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Post by Butch Cassidy on Feb 15, 2017 8:23:33 GMT
Today I am celebrating my “breakeven withdrawal” from this platform, well at least I have now taken out exactly the same amount of Euro’s that I put in (still have a small £ deficit due to adverse currency translations).
I have been invested 3 years & have experienced a massive transformation from an exciting high interest, low default start up, with enthusiastic & engaged lender base through a disastrously managed foreign expansion growth plan (Slovakia 90% defaults, Spain 50%); where lenders funds were treated as expendable in the search for a successful credit scoring model that would apply across starkly different cultures & economies into a much lower return, automated platform that can claim to be a truly hands off investment option with European coverage.
Has my journey been a success? Well in terms of returns I still have a residual portfolio in the low 5 figures, however as any seasoned Bondora investor will warn those headline figures are at best misleading; my dashboard defaults are in the low 3 figures but realistically are all these non performing loans ever going to repay in full, which is assumed in Bondora’s calculations – clearly not. So the true figure is probably 10x that (approx 34 % of the remaining portfolio value) now that is not to say that some recovery isn’t possible, especially now late payers are automatically defaulted to help boost recovery statistics, but my best guess is a single figure % will be returned overall.
This is, however not the whole story, when I signed the contracts Bondora was the recovery agent & absorbed any costs, in fact they actually made it a selling point that recoveries from the established Estonian market often exceeded 100% (full capital + interest + penalties). As they expanded it became clear they could no longer commit the human & financial resources necessary to maintain this activity, despite Bondora claiming otherwise, so proposed outsourcing this to debt collection agencies. In principle this was a good idea but they also decided that investors should bear the open ended, unspecified costs & whilst lenders disagreed this was then imposed for all new loans. I could see that these extra costs twinned with the decline in overall quality of the borrower pool would lead to significant declines in lender returns, so I decided to stop reinvesting & commenced a slow income drawdown.
What was unforgivable IMO was that they also decided to RETROSPECTIVELY IMPOSE THESE EXTRA UNSPECIFIED COSTS ONTO THE EXISTING PORTFOLIO of loans, effectively unilaterally rewriting existing contracts. Obviously existing lenders complained but were again ignored & this abuse of trust was my main reason that I chose to leave & never invest again with this platform. Diverting an unspecified amount of income, expressly against my wishes that was contractually due to my account, to pay a third party is a blatant breach of contract & destroys any level of trust that Bondora are fit & proper individuals to run a financial platform.
I am very satisfied to be at cash breakeven currently & confidently expect between 12-18% pa return overall (bondora dashboard says 26% but again far too bullish & unrealistic a projection) which is wholly due to the trustworthy, reliable & honest Estonian borrowers but as an experienced investor I have been shocked at the level of mismanagement & disinformation that I have witnessed, the trust pilot fiasco was just the latest example, & would strongly advise anyone thinking of investing to look elsewhere; as not only are my levels of return no longer possible but the investing rules can & will be changed at anytime, usually to the detriment of lenders, irrespective of any existing legally binding agreements. All these problems were detailed, at the time, on their own very popular forum but they chose to close it without any archiving, as they preferred to communicate through facebook!
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jo
Member of DD Central
dead
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Post by jo on Feb 15, 2017 9:19:04 GMT
I reached a similar withdrawal milestone in January, having stopped reinvesting late 2015.
In the wash, I expect an eventual xirr of between 2-3% (having sold a bunch of dogs at a fairly punitive discounts).
The upside, if there is one, is that I remained in euro denomination by reinvesting in Mintos so there's a currency gain on top of a decent rate...and no defaults (so far).
gl
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Post by gmaxkenny on Feb 15, 2017 14:38:39 GMT
That sums up the way Bondora has developed the past few years although according to some us "pioneers" should stop "whining" and "deal with it". Even with all the evidence staring them in the face some still believe they know better or that for them it will be different. We early investors were a bit too trusting but any newbies fall into the category of "fools and their money are easily parted".
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Post by mopcku on Feb 15, 2017 17:17:37 GMT
What was unforgivable IMO was that they also decided to RETROSPECTIVELY IMPOSE THESE EXTRA UNSPECIFIED COSTS ONTO THE EXISTING PORTFOLIO of loans, effectively unilaterally rewriting existing contracts. Obviously existing lenders complained but were again ignored & this abuse of trust was my main reason that I chose to leave & never invest again with this platform. Diverting an unspecified amount of income, expressly against my wishes that was contractually due to my account, to pay a third party is a blatant breach of contract & destroys any level of trust that Bondora are fit & proper individuals to run a financial platform.
Did someone tried to sue them?
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p2pmaster
investment is life.
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Post by p2pmaster on Feb 17, 2017 8:12:30 GMT
I guess so, larger investors are more active and have more resources to defend their interest. These cases must have been resolved under confidentiality clause, so Bondora prevents other claims from investors.
Martha, how many cases have Bondora been involved as a defendant from investors?
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Post by marthaskirta on Feb 20, 2017 7:04:55 GMT
I guess so, larger investors are more active and have more resources to defend their interest. These cases must have been resolved under confidentiality clause, so Bondora prevents other claims from investors. Martha, how many cases have Bondora been involved as a defendant from investors? I have explained the necessary changes made to the agreements and to our process in several threads in here and also explained that the changes were in accordance with the legislation. But answer to your question is: none.
