BTCjam - Any Thoughts or Experiances

[DoctorEvil]

Hi All,

I have thought about playing with BTCjam for a while and thought I would see if anyone else is using/having much success with it?

It clearly has more than its fair share of scammers, but it appears to also have a lot of legit projects or personal loan requests that don't look too silly.

I am a little confused how they state the interest rate for the loans and I have emailed BTCjam twice from both my work and personal gmail acocunts and have not received any reply to my question at all, which seriously discourages me from bothering with their platform.

Take a look at this example:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2JYIgMaP7k8eFVWTkZ0cjcyVFU/edit?usp=sharing
How is the interest in this example calculated?  Is it 20% of the outstanding balance per month? I cant get it to add up.

Moving on, does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives to BTCjam, preferably project investments or providing liquidity to traders, that kind of stuff?

Best,

-Evil

[1713275507]

1713275507

[1713275507]

1713275507

[1713275507]

1713275507

[1713275507]

1713275507

[1713275507]

1713275507

[Julia Sanders]

I LOVE BTCJam. Excellent source of coins without having to mine

[SlidingHorn]

I LOVE BTCJam. Excellent source of coins without having to mine

To the OP:  See the account above?  See the big red SCAMMER tag?

That's exactly what you're going to find at btcjam...and they're not as easily identified.

[superresistant]

It is SHIT.

What they don't tell you is that, when you lend, they will give you back much less than what you gave because "the value increased so it is the same".

Fuck it.

[BTCJamSupport]

The scammers and dishonest people are a minority within our community, that are decreasing day by day. When a borrower activates his/her loan, they are under a legally binding contract called arbitration, and the personal information of the borrower will be handed to the investors if they do not pay back on their loans (See more below). However, currently, our repayment rates are above 90% and investors are getting 19% APR on average.

 See here as to why we think investing with BTCJam is such a great idea:
http://blog.btcjam.com/post/75930899818/why-invest-with-btcjam

And here is what happens when someone doesn't pay back:
http://blog.btcjam.com/post/78529756680/what-happens-when-a-borrower-does-not-pay-back-his

To minimize risk and increase returns, read this:
http://blog.btcjam.com/post/75934926878/the-3-rules-of-peer-to-peer-lending-for-investors

[Vod]

The scammers and dishonest people are a minority within our community, that are decreasing day by day. When a borrower activates his/her loan, they are under a legally binding contract called arbitration, and the personal information of the borrower will be handed to the investors if they do not pay back on their loans (See more below). However, currently, our repayment rates are above 90% and investors are getting 19% APR on average.

Bullshit!  Your site encourages scammers!

I have been posting warning messages when a user tries to take out more than one (6!!) loans at once, only to be emailed by your support saying I am harassing users and my account will be locked.  Just over a simple warning message!

You really don't care what scams go on as long as you get your cut.

https://btcjam.com/users/9705

[RiverBoatBTC]

Been trying to submit my ID for ages but no matter what "ID is to pixilated"  or whatever, How the hell am I supposed to get a good picture of my ID when it has holograms built into it? BTCjam is a waste from what I have seen. They lost a good customer with me, I have been investing on it since it opened and lost 7.7btc to date, on a user with great repayment history and stats. Now that I could use a loan of a couple of bitcoins they do not want to verify me...

[BTCJamSupport]

The scammers and dishonest people are a minority within our community, that are decreasing day by day. When a borrower activates his/her loan, they are under a legally binding contract called arbitration, and the personal information of the borrower will be handed to the investors if they do not pay back on their loans (See more below). However, currently, our repayment rates are above 90% and investors are getting 19% APR on average.

Bullshit!  Your site encourages scammers!

I have been posting warning messages when a user tries to take out more than one (6!!) loans at once, only to be emailed by your support saying I am harassing users and my account will be locked.  Just over a simple warning message!

You really don't care what scams go on as long as you get your cut.

https://btcjam.com/users/9705

We have been looking into this issue for awhile, and you are correct, the user #9705 has many open listings. Users are penalized for having multiple open listings in their credit score. (See how his is at C currently).
User #9705 has never made a late payment out of his 16 loans, 11 of which are paid in full. It is impossible to decipher that this is a ponzi scheme, which you have accused him of in your email. 

You will have to bear with us since we are new and learning how to deal with these type of issues. We appreciate you reporting this and if any suggestions about how to go about it, we would happily chat with you via email.

Been trying to submit my ID for ages but no matter what "ID is to pixilated"  or whatever, How the hell am I supposed to get a good picture of my ID when it has holograms built into it? BTCjam is a waste from what I have seen. They lost a good customer with me, I have been investing on it since it opened and lost 7.7btc to date, on a user with great repayment history and stats. Now that I could use a loan of a couple of bitcoins they do not want to verify me...

