So, to put this in terms I can understand. The prosper is not winning these cases because they are not able to follow proper court procedures in filling out the paperwork?
I'm not sure I'd go that far. We don't have enough information to get a good answer to "why". However, there's enough in the record to indicate sloppines, and apparent failure.
I get the impression that they just didn't try very hard. Perhaps that could be explained by not putting enough resources behind it. Another possibility is that they started with a good plan, but "gave up" at some point, and stopped the effort, and let the pieces fall where they might.
This is a very good point. Fred, since you've obviously been following these cases, have you noticed whether Prosper is still "doing stuff" (i.e., new filings in the last couple months -- other than dismissals), or has activity apparently ceased? One thing that I find very odd is that so far as we've seen, Prosper hasn't obtained a default judgment in a single case (of course, we only have information on some of the cases, so it is possible they have). Given the very high rate of defaults by debtors in collections cases, I find that very strange (and troubling).
I wish that Ferrix would get the wiki fixed, because the pages on the NAT (complete with links to the official court pages) would be very helpful in trying to take another look at these cases and figure out what is going on.
In any case the result is that they look like complete fools.
That's certainly true.
Edited to add: I agree with Ira. There are many possibilities. For example: One possibility is identity fraud. Maybe the defendants were able to argue that they weren't the right people. Lenders would love to know whether this is true, because it has implications.
Damn straight. Personally, I think it is quite likely that the NAT turned up some ID theft cases which, of course, Prosper would then be obligated to repurchase from lenders for 100%. I doubt many of us trust Prosper to voluntarily disclose this, since they would rather just dismiss the NAT cases and leave lenders holding the bag. This is one of the reasons I'm sorry that the class action against Prosper on just the SEC issue pretty much pre-empted the more comprehensive litigation against Prosper that would have been filed. I sure would have liked to have seen the discovery in that case. It may well have demonstrated Prosper improprieties beyond anything we've even suspected.