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Post by Butch Cassidy on Feb 20, 2017 9:30:09 GMT
I guess so, larger investors are more active and have more resources to defend their interest. These cases must have been resolved under confidentiality clause, so Bondora prevents other claims from investors. Martha, how many cases have Bondora been involved as a defendant from investors? I have explained the necessary changes made to the agreements and to our process in several threads in here and also explained that the changes were in accordance with the legislation. But answer to your question is: none. In this new world of FAKE NEWS & ALTERNATIVE FACTS I would be interested to know which EU legislation specifically allows companies to appropriate income that is contractual due to it's customers to effectively subsides it's own cost of business?
Was it not simply a disgraceful, cowardly change in Bondora's own internal T&C that allowed what is effectively theft from customers accounts? Is there any limit on how much can be claimed by DCA's, either by % of recovery or fixed Euro cap?
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r1200gs
Member of DD Central
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Post by r1200gs on Mar 28, 2017 21:58:15 GMT
I'm happy to be out of Bondora with a 5 percent loss. It could have been worse.
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Post by gmaxkenny on Mar 29, 2017 2:11:13 GMT
I'm happy to be out of Bondora with a 5 percent loss. It could have been worse. " Free at last,free at last,thank god almighty we are free at last" Martin Luther King Well done r1200gs, now that you are free the rest of us will soon follow. Amen
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Post by nellerdk on May 30, 2017 19:52:59 GMT
for those of you who lost money on Bondora, how many A, B , C , D etc loans did you have each, in percentage of your total portfolio?
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JamesFrance
Member of DD Central
Port Grimaud 1974
Posts: 1,323
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Post by JamesFrance on May 31, 2017 8:03:09 GMT
Most loans made by many of us were made under an earlier rating system and mainly scored A1000 which was the top grade.
When the new system emerged these loans were often changed to HR, which even happened to a loan I made to * ******* who was buying a new car.
Of course those older HR loans were not made at the current interest rates for HR loans.
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starfished
Member of DD Central
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Post by starfished on May 31, 2017 22:48:17 GMT
for those of you who lost money on Bondora, how many A, B , C , D etc loans did you have each, in percentage of your total portfolio? As James says, when many people invested it was under the old system of 1000, 900 etc, where the expectation was that 1000 was low risk. As the table below shows from my book, when I had planned for c. 90% to be in "lower risk". In practice it was closer to c. 50% more worryingly c. 10% turned out to be very high risk loans indeed. Most UK investors on Bondora I would suggest had had experience of Zopa Listings, so had a reasonable view of default risk if information had been communicated appropriately. I cannot recall if this came from Bondora itself or from a forum member but apparently it later transpired that 1000 meant both "lower risk" OR "insufficient information to determine what level of risk they represented i.e. no evidence of anything bad". This obviously undermined trust when they moved to the new rating approach. Headline rates of 25% of Returns of course come with a certain level of risk... 
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Post by petebutt43 on Jun 19, 2017 7:52:19 GMT
I am very satisfied to be at cash breakeven currently & confidently expect between 12-18% pa return overall (bondora dashboard says 26% but again far too bullish & unrealistic a projection) which is wholly due to the trustworthy, reliable & honest Estonian borrowers but as an experienced investor I have been shocked at the level of mismanagement & disinformation that I have witnessed, the trust pilot fiasco was just the latest example, & would strongly advise anyone thinking of investing to look elsewhere; as not only are my levels of return no longer possible but the investing rules can & will be changed at anytime, usually to the detriment of lenders, irrespective of any existing legally binding agreements. All these problems were detailed, at the time, on their own very popular forum but they chose to close it without any archiving, as they preferred to communicate through facebook!
You are VERY lucky. I am still 2k in the hole!! (admittedly partly my fault, but also due to a poorly executed platform change.
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Post by Butch Cassidy on Jun 19, 2017 13:08:42 GMT
There is a strong degree of correlation between how lucky I appear & the amount of hard work & DD, both individual & collectively via the old forum, that I put into building my portfolio  .
With large numbers of 3 - 5 year loans the initial efforts of selecting & rejecting manual loan purchases are now paying dividends but I agree platform changes have significantly disadvantaged lenders overall. For example it was impossible to predict that many of my late paying loans would be classed as defaults, even though they paid regularly albeit late & then 50%+ of my income stream from these would be stolen from my account & given to DCA's both against my wishes & the terms of the contract that I agreed. I am very happy I ceased any new investment when I did, as my results would now be impossible to replicate & Bondora have proved themselves to be unfit individuals to run an investment platform.
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Post by amoult on Nov 8, 2017 6:58:35 GMT
Exit is now complete! Phew.. what I ride! Ended up having return of ~5% p.a. (before taxes). So maybe real net returns of 3,5% p.a. Last loans in my portfolio I just dumped with steep discount to be done with it. I absolutely hate how Bondora just kept changing things without announcing them first. Taking control away from investors (like country selection) and telling that it's somehow better for the investors! Yeah.. why would I like to invest only on Estonian loans when we have these juicy Spanish loans? Above all I hated their deceiving reporting and overly optimistic return calculation methods. E.g. how they calculate defaulted amounts. If a loan has not paid a penny for couple of years somehow they calculate that planned payment 1.12.2017 is not late yet  |
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