My first loan

[marny_h96]

I joined Kiva on Friday and made my first loan to a woman in Ghana.

Has anyone here ever had a bad experience with Kiva?

Comments

[foxfirefey]

What do you define as a bad experience, though?

[marny_h96]

Anything that's not a good experience ;-)

Seriously, I only joined Kiva four days ago so I'm not sure what kind of bad experiences could happen with them. I was just curious, never mind.

[foxfirefey]

No, it's totally okay! I think I have something I might want to share, but I don't really classify it as a bad experience on Kiva's part, but a...sobering one? I think I should make a post to the main community about it.

[marny_h96]

I'm definitely interested in reading it if you'd like to share it.

[cesy]

Yay for your first loan!

I've never had a bad experience, though I've seen other people be all shocked and horrified because they didn't understand how microfinance and Kiva work.

[hivesofactivity]

I suspect I come under that category! I'd had some loans out for a while before I realise how high the interest paid by the borrowers was, and I was pretty shocked by it, because it isn't really flagged up on the kiva site, and you have to dig for the info. I'm still lending, because the offer of an expensive loan is better than the realistic alternative, for most of the borrowers, of no loan at all - but I'd certainly support any move to pass on a bit of that cost onto the lenders.

[hivesofactivity]

(And, just to clarify, this wasn't a bad experience for me, I was just startled that the whole loan experience wasn't quite as good - although still very good - for the borrowers as I'd originally expected. I'm still lending, and I'm on the Dreamwidth team!)