The Hustlers’s Guide to Suing the Man

0:00:02 (upbeat music)
0:00:14 – Welcome to this episode of “Hustling Tech.”
0:00:16 I’m Ben Horowitz, and with me today,
0:00:19 I have Josh Browder, who is the founder,
0:00:22 CEO of DoNotPay.com.
0:00:25 We have Makiri Omar,
0:00:29 who’s been hustling that platform to great effect.
0:00:30 And then with me, as always,
0:00:34 I have my co-host, Shaka Senghor,
0:00:36 who hustled his way out of the joint
0:00:40 and is now a leader in the community and my co-host.
0:00:41 So welcome.
0:00:42 – Yeah, welcome.
0:00:45 So I love, first of all, I just love the name DoNotPay.
0:00:48 I wanna stamp that on every bill that comes through
0:00:49 and just send it out to everybody.
0:00:52 – So tell us, what is DoNotPay?
0:00:53 How did it start?
0:00:55 – So DoNotPay today is a platform
0:00:58 that helps ordinary people fight for their consumer rights.
0:01:01 So getting back money from corporations and governments.
0:01:04 And it started out four years ago
0:01:05 when I got a bunch of parking tickets.
0:01:07 I was admittedly a terrible driver
0:01:09 and I was writing all of these appeal letters
0:01:11 to get out of my tickets.
0:01:13 And I learned that you can go to a lawyer
0:01:14 and the lawyer will say,
0:01:16 I’ll get you out of your parking ticket,
0:01:18 but I’ll take 50% of the cost of the ticket,
0:01:20 or you have to pay the ticket.
0:01:22 And there must be a better way than that.
0:01:25 And so I’ve researched all of these obscure government
0:01:27 documents to find out the top reasons
0:01:28 why people get out of their parking tickets.
0:01:30 The biggest one is signage.
0:01:32 They make the signage deliberately confusing.
0:01:34 For example, having a tree cover the sign,
0:01:37 having two signs say the opposite thing.
0:01:39 And then the second biggest reason is parking bays
0:01:41 that are physically impossible to park in.
0:01:45 And below 180 centimeters, you can’t get any car in.
0:01:47 And this is mainly because the lines aren’t painted.
0:01:49 Beyond that, they make mistakes on the ticket.
0:01:51 Then you can’t trust them with anything.
0:01:53 And I decided to automate that for my friends.
0:01:54 And then it turned out it was very popular.
0:01:57 So expanded it to the general public.
0:01:59 – And that’s actually kind of cool also,
0:02:00 ’cause coming from where you’re from,
0:02:03 Shaka, you know, a lot of guys with cases
0:02:05 get taken down by parking tickets.
0:02:06 – Yeah, absolutely.
0:02:09 Clear that right on up and not have to run into the courts
0:02:11 when they already got a warrant for other things.
0:02:14 – And McCary, so how did you come across the platform
0:02:15 and what were you doing with it?
0:02:18 – So I have a delivery service, 24/7 delivery service.
0:02:20 When you’re a delivery service and you live in LA,
0:02:22 we have a thing that we like to call parking ninches.
0:02:24 Those are the right.
0:02:25 So when you’re delivering things,
0:02:29 we deliver things at all times of day and hour and night.
0:02:32 So it’s one of those things where I literally needed
0:02:34 to find a way where I can either help some of my drivers,
0:02:37 get out of their tickets, because places like LA,
0:02:40 they literally like to stick you a ticket on your window
0:02:43 that says $70, $77, all the way up to $177.
0:02:45 And the violation can be like,
0:02:47 oh, you didn’t put your will to the left.
0:02:48 Just something really ridiculous.
0:02:50 So I was just trying to find the answer to that.
0:02:52 And then I just remember it was just
0:02:55 so half of the TV was on and next thing you know,
0:02:57 they said, oh, there’s an app, there’s a robot
0:02:59 that can literally take care of your parking tickets
0:03:01 and that could really go to bat for you
0:03:02 and get your money back.
0:03:05 I’m like, huh, yeah, let me try to put it to the test.
0:03:08 And it literally helped me with one or two of my parking
0:03:11 tickets that was a real big problem.
0:03:13 So basically you start using their service
0:03:16 and then later on, they start adding more features.
0:03:18 – When were the other features that you started using?
