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supermono
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May 04, 2013, 07:14:09 AM |
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I have been happy to see the new features added to BTCJam over the last few months, and I am curious to hear more about the new 'voting' feature, either from Tulkas, or from borrowers or investors who have used this feature. I like the potential flexibility this could add to the site, although when it comes to contracts, I also have a lot of questions about how this flexibility could affect them.
I liked the 'notes' feature (until BTCJam blocked unverified investors from using it), and before I was blocked, I was able to use it to give one of my struggling borrowers a break on the interest costs, and let me get out of my investment and sleep a little better at night without worrying about yet another potential default. At the same time, I worry about some potential for abuse, at least while there are no real consequences for borrowers who default. It seems like several borrowers since the exchange rate went up have basically announced "I do not plan on making any more payments on my loan, so if you want to recover anything else from me, your only recourse is to create a note and sell it to me at a heavily discounted price." I try to be fair as a lender, and depending on the circumstances, I am not opposed to sometimes giving someone more time to make payments, or letting the borrower off the hook for some of the interest, but at the same time, I think this should be purely voluntary, and if the lender does not want to do this, the borrower still has an obligation to repay his/her loan at the agreed-upon terms from when the loan was initiated.
Regarding the voting, this raises more questions in my mind, since the purpose apparently is to modify a loan contract that was initially agreed upon by all parties when they entered into it. For example, will all investors need to approve a motion to modify the loan contract, or just a majority, or some other percentage? If it is anything other than "all investors", how is it determined how many votes each person gets? For example, do all investors have equal voting rights no matter the size of their investments? Is it one vote per unique investor, or per investment? For example, if a user makes two investments in the same loan, would he get 1 vote, or 2?
What if I invest in a loan, and the borrower makes a motion to lower the interest rate, extend the payment time, etc., and for some reason, I can't go along with it? Maybe I was counting on the repayment by a certain date in order to pay one of my own bills, etc., or for some other reason I think the change is not fair to me or in my interests as the lender. I can vote against the change, but if the majority of other voters approve the change, does that mean that it will be applied to me without my consent? If so, is there an option for me to exit the lending contract and have the borrower immediately return the remaining principal to me at that time? And can motions to make changes to the loan contract only be initiated by the borrower, or can lenders do it too?
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supermono
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May 04, 2013, 07:36:09 AM |
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One more thought, as long as we're on the topic of making modifications to loan contracts:
I would like to suggest that BTCJam add a button that investors can click on to cancel their pending investment in a loan, if the loan has not yet been activated. There have been several times when I clicked to invest in a loan, and then (while that loan was still in the funding stage) that borrower defaulted on other loans, or I found out he was a scammer or having financial problems, but there was no way for me to cancel my investment, even though the loan had not yet been activated, so I ended up losing that money. (On several occasions, when I was in this situation, I tried to email support to ask them to cancel my pending investment, and never received a response back.)
Both from a legal and technological perspective, it should be comparatively easy for BTCJam to implement this feature, at least compared to implementing a voting system and dealing with the legal ramifications of modifying a contract that has already been approved by all parties and activated. And it frees up support's time, since lenders could just click on a button to cancel a pending investment, without needing to take up any of customer support's time about the issue.
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Tulkas (OP)
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May 04, 2013, 05:01:52 PM |
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I just read the below on the new "General FAQ" page:
"Is BTCJam responsible for the loan repayment?
No. This is a P2P bitcoin lending platform, the borrower is the sole responsible for all repayments. If the borrower defaults the loan is sent to our partner judge.me. If the arbitration award is granted the borrower information will be submitted to the local authorities."
Tulkas, can you tell me more about this? Does this mean that defaulted loans will now be sent to collections agencies and/or reported on people's credit reports? And will this apply just to new loans taken out in the future, or is it possible also to do this with some of the older loans? Over the last 6 months I've gradually lost nearly all my BTC investing in loans in BTCJam, and I would love to get some of that back, even if the collections agency takes a % of it. I would also like to see the defaulters, especially the people who defaulted in October-January before the exchange rate skyrocketed, facing some consequences for what they did, and I think BTCJam needs this, if it wants to begin to shed its reputation of being a haven for scammers.
They will suffer consequences, all loans now are subject to international arbitration, our partner is taking a little longer than expected to implement their API but the legal aspects are solved and the documents of the defaulter will be released to the arbitrator and if the award is granted the lenders will be able to start collection, we are now working towards releasing the documents to the lenders also, for now it can be done through a local judge. All activated loan is a legally binding contract now.  |
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sal002
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May 04, 2013, 05:08:50 PM |
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Who pays the judge.me fees? I believe it is $298
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boonies4u
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May 04, 2013, 05:43:15 PM |
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Speaking of the motion. Under the approved field it is still listed as "voting in progress" when the voting period should have expired two days ago.
