[ANN] BTCJam - Peer to Peer Bitcoin Lending

[Tulkas]

BTCJam is awesome! I've been investing on it for a couple days now and am very impressed. I've already had one payment back. On the whole it's very pretty, fast, and intuitive. I always wanted to see peer to peer lending and Bitcoin, and you've made it!

Thanks so much,
Teran

PS: It would be nice to see the user's Bitcoin-OTC details on the loan request details page :-).

Thanks!! I'm glad you liked it!

The bitcoin-otc details are comming, you can vote for this feature or request new ones on our uservoice gadget.

[Tulkas]

Wishlist for the future when the business is more established: A graphical representation of my invested funds and returns... and also showing any defaulted payments so I can get an easy overview of how my investments are going and my ROI.

Thanks Seal, we will be adding this feature to the dashboard soon.

[ercolinux]

In the payments section there is no record of the  received payments: if you have only 2 or 3 investment maybe you can remember who is that have payed you, but if you have more is not so simple.
It should be possible to leave the payed investments in the list with the "Payed" status?

[420]

Does the system automatically paybacks loans when due if our account balance is over the payments due for the loan we took?

just noticed "create automated plan" but it says "coming soon" after clicking...

[Vod]

just noticed "create automated plan" but it says "coming soon" after clicking...

I assume an automated plan will let an investor auto invest in a listing that meets a certain criteria.

[420]

just noticed "create automated plan" but it says "coming soon" after clicking...

I assume an automated plan will let an investor auto invest in a listing that meets a certain criteria.

i assumed it was for paying BACK investors

[Tulkas]

just noticed "create automated plan" but it says "coming soon" after clicking...

I assume an automated plan will let an investor auto invest in a listing that meets a certain criteria.

i assumed it was for paying BACK investors

The automated plan will invest automatically.

[Digigami]

Does your system automatically report overdue accounts to you? Or where are we supposed to go report them?

This user has two loans which are now overdue on payments.
https://btcjam.com/users/25

.. Tulkas, I still await your response. As operator of the site are you going to actively push delinquent account holders to square up loans? Or is it up to the lenders themselves to try and enforce settlement? I can't find any information on the site for contingency when loans default.

[Tulkas]

Does your system automatically report overdue accounts to you? Or where are we supposed to go report them?

This user has two loans which are now overdue on payments.
https://btcjam.com/users/25

.. Tulkas, I still await your response. As operator of the site are you going to actively push delinquent account holders to square up loans? Or is it up to the lenders themselves to try and enforce settlement? I can't find any information on the site for contingency when loans default.

I'm sorry, since this was already answered two times on this thread i forgot to answer.
One response here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112447.msg1223097#msg1223097

We are working right now in order to establish legal means to report this debit to collection agencies but for now and as our service policy states, the verification process intends to prevent scammers to setup multiple high scored accounts. We will notify all the lenders when we have updates. I can assure you this is our top priority right now.

[Digigami]

Does your system automatically report overdue accounts to you? Or where are we supposed to go report them?

This user has two loans which are now overdue on payments.
https://btcjam.com/users/25

.. Tulkas, I still await your response. As operator of the site are you going to actively push delinquent account holders to square up loans? Or is it up to the lenders themselves to try and enforce settlement? I can't find any information on the site for contingency when loans default.

I'm sorry, since this was already answered two times on this thread i forgot to answer.
One response here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112447.msg1223097#msg1223097

We are working right now in order to establish legal means to report this debit to collection agencies but for now and as our service policy states, the verification process intends to prevent scammers to setup multiple high scored accounts. We will notify all the lenders when we have updates. I can assure you this is our top priority right now.

I apologize, I missed where the situation was addressed before.

[Rassah]

Regarding reporting loans to debt collection agencies, be careful to make sure your loans have sane terms. I think US passed a law limiting interest loan rates a few years back. A 300% APR loan could be considered impossible to pay back, and will likely not be pursued.

[emuLOAD]

A feature I'm really missing from the site which I hope you can provide at some point would be that of having a facility for extracting structured data from the site.

