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Seems it has happened again.

Flagged as needs to be placed here

These are clearly extraordinary times with the coronavirus outbreak now affecting every walk of life and, as a valued customer of RateSetter, we wanted to communicate to let you know how we are responding.

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Still waiting about a week for an RYI.

They say withdrawals will take more than a month now. However, it seems they have closed new registrations? I wonder if they are bust. They have stopped new lending, so effectively it is a Ponzi scheme now.

https://www.ratesetter.com/investment-release-requests

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They claim to be still open for new investments. That doesnā€™t match up with the fact that registration of new accounts is closed. Since there are no new loans nor new investments, any ā€œreinvestmentsā€ go to pay for someone else to exit.

Interest provision ration dropped below 100%, they are slashing everyoneā€™s interest income by 50%, and are closed for new investors.

Well, I did not get out in time, I guess I lost my investment now. Cause actions they took will only accelerate the bank run rather than stabilise things.

They keep saying itā€™s about a month, but Iā€™ve been waiting on a withdrawal request for almost twoā€¦

Had an email in response to an enquiry I made about how long withdrawals are taking. At the moment, itā€™s looking like 3 months with the current situation.

FT article extract:

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Iā€™d been waiting two months for a withdrawal so I raised a complaint yesterday by email. Lo and behold the funds cleared the next day.

Iā€™m sure if asked theyā€™d say that itā€™s a coincidence of course but I doubt it. In any case, Iā€™ll wait and see what the response is to the complaint.

When did you request and which market?

We are currently delivering release requests made on 12th March in Access, Plus and Max, and we are delivering requests made on 16th March in the 1 Year market and 17th March in the 5 Year market.

To be fair it was almost two months to the day since I requested it and it was in the Access market so the dates line up to add weight to the ā€œpure coincidenceā€ argument.

I tend to err on the side of scepticism, which is why I assumed otherwise. Iā€™ve certainly seen organisations who couldnā€™t do something until someone complained and then magically they could.

They are now being acquired by Metro bank, but it is not assuming any responsibility for the existing loan portfolio. Ratesetter will continue to operate the current loan book and the provision fund.

I guess we are all stuck with our loans/investments until maturity.

Glad I took the Ā£100 and ran when they forced everyone onto the Access/Plus/Max stupidity instead of letting you set your own interest rate.

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Considered investing with them until the virus started as its less risk than a stocks and shares isa but better returns than cash.

Guess iā€™ll wait or jump for a S&S ISA

Iā€™m currently waiting for a withdrawal and they have a lengthy waiting list. My request was submitted on 5 May and Iā€™m currently number 13,805 in the queue.

Iā€™ve kept a fairly close eye on this for the past month, on 15 July I was number 14,018 in the queue. Thatā€™s a running average of 7.6/day (albeit calendar days) and at that pace itā€™ll take almost five years to clear this backlog.

Full disclosure, Iā€™ve raised a complaint about this with ratesetter and the response pointed to the terms and conditions and essentially said ā€œsorry, itā€™ll take as long as it takesā€. Iā€™ve now referred the complaint to the FOS because I donā€™t think itā€™s reasonable to expect people to wait for years to withdraw funds.

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Well Iā€™m still getting 3.2% on my Ā£1k so I think Iā€™ll leave it where it is.