You’ve drawn yourself a caricature of a hard scrabble borrower who’s just trying to make ends meet and has the best of intentions with regards to their debts.

In my Prosper experience that was the rare exception. The typical defaulting borrower bought themselves a shiny new toy and literally felt entitled to the money. As if their success in securing the loan was sufficient justification to have earned the money outright.

The drama on the Prosper lending forums, where lenders and borrowers could directly communicate with each other, was epic and educational.