Not wishing to upset any investors in Businesses etc

A fascinating insight! Thank you for sharing.

You're right, it is worrying as a P2P lender if one is relying on such assets for collateral.

I have learned my lesson from the catastrophe that was Ablrate. For those who don't know much about them, that platform encouraged us to lend to small and medium size businesses.

Almost all my loans - and those of investors I am in contact with - are in default, not having paid either interest or capital for at least the whole of this year and in many cases much longer. While Ablrate are choosing to keep most matters hidden from us, of the loans we have some insight into it is obvious that the collateral is going to be worthless. 

These securities from these borrowers consist of shoes, gym equipment, cars etc. 

Nevermind selling them to eventually get 5% of what we were told they were worth, Ablrate is spectacularly incapable of getting a single item from a single borrower.

I've lost a lot of money with Ablrate and also investing in other small businesses in the past. It is for this reason I would never lend to a SME ever again who provide collateral in the form of merchandise or Intellectual Property etc.

I focus on lending to borrowers with independently-valued, readily-sellable properties here in the UK at a reasonable LTV.

Even with having land and properties one has to be very careful and conduct considerable due diligence as the valuations are often farcical. Even at LTVs advertised at 70% by P2P platforms one can end up losing money as a lender. The properties sell at far below the value borrowers are told they are worth and then administrators, lawyers etc. eat up a huge amount of the realised funds.

I know about inaccurate valuations from a property I myself sold. The lady valuing it didn't pay much attention to the defects in the building and how run down the vicinity was etc. and she therefore valued it at significantly higher than I thought it was worth - as born out by the fact that the buyer now can't sell it for anything like the price I sold it to him for.

Was that a RICS "Professional!" Valuer then?   

LOL watching the abnormal happen on one today.

Amazon fire tablets (used) RRP £64 bidding at £40 now that's £40 plus 38%  £55.20 but no-one ever pays full price on Amazon ( WELL i NEVER DO ), and you have to figure in time to collect.

4 year old laptops at £450 when the same ones are available on Ebay etc for £350.

Even the odd telephony bits that I normally look to get for £5 ish are running at £30

I guess it's because there is a huge amount of laptops, telephony etc it's worth it to bigger fish to buy 10 or 20 and drive 200 miles to collect and make £100 an item, of course being VAT registered makes a big difference.

There are a couple of bits left I'd like, but they would take months to sell and even though I think I'd make £50 an item I don't have the space to store bulky items for months.

put my maximum bids in and left it ...
I know what I can sell for and if I stay online the one more bid attitude will kick in