ramblin rose
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“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Jan 16, 2014 15:11:17 GMT
With several pages full of lenders on the new loan being reported as '8' and amount at only £2,000 and 10% full, it's pretty clear the gremlins haven't become better behaved after their Christmas and New Year break  |
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Post by phlitb on Jan 16, 2014 15:18:45 GMT
My first experience of using this platform was very disappointing. I had intended to make one bid, but after receiving an error message I tried again. According to the loan page I now see 2 bids of mine listed, but no indication of this on my accounts page. So no idea how much if any I've invested into this loan!
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Jan 16, 2014 15:23:47 GMT
It will be both of them - I often get an error at the end when it's busy and have learned to ignore it as usually the bid has gone in and the error occurs afterwards. It's part of a long-standing cluster**** that occurs when a new loan is pre-announced for a specific time and lots of people are doing the same thing at that precise time. Hence the title of the thread - clearly not sorted out yet.
If you only want one bid to take effect, then send them an email - they are usually fairly on the ball and will sort it quickly for you. If your double bid took you over the imposed limit, they'll cancel the second one anyway.
Edit: It's so long since we had a loan that I can't remember if they normally show as funds 'on hold' immediately - I thought they did - mine aren't either in this case. I am assuming it's part of the mess, which will eventually get sorted. If you look in the Live/Fulfilled tab under your account, you should see the bids in that list.
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Post by fundingsecure on Jan 16, 2014 15:34:20 GMT
Yes, it does appear that we still have gremlins. However, we will ensure that everyone's requested investment is correctly reflected. The loan will take a while to fill so there's no real danger of anyone missing out.
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alison
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Sanctuary!!
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Post by alison on Jan 16, 2014 15:36:21 GMT
It will be both of them - I often get an error at the end when it's busy and have learned to ignore it as usually the bid has gone in and the error occurs afterwards. It's part of a long-standing cluster**** that occurs when a new loan is pre-announced for a specific time and lots of people are doing the same thing at that precise time. Hence the title of the thread - clearly not sorted out yet. If you only want one bid to take effect, then send them an email - they are usually fairly on the ball and will sort it quickly for you. If your double bid took you over the imposed limit, they'll cancel the second one anyway. Edit: It's so long since we had a loan that I can't remember if they normally show as funds 'on hold' immediately - I thought they did - mine aren't either in this case. I am assuming it's part of the mess, which will eventually get sorted. It's a shame they can't get the site sorted out. They've had plenty of time to test it recently!! I don't really know what Funds on Hold refers to. Mine shows £200 but I have bid £300 on this loan so it can't be included. In their favour I did a funds transfer from my bank a little while ago and it was in my account in a couple of minutes though I haven't yet had a confirmation message but I can wait for that.
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Jan 16, 2014 15:40:09 GMT
Your £200 on hold will be from the previous Fine Arts loan before Christmas which still hasn't been activated. Today's loan doesn't seem to be included there yet. My bid does appear in my Live/Fulfilled list, although it's showing days remaining of 16086 - at just over 44 years that would be a little longer than I anticipated  Edit: from experience to date, funds 'On Hold' are used for bid amounts that you've made on loans that haven't yet been activated and also for loans that have ended, but for which the money hasn't yet been released. |
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alison
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Post by alison on Jan 16, 2014 15:42:16 GMT
Your £200 on hold will be from the previous Fine Arts loan before Christmas which still hasn't been activated. Today's loan doesn't seem to be included there yet. My bid does appear in my Live/Fulfilled list, although it's showing days remaining of 16086 - at just over 44 years that would be a little longer than I anticipated Think of the interest you'll get then!!!
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alison
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Post by alison on Jan 16, 2014 15:52:41 GMT
Edit: from experience to date, funds 'On Hold' are used for bid amounts that you've made on loans that haven't yet been activated and also for loans that have ended, but for which the money hasn't yet been released. Thanks for that info - I'll try to keep it in mind. On rechecking my Account Summary, I see that the info is a bit unpredictable. My Available to Invest is now showing a negative amount, presumably it has not taken into account the recent credit which it let me spend!! It does also give the appearance of letting you spend more than is in your account. My brother-in-law joined recently and has made 2 bids of £200 even though he only had £200 in his account. I have suggested he also emails them!!
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Jan 16, 2014 15:54:06 GMT
Ah, the memory comes flooding back! The bid amount is now showing in my account against Live Loans - of course that's where it goes. Isn't it odd that when something doesn't follow it's normal pattern you forget what the pattern should be?
