I've never had tax forms to deal with on an IRA transfer in the past.   Seems like this is one thing the IRS has made totally automatic.  :-)

I am in groundfloor.us  .  I'm always surprised when they don't often get mentioned in a list such as they one you gave.

They have a large # deals open at any one time, so I have no trouble investing a bunch of cash when I dump it in.

I'm looking to maybe diversify, as these are all small companies, and that led me to look into Sharestates, which led me to the question above.

This question has been discussed several times on the forum.  I believe a recent answer said LC would send you a check, but you had to ask for it.  I'm workin' from memory here, so that may be only partially correct.

Heh heh.  The alto guy told me the estimated date for the check to arrive at TDAmeritrade was 10/25.  Because the check has not arrived, I pinged them this morning, and got the following reply...

Date:      Tue, Oct 26, 2021 3:02 pm
Hi xxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for reaching out! I just confirmed with our Financial Operations team that the check has been processed and currently has an expected delivery date of October 28, 2021. Please let me know if you need any additional information.

Best,

Jesse Holmes
Client Experience Team

My initial request to them was on 9/28.  If the check does arrive on 10/28 that would be exactly 1 month.

Here's their explanation and non-apology for delaying my funds 1 month. 

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2021 09:25:08
Hi xxxxxxxxxxx,

Thank you for following up and I sincerely apologize for the delay. Once the request has gone through a lengthy review process by our compliance team. It is then submitted by our Financial Operations team to our Bank to be issued. Our bank then provides us with an estimated delivery date. Again, this is an estimated time frame, I believe your custodian should be expecting the check very soon. Please let me know if you need any additional information.

Best,

xxxxx xxxxxxx
Client Experience Team

The "lengthy review process" is of course simply the checking of a few check boxes.  The submission "by our Financial Operations team to our bank" means a person types in a few things on a web site, to tell the bank to issue a check.  Routine stuff.

Bozos.

LC stock is up 49% today.  Wow.

Today I make it official.  I officially declare the folks at Alto to be "bozos".  I don't do this lightly.  I gave them several chances. They failed every time.

1. They fail at customer service.  Their web site shows NO phone number for customer service.  You have to email them.  Their customer service person "Patti" misunderstands the issue, and sends dismissive replies, and there is no evidence that they ever look into anything.

2. They fail at accounting.  From the first day that they said my account had transferred, the balance shown by Alto was about $1,000 lower than the balance shown by LendingClub.  I notified them 6/28, including screen captures of both LC and AltoIRA showing the mismatched numbers.  Patti was dismissive, claiming that in a few days cash would transfer from Strata and everything would be ok.  I never had any cash sitting at Strata so this seemed unlikely.  Now, two weeks later, there is still a >$1,000 discrepancy between the account value shown by LC vs Alto.  I'm calm, as the money is at LC, and surely eventually Alto will figure out how to display the right number.  It can't be very difficult.  They get daily account data from LendingClub, and all they have to do is display those numbers they are handed, yet they fail.  I want to be clear about this: I don't mind an accounting error.  It happens from time to time.  However, if you have your company set up so that when I take my time to report and explain a problem to you, you are dismissive and don't even look into the problem, then you are a bozo.

3. They fail at security.  They asked all customers to do a password reset recently.  I have no problem with that.  They sent email saying I would soon receive an email from Eric Satz telling me how to reset my password, but get this... The email said I would know the 2nd email was official because they would include a video of Eric Satz in the email!   

"Additionally, so you know it is us, this email will contain a video message from our CEO, Eric Satz."

This indicates a very basic misunderstanding of computer security, because an included video does not authenticate an email message. 

I wrote to them, explaining this, trying to educate them, but they were dismissive, telling me that nothing is perfect, and suggesting that I could send them a message asking if the email was authentic, and they would respond.  This tells me they are simply clueless.

A few days later, the email from Eric Satz arrived.  As advertised, it contains a video of Eric.  Well, I can't say for sure that is Eric, as I have never seen him before, but it is at least a talking head that claims to be Eric.  At the end of the video he gives out a customer service phone number!  Glory be.  A  phone number!  877-673-1557  There is still no phone # shown on their web site. 

I think most such status updates are just copied from whatever the borrower reports.  I doubt they have staff enough to go around and physically check status of each property.   I see some updates read "The borrower has reported that...", which is explicit about the source.  I can't claim that's on every update, because I haven't read every update.

The nice thing about GF loans that default is that you get your money back most of the time, unlike LendingClub & Prosper.  [I dunno about you, but I have got my money back almost every time.]  The real risk with GF is the quality of the valuations.  As long as they lend less than the property is worth, you're in pretty good shape.

The downside is that it takes a year or two for the repossession legal process.