nor do any of the other pleaded facts."
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