Could you please email support@btcjam.com? I will review your ID submission and explain why it was denied.

[SlidingHorn]

The scammers and dishonest people are a minority within our community, that are decreasing day by day. When a borrower activates his/her loan, they are under a legally binding contract called arbitration, and the personal information of the borrower will be handed to the investors if they do not pay back on their loans (See more below). However, currently, our repayment rates are above 90% and investors are getting 19% APR on average.

Bullshit!  Your site encourages scammers!

I have been posting warning messages when a user tries to take out more than one (6!!) loans at once, only to be emailed by your support saying I am harassing users and my account will be locked.  Just over a simple warning message!

You really don't care what scams go on as long as you get your cut.

https://btcjam.com/users/9705

We have been looking into this issue for awhile, and you are correct, the user #9705 has many open listings. Users are penalized for having multiple open listings in their credit score. (See how his is at C currently).
User #9705 has never made a late payment out of his 16 loans, 11 of which are paid in full. It is impossible to decipher that this is a ponzi scheme, which you have accused him of in your email. 

You will have to bear with us since we are new and learning how to deal with these type of issues. We appreciate you reporting this and if any suggestions about how to go about it, we would happily chat with you via email.

Been trying to submit my ID for ages but no matter what "ID is to pixilated"  or whatever, How the hell am I supposed to get a good picture of my ID when it has holograms built into it? BTCjam is a waste from what I have seen. They lost a good customer with me, I have been investing on it since it opened and lost 7.7btc to date, on a user with great repayment history and stats. Now that I could use a loan of a couple of bitcoins they do not want to verify me...

Could you please email support@btcjam.com? I will review your ID submission and explain why it was denied.

Dude with 6 open loans gets a C....

I, however, submitted ID, a pay stub, verified phone, social networks, attached gmail & ebay accounts, etc.....and I'm a D+

Makes perfect sense....   

[BTCJamSupport]

The scammers and dishonest people are a minority within our community, that are decreasing day by day. When a borrower activates his/her loan, they are under a legally binding contract called arbitration, and the personal information of the borrower will be handed to the investors if they do not pay back on their loans (See more below). However, currently, our repayment rates are above 90% and investors are getting 19% APR on average.

Bullshit!  Your site encourages scammers!

I have been posting warning messages when a user tries to take out more than one (6!!) loans at once, only to be emailed by your support saying I am harassing users and my account will be locked.  Just over a simple warning message!

You really don't care what scams go on as long as you get your cut.

https://btcjam.com/users/9705

We have been looking into this issue for awhile, and you are correct, the user #9705 has many open listings. Users are penalized for having multiple open listings in their credit score. (See how his is at C currently).
User #9705 has never made a late payment out of his 16 loans, 11 of which are paid in full. It is impossible to decipher that this is a ponzi scheme, which you have accused him of in your email.

You will have to bear with us since we are new and learning how to deal with these type of issues. We appreciate you reporting this and if any suggestions about how to go about it, we would happily chat with you via email.

Been trying to submit my ID for ages but no matter what "ID is to pixilated"  or whatever, How the hell am I supposed to get a good picture of my ID when it has holograms built into it? BTCjam is a waste from what I have seen. They lost a good customer with me, I have been investing on it since it opened and lost 7.7btc to date, on a user with great repayment history and stats. Now that I could use a loan of a couple of bitcoins they do not want to verify me...

Could you please email support@btcjam.com? I will review your ID submission and explain why it was denied.

Dude with 6 open loans gets a C....

I, however, submitted ID, a pay stub, verified phone, social networks, attached gmail & ebay accounts, etc.....and I'm a D+

Makes perfect sense....   

The algorithm that determines credit score takes into account many different variables. Submitting identity information is a lot, but also payment behavior and outstanding balance are among the factors. In this specific case with user #9705: he has never had a payment, pays early, has almost all of his identity documentation confirmed, etc... If he did not have so many listings open, his credit score would more than likely be an A.

[DoctorEvil]

@ SlidingHorn:  Made me chuckle cheers and thanks for the heads up.

@ BTCjamSupport:  Is there any chance of you actually responding to my question posted in the OP or my 2 emails sent to you which have been ignored, asking how you calculate interest rates?  Currently its as clear as mud.  

EG: A loan request says "5BTC 180 days @ 10%" for example; that's 10% per what exactly?

Thanks for all the others that have contributed to this thread.  very helpful.

Best,
-Evil

[superresistant]

EG: A loan request says "5BTC 180 days @ 10%" for example; that's 10% per what exactly?

