Ebay via YOULEND - anyone got any pros and cons

[eddy130_1]

Hi All,

I hope sales are good!

Today we received a generous offer from eBay Capital that would be enough to rent a unit for a year. I believe that you pay a daily percentage of sales. The previous similar type of loans via P-pay were very straightforward and handy for a few thousand pounds now and then.

I’ve heard both good and bad things about You Lend. Does anyone have any stories or information before we consider contacting them?"

[twofourdeltasurplus]

As I have said, had a few with them, and not had an issue

you know what % of sales they are going to take, and it is off EACH SALE. It is all explained to you when you sign up, there is no monthly repayment ( like a normal loan ).

If your struggling, maybe you bought the wrong stock, or as mentioned have you spanked it on non stock / business items, if so more fool you

[rob.stamps]

My experience with YouLend has been awful and I strongly advise everyone to avoid. 

They have really pleasant public facing employees, give loans to businesses that otherwise might not get finance and payout quickly.

When things go wrong they are beyond appalling. Calls and emails are ignored. False promises are made. Payments are taken when they should not be. Refunds are made to closed accounts.  One department knows little or nothing about something explained at length with another. 

I have now been trying for over six weeks to get resolution. Soon I will be able to complain to the Financial Conduct Authority / Financial Ombudsmen about them and it may all need to go to the County Court.

A really bad company to deal with when things go wrong. I strongly advise people to stay well clear of youLend.

[andha-21]

@rob.stamps 

If it helps you with the Ombudsman I have an email conversation with an account manager where they basically admit they had a clause where they can take money whenever they want, but they were kind enough to tell me that they only use it for credit card customers.

I spotted that clause and refused their offers due to it.

[crg_music]

Ok I'm down to owing a couple of hundred quid so I guess I will give my honest opinion on this company.

They do seem willing to lend where others might not and in my experience it was efficient and smooth. I think the funds were in my bank within a day of applying.

The application does seem intrusive, they access your bank account in the same way ebay or PayPal do but I assume this is as much for id as much as anything.

There was a 16% fee added to the loan. My repayment amount was 30% of all sales which seems higher than most, maybe my relatively poor credit rating and not selling loads on ebay affected this.

The major and I do mean major issue was how payments are calculated, they are taken from your account daily but what I didnt realise and I'm sure many others wont either is that the repayment is taken before anything else so if you sell something for £10 including postage, Youlend will take £3 of that before Ebay have their cut + promotion fees etc so you potentially only get £4-5 from that sale + you still have to spend £3 posting it so you end up feeling like you got a couple of quid from a £10 sale, obviously the £3 was going to paying the debt but grim.

Luckily I sell on other platforms also so was able to live with this for a short period.

You actually end up paying it off very fast and I guess that means the apr is high, there is just no way not to pay it off fast.

Now I got this loan for a very specific reason, I was offered a collection of records which needed to be paid for in a week and would be worth 10x more than the cost + sell fast if needed. As it goes I havnt touched them yet but they will make me a lot of money when I get around to dealing with them. I didnt have access to any other borrowing really and time was an issue, I know I could flip said collection for 2 or 3 times what the total loan cost within 2 or 3 hours if need be but that is not the plan.

I feel however that people are taking this out as a personal loan or to pay bills, this is absolutely not suitable as you are just adding more to those bills.

Not even sure id say its a good idea for cashflow, you pay it off so fast that its barely of benefit.

So in final I would say only use this to purchase stock or something you need for your business that will make you more profit and most importantly I would say dont borrow if you cant afford to be earning a fair bit less while it is repaid.

Having looked at the google reviews im a little sceptical, any review with a name mentioned has me ignoring and considering it fake.

I suspect because they deal mostly or maybe only with business sellers that they can get away with a lot more and this should be treated the same as a payday loan really.

[topche43]

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. I took a relatively small loan to put in a growth spurt, which is exactly what has happened. But I'm now at a point where the loan is actually shrinking my business to the point where I now cannot operate any longer. I'm now paying YouLend for me to run my business so I've closed up. I did reach out to them for help and see if it was possible to renegotiate the percentage but I haven't heard back from them yet. 

