adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Feb 17, 2016 15:25:13 GMT
Placed somewhere between 5 and 10 bids, was successful on 3 but from that point onwards, got the recaptchas everytime so it became impossible. I guess there must be some kind of frequency check (at around 10ish bids) whereby it assumes that you can't be a real person if all you're doing is sitting at the computer 10ish times ticking "I am not a robot"  . Even after logging off and coming back an hour later, tried 3 times, got the recaptcha's. Perhaps I need to get a life  I think it just works throughout the day and resets after midnight. That's my experience anyway. I also get some limited success by switching browsers; in fact, I can go for quite a while on MS Edge with getting pictures for some reason. I didn't get one single tick without pictures. Not one. And I've not seen them on any site for ages. But I've got ublock origin installed as an add-and-tracker blocker, so am probably suspicious...
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ianj
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Post by ianj on Feb 17, 2016 15:37:58 GMT
Two successes from 70-80 attempts. Appears that some investors are 'more equal than others'!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2016 15:40:10 GMT
Well it's fairly easy that takes the early lead, but hard to invest is coming back. Its hard to invest by a head over the final furlong ... it's neck and neck.  |
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tomtom
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Post by tomtom on Feb 17, 2016 15:46:43 GMT
I managed to get a few successful bids in, so long as I didn't get the street name question. Has anyone ever got that right? When you start getting the street signs, your all but stuffed; it's basically Google saying "your definitely a bot; solve this impossible task"  . They usually only start to appear if you've been bidding on the SM consistently over a short period. Change browsers, or give it a rest for a couple of hours, and it should go back to normal pictures. thanks for this information thought i was only person who could not give the correct answer to the street question
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Feb 17, 2016 15:49:52 GMT
I only use the SM to sell as I'm fully invested, and in that sense it works superbly. Not one of the 20 or so parts I listed for sale lasted more than a few seconds (although they were all high-demand parts with 100+ days to run). The one thing I'm coming round to supporting (as I don't think it would have any material effect on SM selling liquidity) is a maximum SM purchase lot size. It seems unfair to me that one bidder can grab, say, an £80k loan part when they may only want £5k. Yes, the rest will find its way back into the SM soon enough, where another "player" will grab £75k in one go. The net result is a lot of unhappy lenders chasing modest amounts without success. It seems to me that savingstream could put a £1000 cap on all SM purchases, so anyone wanting £5k would need to bid 5 times. That way, an £80k part would probably go to 50+ bidders, not just 1. |
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Feb 17, 2016 15:51:31 GMT
When you start getting the street signs, your all but stuffed; it's basically Google saying "your definitely a bot; solve this impossible task" . They usually only start to appear if you've been bidding on the SM consistently over a short period. Change browsers, or give it a rest for a couple of hours, and it should go back to normal pictures. thanks for this information thought i was only person who could not give the correct answer to the street question Street signs are easy. Cookies or cactuses or tea,  ...?
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Feb 17, 2016 15:57:45 GMT
thanks for this information thought i was only person who could not give the correct answer to the street question Street signs are easy. Cookies or cactuses or tea, ...? I got one of the cactus sets "correct" even though I knew damned well that one picture I clicked was an Aloe (may have been an Agave - it was very blurred) not a cactus! 
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star dust
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Post by star dust on Feb 17, 2016 16:27:21 GMT
Haven't read much on the Forum yet, so maybe I've missed it, but am I the only one who got chucked out and had several 'site down' notifications? Gave up in disgust and didn't even find out how much of Tranch D I'd got until now. I'll wait 'till it quietens down (assuming it might) before I try and sort anything out, but it looks like that can only be selling down and not re-balancing.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2016 16:29:28 GMT
All those saying it's hard to buy should try now. Thousands are just sitting there  |
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cooling_dude
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Post by cooling_dude on Feb 17, 2016 16:30:41 GMT
Haven't read much on the Forum yet, so maybe I've missed it, but am I the only one who got chucked out and had several 'site down' notifications? Gave up in disgust and didn't even find out how much of Tranch D I'd got until now. I'll wait 'till it quietens down (assuming it might) before I try and sort anything out, but it looks like that can only be selling down and not re-balancing. It was mentioned, but there as no long outage; p2pindependentforum.com/post/92580/thread
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Feb 17, 2016 16:31:01 GMT
I think captchas, however annoying, are a necessary evil to ward off bots. With the current implementation there are ways to minimise their impact on you but frankly I cba (I also consider it to be slightly exploitative behaviour but am sure that others will disagree ). That having been said the root cause of today's frustrations is people over-bidding on pre-funding. Over-bidding on pre-funding causes:- 1. "Right size" bidders to be less likely to hit their targets. 2. "Over-bidders" are guaranteed to miss their real targets and will have to dump excess on the SM. 3. Both of which lead result in people having to jump through captcha hoops to buy parts on the SM which can be extremely frustrating. 4. Which then turns into a mad frenzy as people continually fail to get anything. 5. Which leads to system slow down as people refresh / fail bids and then rinse and repeat. (6. The risk that an "over-bidder" will one day get burnt - it wasn't so long ago that a bot user bought a thousand times their target on a loan by mistake.......). I did manage to buy about six small parts before captcha came down on me but after it did I had no success whatsoever, regardless of whether or not I got the captcha correct. This took me a couple of hours. I guess I had in the region of fifty or sixty failed bids. So some suggestions (which I am sure not everybody will agree with):- 1. Bottom up funding on the primary market. 2. Implement a target system for secondary market bids and then distribute loan parts as they become available (take your pick of methods to do this). 3. Lock a part on the SM when somebody enters the captcha process for that potential transaction and until they have either completed the transaction or left the transaction rather than solely when a transaction has been completed, because what is really annoying is going to the trouble of seeing £xxxx on the SM on a loan you want, clicking on the loan page, entering the amount, clicking on the "I am not a robot" check box, winning the captcha, and then finding out that there's nothing left. And then doing it dozens of times more. |
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Feb 17, 2016 16:31:30 GMT
All those saying it's hard to buy should try now. Thousands are just sitting there Three minutes later there's less than £350 available.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Feb 17, 2016 16:31:56 GMT
If the borrowers had paid back when the loans became due they wouldn't have to sit there. Too risky for me.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Feb 17, 2016 16:37:40 GMT
...clicking on the "I am not a robot" check box, winning the captcha, and then finding out that there's nothing left. And then doing it dozens of times more.
If there is nothing left don't click invest, just wait. You may have to refresh your street signs skill a few times, but you will have a far better chance of getting the next loan part. Unfortunately that means you can't see anything else happening, so really need to have two or three windows open on a large monitor.
All a pain in the ....errrr UNOWOT really
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Post by fiatlender on Feb 17, 2016 16:43:10 GMT
I voted easy.
Only got filled on approx half of my prefund, but was successful in getting the rest on the SM within minutes of them being launched. Got filled on 7 of the 8 tries I made using the SM.
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. They usually only start to appear if you've been bidding on the SM consistently over a short period. Change browsers, or give it a rest for a couple of hours, and it should go back to normal pictures.
...?
