mothandrust's blog

It's not what you think. 

There is no promise to repay the loan (we can but hope).

By saying "I have accepted the Sincere Borrower's Pledge" it means that I have already:

(1) Set my City to Reveal on my Profile Page.

(2) Had all Endorsers stipulate in the endorsement text their relationship to me, its duration, the amount(s) bid and the interest rate(s). (It is not a requirement to have any Endorsers--but if you do have any, this information must appear in the endorsement text.)

(3) Stated any intent to prepay my loan early in the listing text.  (Many lenders dislike early prepays, others prefer them.  Honesty is the best policy!)

(4) Sent Personal Messages (PM's) to 5 Late Borrowers in my credit grade (AA, A, etc.) picked at random, which say:

Dear (Late_Borrower),

I am a Borrower with (Your_Credit_Grade) on Prosper and am seeking a loan. 

Some lenders are willing to help, but others are now reluctant because previous Borrowers have not honored their promise to pay back what they borrowed.

You are late on your Prosper loan and you are making it hard for others (like me) in the Prosper community to get a loan.

Please make a payment today, even if it is a partial payment, so that the good people who lent money to you in your time of need can see that you are serious and diligent about repaying them. 

It would also help if you started a thread in the Lender Forum to let lenders know your plans to catch up.

Sincerely,

(Your_Prosper_Alias)

and I have posted the listing numbers on this forum thread.  Make sure that you are not a lender to any of these borrowers yourself--that would be a violation of Prosper's TOS.  You can use LendingStats or Eric's Credit Community sites to find late borrowers that are in the same credit grade as you are.

I furthermore promise to:

(5) Answer publically all Questions lenders ask on my listing in the Q&A.

(6) At funding, I will send a PM to mothandrust, a Prosper lender, a description of the verification efforts that Prosper made on my loan.  This description will be shared publically with other lenders, so please do NOT include any personal information! 

(7) Should my loan ever go late (even <15 days late), I will start a thread on the Prosper Lender Forum explaining what efforts I am making to bring my loan current and I will stay active on that thread until my loan is current again.

Comments

There are 2,375 listings up at the time of this writing.  If just 25% of the Borrowers took the pledge, 2,969 PM's would be sent to Prosper's 2,550 late borrowers.

Lenders are of course barred by Prosper TOS from contacting late borrowers on any of our Notes, but there is nothing stopping borrowers from contacting other borrowers.  The borrower is not a debt collector or even a creditor, so the FDCPA does not apply. 

This is simply the Community policing itself in a healthy way: today's borrowers confront yesterday's borrowers with how their actions have impaired their funding prospects and are costing them in higher loan payments. 

Now not all of these PM's will result in a dialogue opening up or even reach the late borrower.  But the first Pledger got a polite response back from one of the 5 late borrowers saying that he was "in the process of having the matter cleared up."  88679 and 81506 are the only male borrowers of her 5, and both are 4+ months late at the moment.

The other articles of the Pledge address my personal pet peeves about listings, while providing the most minimal coaching to borrowers.  I just don't want to waste time on Hidden City listings with pump-and-dump Endorsements from borrowers who won't answer Questions.