Maybe you’ve been following my Lending Club experiment for months, or you’re just hearing about how to invest money with Lending Club now. Either way, I’m sure you’re intrigued by the idea of a free $64.62 bonus!
Why $64.62? According to the email Lending Club sent me, it’s because “last quarter, banks made $6.462 billion in profits and we doubt either you or your friends got a share. With Lending Club you will.” I’ve had an overall pleasant experience with Lending Club, despite one of my borrowers declaring bankruptcy. And why doesn’t that bother me? Because the money I lent that borrower was bonus money!
I took advantage of an opportunity not unlike this one and put Lending Club’s money at risk. It’s great to be able to try out their service without feeling like my own money is on the line. It’s given me a good enough taste that I’m confident in putting my own money in (at a later date). If that sounds like something you would want to do, here’s what you need to do:
- Read through my Lending Club Experiment archives to familiarize yourself with the process – it won’t take you long to read it!
- Sign up for online investing with Lending Club. Important: when you get to the “Referred by” field, you must enter kgazette to get your bonus. If you leave this field blank, you will not get your $64.62.
- Link a bank account. You do not have to transfer any money, and they’re not going to take any money without your permission, but you must link a bank account to get the bonus.
- You’re done! Now to invest…
This is where you have to pay attention to some of the rules.
If you don’t meet Lending Club’s location or income requirements, you can invest using their FOLIOfn trading platform. This is where you can buy notes that other investors wish to sell. People might be selling because they want to spend the money in their account, or for a variety of other reasons. Yes, some people are trying to unload bad loans, but that just means you have to spend a little time reading before you buy! (More about this in a future Lending Club Experiment post.)
If you do meet the location and income requirements, you can invest directly in peer-to-peer loans. You can learn more about this by reading my Lending Club Experiment archives.
This offer expires December 31st 2009, so don’t wait!
That’s it? Just sign up with the referral code? No other catches?
I tried to sign up for Lending Club late last week and have had nothing but problems since. I eventually had to call them to cancel my account since they do not have a cancel on their web site. First of all, they require both your bank account information and your social security number to receive the $64.62. The kicker is that their SSL security certificate is expired…
I had to argue with them over and over to just cancel my account and finally they did and are supposedly refunding the “small amount” (nearly $1) they used to verify my account. When Paypal verifies accounts, they actually deposit a couple cents. This place takes a dollar? If all you did was invest the $64 that this promotion gives you, then it would take months to make up that dollar at 7%.
I’m not going to say issues never arise with signing up for Lending Club, but yours is the first specific story I’ve ever heard about it. I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience.
I’ve had a pretty good experience as an investor with Lending Club. I think your BK is the first I’ve heard about (from a blogger at least).
The successful investors with a product like Lending Club will be the ones that diversify AND invest a high enough amount. Even 20 or 30 notes isn’t enough of a pool to really be diversified.
DK
Thank you so much for this Stephanie! I’ve been looking all around the web and decided to finally start an account so I opened one up with your referral code (you have to press the lil plus sign and manually insert).
I linked my checking account, but just need to verify. I dont see the referral bonus anywhere though and it says I only get $40 for linking my bank account?
@HID Light Dude: Hmm… strange. This offer should be good till December 31, so if I still don’t have the full bonus next week, I think you ought to contact Lending Club and ask them what’s up.
I sent them an email and they responded right away with the correct amount of $64.62 in my new account – yay! now to invest!
Is it still too late to get involved?