sqh
Member of DD Central
Before P2P, savers put a guinea in a piggy bank, now they smash the banks to become guinea pigs.
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Post by sqh on Dec 10, 2015 16:58:14 GMT
There are over 5500 lenders on SS. If only 1% of lenders are interested in buying on the SM, then you have a 1 in 55 chance of being the fastest. Not great odds. Good luck with that. Pick a quiet time of day and increase your chances. At around 03:00 hrs this morning there were 13 different loans available at the same time, and not just the old ones. I put £2,000 of PBL052 up for sale and it took over 10mins to sell. So pick a time when the BOTS are asleep. 
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ablender
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Post by ablender on Dec 10, 2015 17:20:28 GMT
There are over 5500 lenders on SS. If only 1% of lenders are interested in buying on the SM, then you have a 1 in 55 chance of being the fastest. Not great odds. Good luck with that. Pick a quiet time of day and increase your chances. At around 03:00 hrs this morning there were 13 different loans available at the same time, and not just the old ones. I put £2,000 of PBL052 up for sale and it took over 10mins to sell. So pick a time when the BOTS are asleep. Yes, between 2 and 3 am, this morning, I could not sleep. I added a few £k to my portfolio. No panicking at all.
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awk
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Post by awk on Dec 10, 2015 17:41:21 GMT
Real bots don't go to sleep !!
This is probably a few people who sit there with some autohotkey type script to run. They will click on the loan they want (to open it up) and then hit the hotkey to do the rest.
I think that the box is always in the same position on the screen and we know that if you ask for more than available, you still get what's there.
So, it will position curser, left mouse click, backspace, backspace, backspace, type £1000 (or another fixed amount), return, return.
Yes, currently due to excess demand, it's a bit annoying. I think it will settle down once those individuals fill their boots - they can't make more money once fully invested.
However, if SS ever went down the FC route of premiums/discounts you would see a whole host of sophisticated bots come in to make the big money by trading parts.
Best we just put up with it
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chrisf
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Post by chrisf on Dec 10, 2015 18:13:45 GMT
I don't use bots and I don't seem to have a problem getting bits on the SM. I probably lose about 1 in 10 fastest finger attempts. (probably 1 in 5 after a drawdown frenzy) I don't go on at any particualr time. From 07.30 ish up until about 21.00. Sometimes during the night when I'm on nightshift but almost all of my buying is done during normal hours. I don't think there are bots. savingstream have said they have done research and don't think there are bots. See p2pindependentforum.com/post/77125/threadI'm getting a bit sick of hearing about bots. You're just not fast enough. And, I don't have a fast internet speed. I live in the sticks. Totally agree, I don't have a bot either but if I do fancy spending 10 minutes clicking on refresh then I will generally pick up a few parts. After a new loan goes live I will always buys parts up to a nice whole number deficit and it isn't very hard (do people realise it is quicker to press ctrl V than to type 100?). If you want to know if a human or bot is buying your part, put £50.01 up for sale. A human would buy £50, whereas a bot would buy £50.01.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Dec 10, 2015 18:28:30 GMT
(do people realise it is quicker to press ctrl V than to type 100?) or whatever number
No I didn't but I do now (I am an aged silverback computer dummy still on a learning curve, but not a very steep gradient).
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Dec 10, 2015 18:31:48 GMT
If you want to know if a human or bot is buying your part, put £50.01 up for sale. A human would buy £50, whereas a bot would buy £50.01. Or is that £50.01 a human pasting £100 in? Or is it two humans, one having £20, the other wanting £50 but getting the £30.01 that's left...?
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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 Dec 10, 2015 18:31:51 GMT
If you want to know if a human or bot is buying your part, put £50.01 up for sale. A human would buy £50, whereas a bot would buy £50.01. That doesn't follow at all; I feel as though I'm completely human (apart from the odd bit of something inorganic holding one or two teeth in place ) and in the days when I used to bother with SM purchasing I would have bought the whole £50.01 - it used to be the case that the odd pence could hang around for ages, and I wouldn't have done that to another lender, knowing just how irritating it was to me. That doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment, but I am certainly not the only human who doesn't have that peculiar form of OCD that requires the holding of only exact tens of £.
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ablender
Member of DD Central
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Post by ablender on Dec 10, 2015 18:46:53 GMT
If you want to know if a human or bot is buying your part, put £50.01 up for sale. A human would buy £50, whereas a bot would buy £50.01. That doesn't follow at all; I feel as though I'm completely human (apart from the odd bit of something inorganic holding one or two teeth in place ) and in the days when I used to bother with SM purchasing I would have bought the whole £50.01 - it used to be the case that the odd pence could hang around for ages, and I wouldn't have done that to another lender, knowing just how irritating it was to me. That doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment, but I am certainly not the only human who doesn't have that peculiar form of OCD that requires the holding of only exact tens of £. Does that make you bionic or cyborg?
