Today's financial climate is partly cloudy, to say the least.  Everywhere you look, people are forecasting bad things in the economy.  Everything from the constantly rising cost of fuel, rate cuts, and the shaky stock market, people are concerned.  And who can blame you?  What would you say if I told you there is a silver lining?  Something small, but certainly something better than you are doing now.  A smarter way to invest.  Indeed, a way to TRIPLE the interest that your bank is willing to pay you!  And what if this opportunity also included a free $25.00, just for trying this system?  Keep reading... But before I go on, let me tell you outright that I'm not offering you a solution to all of your problems.  I'm not offering you a get-rich-quick plan, guaranteed to increase your income exponentially.  Simply because they either don't exist, or are illegal.  What I'm talking about is how I'm getting back at my bank for cutting the interest rate on my online savings account a full  2% in a matter of months.  And oh, how sweet revenge is paying! I'm talking about Prosper.com.  Maybe you've never heard of it.  Personally, I've never even seen it advertised, but was referred by a friend.  Prosper is a small, person to person, or P2P lending site, and is set up very much like eBay.  Users can go to Prosper and request a loan.  This can be for small business, automobiles, or debt consolidation.  Prosper then does a credit background check and rates the borrower accordingly (anywhere from AA, A, B, and on down the list.)  This is a great way for borrowers to get competitive rates on their loans.  But you're not here to borrow money. You're here to make money, right? Prosper is not only made up of borrowers, but lenders as well.  And that is where you come in.  Prosper lists every loan that is available, and lenders (you or I) will browse through them, checking credit histories, purpose for borrowing, debt to income ratio, everything.  You are the bank, and you can be as tight or as liberal with your capital as you like!  If you choose to only offer your resources to people with awesome credit scores, that is fine.  Or, if you want to take on some higher risk loans (and earn some higher interest) that is your choice. The bids you place can be as low as $50 (or as high as $25,000), and the interest you choose simply must be lower than that set by the borrower.  Amd if you think their rate of choice is too low, you don't pay it.  I once found a person with a C credit grade seeking a loan at 5%.  Not surprisingly, there were no lenders! After all the bids are in, and if the total amount of the loan is reached, Prosper will take the lowest bids (by interest), and create one simple loan for the borower.  Then all you do is sit back and collect your investment, with interst, as it is deposited into your account each and every month. Now remember, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme.  It's not even a home-based business.  I like to look at it more like a certificate of deposit (CD) purchased from the bank.  Only on steroids. The big difference is that with CDs, your interest rate is only about 2.92% for a one-year CD to 3.24% for a 5-year (at the time of this writing, per BankRate.com).  Which beats what my bank is paying in my savings account, to be sure!  But with Prosper, you don't earn interest like a bank customer.  You earn interest like the bank!  The return on loans can be anywhere from 9.49% to 12.81%.  That's the average established by Prosper over a 16 month period of time for all of their low-risk loans (borrowers with a credit grade between AA and C).  Not too shabby. That's really the short version of what Prosper can do for you, but maybe you still have questions.  Here are the three that I am hearing most frequently:   1) Who says that the borrowers have to repay the loan?   There is no guarantee that your loan will be repaid.  As the lender, you are taking the same risk as any bank or credit card company does.  But Prosper takes the headache out of dealing with uncooperative borrowers.  If necessary, they will turn over the defunct debtor over to collections, and eventually the loan will be sold to a debt buyer, and the borrower will take a negative hit on their credit score and be banned forever from using Prosper again.   2) Is my money insured?   Yes.  Although Prosper is not directly insured by the FDIC, your deposits are covered up to $100,000 by FDIC pass-through insurance provided by Prosper's banking partner, Wells Fargo Bank. 3) What about that free money? I was hoping you'd ask!  Prosper has granted me the pleasure of promoting their service, and every lender that signs up through my links will have $25, free and clear, deposited into their account after their first investment is secured. So what are you waiting for?  Now is the time to put your money to work in something that actually works.  Not a pyramid scam, not the UK Lottery, not even a low-interest savings account!  This really is a high-interest, low-risk investment.  Click here to join Prosper, and prosper indeed!