has anyone used "the lending club"? is it a scam?

Answer 1

I went to the website: Lendingclub.com, and it looks LEGITIMATE to me. Their rates are not at all unreasonable, and they try to match those willing to lend with those needing to borrow. I would as a precaution check them out with the Better Business Bureau locally, but it sure seems totally within reason. I have done finance for many years and I would use the service if the rates met my needs.

Answer 2

I have had an account with Lending Club for nearly two years. Just invested $2500 but in 12 months made a huge return in comparison to a $5000 CD I had. Currently I am on automatic reinvesting and am realizing anywhere from 9.5 to 10.67 percent. I love it. Don't have to do a thing. I can kick in more cash when ever I have it and can also take money out fairly easily as well. I don't like the fact that it is not Federally Insured but where can you even get close to that return percentage??? Wish I had about 10K to throw in there........

Answer 3

LENDINGCLUB REVIEW (4/2014):
I joined Lendingclub (LC) and upgraded to a Prime account investor, allowing lendingclub to make investments for me according to selected criteria. I also had a Trading Account to dispose of and purchase notes from other users.
This is to inform unsuspecting users of risks and difficulties experienced in using Lendingclub.
The largest risk has yet to be realized. That is that when the economy or stock market tanks again investors will not be able to get their money out. Defaults on unsecured notes are sure to increase exponentially and those notes that stay solvent will not be able to be sold. No one will buy them and that is the only method of withdrawing your cash. If any are sold, it takes 2 weeks to get the money transfered, since LC sits on your funds.
Another problem is that when you attempt to sell notes ( I had almost 900 at one time) Lendingclub will not allow a blanket listing of your choosing. There is a "+/-" column in the "Change Price of Notes for Sale" web page, used to adjust the markup or discount of the notes you wish to sell. However, it does not work in any of my three browsers (chrome, firefox, or iexplorer) whether with or without cookies or popups allowed. A friend is also experiencing the same problem.
When clicking the +/- button, Lendingclub is to supposedly increment each note's sale price by 0.25%, but this does not happen. Notes adjust at different rates, with the top notes visible on screen adjusting somewhat properly, but the lower notes not adjusting. Then lendingclub's site sends you to an error screen or takes forever to act upon your request. The system is faulty and locks up. This seems contrived to discourage selling notes. Then LC logged me out unexpectedly before acting on my restricted sale request.
Lendingclub then has a review period for notes sold, taking up to 2 weeks in "pending" status. I have yet to withdraw any cash, since none of my notes have been acknowledged by LC as "sold" to date, even though over 400 are shown as "sold this month" in my trading account. My "available cash" is shown as $53, though almost 500 $25 notes have been sold.
Those 400 sold notes were sold almost immediately (suspiciously) at the principal plus outstanding interest price, since I was not allowed to adjust the price upward by the LC site. Could LC owners or LC itself buy notes after charging 1% company sales fee, that I was denied recovering with a markup? Is that insider trading? The markup was denied by LC due to the faulty LC web site.
In addition using the LC trading account is limited. The methods of analysing notes for sale is restricted by LC's column sorting limitations. Why does LC classify notes purchased as: "in review," "in funding," for about a week or more before "issued?" Is this playing a float with millions of dollars before paying interest.
When initally placing funds with LC also, the company sits on your cash for about 2 weeks in a float before allowing a purchase of notes. Wonder how much interest is collected on those funds?
LC makes it easy to get into notes buy buying, but extremly quirky and difficult to sell, analyze notes, or to get funds out. If you owned 900 notes like me, you cannot make a blanket markup, each must be clicked upon individually, then the site does not react to the click, except sporadically - impossible to use. Often LC cancels your sale when a payment is made on a note before a sale, even though this may not be your reason for selling, or even though you may want to sell despite a payment being made. Then the note must be relisted for sale. If you do not reprice notes for sale every 7 days, LC removes them from sale for you, regardless of your desire to sell.
I could go on and on, but this review is running on and the previous points shoud be adequate to warn potential and current users. The above is my opinion, check it yourself at your own peril.