THAT is the scam pointed here.

It is NOT always % of BTC.
If the value of BTC increase by 50% in 180days, you'll get 55% of what you invested which mean you'll loose 45% of your BTC.

I am speaking from experience.

[BTCJamSupport]

@ BTCjamSupport:  Is there any chance of you actually responding to my question posted in the OP or my 2 emails sent to you which have been ignored, asking how you calculate interest rates?  Currently its as clear as mud. 


Best,
-Evil

Yeah either post your user ID, or contact me at alexis@btcjam.com

[BTCJamSupport]

EG: A loan request says "5BTC 180 days @ 10%" for example; that's 10% per what exactly?

THAT is the scam pointed here.

It is NOT always % of BTC.
If the value of BTC increase by 50% in 180days, you'll get 55% of what you invested which mean you'll loose 45% of your BTC.

I am speaking from experience.

You should know that there are two different types of loans: bitcoin loans and linked loans.

Linked loans have the amount linked to the bitcoin exchange rate for a given BitstampUSD asset. The payment size in bitcoin will fluctuate over time following the exchange rate that asset. This type of loan makes sense if your income is denominated in USD or other fiat currencies, and you don't want to expose yourself to Bitcoin volatility: both as an investor and borrower.

Bitcoin loans are expressed in pure bitcoin. This type of loan makes sense if your income is denominated in BTC.

[impresionesmline]

The scammers and dishonest people are a minority within our community, that are decreasing day by day. When a borrower activates his/her loan, they are under a legally binding contract called arbitration, and the personal information of the borrower will be handed to the investors if they do not pay back on their loans (See more below). However, currently, our repayment rates are above 90% and investors are getting 19% APR on average.

 See here as to why we think investing with BTCJam is such a great idea:
http://blog.btcjam.com/post/75930899818/why-invest-with-btcjam

And here is what happens when someone doesn't pay back:
http://blog.btcjam.com/post/78529756680/what-happens-when-a-borrower-does-not-pay-back-his

To minimize risk and increase returns, read this:
http://blog.btcjam.com/post/75934926878/the-3-rules-of-peer-to-peer-lending-for-investors

Are a "minority" yeah, right!

And when they scam, you do nothing but let them continue to do their nonsense with people, you continue to gave them the possibility to ask again for money to the people and you do not provide a single measure for helping the lenders to recover at least some satoshi from the bullshit that they have created.

See this as an example, there exists no help when something like this happens:

https://btcjam.com/listings/7354

https://btcjam.com/listings/8361

[jdany]

I put around 0.5 BTC into BTCJam.
After investing in 10 loans, my balance is now 0.04848149 BTC

I have 0.38 In defaulted loans.

I paid $34 for the 1/2 BTC I invested. 
I turned it into $29.71 at today's prices.

Not a real great environment to risk your BTC.

[b!z]

I put around 0.5 BTC into BTCJam.
After investing in 10 loans, my balance is now 0.04848149 BTC

I have 0.38 In defaulted loans.

I paid $34 for the 1/2 BTC I invested. 
I turned it into $29.71 at today's prices.

Not a real great environment to risk your BTC.

sending money to anonymous strangers who have no obligation to pay you back doesn't usually work out well

[RiverBoatBTC]

I see great success in BTCjam, has anyone loaned coin and got a good return there? I think the operator is just trying to keep it alive so he can keep scraping fee's. I also researched the company they are listed to be in brazil but have someone in the US that is part of the company. This opens them up to illegal lending practices, illegal use of likeness on the website when someone defualts and other types of legal problems. They are even seeking investments from parties in the US.

[jdany]

I put around 0.5 BTC into BTCJam.
After investing in 10 loans, my balance is now 0.04848149 BTC

I have 0.38 In defaulted loans.

I paid $34 for the 1/2 BTC I invested. 
I turned it into $29.71 at today's prices.

Not a real great environment to risk your BTC.

sending money to anonymous strangers who have no obligation to pay you back doesn't usually work out well

Yep.  You can have 9 legit loans at 5% interest go perfect - and then you have the 1 that goes bad at 100% loss.
You can't win with those numbers.  BTCJam should be in the gambling section.

[mehanizator]

I invest on btcjam, and I'm profitable so far.

But most of what people say here is true: lots of scammers, rates are confusing, support is hard to contact.

You'll be allright only if you invest in loans where:
- monthly rate does not exceed 8%
- decent business plan
- some loans already repayed
- not over-leveraged already (to much open loans)
- the guy opens his contacts, fb/linkedin/whatever

And of course - diversification is the key, small amounts spread between dozens of loans.

You have alternative: https://www.bitbond.net/
I didn't work with them yet.