Person-to-person lending

[duckyfuzz]

Hi,

I recently noticed a small article in a national newspaper about what is apparently the new up and coming craze, person-to-person lending over the interwebs. Basically you put $$ on a website such as Prosper, people apply to prosper to borrow money from the "lenders" at various rates of interest, lenders review information on the borrowers credit rating and bid on the opportunity to lend them money. Lenders earn interest.

This interested me greatly and I'm just wondering if anyone here has had any experience with it?

Thanks for replies.

[soko]

Try search

[duckyfuzz]

o sorry. I did search for "person-to-person lending" before I posted, it seems "peer-to-peer lending" gives better results.

[soko]

or just "prosper"

[ItalianFX]

Something similar to Prosper has just come out by EBAY earlier this week called MicroPlace (www.microplace.com) and described, it "provides an easy way for everyday people to invest in the world’s working poor by leveraging the power of microfinance, a proven solution to alleviate global poverty."

[OtZman]

Link in the OP isn't working correctly.

[Brad1970]

This seems like a horrible idea.

[maxtower]

from everything I have read prosper appears to be a much better deal for borrowers than lenders.

People with good credit stay away typically because they have other options like a HELOC with a cheaper rate than they could get at prosper.

[Henry17]

I would never lend money though prosper but I enjoy reading the requests. People are just so irresponsible with money.

I have to agree that it can't be good for lenders finacially. The appeal is that they feel like they are wheeling and dealing.