[ANN] BTCJam - Peer to Peer Bitcoin Lending

[owlcatz]

I would like share my story about BTCJam.
We are developing mmorpg game and we need 1 more game programmer but we cant hire because we didnt have enough money so i decide to join btcjam.
i create loan request (borrow) 1 btc they review my request but they decline .
Here is copy of message :
"Your loan listing did not have sufficient information
Your loan listing was not considered a real loan
Your loan listing contained inconsistent information
But my story was real and i was add proof about our business."

it was just 1 btc for help us and i was chose 365 day period easy to pay back.
Sadly ,i think they are really scammers could be ponzi scheme.
Info :Interesting i saw a lot of ppl they ask borrow over 25 - 30 btc and they get it however when normal user wants 1 btc or 0.5 they not approve that.

Good. That means that your game is shitty and no one wanted to invest. Go back to the drawing board.

Edit. Just kidding. They are just being more cautious now, probably because of people like myself posting negative info about their site.

As for the older scammers, yes they got away with it. They seem to be trying stop the new ones like you, so good for them.  

[h3rlihy]

Jam did crap for me. Advertised an autoinvest rate of 10+% so I chucked some cash in to give it a shot and set it on maximum diversity as wide a spread as possible and am at -10% after 6 months.

[owlcatz]

Jam did crap for me. Advertised an autoinvest rate of 10+% so I chucked some cash in to give it a shot and set it on maximum diversity as wide a spread as possible and am at -10% after 6 months.

Yes, because all those loans are based on btc price AT THE TIME. Now that it has risen, your returns of btc will show less. Another shitty aspect of this scammer site, even if you have made actual fiat, you are still losing actual btc, yet possibly gaining in fiat, which is not your overall intention, correct?

[pallas]

can't login, error 500

[btiAndy]

can't login, error 500

Same here

[h3rlihy]

Is fine for me again now in the UK

[yorker]

Anyone with tutanota email was able to withdraw?

I receive confirmation emails with no URL, just a button, which opens a blank page.

I also can't change email address, because, again, it sends an empty confirmation.

(support stopped responding after a standard "look into your spam folder and add our email to contacts" reply)

[MonsterV]

Is there someone here got response when email to support? I sent several times to email service but no response
so I just wanted to know if anyone experiencing the same thing or maybe my country entered the block list BTCjam
thanks to whoever answered 

[owlcatz]

Is there someone here got response when email to support? I sent several times to email service but no response
so I just wanted to know if anyone experiencing the same thing or maybe my country entered the block list BTCjam
thanks to whoever answered 

Good luck on that site. It's built for scammers, and run by them as well.

[MonsterV]

Is there someone here got response when email to support? I sent several times to email service but no response
so I just wanted to know if anyone experiencing the same thing or maybe my country entered the block list BTCjam
thanks to whoever answered 

Good luck on that site. It's built for scammers, and run by them as well.

But I see a lot of loans and active investor there  I was one of the investors there so I wonder whether this problem only occurs on me or also to other users. link you gave seems to be just someone who can not meet the account verification it does not answer my question mate 

[owlcatz]

Is there someone here got response when email to support? I sent several times to email service but no response
so I just wanted to know if anyone experiencing the same thing or maybe my country entered the block list BTCjam
thanks to whoever answered 

Good luck on that site. It's built for scammers, and run by them as well.

But I see a lot of loans and active investor there  I was one of the investors there so I wonder whether this problem only occurs on me or also to other users. link you gave seems to be just someone who can not meet the account verification it does not answer my question mate 

No, I linked you to a list of people / scammers who have defaulted on loans there. Your "answer" was implied, sorry - It's a scam site - They selectively scam customers - Yes, their support is crap, they rarely answer emails, they lock out accounts, freeze withdrawals, and do nothing about people running away with our bitcoins. So, I tried, sorry. 

[btiAndy]

Long I know but please bear with me, here is potentially an interesting case study on BTCJam ethics and operating procedures…

Our players today:
User A: Eric, https://btcjam.com/users/492138 , https://www.facebook.com/eric.palmer.718, Forum ID: Einvestmentstrade
User B:  Kelley, https://btcjam.com/users/512409, https://www.facebook.com/AdamTehBeast?fref=ufi, Forum ID: Servsunlimited

Our two Users open up Bitcointalk Forum ID’s within minutes of each other. Both decide to open up BTCJam accounts, get verified and within a few days of each other take loans out. User A writes a nice Recommendation for User B and User B does the same for User A. User A is claiming he wants to buy stock for his ebay store while User B wants to start a loansharking business…(OK…pretty obvious this guy is a piece-of-shit but User B is not the point of this story...in retrospect Auto-Invest is a very bad idea).

User A takes his loan out for circa 1BTC (https://btcjam.com/listings/56087-a-little-push-to-help-my-business-)  and apparently makes his first monthly payment early to the delight of his investors (including User B who has invested .0001 BTC). User B has taken out his loan by now however repayment is on a weekly basis (  https://btcjam.com/listings/55913-new-business-startup).

