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I regularly transfer funds in to Prosper and bid on listings

8 (7.9%)

I sometimes transfer funds into Prosper to bid on specific listings

10 (9.9%)

I reinvest repayments in new listings but don't transfer any new funds into Prosper

16 (15.8%)

I mostly withdraw funds from Prosper but bid on occasional listings

11 (10.9%)

I am withdrawing all funds from Prosper

56 (55.4%)

Total Members Voted: 98

[Mtnchick]

I can vouch that Prosper was absolutely horrified that people would leave in droves when I called mtnchick a porn freak.

I'm pretty sure that's why some of my lates aren't paying!!

[ks6328]

But I discovered the thread last night where people had their profiles deleted back in December.  I found that disturbing to the point that this may be the last $200 I invest in Prosper.

A lot of people referred to their profiles being deleted, but what actually happened is that the member descriptions were cleared.  For those people who had this done to their profile, and nothing else, there was no impact on the ability to bid or anything other functions.  I know because I'm one of those people.  My member description was cleared and I received an email of which here is the main part ...

Warning: Policy Violation

Sent to [first and last name removed]. Change preferences. Learn about security.

Dear [first name removed],

This email is in response to a confirmed policy violation on your member page.

Content published purely for advertising or promotional purposes will be promptly removed, and your account will be suspended. Repeated occurrences may result in termination of your registration with Prosper. This content has been removed.

Continued violation of Prosper's policies will result in suspension or termination of your Prosper account. Please abide by Prosper's policies.

For additional information, see our publishing policy.

Sincerely,
Prosper

While the email made it sound like I was being suspended, that wasn't the case.

There have been many people suspended by Prosper for various reasons.  Many of those should not have been suspended (in my opinion).  But as far as I know, no one was suspended directly as part of this mass clearing of member descriptions.

Do NOT interpret this as a recommendation of Prosper in any way.  I'm bailing out, and I think true P2P lending in general is not viable for investing any large amount of money (I'm talking six figures and up, maybe upper five figures).  But this particular situation was not quite as bad as "profile deleted" makes it sound.
 

[Tokyo Joe]

Still adhering to the trusted withrawal method...

This week, I actually came thisclose to bidding again, just for fun.  I had enough for a bid accumulated, and I figured an active bid would give me at least a smidge more legitimacy in hanging around here...

But I didn't. 

[BigGulp]

Still adhering to the trusted withrawal method...

This week, I actually came thisclose to bidding again, just for fun.  I had enough for a bid accumulated, and I figured an active bid would give me at least a smidge more legitimacy in hanging around here...

But I didn't. 

The force is strong with this one...

...Gulp

[cubbiesnextyr]

While the email made it sound like I was being suspended, that wasn't the case.

There have been many people suspended by Prosper for various reasons.  Many of those should not have been suspended (in my opinion).  But as far as I know, no one was suspended directly as part of this mass clearing of member descriptions.

Except me.  I was suspended for what was written in my and my group's profile which created the purge of everyone else's profile.

[ks6328]

While the email made it sound like I was being suspended, that wasn't the case.

There have been many people suspended by Prosper for various reasons.  Many of those should not have been suspended (in my opinion).  But as far as I know, no one was suspended directly as part of this mass clearing of member descriptions.

Except me.  I was suspended for what was written in my and my group's profile which created the purge of everyone else's profile.

So you were not actually suspended as part of the mass clearing of the member descriptions, which is in agreement with what I said.  There may have been suspensions in that same timeframe for issues beyond just the mention of Prospers.org in the description (in your case, your group profile description by your own admission), but to the best of my knowledge, the mass clearing of descriptions did not suspend anyone.

Understand that I'm not defending Prosper's mass clearing of descriptions.  It's pretty clear that John Witchell personally specifically targeted Prospers.org, which was a scummy thing to do.

Nor am I defending Prosper's suspending you.  I already said that in my opinion many of the suspensions shouldn't have happened.  If we limit it specifically to suspension of lenders, almost of them were unwarranted.  The only exception that immediately springs to mind is FAN.
 

[lenderguy]

The old forums had changed over time, and by the time Prosper shut them down, there was a growing number of posters who were nasty and rude. (I am not referring to people who were simply blunt about a listing's chances, or frank about their poor lending experiences, but to posters who just plain insulted and flamed other posters, particularly newbies.)

I basically agree with HO's assessment. Ira, you have tunnel vision about this issue.

Yep, and they didn't want to have to worry about damage control from all the negativity.  I will admit, closing them down was a smart move by them.  I have put that action in the plus column for Prosper (it only has a couple friends there though).

...Gulp

I don't blame them one bit for closing down the old forums.  I *never* would have thrown a personal referral to the the wolves of the RML.  However, I do blame them for even bothering to open a heavily moderated new forum.  Why bother?

[MoneyDog]

The old forums had changed over time, and by the time Prosper shut them down, there was a growing number of posters who were nasty and rude. (I am not referring to people who were simply blunt about a listing's chances, or frank about their poor lending experiences, but to posters who just plain insulted and flamed other posters, particularly newbies.)

I basically agree with HO's assessment. Ira, you have tunnel vision about this issue.

Yep, and they didn't want to have to worry about damage control from all the negativity.  I will admit, closing them down was a smart move by them.  I have put that action in the plus column for Prosper (it only has a couple friends there though).

