Late on Prosper

So right now I have 8 active loans on Prosper.com, for $50 each. Up until this month, each borrower has paid on time, which had me starting to believe in the power and potential of PSP lending.

Then, one of my borrowers went late. She's still less than 15 days late, so it hasn't even got to a collection agency yet, but I'm a little worried.

The good news is that I made $25 in a Prosper referral and between that and the interest I'm making on the other loans (as long as they don't default too, knock on wood) means that I'll end up making back the $50. But that kind of defeats the purpose of investing, if I end up barely back where I started.

Maybe this listing just had too many warning signs. The woman had to relist 3 times in order to get her listing funded. The debt-to-income ratio was way too high for the measly 13% interest rate it got funded at.

well, I'll remain hopeful that this woman is just having a bad month and she'll pay me back. But I've learned my Prosper lesson - only lend to people who are employed (students are not good investments, even if you want to help them study abroad!) -- The people who really should be getting funded on prosper are those who have full time jobs, make more than they spend, and are trying to pay off high-interest credit cards. Then you're really both helping each other out right now.