I attached a few examples when I got got in touch with their support showing that every sale was shrinking the amount of buying power had by 30% and how my net sales turned into a huge negative when I had a particularly good day. I highly doubt they'll try to get in touch with me again until it's time to get their money back but I did I was hoping to stay in business and try to work something out. Which is a shame really because the cash did really fuel a lot of growth and I was so happy that things looked like they were working out for me. 

[tabletop-hobbies]

If you find yourself in a hole like this one possible option is to pay off the you lend loan with some cheaper finance. There are plenty of good deals out there, although as soon as you mention 'business' add on a good few percent APR. Instead personal credit which is then lent to your business is worth considering, predictable monthly payments are way better than being punished for having a good month.

You lend is a trap and it can destroy your business. I did use them on a small scale but quickly realised I'd made a mistake when it wiped out my net margin, a quicky personal loan then a directors loan to the business and it was mostly sorted. Never again!

Whoever came up with this financial 'product' is either exceedingly cynical or a bit of a numpty.

Best of luck.

[topche43]

I've got the business understanding and some money left so I'm starting again. I found some things I can sell at cost that's relatively cheap and with YouLends cut basically returns it at cost. So it'll get paid back eventually but I cant keep up any longer, everyday my returns just decrease. By my calculations I should have had £1,400 net profit but I've shrank to the point I've got nothing left which is bizarre considering I was doing really well. 

Oh well, you live you learn. Unfortunately for me it was the hard way.

[deutscheparts]

We used this service to help us acquire another eBay seller's shop and stock when they were retiring.

To be honest, my professional opinion is only ever use it as an absolute last resort.

It's really very VERY expensive compared to the bank, but it is super useful for getting access to cash quickly.

My advice would be to run your business in a way that means it doesn't need these loans, don't get greedy for growth by borrowing from Youlend, the fees will eat the margin on most regular businesses sales.

So, it's fast but very expensive. You make your mind up if you really need it or not.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

It can be a useful service.

But as with anything, it's very much buyer beware.

I really don't think it's particularly expensive (though it does vary and depends on what your comparing it to), but what seems to catch most out, is just how much you have to pay back each day/week/month etc.

The trouble is, that a lot of business' will struggle to get a loan through normal means, which is why this becomes a lot more attractive.  It's quick cash easily.  Just be careful how you spend it.

But there are other providers out there that will base a loan on your turnover and go for monthly payments.  That's not to say that they will be cheap, but you will at least know exactly how much you will be paying each month.

[cookienabber]

It's clear from the comments that people are being caught out by the sweep rate. The bottom line is, you are better off paying a high fee upfront to get the loan, than paying a high sweep rate. If you can get them to cut their 13-15% sweep rate down to 7% for example, that might leave you with some profit on the table. Let's assume this is 3%, which not sound like a lot, but if the loan is genuinely there to help grow you business and you invest in good stock or other enhancements, that 3% profit might be worth much more than what 3% represented before the loan. You might pay a higher fee upfront, but that gets included into the loan amount, so might take longer to pay off, but it won't add further strain from your instalments.

I've made this point before, that you are better off investing your loan into diversification than bulk, as you expand your market. Think of it this way, if you focus your investment on 10 products, and 9 fail, you can discount off those 9 and focus your income on expanding the one that works. Do this enough time and you build a better idea of how to focus your investments, as you learn what works and what doesn't. If you focus all your investment into one product 'to be safe', if that product fails, you lose everything, as you have no other products to fall back on. If it succeeds, you minimise the potential of your business as you are only familiar with that product and only appeal to a single market.

My point is, you might get loan offers when you have a successful business, but too many make a mistake of taking money and not doing anything different with it. My business has been growing exponentially and the reason is my focus on innovation and expansion of my product catalogue. So many profitable businesses end up failing because they stay the same and eventually lose their relevance. If you are going to take a loan, whether YouLend or any financial institution, find a way to EVOLVE your business, rather than taking money so you can do more of the same. 

[stesen-66]

I had a youlend loan as a private seller for £3K