ThinCats shuts down ‘VIP forum’ and plans to close accounts of non-invested users
ThinCats has told its customers that it is shutting down its ‘VIP forum’ with immediate effect and will close the accounts of all registered investors who do not hold assets on the platform by the end of the month.
Peer2Peer Finance News understands that the ‘VIP forum’ was set up in the early days of ThinCats and is a secondary forum, separate to the main forum, where registered members could discuss specific loans.
The ‘VIP forum’ had been experiencing IT issues since Friday evening, preventing members from being able to access the forum.
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“We have been liaising with the platform that hosts the VIP forum and have been advised that there is a malicious code on the website, which is preventing access,” ThinCats said in an email to its customers.
“In order to restore access, this would take significant time, resources and costs. As such we have concluded that it would not be commercially beneficial to undertake this work and therefore we will be closing the VIP forum with immediate effect.”
The main forum remains accessible to all registered investors, ThinCats said.
Earlier this week, ThinCats denied to Peer2Peer Finance News that it had closed its investor forum, blaming its inaccessibility on technical issues.
The business lender, which recently announced it is shutting its platform to retail investors, also said that registered lenders who do not hold any assets on the platform will have their accounts closed no later than 31 January 2020 and their access to the main forum withdrawn.
“Accordingly there is no reason why the main forum cannot be operated in the same format as the VIP forum,” said ThinCats.