0:03:20 – So it’s one of those things where you’d have people
0:03:23 who would actually try to buy a product from you
0:03:25 and then they’ll try to say, oh, we never received
0:03:27 that product or they’ll do a charge back
0:03:29 or they’ll try to say whatever the case would be.
0:03:31 And then what would happen is, is that it would go
0:03:33 into my account, it would take money out of my account,
0:03:36 my merchant processor would take money out of my account.
0:03:38 And then it would charge, it would actually come back
0:03:41 to be where like I would have now a negative fund
0:03:44 in my account or they would charge me another like NSF fee.
0:03:46 It’s money that basically is in your account
0:03:47 or they take from you.
0:03:49 It’s just a fee that they charge you for an overdraft.
0:03:52 – So they robbed you facilitated
0:03:53 by the credit card company.
0:03:54 – The product’s gone, the money’s gone
0:03:56 and now you’re taking more money because of everything else.
0:03:59 So they now have something that basically like,
0:04:00 get your bank fees back.
0:04:03 Just like last week, I got like $62 back in fees.
0:04:04 So you can’t knock it.
0:04:07 – You know, the banking system is so,
0:04:10 I mean, for a small business or kind of a person
0:04:13 who doesn’t have a lot of money is the most broken thing.
0:04:16 It’s something we track a lot here and that if you’re me,
0:04:19 you pay nothing for banking services.
0:04:21 If you’re kind of a regular person
0:04:23 trying to go paycheck to paycheck,
0:04:28 it’s like $15 a month in ATM fees and this fee
0:04:29 and that fee and the other things.
0:04:32 It’s all hidden and under the covers.
0:04:33 – Yeah, I was actually thinking about,
0:04:36 if you have a small business like that can be just devastating
0:04:39 be those, ’cause those fees rack up relatively quickly.
0:04:41 So did you have just small businesses mine
0:04:45 or was it just in general, like this is something
0:04:47 that we just need to attack either way it goes.
0:04:48 – So when I launched Do Not Pay,
0:04:50 it was just from my small dorm room
0:04:52 and I put up this website for parking tickets.
0:04:54 I had a contact form on the website
0:04:56 and people didn’t know that there was a 17 year old
0:04:58 behind this website and they thought I was some big law firm.
0:05:01 So they actually say, I don’t have a parking ticket
0:05:06 but I’m getting like this small business like charge back,
0:05:07 things like that.
0:05:09 And so that’s where I got all the ideas to expand
0:05:11 and it’s a bigger problem than just parking tickets.
0:05:14 People are being exploited across the system.
0:05:15 – I’m like a power user.
0:05:18 I mean, it’s one of those things where they even have
0:05:19 something where if you’re going to court,
0:05:21 if you need to get money,
0:05:24 I have a situation now where I had to deal with a landlord
0:05:26 who basically was withholding money
0:05:28 because he went and told me
0:05:31 that the place I was moving into was the certain size.
0:05:32 And he wouldn’t let me see it because he was like,
0:05:35 well, you’ve seen the pictures, you’ve seen this, whatever.
0:05:36 I’m not gonna lie to you, you know,
0:05:37 I guarantee this, I guarantee that.
0:05:39 And it was supposed to be a certain square footage.
0:05:41 Well, it wasn’t, it was like,
0:05:43 it was supposed to be 12, 172 square feet,
0:05:44 but I walked in and I said,
0:05:46 this is 615 square feet.
0:05:48 And he was like, well, you know, you signed the lease.
0:05:51 He took $5,700 of my money.
0:05:54 And so like, I was just like, okay, where do I go?
0:05:55 What do I do for this point on?
0:05:58 So of course I went the legal shield route
0:05:59 because at first that’s the first thing you think of
0:06:00 is attorney base.
0:06:02 Let me see if I can get somebody to write a letter
0:06:03 like real quick.
0:06:04 That didn’t work.
0:06:06 And then finally I was like, okay, well,
0:06:07 small claims here I come.
0:06:08 So I did that.
0:06:11 But then also when I did the do not pay at the same time,
0:06:14 do not pay actually came up with a script
0:06:14 that literally was like,
0:06:16 they researched the whole situation
0:06:17 because you’re typing your situation.
0:06:21 And literally they now have a thing called that says,
0:06:22 what’s your problem?
