Archive for October, 2008

Within the vast billing network of your various goods and services, fees are affecting everyone these days. Banks, credit cards, mobile phones and even your retirement fund, for example, can siphon funds from you without your oversight. Make it a resolution now to look for the following hidden fees and gain extra money in your budget. There are many books about this topic, one of which is written by Bob Sullivan called Gotcha Capitalism.

Checking Account

The old checkbook is going the way of the horse and buggy, but not yet. Now is the time to scrutinize the monthly statement for service fees, ATM charges, even insufficient balance penalties. Often with either comparing other types of checking accounts that your bank offers or looking into competing institutions, there can substantial savings.

Credit Cards

Take all of your plastic out and do a survey. Which one has the highest interest rate? What are the fees on late payments or cash advances? This is a time where the intense competition between credit card companies can work to your advantage. Transfer funds to a lower interest account or begin to pay the highest one off first are two ways to tame the plastic beast. Compare fees from other companies and give your business to the card that serves you best.

Going Mobile

That super convenient mobile phone also conveniently sucks money out of your pocket. An assessment of your phone plan is necessary especially if you are consistently exceeding your monthly talk minutes. An upgrade to a new plan may be in order, and even if your monthly cost goes up slightly, the additional minutes may cover your overage fees. More importantly, get rid of excess add-ons that you don’t use. Text messaging is the mobile phone company’s best profit friend. If you don’t use it much, it’s an easy savings. And if you still find the costs too high check out alternatives such as Skype Mobile.

Fund Follies

The 401k plan can be your best ally for retirement savings. But first you have to interact with it beyond monthly contributions. Get together with the advisers that either your company provides or get in touch with the persons who sold the fund to your company: you can also do your own research through several websites including the Department of Labor’s employee benefits site. No question is too stupid and understanding the allocations is not difficult if you have the basic explanations. These advisers can also help you allocate your investments within the fund and provide knowledge on fees.

It should not be so hard to find out about the fee structures of your accounts but somehow it is made difficult - not transparent.

Knowledge has no fee… unless you go Ivy League!

—

Steve McDonald is a freelance writer and Prosper member since October 2007.

As described on the September 24 site update, borrowers whose loans were 91 or more days past due on that date (and not in bankruptcy proceedings) received a notice of acceleration. The Notice of Acceleration is a warning that the loan will be accelerated in 30 days, meaning the loan will be due and payable in full. If the borrower doesn’t make a payment by the 30 day deadline, his or her loan will then be charged-off at 121 days past due.

As of today, any loans which are still 121 or more days past due will be accelerated and switched into “charge-off” status. Loans in which the borrower is in a bankruptcy proceeding will not be charged-off.

Lenders with charged-off loans will receive an email when the loan is charged-off. A charge-off loan’s details will still be accessible to lenders in their Prosper account, and any post-charge-off recoveries can be viewed on the loan detail page.

You can learn more about charge-offs on this help page.

Prosper changed the way we report most severely delinquent loans from “Defaulted” and “4+ months late” to “Charge-offs” in September.

Borrowers whose loans are 91 or more days past due (DPD) will receive a “Notice of Acceleration”. The Notice of Acceleration is a warning that their loan will be accelerated in 30 days, meaning the loan will be due and payable in full. If the borrower doesn’t make a payment by the 30 day deadline, his or her loan will then be charged-off at 121 days past due.

Please note that we have added a new loan object status of  “Charge-off” to our data export to account for a new classification of loans as described in this blog post: http://blog.prosper.com/2008/09/24/site-update-%e2%80%93-september-23-2008/

The new status will start appearing in the export file by October 24th.

Please contact APIServices@prosper.com if you have any questions.

During our quiet period, we are required to remove portions of the site, including your comments and exchanges. Click here to learn more.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Prosper has started a process to register, with the appropriate securities authorities, promissory notes that may be offered and sold to lenders through our site in the future.

Until we complete the registration process, we will not accept new lender registrations or allow new commitments from existing lenders. If you’re an existing lender, your current lender agreements will be unaffected; your existing loans will continue to be serviced; you’ll be able to track and monitor your loans; and you’ll be able to withdraw funds from your Prosper account.

If you’re a borrower with an existing loan, you will continue with your current borrower agreement and be unaffected by the registration process.  If you’re a borrower seeking a loan, you will still be able to create a new loan listing, which we will endeavor to fulfill through alternative sources.  As the appropriate securities authorities may consider a new loan listing to constitute the offer of a security, we are unable to post new loan listings on our site until our registration statement becomes effective.

A successful registration can take several months, but we assure you we will do our best to move forward as quickly as possible.  Until this process is complete, we’re required to be in a quiet period and will be unable to respond to press, blogger or other inquiries about Prosper or the registration filing until it becomes effective.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and want to thank you in advance for your understanding and support.