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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 Dec 10, 2015 18:48:54 GMT
That doesn't follow at all; I feel as though I'm completely human (apart from the odd bit of something inorganic holding one or two teeth in place ) and in the days when I used to bother with SM purchasing I would have bought the whole £50.01 - it used to be the case that the odd pence could hang around for ages, and I wouldn't have done that to another lender, knowing just how irritating it was to me. That doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment, but I am certainly not the only human who doesn't have that peculiar form of OCD that requires the holding of only exact tens of £. Does that make you bionic or cyborg? Definitely both 
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paulg
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Post by paulg on Dec 10, 2015 18:57:01 GMT
The debate (argument?) about whether there are bots on the SM or not could go on indefinitely.
Bots simply automate and therefore mimic the normal process of buying loan parts, so it seems to me to be highly unlikely that any individual purchase could be proved to be a bot or otherwise. However, a recorded and analysed pattern of a number of purchases by an individual, with time stamps, could provide a persuasive argument.
It's been suggested that because certain loan sales at certain times have take a long time to sell, or that because they don't pick up certain loan parts, that this proves that there are no bots; but it doesn't prove anything of the sort. It just demonstrates that either there were none switched on at that moment or that they are programmed selectively.
A number of posters have said that it is easy to write a bot if you have that programming skill (I don't). If that is the case then you can guarantee that bots DO exist and are being used on the SM at times. They will be most in use when there has been a drought of new loans and hence a very competitive SM, and those with a lot of money to invest and a bot at their disposal will use them to gain an edge. They will conversely be least in evidence after a number of new loan loan releases, when everyone's appetite has been temporarily sated - even the bot owners.
In order to eliminate them, or at least drastically reduce their effectiveness, it would be necessary to introduce procedures that will annoy and inconvenience everyone even more than the bots, so really it is just one of those things we're going to have to accept and live with.
There will be cycles of plenty - when bots aren't needed, and cycles of drought - when they will be a PITA. Such is life!
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Post by highlandtiger on Dec 10, 2015 19:17:33 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2015 19:43:17 GMT
if there are bots they arn't very fast, I sat down and took 4 lumps this morning in loans I wanted and then watched the 2nd ops drop down slowly over the next 5 to 10 seconds. Very little say around for 30 seconds.
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chrisf
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Post by chrisf on Dec 10, 2015 19:44:56 GMT
If you want to know if a human or bot is buying your part, put £50.01 up for sale. A human would buy £50, whereas a bot would buy £50.01. That doesn't follow at all; I feel as though I'm completely human (apart from the odd bit of something inorganic holding one or two teeth in place ) and in the days when I used to bother with SM purchasing I would have bought the whole £50.01 - it used to be the case that the odd pence could hang around for ages, and I wouldn't have done that to another lender, knowing just how irritating it was to me. That doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment, but I am certainly not the only human who doesn't have that peculiar form of OCD that requires the holding of only exact tens of £. So what I mean is: Anyone trying to buy the £50.01 would be too late as they would lose out to people who just tried for the £50 because of the 1 extra second it takes to type it. But if there was a bot doing the buying, it wouldn't take any longer to buy £50.01 than £50, so it would go for the whole £50.01.
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cooling_dude
Bye Bye's for the PPI
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Post by cooling_dude on Dec 10, 2015 19:45:36 GMT
Hi guys
I'm not going to get in to the argument if there are, or are not bots present. However, I deposited £48,000.00 on Monday, and by the end of the day I had it all invested on the secondary market. I also had time to sell some I didn't like the look of back onto the market to reinvest to keep all my loans at 100 days+.
Maybe I can help; I was at my computer most of the day, and I get a little “tinkle” from a Chrome app (Distill Web Monitor: which needs a bit of setting up) that tells me when a loan has come onto the market. A combination of fast fingers and luck got me a loan about 50% of the time applying.
Hope that helps some of you guys out
JV
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Dec 10, 2015 20:27:15 GMT
That doesn't follow at all; I feel as though I'm completely human (apart from the odd bit of something inorganic holding one or two teeth in place ) and in the days when I used to bother with SM purchasing I would have bought the whole £50.01 - it used to be the case that the odd pence could hang around for ages, and I wouldn't have done that to another lender, knowing just how irritating it was to me. That doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment, but I am certainly not the only human who doesn't have that peculiar form of OCD that requires the holding of only exact tens of £. So what I mean is: Anyone trying to buy the £50.01 would be too late as they would lose out to people who just tried for the £50 because of the 1 extra second it takes to type it. But if there was a bot doing the buying, it wouldn't take any longer to buy £50.01 than £50, so it would go for the whole £50.01. : Yes, it does take longer to type 50.01 than 50, but someone who's willing to take the pence probably will realise that it doesn't take any longer to type 51 than it does to type 50. I don't think your analysis of the situation considers that possibility. But that's JMHO.
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