Well, today I learned that I’ve joined the ranks of internet giants.  That’s right, there is now what appears to be an Eric’s Credit Community themed Phishing SPAM making its way around the internet.

Here’s a snippet, forwarded to me from one of the hapless recipients:

Ref: XX-XXX/XXXXXX/XX/XX-XXX
SSL: XX/XX/XXXX
The Data Protecting Act Reg No. (Z720923X).
Phone: (+234)-807-656-5528 (+234)-705-635-7973
Fax: (+1)-206-600-3069

Dear Customer, (XXXXX X. XXXXXX)
Thanks for your incentive response to my advert.

By way of a proper introduction, I am Mrs.Helen Eric the Sr. Director and CEO Eric’s Credit Community. Presently I own 45% of the shares in CGP(Capita Group PLC, London) a government approved Financial Institute. We are currently setting up a scheme in form of Loan acquisition to help various individuals as well as organizations who have intentions of renovating, debt consolidation, re-financing and also establishment of business outfits.I usually give out my Loans at a very affordable interest rate of 4.5% with a negotiable duration.To start with, find below is the Loan terms repayment for the loan amount requested $4,500.00 for 3 Years.

… etc.

Is this a mere coincidence that somebody else would choose Eric’s Credit Community as the name for their spammy phishing front? Or have I joined the great ranks of eBay, PayPal & Bank of America as the subject of someones financial fraud ring?  I’ll hold on to my delusions of grandeur and assume the latter.

For the record, of course I had absolutely nothing to do with sending these e-mails.  I only learned of this recently when several people contacted me on the site about it.  I am not offering loans to anyone, especially at 4.5%.  I also am not paying you $1 for adding your name to the bottom of that e-mail and forwarding it to every person you know.  Nor am I a nigerian prince who needs your help to get millions of dollars out of the country.

If you have received a copy of that e-mail though, please let me know via the contact form on the site.  Honestly, I find myself somewhat annoyed and yet mildly entertained by this.  I’d also love to hear from other webmasters out there – I expect to see these kinds of e-mails using well known company names, but is this a common thing even for smaller websites like this one?

You might also see Lending Club ads on this blog and Ericscc.com.  However, you will only get the $25 if you use the link above in this post.

Happy Lending!

First, here is where the $800k figure comes from: the $800k figure is the total original value of all the loans that Fred has ever made on Prosper.  In other words, if you were to total up all the winning bids that Fred has ever made, you would arrive at right about $800k.

At first glace, this might seem like a reasonable figure for Fred’s total amount invested.  However, the problem lies with the fact that this does not account for repayment of loans and re-investment of principal.  The $258k figure I use on EricsCC.com does account for repayment and re-investment, and therefore should be much closer to the actual amount of money that Fred has invested.

I’ll use a simple example here to illustrate how this can make such a large difference.  Lets say I transfer $1,000 into Prosper and lend it all out on one loan.  At this point (according to either my site or LendingStats) I have $1,000 invested.  Now, lets say that at the end of the first month, my borrower immediately decides to pay back the entire loan.  So, I get my $1,000 back and re-invest it in another loan.  How much money do I have invested now?  I would say I still have roughly (excluding interest) $1,000 invested.  However, the LendingStats figure would say I have roughly $2,000 invested.  If my second borrower were to pay off their loan and I were to invest that money yet again, EricsCC.com would still show about $1,000 invested but LendingStats would now show about $3,000 invested.

Hopefully that explains where the difference in figures between these two great sites comes from.  It is really just a difference in methodology.  The LendingStats figures are not technically incorrect, but I do think they are a bit misleading (and the Motley Fool article confirms this for me) in that they lead you to believe that a lender has much more money in Prosper than what they actually have invested.

The three pie charts displayed there (Current Delinquencies, 7 Year Delinquencies & 10 yr Public Records) actually just an aggregation of the corresponding extended credit fields for the loans that lender has invested in. There are many different extended credit fields on a listing (number of open credit lines, credit utilization, date of first credit line, etc) but the three I show in the extended credit breakdown are generally believed by Prosper lenders to be the most significant in terms of indicating a borrower’s ability to repay. For example, Loans with no current delinquencies, no 7 year delinquencies and no public records are often referred to as “0-0-0″ loans, indicating a much better chance than average that the loan will repay.

So what is this information good for? Well, to make it simple, the more green you see in those extended credit breakdown charts, the better the portfolio is likely to do. As a matter of fact, if you look at many portfolios (my portfolio for example) you will see that the current delinquency chart looks an awful lot like the “loan breakdown by status” chart. This just shows what we should already know intuitively – those who paid their debts in the past will likely pay their debts in the future, and those who didn’t pay their debts in the past will likely not pay you either!

Lender Watches

One of the most frequently used features for registered users are lender watches. There are currently over 1,000 active lender watches on EricsCC.com. The idea behind this feature is to give you a heads-up when a lender you like bids on a listing. You simply enter the screen names of the lenders you want to watch, and you can automatically receive e-mail alerts whenever that lender bids on a listing.

Group Watches

Another frequently used feature available to registered users is the group watch. If you have a good group who’s listings you frequently bid on, you can watch that group and get an e-mail alert whenever a new listing from that group is posted on Prosper.com. Never miss another Ohana listing again!

Forum Watches

The listing forums on this site provide a great place for lenders to talk about listings with other lenders or group leaders. This is especially true when loans go late. As a lender, you can opt to be notified when lenders are talking about a listing that you are a lender on. As a group leader, you can also be notified when people are talking about one of your listings.

Second Loan Notifications

One of the newest features available to registered lenders are second loan notifications. Now that Prosper is allowing borrowers to take out second (or more) loans, you might be interested in knowing when one of your borrowers is coming back for more. If they were a good borrower who paid off their loan, you might want to lend to them again. If their loan is still active, it might be an indication that things are heading south and your loan may soon be going late..