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.