Unbolted Reviews 22

From an investment perspective, I'm still happy with Unbolted. I've been with them since April 2022, and other than the occasional top-up have just left it in place. The reason I haven't left a review before now is that it just plods on quietly in the background. My returns are regular and predicable, and I'm assured by that.

Pleasant and friendly with good communication. Lowest interest rates I could find. Great concept.

The whole process went smoothly with no issues , it couldn’t be easier , the funds were in my bank account before I left the building..

I would highly recommend Unbolted, their rates are highly competitive having looked at many lenders for pawnbrokerage. The professionalism from Lisa from the minute I spoke with her was great. I will defintely be using them again in the future.

Used to be good but recently they cant seem to invest my money.

25% of my funds are just sat around NOT earning interest.

I withdrew some to get it down to ~ 15% and 2 weeks later it was back up to 25%, withdrew down again and back to 25% 2 weeks later.

They also STILL have loans that are now 3 years overdue and dont seem to be in any hurry to sell the assets and get the money back.

And recently there has been quite a few repayments where no / only partial interest has been paid.

Although to be fair, they have made up the capital shortfalls, so 2 stars rating instead of 1

Edit:

Reduced to 1 star following the lame response from Unbolted

They offer... Luxury Pawnbroking. Fine Art Finance. Auction Sale Advance. Auction Purchase. Business Stock Finance.

I've been an investor/lender with them for 4½ years, since August 2020.

I wrote a 5 star review in September 2021.

I opened an IF-ISA (flexible) with them in April 2023. I set my desired parameters and turned Auto-Lend ON. I drip-fed hundreds a month of funds into the account over the course of a year, until I'd finally reached my desired target allocation of P2P lending funds with Unbolted.
And simultaneously I turned Auto-Lend OFF on my standard Classic account, withdrawing funds as loans repaid. Only a very small balance remains of some defaulted loans which are in the recovery process, with items waiting to eventually be sold off at specialist auctions.

Overdue loans and defaults, which are to be expected, are handled very well, so are not a worry. Less than 6% of my invested funds are currently in loans which are 12+ months overdue. The record of recovery on defaulted loans is 100%+. The recovery rate is currently approx. 119% of net amount due to lenders, which is reassuringly impressive.

My IF-ISA (flexible) account has Auto-Lend ON. Invested funds are very well diversified spread over hundreds of different loans. The risks are reasonable. Returns on investment are good. It's a mostly hands-off, set and forget, minimal effort investment. I receive a daily summary of lender account activity by email.

Unbolted is a favourite, one of my top perfoming platforms out of eleven different P2P companies I am currently investing with. I highly recommend them.

I have invested in Unbolted for over three years now and have been very satisfied. They are more suited to a small to medium sized investor as they simple don't do the volumes to invest large sums of money and cash drag can be an issue at various points in the year. I am running down my standard account to move my funds into an IFSA and this has gone smoothly, after 6 months less than 10% of my funds remain to be returned, which gives me confidence in the platform. The interest rates over the last 3 years have been very good and despite periods of cash drag my XIRR has remained broadly in line with the platforms stated returns.

Unbolted are fantastic and even when one of their loans is not repaid on time it's put into auction and normally returns 140% of the initial loan. We only get 100% of that, as far as I'm aware, but that's all a lender expects. A great company.

Quick efficient service. Professional, helpful and friendly. Fast valuations. Fast lending. Excellent communication. Speedy return of items after repayment. This is why I keep coming back to Unbolted year after year, for six years now. Very happy customer.

An excellent , satisfactory and fast service. 5 stars to the entire team .

Thank you

While there are some outstanding loans remaining in my portfolio, my initial capital has been repaid after a period of 20 months with some interest in addition to my initial capital. Despite not being overly optimistic about getting the 8% Annual return promised, I am satisfied that no losses have been incurred overall considering the current economic climate and the challenges p2p platforms have been facing amidst attractive interest rates offered by banks. Therefore would commend unbolteds' commitment to stay on top of things in face of these challenges.

It is almost 4 years and Unbolted can't repay my investments in pawned items.

As an investor, I am super happy with Unbolted. Monthly bank interest rates of 0.65% or 0.80% are better than what most banks give you in a YEAR. Thank you Unbolted.

Not to be trusted , they have no care whatsoever, my item was sent in good faith but as soon as I had a problem they didn’t want to know , my item went to the old unbolted address via special delivery but it then went missing as no one from unbolted could be bothered to make the 10 min walk to collect the parcel that was quite clearly in reception, before sending I had asked them to confirm address but no one answered , the customer care had been non existent and when I had asked to put my item on the unbolted insurance they said yes but when my watch went missing they went back on there word and completely retracted and washed there hands of the situation, I can’t tell you how much distress this has caused my family of course there are two sides to every story but this company acted in a shameful way.

