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?
1. We're not that interested in having a forum at this time. Primarily working to develop other features at the moment.
2. Privacy laws.
3. Regarding the update, we do get these things on the backend but we lock numbers for many reasons. Direct link falls under privacy laws as well.
4. Collateral is a lot tougher than you may assume, it's a really tough model. One thing immediately that comes to mind is that some loans might have hundreds of investors. Working that many investors around a piece of collateral is tricky. Also - this model has proven to have success (lendingclub + prosper).. I think we can find ways to strengthen the business and returns without having to move to collateral based loans.
1. I understand you can't do all at the same time but I see a severe lack of communication between staff and investors which leads to frustration. Recently some loans received a lot of comments and most are from confused investors not knowing what happened and staff never shows to explain. I guess you'll point me to the support e-mail (which I don't use often because I sense it must be overloaded) but investor keep saying they are not getting answers from staff. More and better communication between staff and lenders would benefit all and if you don't want a forum now at least please comment on the most controversial loans.
2. If borrowers agree to share in order to get a loan would that violate any law?
4. Collateral would have to be sold to the highest bidder.
1. Totally get your point here. I am actively working on getting into those loan listings but the one issue is we just need to be tagged (emailed) to be aware of them. There are many listings (live on marketplace - old ones already activated etc). It's hard keeping up with them but definitely agree we can try to get to them in the comments to help that need. I'll start thinking about a way that maybe we can be reached for these scenarios.
2. Technically yes. I'm working to see what we can do in that area with the legal team. There are many liabilities around this especially in the US.
3. I can just find a lot of scenarios where users/investors would be really mad about this..
There are scenarios where random accounts become the biggest funder so that they get the collateral. Now users dont diversify and expose themselves to higher risk (eggs in smaller baskets). Those accounts might be controlled by the borrower.. Now collateral is useless. Collateral is in Russia, you are US based. How are you going to get that collateral? What about the other 400 investors-- what are they going to get out of this? They invested but now they get nothing? How are you going to vet the collateral? What happens if that collateral were to be devalued say in a market situation which crashes? Gold was the collateral and market crashes & the borrower had defaulted -- would that still satisfy you if you had such collateral?
edit: Not trying to be smart here, I'm truthfully just curious about the answers.