0:06:25 And it’s like a customer service space problem area.
0:06:27 And it actually goes and it researches similar cases
0:06:30 or similar ideas or something that somebody else has done
0:06:32 or that have been through the same thing.
0:06:33 And it compiles your situation together
0:06:34 and it gives you the structure
0:06:36 of what you need to say and present in court.
0:06:39 So you know exactly what to say to the judge or not.
0:06:41 That’s one of the things that I’m super curious about.
0:06:43 I’ve done a lot of work in criminal justice space
0:06:46 nationally and when talking to people
0:06:48 about the legal structure in the U.S.
0:06:50 where they think it’s just one thing,
0:06:52 it’s one kind of legal structure.
0:06:54 But in reality, every state has its own thing.
0:06:57 How does do not pay work across all these laws
0:07:01 and different rules in each city and county and state?
0:07:02 Like how does that work?
0:07:04 – So it’s four years in the making
0:07:07 and we only focus mainly on consumer rights.
0:07:09 There’s a lot of national laws around consumer rights
0:07:10 that we rely on.
0:07:13 And then we’ve also adapted it for 50 states.
0:07:16 But you’re completely right and the justice system
0:07:17 in general is like pay to play.
0:07:20 The more money you have, the more successful you are.
0:07:22 And so that’s what we’re trying to stop.
0:07:24 – Wow, and how does the system work?
0:07:27 Because my landlord stole my money.
0:07:28 I need to get it back.
0:07:29 I’m taking them to a small claims court.
0:07:30 This is my case.
0:07:34 And then do not pay says, well, this is your argument.
0:07:36 How did you do that?
0:07:39 – So do not pay will talk to you like a real lawyer.
0:07:41 We call it a robot lawyer and ask you questions
0:07:42 about your issue.
0:07:44 And then it goes down through a decision tree
0:07:47 to classify it against like a legally sound way
0:07:49 to sue this person.
0:07:51 And in this case, it’s breach of contract.
0:07:55 So applied his breach of contract law to his case
0:07:58 and then generated a demand letter and small claims script.
0:08:01 And no lawyers are involved in small claims processes.
0:08:05 And so you can have the same power as like a top law firm.
0:08:06 – Right, right.
0:08:07 ‘Cause you’ve done the legal research.
0:08:09 So when you go in court,
0:08:11 you’re just basically going off the script.
0:08:12 Is that what you’re saying?
0:08:13 – That’s right.
0:08:16 And it even tells you responses
0:08:17 to what the other side could say.
0:08:21 So if the other side says, actually I did post it,
0:08:23 you say, well, not in the legally correct place.
0:08:26 So it gives you even back and forth discussion points.
0:08:28 – I mean, I’ve been small claims more than once.
0:08:31 Many people don’t know that when you go to small claims,
0:08:34 you are not allowed to be represented by an attorney.
0:08:36 You literally have to talk your case out
0:08:39 in front of a judge or a sit in judge.
0:08:42 And basically, you know, go back and forth
0:08:44 between the plaintiff and the defendant.
0:08:47 You can consult an attorney before you go
0:08:48 to make sure that what you’re saying is valid
0:08:50 and what you’re going against
0:08:52 is what you are really going to win.
0:08:54 And so like you can do that,
0:08:56 but you just can’t have one present with you.
0:09:00 So what do not pay does is that basically
0:09:01 it takes all that information.
0:09:04 You, I literally wrote out the whole script
0:09:07 and it just gave me the definitions of what point
0:09:09 I needed to basically cover.
0:09:11 And I need to make sure that,
0:09:13 and it even tells you in the whole little paragraph
0:09:15 that they give you,
0:09:18 you have to make sure that each point is clearly defined
0:09:20 and it clearly stated of why this happened
0:09:23 and this happened here or how does this define this?
0:09:24 So it gives you an understanding
0:09:27 of what you have to tell the judge.
0:09:30 I got, you know, I was actually robbed of my money
0:09:32 because this man told me that it was one size
0:09:34 and in actuality it was not.
0:09:35 Here are pictures,
0:09:36 here are everything,
0:09:37 give my evidence to back it up
0:09:39 and here’s what I need to present in order to do so.
0:09:41 So once you get that,
0:09:43 then you kind of feel comfortable going,
0:09:44 like you’re ready to go.
