Silver install

I will no longer be updating either the 3.0 or the 2.x lines. I am moving to the new Silverlight application that I have made available for Firefox users. It runs in Internet Explorer as well. I personally have moved to this new application. You may of course continue to use the existing installs but again I will not be updating them.

Right now the features not included in the Silver application are: Notes, quick bid, auto bid, a few of the quick popups, most of the functionality found on the search result pages, and export of account information.

Based on feedback and interest I will add these features.

To start using the new Silver extension, please uninstall your existing installation of Prosper IE Extension. Then navigate here to install the new version.

The new Silver extension is faster. It should never require a new install... maybe if I add autobid. But everything else should be immediately available. Plus it is one code base for both browsers.

Version 3.0.3

Here is a link to the latest beta installer for Internet Explorer. I found an issue with the installation process so I removed the previous beta files.

I believe this addresses those installation issues... if you still have problems please let me know... either by leaving a comment here or by sending a message through Prosper.

Firefox users... I have created an install for you as well. It does not work in Firefox 3 beta... only 1.5 and 2.x. Not all of the features but getting there.

Version 3.0.2

First and most important. You must uninstall the AutoBid Service manually. I did not like that install process as it did not allow for easy updates of the software. I do not have any checks in the new installer that you have uninstalled.

So please uninstall. If not sure, just uninstall all Prosper IE Extension items. New install link is at the bottom of this post.

This install should address the installation issues some of you reported as well as the ugly error that popped up. It is still beta after all. But this release should allow the extension to function on XP and Vista and IE 7 and IE 8. Again I have not tested IE 6 as I no longer have that setup... but it should still work.

A couple of new features included in this release. Lender History is an interesting (though not perfect) addition to the bid details link on the listing detail page.

It shows you the current lender's average ROI, weighted ROI, and average loan age. Use this to determine the past ability of bidding lenders to pick good loans. The reason it is not perfect is the data is not realtime. It is about a day behind. I'm not sure how to address this so I added an indicator so you can tell how recent the snapshot is. Ideally you want to see the number of winning lenders for the number counted.

Still on the bid details popup, the confidence items at the bottom are realtime. Numbers around 7 or higher indicate better confidence. Anything below 5 I usually run away.

I also added a link on the search result pages to provide this same information. Click the magic wand and the same bidding details window will popup.


To me this is most useful on the Similar Loans page. Remember, the similar loans are those loans that are defaulting and similar to the listing you are examining. Click the bid details magic wand and you can see an accurate representation of the lender's ROI data. Very informative.

And if you do not use the Similar Loans feature, you really should. I also added speed improvements to the similar loans page. It should load quite a bit faster than before.

Watch Lenders has been improved. It now saves the list of lenders you watch... and provides a means to edit the list.

Okay as promised here is the new link. But please remember uninstall the Scheduler service first!

Version 3.0.1: Still beta but better

The beta works on IE7 and IE8beta. It should run on XP and Vista.

But first, many thanks to those that commented about my extension on this Prosper forum thread.

Someone commented on this blog that the Watch Lender feature was not working. I identifed a bug that if a lender had more than one winning bid on a single listing, the watch lender feature would silently fail. This has been addressed in this beta.

Someone raised an issue with the timeout warning and the count down timer that floats in the upper left corner of the screen. I have added 2 new options. One will disable the popup timeout warning. The other will prevent the floating countdown timer from appearing. You have always had the option of enabling or disabling the auto refresh which prevents Prosper from timing out your session (most of the time).

To make use of these options, click on Bid On Loans, FAVS, then Options.

Now on to AutoBid.

You must download the service installer which is the new piece. There is no update at this time so if you already installed it you do not need to again. If you have not installed it, click here.

There is however a new IE extension update, found here.

You must also register your login with Prosper to have access to the API bidding. Send an email to APIServices@prosper.com.

Once installed here is what the auto bid feature looks like. First you must setup the AutoBid service to make use of your login information. On the extension options page you will see Save Prosper Login Info. Click this link and you will see:

Enter the information and click save. The data is immediately encrypted then cleared. Now navigate to a listing detail page.

Click the Auto Bid link:


Which pops up this autobid dialog:



Enter the amount and the bid rate... click place auto bid. Currently the system is hard coded to bid 15 minutes prior to listing end. A note is automatically added to this listing indicating an auto bid and the listing is added to your favorites list. When you visit a listing detail page that you have auto bid on the Auto Bid link will display Stop Bid, and if an attempt to bid was made, the status will be displayed.

The other big change so far is to Similar Loans. First it displays a progress indicator of sorts. Due to some Prosper API limitations I query loans 1 month at a time. The limitation being that the loan object does not support searching by credit grade. I encourage you to go to this Prosper forum thread and bump it.


The second feature filtering of Similar Loans. Currently displayed is all loans that meet the Broad criteria, loan amount and credit grade. This has always annoyed me so I added the filter link.


Once you click it, the text will change to turn filter off, but nothing else changes. Go back and click on the 1 to 20. Very fast the display will change to show only loans that are clean. Now click 21 to 40. The bucket ranges remain the same but only the clean listings will display. Not perfect I know... it would be nice if the number buckets changed.

In the near future, this filter will be based on the Narrow criteria of the listing be examined.

There are still a couple issues with the Prosper API login. I believe Prosper logs you out of your API session, which is independent from your website login. So sometimes you will go to click on a quick link to show the extended credit info for a similar loan and nothing happens, just click it again. There are a couple other annoyances like this. I'm trying to track them down or at least display a message.

