Thursday, August 17, 2006

Weird email

amy grace remollata to pennyfoolish
Aug 16 (23 hours ago)

Hi!
I’ve been poking around your site and thought you might be interested in checking out a company that I’ve been doing some consulting for… Prosper (www.prosper.com), which is a people-to-people lending marketplace.
Prosper is kind of like an eBay for money except transactions aren't necessarily one-on-one…Lenders can diversify by bidding in $50+ increments across many loans with different quantitative characteristics (e.g. credit score based grades, debt to income ratios, etc.) as well as qualitative ones (e.g. personal stories and/or "group" affiliations). Here are some listing examples: http://www.prosper.com/public/lend/default.aspx
While many people are lending on Prosper because they see it as a whole new asset class… you have your stocks, bonds, savings, and now a “Prosper portfolio”… others are really into the idea of helping out others while making a solid return. In case you’re curious, this link shows average funded borrowing rates, which roughly translate into corresponding rates of return for people who lend on Prosper:
http://www.prosper.com/public/borrow/default.aspx
If you have questions about Prosper or want to talk to talk to someone there, please let me know… I’d be happy to help connect you.

Regards,
Amy Grace Remollata

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pennyfoolish to amy
Aug 16 (23 hours ago)

Yes, I've heard of Prosper, and I did set up an account but never got the bank-confirm deposits. I recently set up a different bank account though. Is there any particular reason that you are interested in my participation in Prosper?

--Kira

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amy grace remollata to me
Aug 16 (23 hours ago)


Hi Kira!

Thanks for the reply...Actually we are looking for potential investors for Prosper.com but it seems that you are already a lender. Anyway thanks again for setting up an account...

All the best,

Amy


OK, so now I'm thoroughly confused.. she wanted to tell me about it and tell me how great it was to lend on there, and then when I said I was already a lender, she was actually looking for investors? Why can't I be an investor as well as a participant? More importantly, if they are looking for investors, why don't they send out a fat PDF and post a link on the site like normal companies do? Sometimes I just don't understand I guess.

Oh and I did some Googling on this woman and she works for a web design company which apparently has been hired by Prosper, and there are Prosper posts with her name on it all over the web. So I guess she wasn't just looking out for my best interest...

5 comments:

Denise Mall said...

Things like that just give me the willies. Why make such a foolish move, if you are looking to grow the business?

She should have assisted you with more information regarding the system, determine the shortfalls that kept your account for verification deposits and show you numbers for potential growth, risk tolerance and all site objectives.

She failed, in my perspective to promote the company. She actually may cause people to turn away with this lack of communication and information. One rule for every business is to assume that you are teaching your product or service to a 5 year old, no one knows your business like you.

Kira said...

Yeah.. the information that you give somebody who is a potential investor is very different than the information you give a potential participant. An investor probably wouldn't care so much about the money that lenders can make on Prosper, but how much Prosper itself is making, and what its business plan is and all that. It's just kind of dodgy.

Anonymous said...

Her first email sounds nothing like a pitch to a potential investor in a company. I don't know where she might have been going with this, other than to get you to talk about Prosper on your blog, to which you've now complied. :-)

So, d, maybe she actually promoted the company well, because we're now talking about it. Although I wouldn't exactly call this "good publicity." (And I disagree with the saying that any publicity is good publicity.)

Kira said...

I thought she might have been trying to get me involved in Prosper so I'd talk about my lending activites on my blog, but there isn't much to talk about as an investor. Besides, if you are a pf blogs reader and you haven't heard of Prosper, you really ARE living under the hugest rock of all time.

Andi @ udandi / Lunch It Punch It said...

I seem to recall a few months ago other PF bloggers were posting about the funny "pitch" emails they got from Prosper and although you could call it publicity, it made Prosper out to be a little disorganized.