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[HollowOak]

I wish to draw all of y'all's attention to the restrictions on posting personally identifiable information, especially someone else's, in The Lobby.

Oops, I was asleep at the switch.

Does PII include email addresses? I had to do a little digging to find the reporter's email address, so I don't know if the intent was to get that email address crawled.

I think the golden rule is not to let The Lobby be a  source for obtaining someone's PII.

Somehow I don't really consider the email address of a reporter who has already made it publicly available (unless Mark found it somewhere other than the internet) to be PII.  And ditto for a phone number that the reporter chooses to put in her autorespond email.  Next someone will claim that "Cory Moore" is PII.  Starting to sound too Prosperish for me.

Let's take this inside.

[Nora_Lenderbee]

the fact-checker, evidently, being simply that, and not not an error-corrector.

*snerk*

[bamalucky]

I'm probably not going to call & would have never called had Lep not nominated himself to decide who can call..

did i miss where we elected Lep as spokesman?

[beerbud1]

I'm probably not going to call & would have never called had Lep not nominated himself to decide who can call..

did i miss where we elected Lep as spokesman?

Well I can't call. I'm not experienced enough, or eloquent enough. What qualifies you for experienced? 144 lates with several defaults and a 3.2 ROI?

[Epictetus]

the fact-checker, evidently, being simply that, and not not an error-corrector.

*snerk*

I myself, evidently, only occasionally being one of the latter.

 
[Edited for - appropriately enough - a typo.]

[leporello]

I'm probably not going to call & would have never called had Lep not nominated himself to decide who can call..

did i miss where we elected Lep as spokesman?

Nobody elected me as spokesman, bama. I just volunteered, and AFAIK nobody objected or offered to take my place.

[beerbud1]

Here is response I recieved from Kathy Chu:
Hi David -

 

I just checked with Cory and he says that he has indeed made ''about'' $4,000 in interest -- it's because most but not all of his loans are for $50 apiece… in addition to the loans at $50 apiece, he has a few other loans for $5,000 and $8,000. On all of his loans, he charges a minimum of 12%, but some are at 29%.

 

Does that make sense?

 

Kathy Chu

Reporter

USA TODAY
My original e-mail to her:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: dfbooth1@comcast.net [mailto:dfbooth1@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 2:17 PM
To: Chu, Kathy
Subject: Peer-to-peer lending hits its stride - USATODAY.com

 
 Your article mentions that Cory Moore has recieved over $4000 in interest this year on 170 loans @ $50.00 per loan. That would mean that he loaned a total of $8500.00.
That would mean that the interest rate is well over 50% in order to achieve that rate of return. As a prosper lender I know for a fact that there is no interest on Prosper over 30%. YTou need to print a retraction as this is false and misleading.
yours Truly

David
Pompano Beach, FL
 
 My followup e-mail to her today:


Kathy,

Yes it does. There was never any mention of the larger loans on Prosper. Thank you for responding back to me personally. I would like to personally invite you to check out www.prospers.org. It is a forum for anyone that is involved in Prosper as well as the other P2P lending websites. You can learn alot about Prosper, its lenders and their experiences by visiting this site. Anyone of several lenders would be interested in talking with you about their lending experiences, good and bad for a follow up piece. If I can assist you, don't hesitate to e-mail me.

David
Beerbud1(screen name)

[ira01]

I just checked with Cory and he says that he has indeed made ''about'' $4,000 in interest -- it's because most but not all of his loans are for $50 apiece… in addition to the loans at $50 apiece, he has a few other loans for $5,000 and $8,000. On all of his loans, he charges a minimum of 12%, but some are at 29%.

And he/she didn't think that was relevant to the claim in the article?  In any event, I'm still a little skeptical.  Leporello, is it possible to use ProProsper to find this guy, looking at all lenders who joined this year with about 170 loans, the vast majority for about $50, but at least 1 about $8K and at least 1 about $5K? 

