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maybe prosper will try to take their domain name away
The article has a recommend link if you feel the article is worth recommending. You need to be registered though.
I am the ira01 mentioned in the article. It was a pleasure finally reading an article about Prosper that didn't appear to be written by Prosper's marketing department. If I had a nickel for every "article" appearing in newspapers, magazines, or online that simply regurgitated Prosper's misleading statements about its default rate, typical lender performance, and the like, I could retire a rich man. Perhaps Chuck Saletta can do another piece on some of those issues. For example, using lendingstats.com, one of the two main third-party data sites (which compile Prosper's own data in easy to use formats), the median (i.e., half do better, half do worse) estimated ROI of all 13,000+ "moderately seasoned" lenders (those with >20 loans and an average loan age of >6 months) is a paltry 2.57%. Considering that E-Trade and others are offering 3.3% on 100% liquid, FDIC-insured savings accounts (with better tax treatment to boot), that is obviously terrible. But you surely won't see that figure anywhere on Prosper's website or in its advertisements.@opinion1956: Prosper already tried to silence a lender critic last year by sending a cease and desist letter from its lawyer seeking to take away the www.prosperreport.com website (which hosts an archive of Prosper's own former official forum which it deleted without warning last year in an effort to keep lenders in the dark) on baseless cybersquatting and other legal theories. Public Citizen graciously agreed to represent the lender pro bono, and sent Prosper a letter essentially telling it to "bring it on." Prosper folded like a cheap suit (no doubt realizing that its position was without merit). So too here. Believe it or not, we do still have free speech in this country -- including criticism of corporations. And in California, where both Prosper and I are located, there is extremely strong protection against SLAPP suits seeking to punish the "little guy" for exercising his free speech rights.
Now submitted to Digg
Opinion1956, what in the Fool article is inaccurate? More importantly, for purposes of your accusation, what in the blogging is false? Feel free to post your response on the www.prosper.com forums if you're a Prosper employee or if your response somehow otherwise passes moderation there, or on www.prosper.org. If you're not a member at www.prosper.org, there are several topics in the lobby, including one about this article, where you can comment. Many lenders, myself included, were led to Prosper by irresponsibly optimistic reporting in financial articles. It's nice to see that a respected financial service is reporting on some of the warts that have caused a lot of people to lose a chunk of money. At least in the stock market we can sell and move on at any time. Since Prosper now refuses to default late loans (in violation of the terms of service in effect when most of us started lending, I might add), the end of my Prosper relationship is nowhere in sight.
I commented, too.QuoteOpinion1956, what in the Fool article is inaccurate? More importantly, for purposes of your accusation, what in the blogging is false? Feel free to post your response on the www.prosper.com forums if you're a Prosper employee or if your response somehow otherwise passes moderation there, or on www.prosper.org. If you're not a member at www.prosper.org, there are several topics in the lobby, including one about this article, where you can comment. Many lenders, myself included, were led to Prosper by irresponsibly optimistic reporting in financial articles. It's nice to see that a respected financial service is reporting on some of the warts that have caused a lot of people to lose a chunk of money. At least in the stock market we can sell and move on at any time. Since Prosper now refuses to default late loans (in violation of the terms of service in effect when most of us started lending, I might add), the end of my Prosper relationship is nowhere in sight.
Further ETA: Who is posting on fool as opinion1956?
