Ity-Bity Teenie-Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Linkfest

It's been too long since my last linkfest, so time to have at it...

Prosper Steering Borrowers Away From 25K Loans

With my recent loan on Prosper I tried to keep an eye out for interesting stories along the way. In this case I found something I didn’t like as a lender… Prosper explicitly told me not to put up a 25K listing.

LoanChimp - Battle Of The Titans

Just the other day my average loan age according to LendingStats (LS) and Eric's finally reached the 1 year mark. I thought it would be a great time to compare ROI calculations for each of the sites to eliminate any effects from annualizing calculations. I missed my 1 year mark on Eric's by a couple of days, but close enough...)

j9359 - Gaming the Portfolio Plans

I wonder if borrowers have figured out how to game the portfolio plan standing orders? There seems to be some opportunity for borrowers to tailor their loan listing to fit a portfolio plan standing order.

ZCommodore - Prosper's biggest month since May 2007

I don't know what has changed but from Prosper's perspective, I'm sure they're happy to see the increase. On the other hand, I'm somewhat curious if they've relaxed some standards relating to their approval procedures. I participated in 2 loans this past month and both of them were approved very soon after they ended. I'm not really worried because in both cases I've interracted with the borrowers for many months before bidding on their loan so I'm sure they will pay it back. I don't know about any of the other 1048 loans though.

bamalucky - My wife paid off her prosper loan(maybe)

My wife is trying to pay off her prosper loan,but the money is still in the bank.Prosper system said it would be removed by January 30,but it's still in her bank account.

In the "that about sums it up" category, Desperate consumers can no longer get credit -- Can you capitalize?

But if you've been living within your means and have some cash to invest, you may be able to capitalize. The sudden stinginess of credit card issuers is likely to flush a lot of borrowers onto sites like Prosper.com, which arranges loans between individuals.

The only question is whether you want to take a risk lending money to people who've been cut off by the banks.