I hope that these are helpful....

1) Bug in Prosper registration page?? This is for PROSPER, NOT THE FORUM. On my browser, the TAB key fails to take the focus from one entry field to the next. Instead it takes the focus to other links on the page. (I am using Mozilla 1.7.3 on linux -- which, by the way is a heck of a lot more standards compliant than MSIE, so don't tell me to use MSIE so I can get hacked 10 times a day.) Thus I have to move to each

2) P.O. Box address not accepted. News Flash! Not everybody has street addresses for mail delivery. Where I live, out in the country, there is no mail delivery to either my residence or my business. This is by choice -- there is no mailbox, thus no mail can get stolen. In my community, every year there are several dozen identity thefts starting with mail being stolen from mail boxes. All my credit history (which is what Prosper is really interested in) is under the P.O. Box. When I check my credit the only things that show up with a street address are my mortgages (I own multiple properties).

3) Business phone number not wanted: News Flash! Some people's credit history is under their business phone. I would think that many potential Prosper members, both lenders and borrowers, are small business people. For 33 years I have only used my business phone number on everything; I don't even think my mother has my home phone number, but I am so rarely home what does it matter. My credit history is under my business phone number.

4) The Electronic Disclosure needs one "amplification". You mention that Adobe Acrobat (I think you said "Reader", but if not, it should say "Reader" -- you don't need the full $$$ program), but you do not mention a version number. Depending how the documents are created, it is -- these days -- often necessary to have Acrobat 7. I get documents all the time that are unreadable in earlier versions. (By default I use the older versions if I can because Acrobat 7 has some really nasty security breeches and also privacy breeches; I bet most people don't know that reading a document on Acrobat 7 can send a message to the creator of the document telling them that you are reading it.)

Yes, I ran into the same problem of a separate registration being required for the forums. It could easily be solved, while waiting for the forums to be merged into the central site, by posting a simple notice of the fact on the forums' opening page.

I have encountered other difficulties as well, now looking as if it will be close to three weeks, or even a little bit longer, since my initial attempt to register and get verified before I will have money in my Prosper account ready to lend.

Okay, it's a rollout (perhaps just slightly premature), and glitches are to be expected, and Andrew has been attentive in trying to help, but still . . .

The two largest problems I see with concept and execution are (1) the unacceptably long time in getting funds into a Prosper account, and (2) the fact that the personal holding accounts don't bear interest, which can siginficantly cut down on the real rate of return on loans.

I remain, though, (guardedly) optimistic, and hope for the best for Prosper.

JM