This morning Mr. Snarkolepsy forwarded me this link. With my curiosity piqued I went over to the site Prosper.com. I was really curious why individuals would lend an unsecured loan to people.
My first thought was "surely I'm just being an asshole - almost everyone is more altruistic than me".
It really isn't that I am mean.. I just feel there are few instances where peoples financial problems aren't caused by bad choices. Growing up dirt poor myself - I am not big on giving away extremely hard earned money. But I digress.
So - I'm fully into guilt mode about this site. Until I start reading some of the profiles. Then my guilt turned to disbelief. I couldn't f-ing believe it honestly.
These were not the needy I was feeling so guilty about hoarding my hard earned cash for. These were mostly middle class people with homes - who are making ridiculous choices. I would even say living way beyond their means.
For instance this guy wants to pay 14% interest to fund an IRA with an $8000.00 loan.
Many people were looking for loans so they could re-loan money to other individuals on Prosper.com. Here, here and here. Some willing to pay up to 11% interest. So what - they could charge another bad choice making individual up to 27% interest.
This guy wanted a 16% interest loan so he didn't have to pay PMI on a new home he wanted to buy. Is he kidding us? And judging from the mortgage payment, it isn't an inexpensive home, but I'm guessing that kind of interest would be almost as much as PMI. But at least when you default you don't loose your home I guess.
This guy claims to have 56,000 in CD's, but is willing to pay 25% interest on a 15,000 dollar loan? WTF? And he claims to make $8000.00 to $12,000 a month.
Really - you need to go over to the site and see the reasons people are requesting loans, and see how much money these people make.
If people want to fund these people who am I to complain - just just can't believe the absolute gall of people.
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Wasn' there a whole rash of sites up some time ago with people begging for money? Not actual lending sites, but personal web sites and blogs.
ReplyDelete"Oh, I ran up my credit card to $40,000. Please donate money to a perfect stranger, and help me pay!" AND PEOPLE DID!!!!
Dewd, I was not smart with my credit in my youth, but I'm paying for it now!
Again, with the slightly off topic.
Yeah - yeah - yeah! There were.
ReplyDeleteI'm not thrilled about that kind of thing - but I guess I don't have quite as much of a problem with it as prosper. At least those sites you knew you were never going to get the money back. Not saying its right or anything. Just ridiculous.
That's just strange. I figure if a bank doesn't trust you, why should I?
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