zcommodore

It occurred to me the other night that if it weren't for John Witchel, I wouldn't have a blog here.  I figured I should say thanks.

I suppose you might be wondering why it was John Witchel who is responsible for this.  Well, here's the story as I remember it.  Many of the "old-timers" might remember Black Friday (some more background here) on the old Prosper Forums.  Shortly after that, it was my understanding that John Witchel, in an effort to reach out to the community, decided to ask Ferrix, the owner of Prospers.org if he could start a blog from which he could open a line of communication.  I don't know that this was ever documented anywhere but I happened to be online in IRC when Ferrix mentioned he was looking into getting some blog software for the site.

So, in the end, Ferrix set up the blog software, John started blogging but quit soon after (later deleted it completely) and others decided to blog as well.  Eventually, I started this blog since it didn't seem that the others were doing much with their blogs.  Of course, lately, I haven't been doing much with mine either but that's a different story.

For what it's worth, I don't recall there being hardly any blogs about Prosper prior to Black Friday.  I think Hollow Oak had one and Rate Ladder may have had his.  There may have been some others too but I don't think they were specifically about Prosper.  In the last few months, it seems there have been quite a few that showed up either here or in other places.

Ultimately though, I don't know if Ferrix had thought of the idea of hosting a blog here or not but I do appreciate him being responsive to the idea and hosting mine.  Right now, I credit John with the idea so I'm thanking him for my blog.  Thanks, John.

Rumor has it that at PD08 today, Prosper confirmed that they still have the $20 Million from the 2nd round of venture capital they received last summer in the bank.  Chatting with someone on IRC, they said the numbers they had seen recently suggested this may be the case and that Prosper is burning through around $5 Million per year.  If this is true, then supposedly they can continue working towards profitability at least another 4-5 years and maybe longer if they can find enough borrowers who pay back their loans.

Now, I have a question.  How did they invest that VC money?  I've heard there is at least one website that suggests you can earn 9-12% if you invest there. I wonder if they've heard of it or have considered investing there?  I understand there may be some risk and liquidity could be a small concern, but even if they only invested 5% of their funds, that would be a nice little income to add to wherever it is they currently have it stored.

Hmm.  I wonder...

A couple of weeks ago, I passed the 18-month mark since I found and joined Prosper.  Earlier this week, my first loan reached 18 months old.  This morning, I got my 18th payment from that loan.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, I probably would never bid on that one today but, in this case, I seem to have gotten lucky.  If he pays for 6 more months, I'll have gotten all my principal back.  In the mean time, I'm half-way to a full-term payoff.  Too bad some of my subsequent loans didn't do so well.

Incidentally, my first loan has been late a few times.  Still, he's current at least for one more month.  I sent him a thank-you once after he caught up from nearly reaching 1-month late.  I got a note back saying he had had a hiccup in his finances where several things were due all at the same time.  I'm happy to see he's still paying.  Sometimes those 29% AF loans do pay....

Yesterday, Fred93 posted again in his blog asking for Prosper to get with the program and switch the collection agencies as they had promised.  Today, I see that a bunch of late loans are no longer "in collections" after reading a thread on prospers.org where someone noticed things were changing.  Someone in that thread said Prosper is making the switch today.

So, was it just a coincidence or did Fred93's blog make an impact?

Either way, I appreciate Fred93 for his continued efforts to encourage Prosper to do the right thing regarding collections.

I know it's getting around that time again.  More and more lenders are trying to figure out how to report interest, late fees, and defaults and a few group leaders may be thinking about GL fees as they relate to their taxes.  I've put together a short wiki page that some may find useful when filling out their tax form or talking with their tax accountant.  Since it is a wiki, if there are mistakes, feel free to correct them.

Here's the link: http://www.prospers.org/wiki/taxes