...Gulp

I don't blame them one bit for closing down the old forums.  I *never* would have thrown a personal referral to the the wolves of the RML.  However, I do blame them for even bothering to open a heavily moderated new forum.  Why bother?

To be honest, it was beyond belief that Prosper allowed its old forums to exist for as long as it did. There was so much negative stuff being said there about Prosper - much of it true. Why host a forum where you are constantly under attack? Good business decision, even if it did PO a lot of people.

[Staneslav]

a

[ira01]

The old forums had changed over time, and by the time Prosper shut them down, there was a growing number of posters who were nasty and rude. (I am not referring to people who were simply blunt about a listing's chances, or frank about their poor lending experiences, but to posters who just plain insulted and flamed other posters, particularly newbies.)

I basically agree with HO's assessment. Ira, you have tunnel vision about this issue.

Yep, and they didn't want to have to worry about damage control from all the negativity.  I will admit, closing them down was a smart move by them.  I have put that action in the plus column for Prosper (it only has a couple friends there though).

...Gulp

I don't blame them one bit for closing down the old forums.  I *never* would have thrown a personal referral to the the wolves of the RML.  However, I do blame them for even bothering to open a heavily moderated new forum.  Why bother?

To be honest, it was beyond belief that Prosper allowed its old forums to exist for as long as it did. There was so much negative stuff being said there about Prosper - much of it true. Why host a forum where you are constantly under attack? Good business decision, even if it did PO a lot of people.

Those weren't the only two options:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Right you are.  Prosper should have used its old forum as the incredible resource that it was.  There were many of us who devoted countless hours providing free CS for Prosper to newbies (borrowers and lenders), finding bugs and other problems, and providing many good suggestions.  Prosper should have found an employee with the proper temperment to act as its liason with the community on the forum (rather than Shira, who quite possibly was the worst possible choice), and Prosper should have treated us with the respect we deserved.  Alas, it was not to be.

[Tokyo Joe]

Back in the day, I devoted hours to those old forums, and not just to buzz around making noise, which is my chief contribution here.  I used to help sift through dozens of RML threads a day, offering advice (really good advice too, if I do say so myself).  I hunted bugs.  I helped newbie lenders get their bearings.  I did statistical analyses before we had a lot of fancy third party sites.  I really devoted myself to Prosper for nearly a year, chiefly through the forums.

The forums started getting ugly around January 2007; when 2Millionaires started throwing their weight around.  Prior to that, it was a relatively mellow board.  There were flare-ups, usually pitting lenders against wackos.  There were very few lender vs. lender arguments, and everyone seemed pretty pro-Prosper and genuinely rooting for its success (to the degree of being almost protective of it).

Two things happened:

1.  A huge influx of new lenders swamped the ones who had already been there for a year.  There were tons of reguyncali types who thought they knew everything, and ridiculed the seasoned lenders for having only four digits invested, and things like that.  That was when the (always untrue) axiom got started that the most prolific posters had more posts than dollars invested.  That caused friction that resulted in big flare-ups.

2. It slowly became evident to the older guard that Prosper was siding with 2Mils in the argument, which left many of them (including me) incredulous; we couldn't believe that Prosper was willing to wipe out its embryonic culture for the sake of a spamming, scamming butthead like 2Mils.

That's when the forums started directing anger at Prosper itself.  On 3/30/07, when Prosper decided to trump up charges against a "little gang" list that might as well have been submitted by 2Mils by suspending them for honest posts they made in reply to 2Mils baiting back in December, there started the rift that never healed.

From that point forward the forums got worse and worse.  Partly because the devoted lenders stopped devoting themselves to a forum where they felt their time (and money) was unappreciated.  Partly because Prosper launched a series of lender-unfriendly actions over the course of the year, which deserved loud criticism.

They finally wiped out the forums.  Yes, the forums are now a much "nicer" place to visit than in 2007 (but not necessarily nicer than in 2006, when there was almost no moderation).  But only because they nuked them completely.  Eventually, lenders on the new forums will get critical, posts won't go up, and you'll have a new crop of disaffected lenders, wanting to join this cesspool of negativity (only kidding), .org.

In short, what happened is Prosper threw a party in their house, whacked the guests over the head with a rolled up newpaper repeatedly, got shrill at the guests when they complained, and threw them out.  Now they have a new party, new guests.

Don't blame the forumers for the state of Prosper's old forum, or .org  Posters are reactionaries; they respond to what's thrown at them.

[lhsbandnurd]

True dat

Well said, TJ.

[treebird]

TJs post is really amazing and explains a lot to me that I didn't understand before.  I signed up in March of 07.  I was a Noob in .org around April I guess, but mostly lurking.  So there was this big thing going on but I had no way of knowing is wasn't just normal life.  What a time to come in.  I saw all the good, bad, and ugly things done by Prosper that happened after, but I didn't know about the rise of 2Mil, just that he was a dirtbag.  Of course, I bid on several of his loans before I found out.  I didn't know what led to "black Friday" that I read about here and there.  I really didn't know how it all started until TJ's post.  Thanks for taking out the mystery.  There have been lots of posts about why people don't lend anymore, why Prosper is bad.....but this information gives clearer perspective.

[Senator]

PMI didn't just wipe the prospers.org from my profile, they wiped my ENTIRE profile.  Why?

ETA: I'm on the $25 withdrawal plan.