Tokyo Joe's Blog

I'm still mulling over how to present the Prosper.com timeline and history, but I'd like to thank in advance www.prosperreport.com who singlehandedly rescued the forums from intentional obliteration by Prosper.com, thus perserving our community's history as well as a real-time chronicle of Prosper's development.

Not only did ProsperReport heroically save this critical public document, it faced down Prosper.com in on obvious attempt to shut him down. 

Key threads:

prosperreport.com received a letter from prosper's lawyer, re: cybersquatting by 112233 on December 19, 2007, 07:12:28 AM

http://www.prospers.org/forum/prosperreportcom_received_a_letter_from_prospers_lawyer_cybersquatting-t4735.0.html

Public Citizen Responds To Prosper's Threats Against prosperreport.com  by 112233 on December 24, 2007, 02:41:00 PM

http://www.prospers.org/forum/public_citizen_responds_to_prospers_threats_against_prosperreportcom-t4870.0.html

General synopsis:

112233, whose ProsperReport.com provides a link to an archived version of the forums formerly hosted at spreebb.prosper.com and later forums.prosper.com -which now points to connect.prosper.com, the new forums-- ranging from the forum opening through late November 2007, recieved a letter James A. Gale from Feldman Gale, representing Prosper.  The letter accuses Prosperreport.com of cybersquatting, trademark infringement, and unfair competition.  112233 turns to Public Citizen Litigation Group, whose attorney, Paul Alan Levy, responds to Prosper with a withering appraisal of the case.

Documents:

Letter to ProsperReport.com:

http://www.prosperreport.com/www.prosperreport.com.pdf

Letter from Public Citizen:

http://www.prosperreport.com/letter_to_james_gale.pdf

I offer this tip of the hat to ProsperReport.com, because this blog will delve deeply into the threads it contains.  It is no small thanks to them that a real travesty was not commited with the deletion of the forum.

 Hey now;

 I am a former lender of Prosper.com.  I go by the handle "Tokyo Joe".  I go by that handle only at Prosper.com and Prospers.org and on no other sites.

My intention with this blog will be to compile bits and pieces of Prosper.com history, from a variety of sources both online and off.

Contrary to blogs in general, and my own typical forum demeanor, I will not be talking about myself a lot on this blog, but will focus on events in the timeline of Prosper.

This introductory post will tell you all you need to know about me.

According to www.lendingstats.com my current estimated return on the portfolio of 97 loans is 9.21%, with an average weighted age of 330 days per loan.  By most accounts, statistical and anecdotal, this is pretty good for Prosper.  I have not lost more than I've put in, which was approximately $5,000 at the time I stopped lending.  I took care in choosing listings; I have no axe to grind about losses.  I assume that if Prosper stays in business, in another 2 1/2 years, I'll have recieved all my money back.

I did achieve a peculiar notoriety on the old Prosper.com forums when I did some analysis of default rates back in Oct. 2006 and discovered Autofund loans were defaulting at a frighteningly faster rate than non-AF listings.  Within 2 months autofund listings dropped from 60% to 25% of listings.  This became known as the "Tokyo Joe Effect"

http://www.prospers.org/wiki/Glossary#anch_Tokyo_Joe_Effect

I've met a lot of the primary Prosper players in person, or at least had brief face-time with them, and found them to be cordial.  I've met a lot of lenders in person, and gotten to know a few on personal terms.  Most of them are decent people, with a compassionate streak.

I used to spend hours on Prosper.com's forums, before they were shut down and expunged.  For many months, those hours were spent assisting borrowers on the Read My Listing forum, until certain events put an end to that.

I really don't have time for blogging.  I waste enough time on forums as it is, and I do have a semblance of a life.  However, with Prosper.com expunging its own history, which is as much my history as it is theirs, I will attempt to reconstruct that history piece by piece.

For the most part, I will keep my own commentary limited to synopsis, and use attributable quotes or documental items to tell the story.  I don't know how the Prosper.com story will end, and whether it survives or dies doesn't really matter.  I just want to preserve the story.

I won't be able to present it in chronological order; I'll be jumping around like a kangaroo.  I'll try to find a way to organize things chronologically for ease of reference.

All of this assuming I really bother with this.  If I do, it will be at irregular intervals.

I've left comments turned off for now.  I'll turn 'em on again when the history part starts.