BTCJam Arbitration Enforcement With Worldwide

• John Vandivier

This article discusses a means of conducting collections for BTCJam arbitration awards, and demonstrates how the recipient of an award can calculate whether or not it is in their financial interest to purchase collections services, including the possibility of crowdfunded collections services.

Before I get into the dry stuff, I would just like to say that crowdfunded collections services is exactly what the P2P lending market needs. It is an exciting confirmation of the hopes and theory of sharing economy thinkers, and I appreciate Kevin Palley et al for working to make this happen.

So here's what to do:

  1. Receive a BTCJAM arbitration award. It might arrive via email and look like this:\"arbitration-award\"
  2. Visit Kevin Palley's website, branded as Worldwide Arbitration Enforcement and Collections at enforcemyarbitrationaward.com
  3. Scroll down a bit on the homepage and find the sign up button.
    1. Web design advice for Worldwide: Get a sign up button on the initial view with a clear call to action like \"Clear here to begin collections!\"
  4. Select the sign up option identifying that you are seeking a BTCJAM award. You will need to fill out the following fields:
    1. BTCjam Loan Number: This is identified at the top of your arbitration award letter.
    2. BTCjam Member Number:
      1. Log into your BTCjam account and hover your mouse over or click your picture in the top-left of the dashboard page.
      2. You will see a URL like https://btcjam.com/users/5441
      3. The number at the end is your Member Number
    3. BTCjam Email Address: It's in Settings in your BTCjam account. It's also where you received the arbitration award via email, if that's the way you received it.
    4. Amount you invested:
      1. Take your Loan Number and visit a URL like https://btcjam.com/listings/48753
      2. Except, replace 48753 with your loan number.
      3. Scroll down on the loan information page to the section called \"investments\"
      4. There is a little search box in the top-right of that section. Enter your username.
      5. After the search processes, you should see the other users filtered out leaving just your investment information on this particular loan. One of the columns of information is the amount you invested.
So figure out how much you invested and compare it with the fee you will be charged to go through with to execute collections. If the benefit is larger than the cost, do it! This is a general principle for any collection agency. It's not just to do with Worldwide.

I would note a few particular things about Worldwide which may not be generalizable:

  1. Kevin Palley is a uniquely qualified attorney because
  2. The website leverages crowdfunding of collections costs, which is dramatically cheaper than hiring your own collections by yourself
  3. The website advertises full refunds if full collections are not obtained
  4. Your risk as a collections service consumer is reduced by a number of lengthy windows of time in which you can opt-out or cancel your service request.
    1. For example, there is a window of time where people sign up. The more people who sign up to collect on your loan, the less you have to pay.
    2. After everyone signs up then the fee costs which everyone has to pay will be sent out. There is a 10 day window that you can opt-out after learning how much you will have to pay. So you as a consumer should not be on the hook for unexpectedly high costs, which is great.