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I planned to blog in commiseration with Tom about being denied for a loan. Tom was denied for a Zopa loan and I was rejected for a GE Money Bank credit card through Amazon. GE Money Bank took 10 days to tell me that they could not verify my identity despite the promise on Amazon.com of a 30 second approval process. I have a 800 credit score and provided all information including a phone number and they could not verify my identity. They did not bother calling to verify and customer service told me the process is computer automated. Ten days for a computer program to return results? I doubt it…

Sorry /Rant Off
I’ll skip the remainder of my planned rant about Amazon’s relationship with GE Money Bank Read the rest of this entry »

Prosper Marketplace’s recent fee changes on P2P loans are further separating P2P lenders’ interests from those of Prosper. Prosper is loading up more fees at the front of the loan so they will be earning a far greater percentage of their income from loan origination. Lenders, on the other hand, earn all their money from loan payments being made. There has long been concern that Prosper creates and packages loans and moves on to originate the next loan while forgetting about collections. Collection (or even loan fraud) becomes someone else’s problem, but unfortunately the lenders are not allowed to attempt collection leaving them with no recourse other than complaining via the internet.

The fee changes detailed in the Prosper September newsletter: Read the rest of this entry »

Loanio has continued to claim be almost available since I started blogging on P2P lending. Loanio in fact has been promising its imminent release since before I started blogging P2P lending — back in November of 2008.

For about the past year (maybe more), Loanio has been requesting you to sign up for their email announcements to stay informed of their launch. It is likely that Lending Clubs SEC troubles have impacted Loanio and caused a delay, but why do they keep announcing they will be launching soon? Launch and then announce if you don’t know when you are launching.

Loanio has announced their own launch via email and announced the Read the rest of this entry »

I regularly receive scam emails requesting large loans through my contact form on this loan related website. Most of these are probably some type of advanced fee fraud if you were to start corresponding with the individual.

There are some people who take pride and joy in wasting scammers time by corresponding with them, but I don’t have time for that. Although it is humorous to read through some of the tales of scam-baiting at 419eater.com.

I hope other people are not falling for these loan scams, but unfortunately they are. There are various types of financial fraud on the internet — here are some examples of people who were charged. Of course, there is also the famous Prosper case of Jessica Wolcott.

The best email that I received had the subject line “Seeking a loan for $350,000″ and the email body text of “need funding.” That is all the email contained.

Here is one below that claims to be from Atlanta Georgia, but if you look up his IP address he is somewhere in the Caribbean.

I am a small company in Atlanta GA which with need to join together the sum
of $100.000 to pay the emission of bonds private and public which will be
sold in the whole world by NEW YORK Stock Exchange stockbrokers I also have
several sources of international investors who will buy the bonds of my
company when it are emitted and published out of purse. Since year 2000
that I fight to succeed. I have to accomplish several voyages to find
partners who now will help me to carry out my macro commercial project and
industrialist who is at 100% innovating and reliable like says it to me
economists. I wish that you to help itself to find funds to pay the
emission of the bonds for my company by the means of my lawyers located at
Miami FL. Of course I will give you more information to make a enquette
before engaging you with me. I am French and does not speak quite English
but takes lessons to learn.

Question: What is the difference between my Prosper Marketplace remaining cash and a wide-angle lens for my DSLR camera?

Answer: In a week, they will be one in the same so there will be no difference.

I had $250 in cash in my Prosper account waiting to be loaned out to borrowers, but today I initiated a transfer of my cash back into my checking account. I decided that the only thing guaranteed to be around three years from now - and thus my best overall investment - is a new camera lens. I’ll need to add a little more cash to buy a good lens, but it will be much more useful and enjoyable than watching P2P loans.

Why am I pulling the plug on my Prosper Investment by removing my remaining cash?

Several reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

I mentioned earlier that I had one Lending Club loan fall behind, but the loan recovered in less than 30 days. I now have one Lending Club loan more than 30 days late.

I had my doubts when I bid on it because the person sounded too desperate to get out of town. However, the loan was only for $800 with a monthly payment of just over $27, so I figured that they could handle the payment regardless of moving cities. If a person does not have intentions of paying a loan back, they would certainly ask for more than $800.

The loan details: Read the rest of this entry »

For some time now, I have been warning about the mortgage crisis and its impact on P2P loans. The fact that Ed Mcmahon, Johnny Carson’s former sidekick, is in default on his home mortgage shows just how screwed up some Americans were in their thinking about debt, the housing market, and personal finances. Ed Mcmahon went on Larry King live to describe his debt problems.

Fame helps because Donald Trump Read the rest of this entry »

I received a Prosper Marketplace update via email. There were several interesting items, but it the last item stood out:

Legal Agreement Revisions
A minor change has been made to the following legal agreements, to clarify that selling or buying a recommendation or endorsement is not allowed. Please refer to the links below to view these changes.
Borrower Registration Agreement [PDF]
Lender Registration Agreement [PDF]
Group Leader Registration Agreement [PDF]

This portion of the update seems to directly target Read the rest of this entry »

I have been fascinated with Kiva.org for sometime but have not jumped into lending on the concept yet. Part of my hesitancy is that I feel awkward about earning a return on these micro-loans for international development. I do not see them fitting with my goal of trying to offer a higher return, but as a former Peace Corps volunteer I am excited about the concept of micro-finance and would like to participate.

Therefore, I am sending the following note to Kiva.org: Read the rest of this entry »

Thank you to the blogs and forums that sent me the most traffic in the first half of the year. Also, I’d like to take a look back on the most popular posts of my p2p lending blog for the first half of the year.

Top Referrers:

• 1) Lazy Man and Money has sent me a good deal of traffic because I like his articles enough that I comment frequently on the site. Recent post I liked: Is organic food worth the money?
• 2) P2P No Bank - I even changed my blog theme to get back on this site.
• 3) The official prosper blog is also a good source of traffic. Not only does the official blog post the prosper numbers but it also posts interesting items like the history of p2p lending.
• 4) Rate Ladder often has interesting posts like the Zopa security issue.
• 5) Despite Peer Lend being more infrequent in posting than me. The site still sends me regular visitors.
• 6) The very unofficial prosper forums still send me traffic. I occasionally still visit there for posts like the Peak Prosper Theory.
• 7) Prosperous Land who unfortunately recently quit blogging had many good posts such as listing all the Prosper Days videos.
• 8 ) Lending Club’s Official Blog was also a frequent referrer.
• 9) I was surprised to see Moolanomy because I rarely comment there and don’t remember a particular post there that sent me a lot of traffic. I quite liked the recent post on building extra income streams.
• Wise Clerk was a top referrer.