I am one of these FIRE (financial independence, retire early) wannabes so I am always looking for a way to beat the rock-bottom high street bank interest rates. However, unlike everyone else I've ever met in FIRE, I try to invest ethically (ESG and impact investments, etc.) So I had mixed feelings about investing in a pawnbrokers. However, I need not have worried.

First, and most obviously, Unbolted deal in luxury items. Now, it may be someone is poor and simply inherited a luxury item they now need to pawn. But I think the majority of people who pawn luxury goods are reasonably well-off (at least until the point of needing to pawn items!). So, I feel better about investing here. Not because rich people don't need sympathy(!) but because pawning luxury goods is not at all the same as someone pawning a cheap-but-sentimental heirloom at Cash Converters to try and avoid imminent eviction from a squalid bedsit. So, if you have luxury goods to pawn, you (probably) have a long way to fall before you are facing starvation.

Further, some of the borrowers are simply businesses who use regular bridging loans as a standard part of cash flow.

More importantly, if you do your due diligence (as you should!) and read every single thing on Unbolted's website, you will learn that any money gained from selling the pawned item that is in excess of the amount owed MUST go back to the person who pawned that item (under UK law). So it is pointless for a pawnbroker to loan an irresponsibly-high amount in the hope the borrower will default and then the pawnbroker can sell the goods for maximum profit.

As for fundamentals, I like Unbolted a lot. They have items valued independently by specialist auction houses. Further, they tend to offer a low loan-to-value amount based on the lower end of the valuation. This is very conservative which makes me feel better about risk and also about not exploiting the borrower. I aim to preserve capital while beating inflation. Not win the jackpot.

I had worried that, in the event of an economic downturn, loan defaults would go up and sales prices at auction would go down. However, I have not lost any capital over the pandemic, and my interest has been consistent with projections. Even better, it has smashed my Zopa returns - (perhaps they shouldn't have abolished their Provision Fund (without telling anyone where those millions of pounds went) right before COVID) - and beaten my Ratesetter returns - who utterly disgraced themselves in the last year, even after closing retail investor accounts.

The website is easy to use but aesthetically ugly. Still, so long as the balance keeps growing, that is the most beautiful feature!

Cash drag is variable but recently has been awful. I put in £500 and it's taking months to all be invested. This cannot be helped by Unbolted and is not a trust issue so I won't mark them down. But be warned: drip feed.

So far, Unbolted are my most reliable and best-performing p2p investment. Inflation-busting returns with no reduction of interest over the pandemic (or negative rates like at Lending Works!) with no obvious reasons to exclude it from a portfolio that tries not to destroy people or planet.

I have only had an investment in Unbolted for about 2.5 months so it's far too early to reach firm conclusions. However, over time, it seems to offer the potential to earn a higher annual rate of return than some of the larger UK-based marketplace lending options. The reporting on the platform is clear but the main problem seems to be "cash drag" with less than a half of my original modest investment having been lent out so far which means that the full interest rate won't be earned for a few months unless the borrower flow increases. Also, to improve communication / investor confidence, there might be merit in Unbolted e-mailing out a periodic - monthly? - update to its lenders, at least just to let them know that activity is proceeding without undue issues. Overall, this may be worth considering as a diversifier within a long-term investment portfolio.

Whilst other platforms have been struggling, Unbolted has thrived. I can only recommend.

Started investing with Unbolted 10 months ago. Their niche in the P2P market has continued to perform well, perhaps better throughout the COVID19 crisis. While there is a slight lag in investment, the platform is simple, self-explanatory, and hands-off if you want it to be. Can’t fault Unbolted

I've been investing with Unbolted and about a dozen other Peer to Peer lenders for 10 months, and Unbolted is giving me the best returns of 8% pa.
They split investments over hundreds of different "pawnable" items such as high-end watches, jewellery, gold, and works of art. Because Unbolted has possession of many of these items, if the borrower defaults then the item can be sold to recover the capital and interest due without too much difficulty.
The website is easy to use and the listings of your investments are very detailed, though photos of the objects would be nice.
I use the Autolend feature and am very happy with it: There can be cash-lag (time taken to allocate your deposited money while it's not earning interest) so if you're switching from an interest-earning bank account it's a good idea to maybe invest £1,000 and check how quickly your money is allocated.
Well done Unbolted.

All seems ok at the moment been investing for 12 months with them, would be good if they told you the percentage of interest you were getting overall on your investments to date. Does look a bit dated compared to other platforms but other than that all good.

To Chris J below how do you know it wasn't the post office that damaged your watch you doughnut!!!!