0:09:47 And then also if the person doesn’t show up,
0:09:49 for those who don’t know that, you know,
0:09:50 that you can win by default,
0:09:51 if that person doesn’t show up,
0:09:53 it tells you at the bottom like, okay,
0:09:54 if that person doesn’t show up,
0:09:55 then you tell the judge this
0:09:57 and it tells you a script to read.
0:09:59 So the judge will automatically know, okay,
0:10:01 well this person clearly knows what he’s talking about
0:10:03 because that’s what you have to do in the court of law.
0:10:04 – So how does that work for somebody
0:10:07 who has challenges with literacy?
0:10:10 ‘Cause I mean, like doing this work in criminal justice,
0:10:12 like one of the big issues
0:10:15 is that people take very poor deals largely
0:10:17 because they don’t understand or comprehend a law.
0:10:18 So how does this work?
0:10:20 Is there a way that, you know,
0:10:23 people can just verbally express their argument
0:10:24 or is it all written?
0:10:26 – So it’s all verbal,
0:10:28 but we’re launching voice input.
0:10:30 So you can open-ended say,
0:10:32 my landlord won’t give me my security deposit back
0:10:34 and it will figure it out for you.
0:10:36 We really think about this, making it accessible.
0:10:39 Do not pay a scripture in the simplest English possible.
0:10:42 You don’t have to have an iPhone to use, do not pay.
0:10:45 You can go onto donotpay.com and get access to everything.
0:10:49 And even if you’re blind, we have alt text
0:10:52 and we’re fully compatible with like screen readers
0:10:55 and stuff and soon we’re going to have voice input.
0:10:57 So it’s something we really think about.
0:10:58 Obviously we could be a lot better,
0:11:01 but we’re moving in that direction.
0:11:02 Unfortunately at the moment,
0:11:04 robots can’t represent people in court.
0:11:06 At one day the law will hopefully change.
0:11:09 – So Josh, you say that, you know,
0:11:12 you’re adding features based on your customer input
0:11:13 and all the things that they want to do.
0:11:14 What are some of the things?
0:11:17 – The biggest one is Robocall compensation.
0:11:18 So there are lots of apps that block Robocalls,
0:11:20 but none that get you some cash.
0:11:23 And we’re really excited about this one
0:11:25 because we actually give you a fake credit card
0:11:26 that you can give to the Robocaller
0:11:28 and it will get all of their details
0:11:29 to make it easier to sue them
0:11:32 when they try and run a fake transaction.
0:11:33 But in the longer term,
0:11:36 once you have five million people using Do Not Pay,
0:11:39 it almost gives like group leverage like a consumer union
0:11:41 to go to one of these big corporations
0:11:44 and say we have five million of your customers,
0:11:45 you better start treating them better
0:11:48 or we’ll switch them all to your competitor overnight
0:11:50 and at the same time flood you with legal requests.
0:11:52 So I think right now the leverage is in the law
0:11:56 and the individual, but soon it can be in like collective.
0:11:58 – And is there a fee associated with that?
0:12:01 – So right now Do Not Pay costs $3 a month
0:12:03 and the subscription only starts if you win.
0:12:05 So you can check it out for free.
0:12:07 And the most important aspect of that
0:12:09 is users keep 100% of what they save.
0:12:10 And we’re really looking to make it
0:12:12 as fair pricing as possible.
0:12:15 – And you’re getting something back in return.
0:12:17 Everybody has some type of issue with something or other
0:12:19 that wasn’t even fair
0:12:21 and seems like corporations are taking more advantage of you.
0:12:23 – McCarey, tell us a little bit
0:12:25 about your entrepreneurial journey.
0:12:28 Like how did you, you know, like what’s your background?
0:12:29 – I’ve always been an entrepreneur.
0:12:31 I basically learned to just work for myself
0:12:33 because I’ve already started working for somebody.
0:12:34 Like when I graduated from high school,
0:12:36 I worked for the weather channel.
0:12:38 Then I went and branched off to IBM.
0:12:40 And then after that, I then worked for my mom.
0:12:42 And then after that I did a development company
0:12:45 and then I decided to come out here from Atlanta, Georgia
0:12:48 to great California to actually go to Los Angeles film school
0:12:50 to pursue my dream in film.
0:12:51 – Oh, wow.
