http://www.ericscc.com/lenders/nonattenderMy first loan was in early 2006, my last loan paid off a couple of days ago. I came out ahead, as well...
I did some crazy shit. The average credit grade I invested in was "NC" - which, for those of you who do not remember the "Wild West" days of Prosper, when pie-eyed lenders could fund anything they wanted, since *anyone* could list a loan, regardless of how awful their credit...or even if they had (N)o (C)redit, which was as risky as you could go. Instead of fooling myself lending to AA's who were, in reality, living on "RE"ality with monstrous HELOCS and probably like five flips in the works, I went the opposite route...
Granted, I was experimenting for a reason, doing a sort of CapOne college kids / "let's see if I'm psychic" gig, testing my datamining skills at the same time I was testing my ability to read narratives, for bullshit.
But, I digress... (though, with a huge smile on my face, because it was damned fun and I learned a ton!)
I feel bad for the people who sought "safety", and invested in only high grade stuff, at fair market yields, but most of them skated by with "less-worse-than-banks" returns, at the time - but, sadly, no bailouts) - as they were buying similarly graded (Experian's ScoreX product, used back then, was modelled for mortgage lending, specifically - so... yeah!) paper that banks were at the time, but without the commensurate bailout - even though but, let's face it - there was a lot of greed those first couple years, too - especially at the beginning, as rate caps were at 50% for a little while - and especially as some larger lenders thought P2P would catch on much more quickly than it did (thus driving down the the rates on all the risky paper, including the RE AA's, living on their houses)and rushed to deploy as much capital as they could (sometimes, by investing their own house into people who wanted p2p loans because they'd already tapped out their own home...)
Anyway. It was fun - but we didn't wind up calling those days the "Wild West" for nothing - and, oddly - we were mostly calling it the "Wild West", in the forums, while it was still the "wild west", so it's not as if since Prosper wasn't (as it couldn't, and still can't) guiding people away from risky stuff, that users didn't try to do that. I see names still complaining here (about losing like 1% over 3 years - sure, sure, it's the principle, and you're only trying to "help" new lenders - with advice that's relevant to a platform that only exists several years in the past! and doesnt even compare to the risk mgmt prosper - and LC - have in place today, but... OK!) who were told by other users it was a spec invest, that they ought to know that, and be very careful that they knew what they were doing, because, often frankly, it looked like they didn't. I looked like I didn't, even though now I can say I had a "system" - but, I still got greedy one day and lent $87 to a guy named EvilDick66 (*i smite my forehead*) because I had $87 clear into my account that day, I just had to bid on something immediately, and he was at 29%.
What could possibly go wrong? And, long story short, that's probably a good bit of why Prosper now has such tight credit standards, doesn't let anyone even list (much less for over $10k) if they're not super-prime, and generally took away tons of "freedom" from an initially open marketplace. But do I see why?
Hell yeah. Most lenders needed the rounded scissors. A few more EvilDick66's and I mighta been one - because the thought of lending, that instant, at that attractive 29% rate, caused me to get so excited that I stabbed myself in the chest with the pointy ones. All I can do now is own up to it, and be glad I caught it when I did. (Some still haven't, because they never did.)
So, that's a very brief, not comprehensive, and relatively true account of "Prosper: The Early Years"...
There was also a GREAT deal of intelligent discourse, tons of excitement, and wonderful collaboration - but that's another... post? something, anyway.
-t
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Topic: I Also Got 25-30% Stolen From My Recovery Payments On Written Off Loan (Read 110437 times)