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
Posts: 1,370
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Post by ramblin rose on Jan 16, 2014 15:59:33 GMT
Edit: from experience to date, funds 'On Hold' are used for bid amounts that you've made on loans that haven't yet been activated and also for loans that have ended, but for which the money hasn't yet been released. My brother-in-law joined recently and has made 2 bids of £200 even though he only had £200 in his account. I have suggested he also emails them!! That's totally not normal - I have made a typo in the past and been disallowed from bidding the ridiculous amount I had tried as a result! My experience with FS is that they do gets things sorted pretty quick and take a very sensible view on what to do with the mess they've made. But it is disappointing that this is still happening. I know I'm sounding like a stuck record about this, but they really must stop pre-announcing a precise time until they are sure they have this sorted out. Especially in this particular case where they were / are confident the loan will be around for a little while - it was totally unnecessary to cause this yet again. ("Doctor, doctor - it hurts when I do this". "Well stop doing it then".)
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Post by davee39 on Jan 16, 2014 18:25:57 GMT
Last years Fine Art Loan was due to be activated today, and has not been. The bidding system still does not work, loans are few and far between and bidders still pile in. With my 'sceptical about long term survival hat' on I will be stepping back and looking elsewhere.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 16, 2014 19:26:18 GMT
I'm finding the reports of multiple, probably unintentional, bids most frustrating. Here's an extract from an email and message I sent to FS a few hours ago...
So at the same time we have people complaining that they accidentally have made two bids, I'm finding that the FS system is set to prevent more than one bid being placed. (On the loan listing page, in the 'Invest In This Loan' section, where there normally would be a button to click in order to place a bid, I have a message saying "You may only invest 1 times. [sic]")
I don't know whether what I'm experiencing qualifies as a gremlin. It's either a programming error where the system isn't applying the £400 limit correctly, or it's a failure of FS to explain that their bidding restriction is not just a £400 limit but that it's also a one bid limit.
PS. I'm still waiting for a response from FS. Hopefully I'll get one -- and a solution to my problem -- before the loan is fully funded.
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Jan 16, 2014 19:59:00 GMT
I'm finding the reports of multiple, probably unintentional, bids most frustrating. Here's an extract from an email and message I sent to FS a few hours ago... So at the same time we have people complaining that they accidentally have made two bids, I'm finding that the FS system is set to prevent more than one bid being placed. (On the loan listing page, in the 'Invest In This Loan' section, where there normally would be a button to click in order to place a bid, I have a message saying "You may only invest 1 times. [sic]") I don't know whether what I'm experiencing qualifies as a gremlin. It's either a programming error where the system isn't applying the £400 limit correctly, or it's a failure of FS to explain that their bidding restriction is not just a £400 limit but that it's also a one bid limit. PS. I'm still waiting for a response from FS. Hopefully I'll get one -- and a solution to my problem -- before the loan is fully funded. I too would be very annoyed had that happened to me - I have often chosen to fund in separate chunks - and sometimes because there isn't enough money in my account to do it all in one go. I presume that restriction will be lifted if the £400 limit also gets lifted. I've seen that message before on the restricted loans, but as you say, only once you've put your bid in - I don't see there should be any reason at all to limit the number of bids - just the total amount. The 'challenged' programming that's gone into the FS bidding system has probably been written badly so that it can't add up the total amounts, and so has to limit to 1 bid to stand any chance of implementing the £ limit.
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alison
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Post by alison on Jan 16, 2014 20:07:54 GMT
But if the restriction was 1 bid per lender, why have I and my brother-in-law been able to place 2 bids each.
There were no error messages on my bids.
It looks to me as if the only restriction on bidding was initially the £400 cap and then at some point in the bidding process someone has changed the system to restrict lenders to 1 bid each.
If that is the case then this is appalling and goes a long way to destroying FS' credibility.
I have had an email advising that the system has picked up a double investment and the second bid will be deleted.
I'll not be happy if this happens because my total bids are only £300.
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Post by mrclondon on Jan 16, 2014 20:30:45 GMT
I was meant to be working this afternoon  so wasn't following things very closely but did have FS open on a 2nd screen and refreshing every 5 mins. My bid went in very quickly (just as soon as I had checked the pdf and saw 17 brightly coloured paintings with valuations in line with what I had been expecting). On accepting the bid, the site was telling me that only 1 bid was allowed [which I was expecting as that had been the case on the 2nd restricted auction last year] and everything looked OK with just 1 bid each from the "normal suspects" Next time I looked at the screen the totals were clearly out of sync with reality, and the screen was now accepting 2nd bids. This persisted for a fair time, but after a while the screen reverted to telling me just 1 bid allowed. And some time after that the totals stabilised at 40 ish percent filled. So it would seem unfair if FS cancel wanted 2nd bids that don't tip the total over the £400 mark. Given its only just gone over 50%, there is a good chance for a repeat scrum at 3pm tomorrow for top ups !
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so wasn't following things very closely but did have FS open on a 2nd screen and refreshing every 5 mins.