As User B misses his first payment of course we investors all start doing a bit of the basic due-diligence that we admittedly should have done prior to investing but would have expected BTCJam to conduct. Investigating User B a bit further one clicks on his profile page to find that glowing recommendation from his friend User A “Eric”…sadly though, according to the profile page of User B, friend Eric has been since end of February 2016 suspended by BTCJam; when clicking further to Eric’s User page though (https://btcjam.com/users/492138) there is no sign of this suspension …one only finds an active loan that is actively being repaid.

On the surface all seems fine. User B is a scammer, but apart from being suspended and having written the recommendation User A is no problem. As the months go by the loan continues to be serviced, Notes are traded, BTCJam earns money…everyone is happy.

Except User A never got his money. User A  is contacted in connection with User B via Facebook and he demonstrates a very believable case for this fact. He acknowledges his association with User B.  It is pretty clear also from his history that if he had gotten the money in the first place he would not be paying it back just like his buddy User B. The supposed store that User A was running does not exist. These two signed up to BTCJam with the intention to scam.

I believe the scam was successful in the case of User B, however User A got caught somehow by BTCJam before funds were distributed and they did the right thing by suspending him. What is happening now though I am not sure…my suspicion is that BTCJam is making payments automatically out of the remaining principal invested, allowing them to keep their statistics and make money on the trading of Notes as well benefiting from the price fluctuations in BTC.

Another example of this type of suspicious activity can be found on https://btcjam.com/listings/55564-localbitcoin-seller-startup. In this loan one of the Investors has also surmised that the payments are being made automatically from the principal loan of the investors… eventually this money will run out and the loan will go into default.

I will not deny that my overall feelings about BTCJam are pretty negative and as a result of their actions over the last few months I stand to lose a fair amount of my investments in general. I have enough of “normal scammer” loans littering my BTCJam portfolio, this one documented above is just too suspicious to ignore.
 

[Kelly_Jonathan]

 I sent the documents for verification, connected my paypal and facebook profiles. I was a complete system verification and issued me a credit rating of C-. I have applied for a loan, my application was rejected. After that, I can not start a new application for the loan gives an error Low Credit Score. But my credit rating C-  .   Administration of this site received my personal information, and can use for their own purposes. I have fulfilled all the requirements of theirs, they have to get my information - this is fraud with personal data.

[btiAndy]

I sent the documents for verification, connected my paypal and facebook profiles. I was a complete system verification and issued me a credit rating of C-. I have applied for a loan, my application was rejected. After that, I can not start a new application for the loan gives an error Low Credit Score. But my credit rating C-  .   Administration of this site received my personal information, and can use for their own purposes. I have fulfilled all the requirements of theirs, they have to get my information - this is fraud with personal data.

What were you applying for a loan for? What was the amount?Did they give you a reason that your loan was rejected?

[Bourbon44]

I believe the scam was successful in the case of User B, however User A got caught somehow by BTCJam before funds were distributed and they did the right thing by suspending him. What is happening now though I am not sure…my suspicion is that BTCJam is making payments automatically out of the remaining principal invested, allowing them to keep their statistics and make money on the trading of Notes as well benefiting from the price fluctuations in BTC.

You begin to raise an interesting point. I've never borrowed on that site, but it is my understanding that borrower payments aren't made until a threshold amount (the required payment) is reached. Is this correct? I think it is...

This begs the question, of course, what is Jam doing with the balances of defaulted borrowers who have a balance less than the amount to make the next scheduled payment? If the borrower defaulted, that balance should be distributed to the lenders by their percentage of investment in the loan in satisfaction of the borrowers debt. This is not being done. It certainly is not Jam's to keep, it is owed to the investors.  I'd like to know what is happening to those balances.

[sbtctalk]

How many Bitcoin P2P sites are out there? Are all facing the same problem with defaulting users and fake reviews?

[Bourbon44]

How many Bitcoin P2P sites are out there? Are all facing the same problem with defaulting users and fake reviews?

Loanbase is the other big one. I imagine that there are other smaller ones.

If they aren't having problems, I imagine it will just be a matter of time. I know I might be sounding like a broken record, but there is an inherent conflict of interest between the investors and the platform in many of these p2p lending sites, not just those that are based in bitcoin. The fee structure in Jam (and others) is that Jam receives their fee once a loan is funded. They're incentivized to get the most loans funded, not to see loans to maturity. It's not hard to see that a direct consequence of this setup is for the platform to take measures to get investors to invest in the most loans. It's an expense, and one for which they receive no added benefit, to spend resources to conduct adequate due diligence and pursue defaulters. Furthermore, the very real potential exists for platforms like Jam to inflate credit ratings and employ other underhanded tactics to make these loans more attractive and safer than they actually are in an effort to attract more investors because it is in their financial interest to do so.

Whether Jam is interested in pursuing defaulters or protecting investors from scams is irrelevant because of the fact that based on this thread and others on bitcointalk and other forums, that they have given the impression that they are NOT interested in taking real measures to stop these scams. If other platforms can't even give off the impression of some kind of measure of adequate investor protection or interest (from the platform) in limiting scams, then it is certain that users defaulting, fake reviews, etc. will soon follow.

