That website again ..

I had a long and comprehensive answer to a number of questions around both the issues with payments on bank holidays and also the performance of the website over the last week.

On Direct Debits: FC take the money 5 days before due date. There is then 3 days of processing before the money is available to be paid to investors. This makes allowance for normal weekends, but not bank holidays. The message I got that all loans due to be paid on a bank holiday would end up in the 'processing' bucket until the time lag works its way through. I did ask why FC couldn't take the money a day earlier when there was a bank holiday and got told that the system wasn't flexible enough to do this only for Bank Holidays, but would have to be done for all days - which they weren't prepared to do.

On performance of website (including trapped bids) - caused by a server linkage, which should be fixed now. Trapped bids occur when individual investors place large number of bids per minute and the system can't cope. There is still a small chance that this will reoccur, but FC stated that they are setting up a database to monitor - which should reduce the manual process to free these bids.

I also have had trouble downloading certain reports - I still get the answer that it is a problem with my Browser (IE9) and that I should use Google Chrome / Firefox. Has anyone else who's had trouble downloading files tried these other browsers recently and has it worked?

Not had any Download issues using Firefox. The FC website does seem to upset more recent versions of ie, where you need to add it to trusted sites to get half the pages to work ok. I do get plenty of errors, 500s and 502s, but only sporadic and not related to downloads.

Over about 30 Minutes the rate tumbled from about 14.3% to 12.2%, with a fall of around £20k at each step. It is well known that live update struggles to keep up, and it is hardly surprising when bids come in at these volumes. As suggested on the page an accurate picture can be given by refreshing, or turn off live update. 

I am puzzled as to why this loan stayed so high for a week, with the final frenzy of manual and bot bidders desperately trying to snap up bargains at the end. 

As to making a complaint, you have not suffered an actual loss, only from your own failure to refresh the page, or risk some bids at a slightly lower than the indicated rate.

Hi Yorkshireman. I had a similar experience and my few hundred pounds at 12.2 % were chucked out, but still with £29,740 successful at 12.2%. There were nearly 300 successful bids lower than mine and yours in the last minute alone, though no large bids. When I bid, a few mins before the end, it was pretty clear, from past experience, that 12.3 was likely to be lost and I just misjudged the rate and should have gone for 12.1 - which I did for a small 'repayments' bid on another account just a minute earlier.

Ok so the system is a bit pants, but we know that and we win a few and lose a few - it may not be taken up, another one will be along. All this emotion is not really justified, and the stress can cause be damaging. It's good to let off steam here, but complaints and regulators and conspiracies - all a bit over the top. You've lost nothing except your temper (and so do I sometimes).

I wasn’t suggesting that I had suffered any loss other than, as goldservice says, a lost opportunity to bid, my failure to refresh the page or place lower bids is my fault entirely.

The basis of my complaint is that FC, as a regulated ONLINE (and that’s the key consideration) financial service provider, is failing to provide a website that functions properly and could be considered unfit for purpose therefore are they capable of and should they be allowed to conduct business that involves other people’s money?

Yes banks have IT problems from time to time but not with the same regularity as FC.

Well the number of 50x errors, DNS crapouts, and timeouts, have in general been much reduced, although I still see (a few) at the end of busy auctions. Also I'm still detecting the website lying about the bids status (i.e. the total of 'live bids' exceeds the total available) .. e.g.

16/07/2014 11:08:32 Auction 6871 Excess bids of £1500 corrected

but not as much as previously. I'm still seeing incorrect FC totals ('trapped bids') but they are getting fixed within an hour in most cases.

With 'live updates' turned OFF, and using page refresh, the data has been accurate enough to stay in both the auctions mentioned (although 6832 was not too exciting, I think I only wanted/bought 2*£20s at the end of the day). 6859 I fell out at 12.2%, just got back in at 12.1% (IIRC I am assuming these auctions will run for 30 seconds more than is on the clock, when I judge what/where to bid, so I guess the infrastructure is ~30 seconds behind reality). I believe 6859 was one of those hammered early on by tall****, so there were few MBR/auto bids, and the rate hung high for a very long time. Quite likely it won't get taken up - the final rate is not attractive for an A (compare with 6858). Goes to show that FC's current  'point the autobid money at the unfunded auctions' works to detriment of borrowers, as well as the dumb autobid users.

However the overall website is NOT getting better in a really notable way, and FC tech team have been rather quiet (for several months now) as to what they are actually doing, and what effect it is having, and when they'll finish. Presumably their boss(es) get more info than we do. If I was running them, there'd have been some serious fingernail pulling by now, maybe a hanging or two to encourage the others. 8>.

# Heartbleed? Why do you fail when my mousey clicks on thee?

I wonder if it's fallout from patching (failing to patch, eek?)