Prosper.com: Left holding the bag

Well, I did know Prosper was risky.

Two of my loans are now more than a month late. Last time I mentioned this, folks wanted details, so here they are.

1. Lender had a C credit rating. Her first payment was late. There has been no second payment. I always feel slightly distrustful of entrepreneurs (mostly because I don't have an entrepreneurial bone in my body and I don't understand how they think). I should probably focus in future on folks with good jobs who are using Prosper for debt repayment, not people who are using it for start-up ideas.

2. Lender came in with an AA credit rating. Made two on-time payments, then...nothing. If there had been no payments on a loan to an AA-rated person, I'd wonder if I had loaned money to an identity theif. Because there were two payments, though I think that's unlikely. I'm not sure why somebody would trash their credit rating like this. I guess life happens and sometimes you simply can't pay the bills. (Here's where I mentally pat my emergency fund and feel thankful for all my advantages.)

My other 13 loans are ticking along nicely with a modest average interest rate of 12.45%. My second early payoff is in progress. I don't mind early payoffs too much because I'm unwilling to add more money to my Prosper account (I have $740.34 in there right now) and it's always fun to have more money to lend out again.

There is a new feature I'm excited about. I have been checking the site pretty regularly in fear of missing a bidding from one of my group members. I really want to lend within my group, and I missed a listing once. Now the Standing Order feature lets you choose a specific group to loan to. I've set up a standing order to lend to my group, and I'm leaving $50 in there (the minimum amount to bid) so that if my group starts perking up a little I'll be able to automatically bid. Now I don't have to log in as often. This feature many not be too new--I haven't been keeping up with the newsy emails Prosper sends.

If you're interested in my other experiences with Prosper, here's an index to my Prosper posts.