BTCjam - Any Thoughts or Experiances

[BTCJamSupport]

None of these platforms are perfect unfortunately. But by the sound of it, BTCJam might need to be a bit more thorough regarding ID verification. Just looking at documents isn't enough. Call these people, send them a letter by mail,....

We built out a fraud team in March to do just this. We are actively working on underwriting as a whole and limiting fraud. We do all types of things (most of which I wont mention so the system cannot be gamed) to insure that we are working towards limiting all types of fraud. In the future we'll have some more data to hopefully show you how this has been working etc.

[BTCJamSupport]

Lent 0.1 btc, the guy did not repay a penny ...

Its always bad when that type of thigs happens but the sites statistics is improving over time, back in 2013 it was really bad, during 2014 the avg repayment rate improved a lot and hopefully it will become even better in 2015.
Last time i checked the repayment rate throu all time is up to 75.98% of all loans and is climbing. For loans taken out recent months it has been in the regions of something like 85-90%.

I wouldn't call that improving. %75.98 means every 1 debt in 4 loans isn't paid. That's serious stats for lenders. Too much verification process but still %25 fail rate. They need to decrease it to %1-2 if they want to provide sustainable service. I don't recommend this site at all.

why should they care as long as they make money?

I used btcjam once 2013 - I was not paid back and btcjam did literally nothing to cover. So no, I recommend to not touch this site with a ten foot pole.

It's surely been a LONG time since you have used us and we have changed a lot as a company since then. We aren't a traditional banking institution which means we can't cover you when it comes to collections, there are many legal hurdles for a company to operate as such. That is one of the reasons we truly suggest diversifying since we calculate the potential risks.

When you look into a plan that is well diversified, say 100 investments of 0.01 each (1 BTC total investment) you'll actually see good returns. We also wrote about this on our blog here regarding the plans & data. - http://blog.btcjam.com/2015/07/15/autoinvest-users-are-averaging-18-in-returns/

You were definitely an early adopter (and we appreciate that a lot), but we've also been actively working on the pain points that you mentioned.

[plost24]

i start to invest in btc jam for a week.
and i think it's a good way to invest if you give you btc to trusted one.
but the Identity Verification it's very hard i tryed 3 time and it didn't work.
the last time it said :

Code:

The information provided does not match the document.

but i'm really sure that all my information match the document.

[BTCJamSupport]

I was considerin g using BTCJam to consolidate my credit card balance, but now after reading this thread, it would hurt my reputation on this forum since I would be assocaiting myself with scammers.

Hey I'm sorry you got that impression but we actually have a many validated and credited borrowers globally. Many of which are very hard core bitcoin enthusiasts -

Have a look at these loans if you want to get a better idea of the type of borrowers we have:

https://btcjam.com/listings/48919-additional-working-capital-for-new-crypto-based-business----loan-%233

https://btcjam.com/listings/49373-professional-bitcoin-market-maker

https://btcjam.com/listings/49382-loan-to-pay-off-student-loan-after-60%25-balance-reduction

We have hundreds of actual people like you who use the platform you CC refinancing and their dream projects. I think you should give our marketplace a look and also reach out to us at support@btcjam.com. These guys got funding in under a week for their projects and I think you'd also make a great borrower from the sounds of it. Give us a shout, we'd love to chat. Thanks!

[BTCJamSupport]

I was considerin g using BTCJam to consolidate my credit card balance, but now after reading this thread, it would hurt my reputation on this forum since I would be assocaiting myself with scammers.

consolidating a loan with another loan is never a good idea, its a short term fix but itll bite you harder in the end. and the userbase isnt all scammers, just a few who choose not to repay the loan, but I do believe there is a legal arbitration process if the borrower defaults.

It's actually a great idea of you can get the capital to pay off the other loan and then receive a lower interest rate. This is very common with peer to peer lending in general. We do have a legal process with NETarb which many users are actually having success with.

[BTCJamSupport]

Out of the hundreds of listings expect 99.99999999% to be worthless crap (trading and mining loans mostly) and the rest are mostly scams and a very tiny number are legit borrowers.

+1, i'm currently -68% with my BTC investments in BTCjam that Site is a complete Joke.

You should email us so we can look into your investment strategy (support@btcjam.com) - We really suggest diversifying and if you shoot us over an email we can look into your investments and see what is going on. I listed some loans above we got last week, we've had a lot of pretty solid listings recently but Im not sure when you last used us. Drop us a line regardless so we can look into this.

