I invested a total of £150,000 with Assetz on their Great British business account. At first my £150,000 was scooped up by the account very fast, and I was very pleased with the service. I started receiving 7% interest immediately.
Then Assetz started to pay back my investment to me on a daily basis, and before I knew it, I had £23,000 waiting to be invested on the Great British Business Account. !! After a week of waiting, the figure was £33,000. I contacted them several times and I was told not to worry, that my money would be invested as soon as they get new loans on board, but in the meantime I was advised to use the "Invest the idle fund" button which would give me 3.75% while I was waiting.
After a month with them, I realised that by activating the "Invest the idle fund" button, my loan actually stays at the lower rate of 3.75% longer or forever.
They also launched their property investment product which would pay 5.5%. This is a very low rate compared with other platforms. I was not interested at first, but then later I thought it was better to put some money into that account as it was more than 3.75% that I was receiving "while waiting".
Just two weeks ago, when I was checking my loans, I noticed that they had put £23,000 on one loan and £20,000 on another loan, and several £11,000 loans as well. I was shocked as this was a very poor diversification. I called them immediately to be told that "You should've read the website carefully and realised that your money is at risk"!!
Furthermore, I was told that their provision fund is discretionary, as I knew already, but I didn't know that they decide who to pay and who not to pay as this depends on how you voted if one of your loans gets into trouble. I was not told about this "investment electoral voting system" before. This is just confusing and disgusting as investors can vote wrongly by mistake. I wonder if there is provision fund, why don't they publish the size of their provision fund like other platforms?
I decided to call it a day and get my money out. But this is another issue; you simply can't sell your loan on Assetz. I was told they have more investors on their "Great British Business Account" than they can accommodate by the number of their loans !! How come now that I need to sell thousands of pounds of my money, nobody is interested in buying them?
By the way, none of my loans are in default, and they are saleable.
Their customer service is useless and they are rude and arrogant.
Reviewed on: 30th August 2017