[leporello]

I just checked with Cory and he says that he has indeed made ''about'' $4,000 in interest -- it's because most but not all of his loans are for $50 apiece… in addition to the loans at $50 apiece, he has a few other loans for $5,000 and $8,000. On all of his loans, he charges a minimum of 12%, but some are at 29%.

And he/she didn't think that was relevant to the claim in the article?  In any event, I'm still a little skeptical.  Leporello, is it possible to use ProProsper to find this guy, looking at all lenders who joined this year with about 170 loans, the vast majority for about $50, but at least 1 about $8K and at least 1 about $5K? 

Hang on...I'll see what I can find.

[leporello]

he has a few other loans for $5,000 and $8,000.

Does anyone interpret this to mean that our friend Cory has $5000 on some loan and $8000 on another loan? That's totally inconsistent with 170 loans at $50. I think our reporter friend is confusing the total amount borrowed with how much Cory bid on it.

At any rate, I have used Eric's and ProProsper to identify all lenders who
(1) Joined Prosper in 2007
(2) are on between 160 and 180 loans, and
(3) have between $8500 and $10,000 invested.

Aimvest
arvcpa
bkb1979
FinDoc
huskerguy
QUATRO
rodeb_sioul

Unfortunately, not one of these lenders meets the "only $50 bids criterion".

[mandmboysfan]

he has a few other loans for $5,000 and $8,000.

Does anyone interpret this to mean that our friend Cory has $5000 on some loan and $8000 on another loan? That's totally inconsistent with 170 loans at $50. I think our reporter friend is confusing the total amount borrowed with how much Cory bid on it.

At any rate, I have used Eric's and ProProsper to identify all lenders who
(1) Joined Prosper in 2007
(2) are on between 160 and 180 loans, and
(3) have between $8500 and $10,000 invested.

Aimvest
arvcpa
bkb1979
FinDoc
huskerguy
QUATRO
rodeb_sioul

Unfortunately, not one of these lenders meets the "only $50 bids criterion".

Could you run that query again increasing the $ range to maybe $20000 - $22000?  I read her response as he had 170 $50 bids, plus two more  - 1 for $5000 and 1 for $8000 (maybe those extra two were to personal friends or something which was why they weren't mentioned in the article)

[joezyz]

Lep,
I just signed up for ProProsper.  Is ther a way to write your own SQL?  I did not see a place, but I wonder if we can just use sql to find bid amounts of $5000 and $8000.

-Joe

[Mtnchick]

I just checked with Cory and he says that he has indeed made ''about'' $4,000 in interest -- it's because most but not all of his loans are for $50 apiece… in addition to the loans at $50 apiece, he has a few other loans for $5,000 and $8,000. On all of his loans, he charges a minimum of 12%, but some are at 29%.

And he/she didn't think that was relevant to the claim in the article?  In any event, I'm still a little skeptical.  Leporello, is it possible to use ProProsper to find this guy, looking at all lenders who joined this year with about 170 loans, the vast majority for about $50, but at least 1 about $8K and at least 1 about $5K? 

OMG, of course it's relevant. Telling people you made $4K off a few $50 loans is certainly a LOT different than making $4K off the few $50 loans PLUS a "few" other loans for $5K-$8K. Methinks this is a suspect lender (e.g. doesn't exist or is a friend/employee of P------r).

[beerbud1]

Here is Kathy Chu's follow up e-mail to my last e-mail:

Got it. He does have 170 loans at $50 apiece, but he also has others as
mentioned below. I will indeed look at the site and if there's a follow up story
in the future, will contact you.
 
Thanks,
 
Kathy

[leporello]

Lep,
I just signed up for ProProsper.  Is ther a way to write your own SQL?  I did not see a place, but I wonder if we can just use sql to find bid amounts of $5000 and $8000.

-Joe

Go to the Query Analyzer page, and then you can write your own SQL. The data definitions are found at

https://www.prosper.com/Downloads/Services/Documentation/ProsperDataExport_Details.html