[sbtctalk]

How many Bitcoin P2P sites are out there? Are all facing the same problem with defaulting users and fake reviews?

Loanbase is the other big one. I imagine that there are other smaller ones.

If they aren't having problems, I imagine it will just be a matter of time. I know I might be sounding like a broken record, but there is an inherent conflict of interest between the investors and the platform in many of these p2p lending sites, not just those that are based in bitcoin. The fee structure in Jam (and others) is that Jam receives their fee once a loan is funded. They're incentivized to get the most loans funded, not to see loans to maturity. It's not hard to see that a direct consequence of this setup is for the platform to take measures to get investors to invest in the most loans. It's an expense, and one for which they receive no added benefit, to spend resources to conduct adequate due diligence and pursue defaulters. Furthermore, the very real potential exists for platforms like Jam to inflate credit ratings and employ other underhanded tactics to make these loans more attractive and safer than they actually are in an effort to attract more investors because it is in their financial interest to do so.

Whether Jam is interested in pursuing defaulters or protecting investors from scams is irrelevant because of the fact that based on this thread and others on bitcointalk and other forums, that they have given the impression that they are NOT interested in taking real measures to stop these scams. If other platforms can't even give off the impression of some kind of measure of adequate investor protection or interest (from the platform) in limiting scams, then it is certain that users defaulting, fake reviews, etc. will soon follow.

I am aware that Loanbase will release the defaulter's personal information such as mobile, address, name, photos to the lenders. While it may sound scary, I doubt it will deter true fraudsters. Does BTCJam do the same?  Like what you said, BTCJam is only interested in clearing the funding of the loan, nothing else matters.

[owlcatz]

How many Bitcoin P2P sites are out there? Are all facing the same problem with defaulting users and fake reviews?

Loanbase is the other big one. I imagine that there are other smaller ones.

If they aren't having problems, I imagine it will just be a matter of time. I know I might be sounding like a broken record, but there is an inherent conflict of interest between the investors and the platform in many of these p2p lending sites, not just those that are based in bitcoin. The fee structure in Jam (and others) is that Jam receives their fee once a loan is funded. They're incentivized to get the most loans funded, not to see loans to maturity. It's not hard to see that a direct consequence of this setup is for the platform to take measures to get investors to invest in the most loans. It's an expense, and one for which they receive no added benefit, to spend resources to conduct adequate due diligence and pursue defaulters. Furthermore, the very real potential exists for platforms like Jam to inflate credit ratings and employ other underhanded tactics to make these loans more attractive and safer than they actually are in an effort to attract more investors because it is in their financial interest to do so.

Whether Jam is interested in pursuing defaulters or protecting investors from scams is irrelevant because of the fact that based on this thread and others on bitcointalk and other forums, that they have given the impression that they are NOT interested in taking real measures to stop these scams. If other platforms can't even give off the impression of some kind of measure of adequate investor protection or interest (from the platform) in limiting scams, then it is certain that users defaulting, fake reviews, etc. will soon follow.

I am aware that Loanbase will release the defaulter's personal information such as mobile, address, name, photos to the lenders. While it may sound scary, I doubt it will deter true fraudsters. Does BTCJam do the same?  Like what you said, BTCJam is only interested in clearing the funding of the loan, nothing else matters.

BTCJam does the same, yes, however it's not much use if they were faked etc - In fact, here is the thread where I and others have posted/doxxed these scammers -

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=605994.80

[pixelpowered]

Tried BTCJam in 2014. I did selective loans and managed it well. I was scammed but my larger loans to more honest people had me leave with a small gains of $80ish. The risk and time involved made me infuriated, along with the other community I'm at GetHashing - https://forum.gethashing.com/t/btcjam-general-discussion/1040 (didn't last long and we abandoned it)

Took a break in 2015 to wait for promised upgrades soon™ to the system.

Tried BTCJam in 2016 and experimented with the autoinvest feature at the beginning of the year.
Stupid New-Years resolution to try larger risks. Talk about a beta feature 
I powered it with 1 BTC, left it to the experiment, and I'm quite thankful it wasn't for more.
I had it only on investing in A/B rating loans.
If I knew it was going to spread my bits by rating alone, with such a low amount, and over dozens of loans. I wouldn't of enabled it.
There's other details that make it quite silly to use but the biggest one is that now I'm forced to keep coming back to BTCJam until March 2017. That's when I will get my last payment... in theory.

Fuck this delusional feature. It feels like a false sense of security.
It led me to believe that I could set it and forget it.

I started the test in February 2016. The notice of BTCJam leaving the US was in March 2016 . BTCJam made no attempt to notify me  of this change by email and I didn't see it posted on the site. Its a recent change. I learned the hard way when I attempted to sell a loan slip on the market. I can't 

Now I get to guess who's going to pay me back and who isn't for the year.

International users I suggest you find a better platform even if you have the ability for arbitration still. The management team for BTCJam is not impressive and does not promote confidence in the risks that the userbase puts up front.
I also think that the US won't be the only country it pulls out of, the communication of this will hopefully reach the affected users properly in time to make more informed investment decisions.