Permission is granted to anyone to publish this message about the Two Millionaires groups on www.prosper.com unchanged, in it’s entirety. It is a response to an inquiry about why we make community payments, from Kevin at www.RateLadder.com
The question is: “Why are you making community payments? Can I publish your response?”
I do a lot of online promotions for my Prosper business, including paid ads. I also have a private website http://www.2mils.org that has attracted as of a few minutes ago as I write this on March 26, 2007, 14,333 unique visitors and 388,312 hits. My wife and I have also put an enormous amount of time into developing and growing our Prosper business. So we are ultimately looking for a goodly financial return on it, and are positioning our groups for that if Prosper grows to eBay-like proportions as is possible.
Every other group leader on Prosper has the potential to do the same; it’s a level playing field, everyone has the same tools, including community payments, but some seem to prefer to spend their time writing in the forums and putting down what we are doing instead of developing their own group, if they have the desire to grow. (If they don’t want to grow why do they have such huge signature lines advertising their group in every message they post in the forums?)
My wife and I have enjoyed great success in the few weeks we’ve been involved as Prosper group leaders and lenders, having grown our groups from zero to 8,000 members (the largest group ever), achieved 5 star status for both, and assisted with more than 500 verified loans for a combined value of about 2.4 million dollars to our borrower members’ and lenders’ benefit. And that in spite of intense opposition from a few determined possibly jealous enemies on the forums, some of whom are fellow group leaders who have a potential financial interest in destroying our groups’ reputation if they think that would bring more members to their own self-proclaimed “good” groups.
As you may be aware, just because we send thousands of people to Prosper, including word of mouth recommendations from satisfied group members, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will find our Two Millionaires groups or join them. Our time and money would be potentially wasted if we did not keep at least one Two Millionaires group at or near the top of the all-important “Browse all Groups” search where most new borrowers go to find a group regardless of how they were referred to Prosper.
Our megagroup has such a large portfolio of loans, many of them made to HR and E graded borrowers, that it is inevitable that some of the loans will go bad. The star system quickly buries groups that do not keep five stars. So, to keep our stars and our visible presence to new borrowers, we make community payments. We make most of them ourselves, but other anonymous donors sometimes get to them first and make the payments. (I’ve even had borrowers ask unsolicited if they could help with community payments.)
That’s the major reason we make community payments, to keep our groups’ five star status so we will be quickly found by the people we refer to Prosper, and by other people who come to Prosper because of media attention, many of whom just want to jump in and get a loan as quickly as possible, and do not want to have to sift through a list of 3,000 groups to find a suitable place to get help.
Someone’s got to help the masses of new borrowers or many will give up in frustration, or list poorly and then give up, and leave. The small groups can grow to mega if the leaders work at it as my wife and I have worked at it. But in the meantime they are probably not equipped to or willing to process several hundred messages a day, and to serve HR and E borrowers as we do.
Yes, you and anyone else is welcome to copy and paste this into their blog or website, but only in it’s entirety and unmodified. I’m totally tired of the ceaseless attacks we get in the Prosper forums from a few fellow group leaders and lenders who influence and embolden devotees and new Prosper members because they post so many dubious messages as if they were fact. The facts are that Prosper is so new and so unique that there are no genuine experts, we’re all making it up as we go along, some of us positively, and others trying to tear down someone else’s work.
I’d be very willing to participate in the Prosper forums if they were moderated properly and everyone had to stick to the established but unenforced rules of courtesy and respect. As a leader of Prosper’s largest group, I think I have things of value to contribute as Chris Larsen’s magnificent dream continues to unfold.
More information is available at http://www.2mils.org Two Millionaires Website
Two Millionaires on Prosper.com March 26, 2007
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5 comments ↓
Although being able to ‘buy’ 5 stars by making community payments is probably an unintended consequence of the community payments mechanism, I see no harm in 2Mil’s reasoning and approach. It’s no different from the money they may spend on other forms of promotion, including advertising.
The accusation that it is a Ponzi scheme is clearly without merit and probably libelous. It may be unsustainable, or may be it is sustainable, but even if it were unsustainable, nothing has been promised or implied by 2mil to either lenders or borrowers. If they stopped tomorrow, so what?
What’s most puzzling is the out-of-proportion response from many on Prosper’s forums.
I agree with everything you say… And I have asked the forum for a non incendiary response to 2Mill posts.
I certainly hope you get a reasoned response from the forum. I can’t see what’s wrong with 2 mills approach, but if there is a problem, articulating it is better than attacking it.
My concern is that the community payments will end at some point. There is no guarantee that they will continue. Therefore I feel loaning to a borrower within their group is actually a higher risk. And his response does nothing to address this issue.
The motivation is understood. Keep the 2mil group at the top of the list. But for how long? The borrowers will eventually figure it out… get the loan funded and not make payments. Also as a lender knowing they are doing the CPs.. but not knowing when and how often is NOT reassuring. Just the opposite for me.
But are borrowers joining the group and taking out loans on the assumption they will be bailed out by the group leader? And are lenders assuming that loans will be protected by payments from the group leader?
No. 2Mil has not made this representation and in fact it is not obvious they make CPs at all, unless you read the furore on the Prosper Forums.
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