Prosper Crackdown On Ira01

Ira01 has become the latest crackdown victim (or prospers.org). Ira01 was vocal on the forums and provided many insights to how the marketplace works. His Prosper lending account has been suspended and he's been booted out of the forums. Ira has been a strong voice in the forums and community. Whether this was fair or not, you be the judge.

Prosper's position:

It has come to Prosper's attention that you sent a number of unsolicited emails to Prosper Lenders. This behavior is an unacceptable violation of Prosper's Site Policies, which prohibits sending unsolicited spam to Prosper members. Prosper has suspended your Prosper registration indefinitely, effective immediately.

Suspension of your Prosper registration precludes further participation in the Prosper marketplace as a borrower, lender, group leader, or forum participant during the period of suspension. All active loans held by you shall remain in full force and effect in accordance with their terms, and will continue to be serviced by Prosper in accordance with the terms of the Lender Registration Agreement.

You will continue to have online access to your monthly statements, as well as the ability to transfer funds from your Prosper account, by logging on to the Prosper website with your username and password. However, during the period of suspension you will not be able to send messages to other Prosper members.

Ira01's reply:

The messages that I sent (which I in no way attempted to hide from you, even posting about them on your forums), were NOT a violation of your Policies. Before sending each PM, your system stated that sending "unsolicited COMMERCIAL" spam was a violation. My messages were not commercial in nature. Further, your policy regarding contacting other members says that it is a violation to send messages NOT related to borrowing, lending, or leading a group. My messages all related to lending.

Furthermore, my messages were exactly what the messaging system you provide is intended for -- they were all polite, did not express any point of view about Prosper, and simply pointed out to lenders the existence of Prosper's OWN forum. Please explain exactly how that violated ANY policy of Prosper's? Lenders (like every Prosper member) have the ability to choose whether or not to receive PM's from other lenders, and everyone I sent a PM to had, by definition, specifically chosen to accept such messages, thereby making my messages "solicited" (or at least equally as solicited as any other PM sent through Prosper's system that is not a reply to another message). Please explain exactly why my account was suspended but no one else's was for sending a PM to another lender.

Furthermore, I received replies to MANY of the PM's I sent out. I believe without a single exception, EVERY LENDER thanked me for my message. NOT ONE expressed ANY displeasure that I had emailed them. This makes your unsupported action even more laughable.