Prosper's Repurchased Loans
May 9th, 2008I had been thinking about doing this for a long time but never got around to it until now. I created a list of all loans repurchased by Prosper. I created this list using Eric's handy loan search tool. One of the cool things about looking at loans on Ericscc.com is that he includes a status history so you can see when a loan switched from one status (current, late, repurchased, etc.) to another. It appears that Eric started doing this in Aug. 2006 though so some early loans don't have accurate status data.
On the list, I found 3 different categories of loans that were repurchased. Typical fraud loans (presumably) where the real person must have filed police reports stating the loan wasn't their's. (I'm not convinced this is the case for all of them but have nothing to base this on other than circumstantial evidence and speculation.) A set of 10 loans taken out by Victoria Crawford using stolen identities of people with good credit (including one using her own identity.) And finally, 66 loans included in the New Agency Test that are being sued by Prosper.
I noticed a few interesting cases on that list. For example, there was one $25K loan where only one lender bid the entire balance. The status history is a bit sparse but looking at the loan participants, it appears both borrower and lender were suspended. Honestly, I can't figure out how/why someone would do this unless they knew each other. The whole thing just doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe someone else can figure out what might have happened.
The first loan in the list of Victoria Crawford loans appears to have been current at the time it was repurchased. I surmised that it was taken out using her real identity although the name on the listing is male, not female (similar to most if not all the other loans she took.) I included it in the list because of the date (4/5) that it was repurchased, close to the time all the others (4/3) were repurchased as well.
In the list of New Agency Test (NAT) loans, I found 4 that appear to have started trying to catch up but apparently were "defaulted" and later "repurchased" anyway. I don't quite understand why they were defaulted (although none were "current") since apparently the threat of a lawsuit was having some kind of an effect.
One other note about these NAT loans: several lenders have collaborated to create a wiki page about the status of the lawsuits by Prosper against these borrowers. We are trying to create a list correlating the loan numbers with listing numbers and names of the borrowers. If you have any information you would like to add, feel free to do so. It is a wiki after all.
One year and one month ago today...
April 17th, 2008I haven't been paying much attention but I just realized that exactly one year and one month ago today, my group got it's 5-star rating. It lasted a little over 2 months when the first of my now-defaulted borrowers went past 15 days late. He never paid another dime and subsequently several others stopped paying as well. As of now, half the loans in my group are late or defaulted, with several in bankruptcy and little hope for recovery.
Oh well. So much for that idea. At the time, I thought I was doing pretty well picking the good HR's from the riff-raff. Even when some of them went late, I thought some might be able to get back on track eventually. As I said earlier, oh well. Not much I can do about it now.
What to do
April 8th, 2008For the last few months I've been slowly drawing down my exposure to Prosper and putting the money into LendingClub. Now that LendingClub is closing to lenders (temporarily?) I'm debating what to do. Should I keep drawing down my Prosper money and just put it in a savings account in case LendingClub reopens? Should I go back to bidding on Prosper as funds become available? Or should I just abandon P2P lending all together? There's always the possibility another P2P lending site might show up (LoanIO, where are you?)
The money I have invested isn't much right now and I have no interest in adding to it for a number of reasons. Since I do have some invested, I'm still interested in the concept and would like to see how it all works out first hand.
FWIW, I only have 5 $25 loans on LendingClub right now. 3 of them have made their first 2 payments on time, the other 2 are too new and won't have a payment due until sometime in May. Some of that money is from referrals, not just money I've transferred from Prosper.
Maybe I should start a poll on Prospers.org.... Naaah. :-)
That's it. I QUIT!
April 1st, 2008I've had enough. I'm quitting Prospers.org.
I'm sick of the drama. I'm sick of the drama queens. I'm sick of the negativity. I'm sick of the trolls. I've had enough of it so I'm just going to walk away.
I'm sick of Bama's constant trolling, negativity, disrespect, and a general lack of decency towards almost everyone. Posting with multiple screennames was the last straw. Bama, you need to get a life! Bama keeps threatening to leave but keeps coming back and I'm sick of that too.
I'm sick of JustinZachary/BFS who is nothing but an attention whore who seems to want nothing more than to call the female members on .org names. He then wonders why no one likes him. He promised to leave months ago but keeps coming back and I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of Eagles fan teakins2002 trolling for trouble. He also promised to leave but he keeps coming back. Just leave already!
I'm sick of the drama queens like Ira01 and MtnChick and others who make mountains out of every tiny molehill on Prosper. You've said repeatedly that you're pulling out of Prosper, so why don't you leave?
A week ago, I decided I'd had enough and thought I'd take a week off, so I did. Now that the week is over, I still can't stand it so I'm done. Bye!
Oh, and one more thing...
APRIL FOOLS!
Seriously, I did take a week off because I was getting tired of the drama. I did have one experience while I was "gone" that illustrated why I don't think I'll completely leave though. I saw a blog post by Jeff on his MyLendingClub blog that was almost completely wrong. The post said that Prosper didn't pay interest on the money they incorrectly witheld from group leaders and lenders. I posted a comment pointing out the facts in reply and I got an e-mail from him asking for where Prosper had said they were paying interest so I sent him a link. He also complained because he thought only .org people knew these things. After I replied, he deleted his blog post (and my comment of course - you can still find part of it on p2pnobank if you look for it). The fact that he didn't know this illustrated to me the fact that, even with it's flaws, .org does have value in keeping track of what's going on at Prosper. The best part is that I can "ignore" people I get tired of reading. :-)
First loan to break even
March 25th, 2008It's taken 19 months and a few extra payments along the way, but I finally have an unpaid loan that has reached the breakeven point. I've had two other loans that were paid off early that I obviously got all my money back on but this is the first one that is not yet fully paid but I've received more interest on it than the balance that is still owed.
If you do the math, a loan at 29% will reach the breakeven point at around 24 months if the borrower only makes the minimum payments. A loan at 14% reaches it at 30 months and a loan at 8% reaches it at 32 months. In the case of this loan at 28.5%, there were a few extra payments along the way that bumped up the "breakeven" point.
I look back on this loan and I'm happy to have reached this point (as is pensioner as well, I'm sure :-) ). I doubt I'd bid on it now for numerous reasons. I consider myself lucky for the most part. It does ease some of the pain of all the defaults I've had. Still, my ROI according to the 3rd-party sites ain't all that. I don't know how many 29% (including GL fees) AF loans at $25K that stayed current there are but I doubt there are many.
In the future, I look forward to reaching breakeven on more of my loans. It's nice to finally reach this milestone on one for now though.