Has anyone got a loan from Zopa.com before?

edc100

I'm interested to know people's experiences using zopa.com and whether it is safe to borrow from?

I have £4,100 oustanding on a graduate loan with 21 months left until its paid off paying approximately £205 a month at 7.9%. I seem to have become a bit obsessed with paying off my debt and have managed to clear £9k in the last 13 months. I now would like to increase my payments by £50 and also be able to pay more than the necessary amount some months. For example I have £300 left over this month which I would much rather use against debt that put in my ISA. For me it is more about the speed of paying this debt off than the rates!

My initial thoughts were to get a 0% balance transfer credit card like Virgin as they effectively give you cheques to pay off overdrafts, loans etc Therefore I could pay an extra £50 here and there if I had it but I already have a card with Virgin (due to be paid off in feb when 0% rate finishes) and can not find any other companies (apart from mbna) who offer similar benefits i.e. cash/cheques to pay off loans.

This is what lead me to Zopa as you can pay more than the necessary amount some months and also are not penalised for paying the debt off early!

Any suggestions and feedback gratefully received.

Johnnii

can someone explain what is meant by the A, B C borrowers as i don't know how you find out which one applies to yourself?.

susanjfp

It is basically based on credit score.

If you click on get a loan and then bottom left "more help" then click on glossary it shows typical examples of people in each category.

From personal experience 50% of my borrowers have been in the A market.

susanjfp

Also part in borrowers section that explains who can borrow. Entitled Who can borrow at zopa.

djbd1973

edc100 wrote: »

I'm interested to know people's experiences using zopa.com and whether it is safe to borrow from?

My wife borrowed from Zopa and it worked fine. She is just about to pay back the loan a year early in the next few weeks.

Because of her healthy credit rating she got a fantastic loan rate which was lower than our mortgage rate for £3k over 3 years. This was about 18 months ago.

Well worth it in our case.

susanjfp

God to hear your wife had/having good experience with zopa djbd1973.

The no penalty early repayment/overpayment is one of the things they should try to market a lot more as even some of the current borrowers don't seem to realise the facilty is open to them.

djbd1973

susanjfp wrote: »

God to hear your wife had/having good experience with zopa djbd1973.

The no penalty early repayment/overpayment is one of the things they should try to market a lot more as even some of the current borrowers don't seem to realise the facilty is open to them.

Thats exactly it. We could have borrowed the money on the mortgage as well but Zopa worked out cheaper than anywhere else, and we knew that we may have had to pay back early so the early repayment without penalities was perfect.

susanjfp

Worth pointing out that the tell a friend scheme has just been extended so as well as getting hopefully good rates on loans, by using this link you also get given £30 by zopa if you borrow from the members, and as i have done before anyone who uses the link successfully will have me sending £15 to one of Martin's charities too.

www.zopa.com/member/ligaya

or without the £30

www.zopa.com