Personal Loans from Prosper; P2P-Loans.com: Peer-to-Peer or P2P Loans Available with Low APRs

Prosper is the #1 P2P (also known as Person to Person or Peer to Peer) lending website on the Internet. Founded and funded by senior executives from eLoan, eBay and other highly successful executives, Prosper provides an auction like marketplace for individuals and institutions to borrow and lend money on the web. Borrowers can request as much as $25,000 or as little as $1,000, which must be paid back evening over a 3-year period.

Positives:
1) Size: Prosper is the largest P2P lending site on the Internet with nearly $120,000,000 in loans funded and nearly 600,000 members.

2) Resources: Prosper is funded with $40 million from reputable venture capitalists. While the risk still exists for the company to encounter financial difficulties as P2P lending is still new, Prosper is one of the best capitalized firms in the space.

3) Data: Prosper provides easy access to all of the data on its loans, lenders, bids, loan payments, etc. A plethora of third-party sites exist to give prospective lenders better information on how to lend successfully on Prosper. Visit these sites by following this link (CLICK HERE).

Negatives:
1) Collections: Prosper's biggest problem has been problem loans (those that do not make their payments) and the collections process that is supposed to aggressively pursue late loans. To date, Prosper has had default rates in excess of 2 to 3 times the national average for unsecured personal loans (per data from Experian). Prosper recently hired a new Vice President in charge of collections and a number of improvements have been promised. We'll keep you posted on the progress of this new effort.

2) Frequent Changes: As with any new venture, Prosper is still learning by trial and error. But, this can often be very frustrating to participants in the marketplace. Prosper has, on several occasions, enacted significant changes without any warning to its members. While these changes can sometimes be positive, they can also present challenges for members of the community. Be wary of any promises made or the status quo as things do tend to change rapidly at Prosper.

3) Anonymity: Some might argue that this is a good thing, but for lenders it can also be a very bad thing. Borrowers are not required to share any personal information with potential lenders (and are strongly encouraged not to share such information by Prosper). Just a few short months ago, Group Leaders (part of the Prosper Community) had access to group member borrower's information such as name, email address and phone number. This enabled Group Leaders to contact borrowers that were late with payments and also ensure the loan request was not fraudulant. But, Prosper eliminated this feature and Prosper is not entirely anonymous. Be careful.

COMING SOON: DETAILED REVIEWS FOR LENDING CLUB, ZOPA, LOANIO, MICROPLACE (ebay's new venture - visit our Blog Posting for more information), etc.