This makes YCombinator look bad. Did they know about this before investing in Zidisha? If not, maybe consulting the likes of GiveWell could be a good idea.
Deceit in lending is not uncommon among microfinance organizations, but it's surprising to see it from a YC-backed company. I look forward to Zidisha's response, I'm sure they'll shed more light on it.
Also, 6 years later, their apology is still posted and crosslinked on their website, years later, in an easily accessible/sharable URL.
MeFi's analysis, which FWIW, notes that most of the offending activity was done under the founders' real first-names:
http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/Givewell
(Where is AirBnB's apology for violating Craigslist's TOS with the spamming from "Jessica"?)
