LoanLedger Documentation

User Docs

The long-form manual for the whole suite — your private Ledger, the Signals network you research borrowers against, and Warden, where the network tracks defaulters together. Start at the top, or jump to any section.

Getting started

How LoanLedger works#

LoanLedger is three tools that share one goal: help you lend to strangers on the internet without getting burned.

Your Ledger is your private book. Every loan you make, every repayment you collect, every due date you're watching — it lives here and nobody else can see it. It's yours.

Signals is the shared memory of the lending communities. Before you fund someone, you look them up here to see whether the network has seen them repay, go quiet, or default. It's read-mostly: you research, you don't expose your own book.

Warden is where lenders pool what they know about the people who don't pay — reports, aliases, evidence, and recovery playbooks. It's the collective defense against repeat defaulters.

The loop
Look someone up in Signals → decide → record the loan in your Ledger → if it goes bad, file it in Warden so the next lender is warned. Every honest record you keep makes the whole network safer.

Your first borrower lookup#

Never fund anyone before you've looked them up. It takes ten seconds and it's the single highest-value habit in lending.

Open Signals and type the borrower's exact username — the Reddit handle, not a display name.
Read the headline: does the network have a record for them, and is anything flagged unpaid?
Open the full result to see their history across every community we track.
Decide. A clean record isn't a guarantee — but an unpaid flag is a hard stop until it's explained.
No record is not a green light
A borrower the network has never seen is an unknown, not a safe. New handles are how serial defaulters reset. Weight it accordingly.

Welcome & setup#

Getting set up takes about two minutes.

First-run checklist
  • Confirm your account and set a strong, unique password — see Data & privacy.
  • Run one lookup in Signals so you know what a result looks like before you need it.
  • Record a loan in your Ledger — even a past one — to see how tracking works.
  • Skim the golden rules if you're new to lending online.
Open your Ledger Go to Signals
Signals

Signals & search#

A signal is one observed fact about a borrower: a loan they took, a repayment they made, a default the network recorded.

Signals are reconstructed from the public lending communities — the bot-tracked subreddits, historical archives, and lender reports. When you search a handle, we roll every signal we hold about that person into one picture.

By default Signals shows warnings — the things that should give you pause. Switch to records mode when you want the full research view: every loan, repaid and unpaid, with dates and sources.

Signals is intel, not a verdict
We surface what the network has seen. The lending decision is always yours — read the whole picture, not just the top flag.

Reading the lookup result#

A borrower result is built from a few panels. Here's what each one is telling you:

  • Headline & standing — the one-line summary: clean, mixed, or flagged, plus how much history backs it.
  • Loan history — every loan the network has on record, newest first, with status and the community it came from.
  • Unpaid flags — loans a lender declared unpaid. These are deliberate declarations, not guesses from silence.
  • Aliases & identifiers — other handles the network has linked to this person, if any.
Cross-reference before you lend big
A thin record on one handle plus a matching alias with a default elsewhere is a very different story than a single clean handle. Check the aliases panel.

Trust profiles#

A trust profile combines three things into one at-a-glance read: standing (has this person paid people back?), depth (how much history is there?), and recency (is it recent or ancient?).

A borrower with a dozen recent repaid loans and no flags reads very differently from one with two repaid loans from three years ago. Depth and recency are why we show you the whole timeline, not just a score.

Good history can still turn
Some of the most painful defaults come from borrowers who built a clean record on small loans, then walked with a big one. Standing lowers risk; it never removes it.

Reading the signals#

Turning a result into a decision comes down to a few questions:

Is anything unpaid? If yes, stop and ask them about it directly before anything else.
Is there enough history to trust the pattern, or is this basically an unknown?
Is the good history recent, or are you leaning on activity from years ago?
Does the ask fit the pattern? A request far larger than their history warrants extra caution.
Vetting checklist Golden rules
Warden & recovery

When a loan goes bad#

A borrower has stopped paying and stopped responding. Here's the order of operations.