[BTCJamSupport]

I'm leaving BTCJam forever, putting my money here was one of the many mistakes I made with my bitcoins that ultimately made me end up with 1/5 of the bitcoins I once had.
Here is the final view of all my investments there at the moment that I'm withdrawing the rest of the bitcoin that are left in my wallet, I don't expect to recieve anything else from the people who defaulted anymore.



I'm not saying that everyone is going to lose money there, this is just my personal experience using this site.

Thanks for sharing this, can you shoot us over an email to support@btcjam.com so we can look into your investments in detail? I think you hit some good ones there but you put a lot into borrowers, especially if you didnt have all to much to throw at them to begin with. Sorry to hear you lost some of your total capital, but if you'd like us to look into this, gladly would. One thing I can say is that we recommend heavy diversification throughout many, many listings at a very small amount like 0.01/loan. This would hedge your risk a lot more.

[BTCJamSupport]

Crypto borrowing cannot work without reliable mechanisms to collect collateral from the meatspace.

LendingClub (just IPO'd). Prosper - dont have collateral based loans and have proven that this is possible.

[BTCJamSupport]

I'm leaving BTCJam forever, putting my money here was one of the many mistakes I made with my bitcoins that ultimately made me end up with 1/5 of the bitcoins I once had.
Here is the final view of all my investments there at the moment that I'm withdrawing the rest of the bitcoin that are left in my wallet, I don't expect to recieve anything else from the people who defaulted anymore.



I'm not saying that everyone is going to lose money there, this is just my personal experience using this site.

I've personally only invested in a couple of loans, but even with my little experience it is pretty obvious to tell which loans are/aren't legit. If you only loan out your BTC to people with good scores and a solid loaning history, you are unlikely to get scammed. The accounts without a profile picture that offer insane interest rates are going to default every time, end of discussion. However, if you stick to the safe loans, you can easily profit.

You make a lot of really great points - As you mentioned and as we show in our data (https://btcjam.com/stats) when you do go with solid scores (good loan history), you are profitable. Many people that write in about this not being true you'll find threw all of their money into one A/B rated borrower. These ratings will hold up, diversification is still key when investing in them.

[BTCJamSupport]

ZOMFG! If I sell note, there is just price in the transactions and I don't know what I sold, to whom, what I paid for that... Guys, are you serious? But, well, at least we have autoinvesting and another must have features!

Yup!   I felt the same way when I sold a note.

We are overhauling that to make it better. I know that is a pain for some people . It's been noted. Thanks for sharing this!

[BTCJamSupport]

Sure thing they like scammers! They are interested just in fees collecting and those fees they get from scammers too. If there is some mechanism that the fee for BTCjam will be subtracted only after successful repay, they'll act differently (and probably does not exist anymore).

Lending business is like so:
1) Start a new lending site.
2) Get a lot of scammers.
3) . . .
4) PROFIT!

That is what I feel.   These lending sites just take too much work and effort to avoid the scammers for the meager gains you can make.   Frankly I think BTCjam likes the scammers and they probably only really care about collecting their up-front loan fee.   They sure don't make it easy for the lenders.

This is ridiculous from a business stand point. How would we ever keep investors given this model? We have no incentive what so ever as company to do such a thing. That idea that we are getting rich off fees is complete nonsense. I'm actually sorry if you believe this.

[BTCJamSupport]

So I took their survey they sent into my email thinking I can write about all this, but there was no place for that. It was just survey about "you naughty user, you did not share your loan between your friends and you did not make them another users from which we can steal."

Drop us a line at support@btcjam.com and we will listen to you. I believe there was an OTHER section for these types of things but apologize if that was not true. Really, send us over an email, would love to hear your thoughts out.

[BTCJamSupport]

Compare it to commercial banking. What would happen if banks would provide loans to people without contracts and COLLATERAL. No bank would be able to survive.

Well, in this case, you are that bank.

As long as there s no BTC lending service which ll solve the issue of collateral, these things are going to crash. Period.

Would have to disagree here. As mentioned to another poster - LendingClub (recently IPO'd) & Prosper are two names who have proven that this is a successful model without collateral.

[BTCJamSupport]

i start to invest in btc jam for a week.
and i think it's a good way to invest if you give you btc to trusted one.
but the Identity Verification it's very hard i tryed 3 time and it didn't work.
the last time it said :

Code:

The information provided does not match the document.

but i'm really sure that all my information match the document.

