Finished on the P2P forum?

Steve

It is very sad that it has come to this.  The more you respond to concerns, the more it encourages people to dig further.  Some other platforms would appear to have come to the same conclusion as you.

On the positive side:
- this forum brings business to your platform.  I, for one, invested in your platform having read about you here.  And I only invest in platforms that have a strong forum presence.
- it is more efficient for you to address a concern once here for everyone to see, rather than have everyone contacting the platform individually, or worse people just not investing because they cannot understand it.
- in spite of all the repetition and grief the forum remains an effective way for you to find out what worries your investors.
- I have often found your responses to concerns informative.

So I like your suggested compromise of rationing your responses in a predictable way that we can all understand.

Well I would never have started with (or even heard of) BondMason without the input on this forum. Your willingness to deal with difficult questions openly is a positive from my personal point of view.

But thats purely anecdotal. I have no idea what % of BondMasons clients or total portfolio amount has any connection to this forum.

So whether or not you get a tangible business benefit from being on this forum... only you guys can answer that.

There is a lot of good stuff on this forum. There is also a lot of noise. This place can be a good sounding board if you ignore those with an obvious axe to grind.

Being a rep on these boards is not too dissimilar to online dating... Every now and again you need to have a break for your own sanity 

For what it is worth, I will probably be closing my account (I am very much a small fish) but understand your motivation, especially after the last few days.

It was transparently obvious that such a low entry level/fee never made any real long term business sense for such a complex product but rather that it offered a promotional opportunity for people to sample this product for a very small outlay. The only surprise is that this opportunity lasted as long as it did. From the recently released figures of 500+  total client base it seems that perhaps around a half of these accounts were either running at a loss or making very little profit at all.

If I was running such a business in this state I would not be at all sad to lose such a millstone from around my neck, on the contrary I would be elated.

Perhaps the perplexed perspectives from outside the Perspex Box should try harder to understand the perspective from within it.

The real problem with the transparency issue here is to understand the machinations that are going on within the box and how they should be used for the mutual advantage of the platform operator and the clients.

If everything was so transparently obvious and easy to understand there would be no need for all these questions here and the difficulties in understanding the answers.

So yes you have to be here to explain your business case and how it all works as no one else is suitably qualified. It just makes sense to take a low profile at the moment until the Aunt Sally bashing craze dies down and sensible discussions can resume again.

There is a correlation between how popular a platform is and how well they communicate on this forum. I'd say it would be better for BM if you continue to post here. 

I'm not an investor but I do think BM offer a useful service. 

stevefindlay I can only hope the strongly one sided vote shows how valued your contributions directly to the forum are, although you've been facing a barrage of accusations, I really feel these are from a minority who through being so vociferous in their anger drown out the many many less vocal forum members who read and hugely appreciate your open and helpful approach.

It's only my opinion but if someone is going to get so frustrated by not reaching their target performance on a p2p platform or a well notified change of terms on a new and developing platform they really need to leave p2p and head back to the certainty of an FSCA protected bank account.  At the very least if it doesn't suit them, take your money to a platform you prefer without stating crazy intentions to complain to the FCA about a well explained and well executed change of terms as you depart!

I actually say this despite the fact I intend to liquidate but that is neither due to the excellent service on offer or your approach, I simply don't want to invest more outside of a tax wrapper.  I've asked previously but is the IFISA still something you are progressing with/intending to offer?  I for one will certainly be back with a larger deposit if this become a reality.

I'll finish by saying that I understand why you would consider leaving, at times I don't know where you find the patience to deal with certain posts but I strongly vote for a continued presence!

The problem as I'm sure you're already aware stevefindlay is that if you answer one simple question then the whole thread sometimes goes off at a tangent and the last post a few pages on bears little resemblence to the OP query. If however the time spent answering these questions is not impacting the business then from a PR point of view your presence is welcomed. On the other hand if it is then........

Personally I think you should scale back to your suggestion of once a week and then only answer direct questions. There's always going to be folks unhappy/disappointed and really there's no answer to this apart from withdraw and go elsewhere if they are so inclined. So IMO, answers should be limited to general direct queries which are relevant to the business as a whole. The BM website is already fairly clear and I cannot see the point in repeating on the forum information that is already available elsewhere.

On another point, if the forum negatives are having an impact on your personal life then withdraw - it's not worth it. Forum members do afterall make up a small minority.