0:12:52 – Yeah, but that didn’t work out too well.
0:12:54 So I did a company for business branding.
0:12:56 Then that one kind of just went out on the wayside.
0:12:59 And then finally I was just, it just hit me,
0:12:59 it struck me one time,
0:13:02 but I guess I was in an adult situation.
0:13:05 And the thing was is that basically I literally tried
0:13:07 like all the different type of delivery services.
0:13:10 And none of them would deliver the essential products
0:13:13 that most people need when they are in situations like that.
0:13:14 And then when I tried to postmates,
0:13:16 I then tried to direct them like, okay,
0:13:18 I’ve already called the store.
0:13:19 The product is already on the counter.
0:13:20 You don’t have to worry about it.
0:13:21 It’s already ready to go.
0:13:23 Just pick it up and bring it in.
0:13:26 So I created like a 24/7 delivery service
0:13:29 for Los Angeles and it’s called Luber.
0:13:31 And it was like basically a on-demand delivery service
0:13:34 that do adult retail is what you need.
0:13:35 When you need it, we’ll bring it to you.
0:13:37 I mean, our slogan is basically,
0:13:39 we come even if no one else can.
0:13:42 So it’s just being, like I said, being a small business
0:13:43 is like you’re trying to find every little niche
0:13:46 to try to find something that will help you along the way.
0:13:49 I’ve had platform problems with like my websites,
0:13:51 with just a customer service or with like,
0:13:53 and these are huge companies that literally,
0:13:55 they do not care if they shut your business down
0:13:57 or if they put you on a hold or a freeze
0:13:59 because of something wrong with their system.
0:14:01 And I literally just went through a whole nightmare
0:14:03 during like the Christmas season and the New Year season
0:14:06 where all of a sudden the platform I was with
0:14:07 literally froze my account
0:14:09 because they went with a third party of developers
0:14:10 saying that, you know,
0:14:11 I didn’t want to renew my service with them
0:14:13 because they were actually ripping me off.
0:14:16 And I literally had a problem with trying to, you know,
0:14:18 give me my money back or at least open my site.
0:14:20 I was not late on my bill.
0:14:22 I literally did not want to renew my service.
0:14:24 So what they did was they held me hostage
0:14:26 or help my company hostage by shutting me down
0:14:29 on the most like busiest days of my company,
0:14:31 which is of course the holiday season.
0:14:34 So literally, like I had like inventory ready to go,
0:14:37 everything set to go and they froze it on Christmas day,
0:14:39 then they froze it on New Year’s day and then, and so on.
0:14:41 And I was like, okay, I can’t deal with this.
0:14:43 I even signed up for the big like, you know,
0:14:45 LinkedIn, like the premium service.
0:14:47 So I could literally write the head of the company
0:14:49 ’cause that’s the only way you never get to them.
0:14:50 Never got a response.
0:14:52 And so I finally did it through do not pay.
0:14:53 That’s at least fighting for me.
0:14:55 And I know that if they can’t get it solved,
0:14:57 it’ll at least keep my problem in front of their face
0:14:59 long enough that something’s gonna come of it.
0:15:02 And that’s what it actually did just recently.
0:15:04 I finally got access to like my old website.
0:15:06 So I could get at least my financials
0:15:08 and everything off of it so I can put on my new website.
0:15:10 Do not pay, I guess went and did something
0:15:12 with either the Better Business Bureau
0:15:15 or they did something where they actually got a route to them.
0:15:18 So it’s literally helped my company out tremendously.
0:15:19 – How do you think about that problem
0:15:21 that because you started with parking tickets
0:15:26 that people may not know that you’re their lawyer of choice
0:15:28 for every kind of dispute
0:15:31 that an individual might get into or a small business?
0:15:32 – It’s a tough problem.
0:15:35 People come to do not pay with this very episodic issue.
0:15:37 What we try and do is use the design of the app
0:15:41 to nudge them towards saving money in other areas.
0:15:44 So maybe in this case, someone comes for a parking ticket,
0:15:45 they finish their parking ticket appeal
0:15:48 and then a pop-up comes up as saying,
0:15:50 do you wanna appeal $50 a bank fees?
0:15:52 And then they can just one click press that
0:15:53 and move on to their next issue.
0:15:56 You can cancel any subscription with do not pay,
0:15:59 even one where you have to even mail in like a legal letter
0:16:01 just to cancel your subscription.