Drop us an email at support@btcjam.com so we can be more clear for you. Could be many reasons why, we'll help you out Thanks!

[dyask]

Sure thing they like scammers! They are interested just in fees collecting and those fees they get from scammers too. If there is some mechanism that the fee for BTCjam will be subtracted only after successful repay, they'll act differently (and probably does not exist anymore).

Lending business is like so:
1) Start a new lending site.
2) Get a lot of scammers.
3) . . .
4) PROFIT!

That is what I feel.   These lending sites just take too much work and effort to avoid the scammers for the meager gains you can make.   Frankly I think BTCjam likes the scammers and they probably only really care about collecting their up-front loan fee.   They sure don't make it easy for the lenders.

This is ridiculous from a business stand point. How would we ever keep investors given this model? We have no incentive what so ever as company to do such a thing. That idea that we are getting rich off fees is complete nonsense. I'm actually sorry if you believe this.

I don't think you are doing a good job of keeping investors.   BTCjam just isn't investor friendly.

Your fees, clearly are where you make your money.   Although the number of loans has declined a great deal from what it was.   I suspect your income isn't that good now.   Too many scammers and too hostile to investors.    Anyway you certainly don't make bitcoin any other way than fees unless you are actually running the scam loans!

So you fees that are collected on the front of the loan probably average 4.5%.   4.5% of $13.789 million is $620,000.   Well maybe not rich but that isn't chicken feed either.   

The thing is, if you were really looking out for investors, the investors would be beating the drum for you and herding borrowers to BTCjam.   Your loan volume would likely be much higher.   Instead you have thread like this where people swap war stories because mostly BTCjam is a warzone for investors. 

[shmoula]

The thing is, if you were really looking out for investors, the investors would be beating the drum for you and herding borrowers to BTCjam.   Your loan volume would likely be much higher.   Instead you have thread like this where people swap war stories because mostly BTCjam is a warzone for investors. 

[BTCJamSupport]

I'll break down shmolas scenario..

More defaults = Less investors.

Less investors = less liquidity for borrowers.

Less liquidity for borrowers = fewer and fewer borrowers (they cant get funding)

Less borrowers = Less fees we get as a business.

Given what you think about fees and how we handle them, this would likely be the outcome. Seems like with that plan we'd actually get less $ in fees. Those fees help with operating costs, an operation like this is pretty expensive in terms of capital. If you think we can align fees differently, we can think about different approaches.

I talk with investors using the platform everyday who are satisfied with the returns and borrowers they are getting an opportunity to fund. Loan volume is really a completely different conversation & it's not something that we care all too much about at the moment. We want to have high quality borrowers and reduce risk for investors while giving them good returns. If we have 50 loans on the marketplace that to that, all the better. If we have 500 loans, great. Either way, the goal is to get quality loans out there for investors.We're actively making changes and adjustments to make these processes better. Plans in the works to overhaul a lot of the features for investors, I know it's been a long time coming.

[zenqer]

ZOMFG! If I sell note, there is just price in the transactions and I don't know what I sold, to whom, what I paid for that... Guys, are you serious? But, well, at least we have autoinvesting and another must have features!

Yup!   I felt the same way when I sold a note.

We are overhauling that to make it better. I know that is a pain for some people . It's been noted. Thanks for sharing this!

You have a lot of work to do in that note marketplace.

Some suggestions:

1- Reduce the 4% fee. Why do you ven collect a fee on notes? It's not like you are having a lot of work doing this. In fact you have no work and no risk so it makes no sense to collect fees here.

2- When you put a note for sale it should show interest that you'll receive for that investment (yield, APR...) and interest that buyer can collect (right now you put the note for sale and have to navigate to find your note and check interest for buyer)

3- A separate page for your notes with the information on point 2 so you can easily adjust what you want

4- Have an option to automatically create notes with a predefined interest when the loan is activated

These are just some ideas for features that I lack related to the marketplace.

[h4nn1b41]

And why doesn't btcjam have a forum like this where members can discuss this stuff?

Why no direct link to social media connections?

Why don't you update ebay feedback and create a direct link to ebay?

And why don't you create loans with collateral as an option?

[syndria]

I invested some of my coins,  hopefully btcjam wont dissapoint me