Of particular interest to me, a CSV file detailing the same data as per the "next payments" listing would be very useful.

[Tulkas]

A feature I'm really missing from the site which I hope you can provide at some point would be that of having a facility for extracting structured data from the site.

Of particular interest to me, a CSV file detailing the same data as per the "next payments" listing would be very useful.

Yes, we are working on a payment calendar along with some charts. CSV not started, you can vote for that feature on our uservoice widget.

[emuLOAD]

First payment received  , and first payment defaulted

When a borrower defaults on a payment does the site allow him time to repay later? If so, for how long?
Also, does the site keep track of the last time a user visited the site?

Now, the default is only of 24 hours so I'm hopeful that he'll pay up soon, but at the same time I was wondering if the site gives borrowers a facility to post announcements/messages regarding the statu so of his belated payment explaining why he is late and when he expects to be able to cover his debt.

Are there penalties involved with repaying late(er than a certain ammount of time after the deadline)?


I do have to add that i'm a bit disappointed that received payments disappear of the list... would be nice to have a "Past payments to you" list as well.

edit:
PS, just browing another listing from the user that defaulted to check, there is no immediate visible tag/notice that a user is late on paying another active loan. You will find out when following the links to existing loans, however it would be nice if under reputation we could have some sort of red tag (e.g. overdue paiments pending or something on those line).

[squall1066]

Tulkas, Is there a reason your ignoring me? I'm not against you, I like your idea and want to see this grow into something more tangible.

Please don't take my ranting as anger, I'm merely pointing out things to "make better"

In my P.M. which I have not had response to, Basically my e-mail is xxxxxx@gmail.com but when I use the quick link gmail login button, It logs me on as xxxxxx@googlemail.com Is there a way to link these e-mails, As they are the same?

I am now actively lending there, But I'm still worried I cant do a full withdraw, And constantly getting errors. I hope your on this now.

regards
squall1066

[emuLOAD]

squall1066, you must be from the UK am I right?

essentially what happened is that Google lost a trademark dispute over gmail in the UK (and IIRC Germany), whereby they are not allowed to provide the service under that name. For that reason UK users have an @googlemail.com domain, but there is no practical difference as both addresses ought to work for you. you can quickly test this by mailing yourself.

[Tulkas]

Tulkas, Is there a reason your ignoring me? I'm not against you, I like your idea and want to see this grow into something more tangible.

Please don't take my ranting as anger, I'm merely pointing out things to "make better"

In my P.M. which I have not had response to, Basically my e-mail is xxxxxx@gmail.com but when I use the quick link gmail login button, It logs me on as xxxxxx@googlemail.com Is there a way to link these e-mails, As they are the same?

I am now actively lending there, But I'm still worried I cant do a full withdraw, And constantly getting errors. I hope your on this now.

regards
squall1066

Hello squall1066, can you please email support@btcjam.com with the withdraw error?

I will see if we can link the accounts.

[streblo]

Nowhere does it say the period of the rates, e.g., annual.

[Tulkas]

Nowhere does it say the period of the rates, e.g., annual.

Just bellow the rate box you will see "You will pay this rate at every payment cycle"

So, if you choose a payment cycle o 30 days with a rate of 1% it means you will be paying 1% per month of interest.

The methodology is better explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-rate_mortgage#Pricing

[streblo]

Nowhere does it say the period of the rates, e.g., annual.

Just bellow the rate box you will see "You will pay this rate at every payment cycle"

So, if you choose a payment cycle o 30 days with a rate of 1% it means you will be paying 1% per month of interest.

The methodology is better explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-rate_mortgage#Pricing

Okay, fair enough. I would still make it clearer. You have more need for capital than loans, so I would cater to investors as much as possible. Such as making "loan amount" and "rate" their own headers and sort by value, not alphabetically. I would also standardize the loan rate with APR, etc. 1%/wk is the same as 4.06%/month, for example.  In this listing, it says the debtor pays out on the 1st of the month, but the term is 30 days. If the loan is distributed on the 25th, when is payment?

This is a great site that could really take off, but I think the ambiguity and cosmetic blemishes will scare investors away.