The motion is now listed as approved but my remaining payments/installments have not reflected the change. Thank you for working with me on this Tulkas. |
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Tulkas (OP)
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May 04, 2013, 06:26:54 PM |
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Who pays the judge.me fees? I believe it is $298
The fees are paid by BTCJam. |
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Tulkas (OP)
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May 04, 2013, 06:28:54 PM |
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Speaking of the motion. Under the approved field it is still listed as "voting in progress" when the voting period should have expired two days ago.
The motion is now listed as approved but my remaining payments/installments have not reflected the change. Thank you for working with me on this Tulkas. Yes, the system to automatically change the terms is being finished  Thanks for helping on our first motion. The payments should change shortly. |
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Tulkas (OP)
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May 05, 2013, 07:21:41 PM |
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Speaking of the motion. Under the approved field it is still listed as "voting in progress" when the voting period should have expired two days ago.
The motion is now listed as approved but my remaining payments/installments have not reflected the change. Thank you for working with me on this Tulkas. Boonies4u, the payments are now updated, please verify! |
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boonies4u
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May 05, 2013, 07:47:53 PM |
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Boonies4u, the payments are now updated, please verify!
Confirmed. |
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filharvey
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May 06, 2013, 01:05:46 AM |
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How do I put a loan up for judgment? As I have a load of missed payments on loans I made.
Phil
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hailstorm
Newbie
 Offline
Activity: 13
Merit: 0
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May 06, 2013, 10:16:22 AM |
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How do I put a loan up for judgment? As I have a load of missed payments on loans I made.
Phil
I don't think you can do this on past loans. It only applies to loans created from now onwards. |
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hailstorm
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 13
Merit: 0
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May 06, 2013, 10:21:48 AM
Last edit: May 06, 2013, 10:33:57 AM by hailstorm |
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Who pays the judge.me fees? I believe it is $298
The fees are paid by BTCJam. What determines what gets passed to judge.me? Would it have to be above a certain amount? Do you recover any of the fees from anything recovered through arbitration? I'm hoping this will make a big dent in the amount of scammers on this site. |
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Tulkas (OP)
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May 06, 2013, 04:34:09 PM |
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sal002
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May 06, 2013, 04:37:00 PM |
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What determines what gets passed to judge.me? Would it have to be above a certain amount? Do you recover any of the fees from anything recovered through arbitration?
I'm hoping this will make a big dent in the amount of scammers on this site.
I'd imagine that loans under the fees for judge.me would not go to arbitration as it would be a waste of financial resources (1 BTC loans going to arbitration costing $299 would seem silly), but I will leave it to Tulkas to define those terms (and specify in the terms of use). |
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AlexC
Member
Offline
Activity: 118
Merit: 10
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May 07, 2013, 07:38:11 AM |
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Hi,
Is there a problem with the automatically payment?
This morning when I checked, my loan was not paid, and I did have enough funds on my account, I also have enabled the automatically payment in my settings.
There was no problem when I clicked the button manually to pay my load for this week.
/AlexC
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ChinaCoin
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 28
Merit: 0
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May 07, 2013, 09:02:31 AM |
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People that have loans BEFORE the judge.me implementation, are they subject to judge.me or anything of the likes? It wouldn't make sense if they are, since they didn't agree to that contract.
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🏰 TradeFortress 🏰
Bitcoin Veteran
VIP
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1043
👻
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May 07, 2013, 09:29:25 AM |
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People that have loans BEFORE the judge.me implementation, are they subject to judge.me or anything of the likes? It wouldn't make sense if they are, since they didn't agree to that contract.
Obviously not? |
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ChinaCoin
Newbie
Offline
Activity: 28
Merit: 0
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May 07, 2013, 09:30:46 AM |
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People that have loans BEFORE the judge.me implementation, are they subject to judge.me or anything of the likes? It wouldn't make sense if they are, since they didn't agree to that contract.
Obviously not? Would like to hear it specified, despite obviousness these technicalities are of importance. |
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🏰 TradeFortress 🏰
Bitcoin Veteran
VIP
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1043
👻
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May 07, 2013, 09:31:49 AM |
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People that have loans BEFORE the judge.me implementation, are they subject to judge.me or anything of the likes? It wouldn't make sense if they are, since they didn't agree to that contract.
Obviously not? Would like to hear it specified, despite obviousness these technicalities are of importance. There is zero chance that a ruling will be enforced if a party has not agreed to the arbitration. |
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Shermo
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May 07, 2013, 10:25:10 AM |
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It is looking ever more likely that Ziggap has defaulted on their loan. Where do we all stand in terms of their info being released to the lenders, to an arbitration company etc? It is definitely the biggest default on BTCJam by a long stretch.
By my reckoning they owe over 900BTC including interest, or around 500BTC to pay off the capital. Either way that's a considerable amount of money.
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