Beta 3.0: Auto bidding

To send me a message through Prosper, click here. You of course must be logged into Prosper already.

I am calling this a beta version. Don't worry I will document the features nicer once I bring it out of beta. It does work fantastic now, though. And the setup will get easier. Plus now if you had been using IE in protected mode, that annoying popup is gone.

I also modified Similar Loans which now has the ability to filter the returned listings. Prior to this beta, the Similar loans was all loans that matched the broad criteria. You can now click the Turn Filter on link, then click on the range of loans and only listings that are clean will be displayed, 0 dqs, 0 prs, etc. In the future the filter will be based on the narrow criteria.

Now there is a side effect to doing this. You will be prompted for your login information. Sometimes the popup works and sometimes it doesn't. So I suggest for now when you navigate to a listing detail page, click the quick bid link, enter login information then cancel the bid. This will setup your session to be logged in. This is actually the biggest annoyance right now... to make things just work better always do this extra login step.

Download and install this file. This will install the necessary files to create a system service that will perform the auto bidding on your behalf. Click on this link to install the new extension to Internet Explorer that makes use of this service. You must have Microsoft .NET version 3.5 installed... the installer should prompt you to do this if you don't.. but if you run the extension and do not see the magic wands click here to install .NET.

You will most likely be prompted by your firewall security to allow the ProsperIEExtService to access the network.... you must of course answer in the affirmative. Technically, the extension in IE talks to the webservice through port 6789. You may need this number if you are using a more sophisticated firewall security software.

First you must configure the service to access Prosper. This is done by navigating to http://www.prosper.com/ in IE. Then clicking the Bid On Loans tab, then the Fav link on the far right. Then click on Options. You will see a new item here called Save Prosper Login Info. Click on this and you will be presented with a dialog to enter your prosper email and password info. The same values you use to log into the Prosper website. Don't worry this information is immediately encrypted.

Then navigate to a listing you would like to experiment with. You will see a new quick link at the top of the listing detail called Auto Bid. You will be prompted for 2 bits of information, the amount to bid and the interest rate. The bid will be schedule to occur 15 minutes prior to the listing end time. Two things happen when you click place bid... 1) the listing is added to your Favorites List and 2) a note is added indicating you placed an auto bid. The Auto Bid link renames itself to Stop Bid, which does just what you would expect.

My advice is to enter less than $50 to verify your setup is working. The system will attempt to place the bid but it will be rejected by Prosper. After the attempt, the Stop Bid link will display the status message from Prosper, either success or failure. Because of the 15 minutes you really cannot use auto bid on listings ending in less than 15 minutes.

Let me know if you have any issues. I will work on making it more user friendly but let me know how it works if you do use it. And as always donation are appreciated.

Version 2.1.6: First change for Portfolio Plans

Of course just as soon as I release my first use of the bidding API, Prosper takes the entire API offline yesterday. Then the Performance Page is broken this morning.

The first change in this release is upon a quick bid my extension will no longer autorefresh. You must click the link as I described in the earlier post. I prefer to see that the status returned from the bid.

Second, I noticed this forum entry. It provides a workaround to be able to see the performance of a portfolio plan's performance. I hate workarounds! And this one is terrible.

So with this release, whenever you are on a saved search you will see a new link under the "Delete Saved Search" called "View Performance", look for the magic wand. For Portfolio Plans, follow the workaround, click Edit Criteria, then View Listings, then when the new window pops up (which is just a saved search), click View Performance.

Even if you do not use Portfolio Plans you can benefit from examining your saved search's performance.

Version 2.1.5: Quick bidding

Important update: You must send an email to APIServices@prosper.com asking to have your account enabled for API bidding. I think you have to send it from the email account that is associated with your Prosper account.

Personally I do not like the many pages that Prosper throws at you when you want to place bid. And as I have stated before I do not think the Estimated Loss is at all a relevant metric for placing a bid on a single listing. You can have an estimated loss based on an entire portfolio of listings, but not on a single listing (in my opinion). You can have an estimated chance of default, which is what I provide in the market analysis section.

Speaking of the Market Analysis... I have never found the Narrow selection useful. So I have modified. It now displays the same information as the Specific but minus the number of inquiries criteria. If you have a credit report with 0 inquiries the specific selection will find very few loans... use the Narrow to find more. Feedback is welcome.

My first public use of the new bidding by the API is included in this release. Back to my dislike of the many pages Prosper shows when you want to bid. I have now added a link, Place a quick bid. It provides a popup that allows you to specify the amount and the minimum interest rate, of course.

In order to use this feature you will have to login to the Prosper API. This login is separate from being logged into the website. Again I don't care about your email address or password. But if you want to use this feature you have to enter the values in a popup. It looks like this:

So click the place a quick bid link and you will be presented with this just once per session. Once successful, click the place a quick bid link again. Please note you cannot hit the enter key to sign in, you must click the button. You will then see this:


Please note, I do not validate the amount and bid rate fields. If you enter less than $50 a nice error message appears, if your interest rate is too high, you receive an okay error message. Both provided by Prosper. Now if you enter letters or other nonsense you get a less nice error.

Once the bid is successful, you will be presented with a message as well as an option to refresh the page, which I recommend you do so that you can see your bid like this. Note the bid type.


Also if you find this listing again on a search result it will correctly indicate your bid.

Enjoy.