Give it a genuine chance. People miss dates for real reasons. A calm, specific message often gets a payment plan.
Mark it accurately in your Ledger. Overdue is not the same as defaulted — don't declare a default until it's genuinely one.
File a Warden report with your evidence so the next lender is warned. This is the network's immune system.
Pursue recovery through whatever channel you funded on — see the tradeoffs below.
How you sent the money decides your recovery options
A payment sent as PayPal Goods & Services can be disputed; Friends & Family, Venmo, Cash App and crypto generally cannot. Read the payment-method guide before you fund, not after.
File a report Chargeback guide Demand letters
Account

Free & Pro plans#

Free covers the essentials forever: your private Ledger, borrower lookups against Signals, and Warden reports. It's a real tool, not a trial.

Pro ($5/month) adds depth for people who lend often — the full research table, confidence and contribution detail, history and exports, and higher lookup limits.

Manage billing in Account
Upgrade, downgrade, and payment details all live in your Account. Downgrading never deletes your data — it just hides the Pro-only views.

Data & privacy#

Two things live in different places, on purpose:

  • Your Ledger is private. The loans and repayments you record are yours alone. We don't publish them, sell them, or fold them into Signals.
  • Warden reports are shared — that's the point of them. When you file a report, you're contributing to the network's shared record of a defaulter.
Keeping your account secure
  • Use a unique password you don't reuse anywhere else.
  • Review active sessions and API keys in Account periodically.
  • You can export or delete your data at any time — deletion runs on a grace period so accidents are recoverable.
Safety & scams

Vetting a borrower#

A repeatable checklist to run before every loan. The discipline is the protection.

Before you send a cent
  • Look them up in Signals. Any unpaid flag is a stop.
  • Check account age & history. Brand-new accounts asking for money are the highest-risk cohort there is.
  • Read the request itself. A clear reason, a realistic amount, and a concrete repayment date are good signs. Vagueness and urgency are not.
  • Only lend what you can lose. Every online loan carries real default risk. Size accordingly.

Common scams#

Most losses aren't bad luck — they're a handful of playbooks run over and over. Learn the tells:

  • The fresh reset. A brand-new handle with no history, often after a default on an old one. Cross-check aliases.
  • The urgency squeeze. Emergency framing designed to rush you past your own checklist. Real emergencies survive a lookup.
  • The trust ladder. Small loans repaid perfectly to build standing, then a large ask they never intend to repay.
  • The channel switch. Insisting on Friends & Family, gift cards, or crypto — payment rails with no recourse. That insistence is the tell.
The pressure is the signal
Legitimate borrowers accept your process. Anyone pushing you to skip the lookup, decide right now, or use an irreversible channel is telling you what they are.

Golden rules of lending#

Everything above distills to five habits. Keep these and you'll outlast the scams:

  • Never lend more than you can lose. Treat every loan as potentially a gift.
  • Always look them up first. No exceptions, no matter how good the story sounds.
  • Fund on a recoverable rail when you can, so a default has consequences.
  • Record everything — your Ledger is your evidence and your memory.
  • Report defaulters to Warden. The lender you protect next time is protecting you.

FAQ#

Is my Ledger visible to other lenders?

No. Your Ledger is private to your account. Only Warden reports you deliberately file are shared with the network.

Where does Signals data come from?

Public lending-community activity — bot-tracked subreddits, historical archives, and lender-submitted reports — reconstructed into one history per handle.

A borrower says their unpaid flag is wrong. What now?

Flags are deliberate lender declarations, not automated guesses, but mistakes happen. Ask the borrower for their side, and if a flag is genuinely in error the network can correct it.

Do I need Pro to stay safe?

No. Lookups, your Ledger, and Warden reports are free forever. Pro adds research depth for high-volume lenders — it doesn't gate the safety basics.

Still stuck?
Press ? anywhere in the app for the contextual help drawer, or reach the network on the Help Center.
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Looking for shorter answers? The Help Center has quick guides and search. Building integrations or running the platform? See the Operator Docs.