Jacob needed to so something special for Christmas. Now in his mid-fifties, he’d built a small but successful corporate video production company. All was going well – he’d landed a lucrative gig filming a series of employee communication videos for a leading brand - when suddenly, his wife of 35 years, Emma, fell ill. The symptoms were alarming: rapid weight loss, extreme tiredness and muscular rigidity with tremor. Both were fearful than some dreadful neurodegenerative disease had struck.
Happily, this turned out not to be the case. Although unwell for the best part of six months, Emma spontaneously started to recover. Extensive tests all turned up blank. The Consultant Neurologist diagnosed a transient infection that had entered Emma’s central nervous system and caused her worrying neurological symptoms. The fact that she was recovering, thankfully, indicated that no lasting damage had been done, and that nothing more sinister was going on.
Overjoyed at the news, Jacob decided that Emma would open an envelope on Christmas morning enclosing a booking for a seven night stay in 2016 at Sir Richard Branson’s British Virgin Islands private retreat, Necker Island. Jacob’s eye was trained on the Great House Master Suite, costing a princely £32,000 for a seven-night stay. However, he wanted it to be a family occasion, too; their youngest son would stay with them, but their older boy with his wife and two children would need another suite. In short, the cost of the trip would be just south of £70,000.
Jacob knew that the income from the new project he’d just taken on would comfortably cover that amount but the £100,000-plus he would receive was still in the future. Contemplating options, and knowing he needed a decision about borrowing fast, he pondered possibilities in the online alternative finance sector.
What he didn’t want was a long-term loan and he didn’t particularly want to be subjected to a credit search: he’d already borrowed to grow his business and he was sure another search would simply dent his rating. Which is precisely why he felt his heart rate and his mood rising when he read an online report in The Guardian describing unique peer-to-peer lender platform Unbolted.
Unique amongst p2p lenders, Unbolted specialises in secured asset loans. No credit searches, no reports of failure to pay; just loans secured against high value assets owned by the borrower. Fortunately Jacob owned a personal treasure he felt sure would qualify as collateral to secure the loan he was seeking: a rare and decidedly handsome 1960 Jaguar XK150 S 3.8 Litre Drophead Coupe in superb condition.
Jacob received an indicative loan offer for the amount he needed on the same day as he uploaded a photograph of his majestic jag. As soon as Unbolted’s expert valuation partners, H&H (a specialist auction house dedicated to the sale of collectors’ motorcycles and motorcars), had assessed the vehicle in person, Jacob agreed to allow Unbolted to hold the car in bespoke storage for six months, whereupon it would be returned to him on repayment of the loan or be sold at auction.
Emma will discover on Christmas Day that she is to have a dream recuperative vacation on a fairy-tale tropical island next year and when Jacob’s invoice is paid early in 2016, he’ll be able reclaim his splendid Jag.
