zcommodore

I just finished sending the following via e-mail to a number of people at Prosper.

First, let me introduce myself so you understand my involvement with Prosper.  I found out about the site in early August, 2006 from a newspaper article discussing the person who is blogging away debt.  By the end of the day, I had signed up as a lender and was in the process of verifying my account.

I never had a lot of funds available to lend but eventually deposited $1000 into my account on Prosper.  After a few weeks I started a group and assisted 10 borrowers in getting loans so far and one more is making her second attempt in my group.  I never wanted a large group but have enjoyed helping borrowers getting funded.  In addition to the loans I've made and group members I've assisted, I have also given advice and encouragement to dozens of borrowers in the RML forum on Prosper along with many private messages to other borrowers on Prosper's website as well.

Back in January of this year, I participated in an interview on NPR's program, Marketplace. This interview was broadcast on January 19 and subsequent versions were broadcast on February 6 and July 4.

In addition to the above, I've told several people about this website and my sister and a highschool friend have both become lenders specifically due to my pointing them to this site.  Also, I've spent some of my own time and money promoting this website and have over 100 referrals to my credit on Prosper.

Basically, I'm trying to say I've been a huge fan of Prosper since I first found it and I always wanted it to succeed even though I have very limited funds available to participate.

Recently, I've noticed an alarming trend, particularly as it relates to customer service.  This topic has been mentioned repeatedly on the forums but I now wanted to share my experience.

Example 1

A few weeks ago, I bid on this listing. It eventually funded and ended on October 14 but was cancelled the 19th.  As a lender, I was disappointed but I moved on until I saw that the borrower has now relisted and says his previous listing was cancelled "due to a mistake" on the part of Prosper.  Normally I would figure the borrower was only telling his side of the story.  However I've seen numerous claims like this on the forums and I was beginning to wonder.  Did Prosper CS hit the cancel button too quickly?

Example 2

Just recently, on the forums, a borrower with the screenname of verybusymom453 says her bank account was messed up such that she couldn't make her payment on time.  She contacted Prosper CS repeatedly only to get non-answers that didn't help her situation.  Only when Shira reported it to Tim Bright did she start to get a resolution.  I hope the situation gets resolved but how many other borrowers are going through similar situations and don't know about the forums in order to get someone's attention?  How many borrowers are late on their loans due to an error on Prosper's part?

Example 3

Yesterday, a borrower in my group who has had a loan since December, 2006 had a listing cancelled since Prosper couldn't verify ownership of her bank account.  OK, I think I understand the reasoning behind this.  I think it's a bad situation that she has an existing loan that she is currently paying on out of the same account but I suppose there may be some legal reason why she couldn't use that account.  However, her account was also suspended.  Why?  Shouldn't there be a little bit more leeway given to existing borrowers and/or lenders who have had some experience on Prosper?

Example 4

I am a lender, not a borrower on Prosper.  However, this past week I received a credit card offer that I decided to take advantage of.  I was able to fill out the application online and within minutes I had a tentative line of credit for nearly half my annual salary.  I had very few hoops to jump through.  Repeatedly, I've seen borrowers on Prosper have to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to get loans where it would be so much simpler to go to their local bank and get one after filling out a couple of forms.  If Prosper can't find a way to streamline this process it is going to fail.  Only the most desparate and fraudulent borrowers are going to be willing to go through what Prosper seems to be requiring.

I realize that in each case above excepting my own, I'm only getting one side of the story.  Each taken individually appears to be a simple case of a misunderstanding or possibly an attempt at sympathy from the borrower.  However, these are only examples I've taken from a growing number of problems with customer service that I keep reading on the forums and from interracting with other members of Prosper.

I really hope Prosper can do something about improving customer service because my patience is wearing very thin at this point.  It seems to me that Prosper is having a very hard time keeping the members they have and it's a lot easier to grow the business with happy customers than to continually try to get new ones to replace the disgruntled ones.

Thank you for your time and attention to my concerns.
zcommodore