0:16:03 The most popular product is something we call
0:16:05 the free trial credit card,
0:16:08 which is a virtual credit card we give you through the app
0:16:09 and you can sign up for any free trial
0:16:11 and it automatically cancels it for you.
0:16:13 So you don’t have to worry about giving away
0:16:15 your financial information just to sign up
0:16:16 for a free trial for something.
0:16:18 What we’ve seen is a lot of power users
0:16:21 likes what’s being discussed as people come for one thing
0:16:23 and then all of a sudden try like 20 different things
0:16:24 and go crazy.
0:16:25 – Yeah, so in your estimation,
0:16:29 like what type of lawyer fees are we seeing save?
0:16:30 You know what I mean?
0:16:33 Like any litigation in America is very expensive.
0:16:35 – So on an aggregate level,
0:16:38 we’ve saved over $20 million in unfair fees
0:16:41 and lawyers typically charge 50% of what they save.
0:16:44 So maybe $10 million of legal fees.
0:16:45 And on an individual level,
0:16:50 we win cases from a $10 in-flight Wi-Fi refund
0:16:53 to $10,000 small claims dispute
0:16:55 against Equifax for the data breach.
0:16:56 Anything more than that,
0:16:58 we’re not sophisticated enough to argue yet,
0:17:01 but below $10,000, we’ve got you.
0:17:05 – So when you get into this customer service dispute
0:17:06 that McCurry had,
0:17:08 ’cause that sounds complicated, okay?
0:17:11 It’s a website, you know, they’re hosting service,
0:17:14 they take, they have his data,
0:17:16 they’re withholding it from him.
0:17:20 How did Do Not Pay figure out how to deal with that?
0:17:22 – So maybe the consumer wants a refund,
0:17:24 maybe they want access to their information.
0:17:26 In this case, it sounds like it’s both.
0:17:30 So it first finds out the goals
0:17:33 and then uses, like tries to match you
0:17:35 with legal justifications for those goals
0:17:37 and then sends it to the exact right place
0:17:39 for the people who can get it done.
0:17:42 In this case, the customer service is so bad
0:17:44 that the only way to actually get their attention
0:17:45 is to send them a legal notice
0:17:47 to their legal processing department.
0:17:49 And those people are actually efficient
0:17:53 at processing their claims and getting the right resolution.
0:17:56 – One of the things we talk a lot about in crypto world
0:17:58 is, you know, code as law.
0:18:01 And it seems like you’re ahead of the game on that.
0:18:05 You’ve got software that’s interprets the law.
0:18:06 So how does that all work?
0:18:07 – I completely agree.
0:18:09 I think law is society’s operating system.
0:18:12 And like it is just code.
0:18:14 Why is it so complicated to understand it?
0:18:16 Technology is based on rules
0:18:20 and it’s very good at understanding the different nuances.
0:18:23 The best processes are ones that can be submitted online.
0:18:26 And I think the most interesting technical angle
0:18:28 is everything comes from the user
0:18:31 and there’s nothing related to do not pay on the appeal.
0:18:34 So when we started appealing parking tickets,
0:18:36 all of a sudden we started sending thousands of appeals
0:18:38 to the local government and they just like shrugged
0:18:41 and said, we’re going to start ignoring these do not pay appeals.
0:18:43 So in response to that,
0:18:45 we decided to randomize all of the letters.
0:18:48 So every letter you get from do not pay is different.
0:18:49 (laughing)
0:18:52 – It’s like a denial of service attack on parking tickets.
0:18:53 – And then beyond that,
0:18:56 we use something called device side automation.
0:18:58 So lots of the automation and submitting the appeals
0:19:00 actually comes from the device,
0:19:02 which means that all of the technical fingerprints
0:19:05 like IP address and stuff like that
0:19:07 makes it seem like an organic user submission.
0:19:09 So when someone submits a claim from do not pay,
0:19:12 it just seems like they’re very knowledgeable about the law.
0:19:15 – All right, this is my want to be.
0:19:18 So how does one utilize it?
0:19:20 – So we have 150 different features
0:19:22 and I would say they fall into two categories.
0:19:24 Either you come to do not pay with a problem
0:19:27 or you’re just browsing and want free money back.
0:19:28 If it’s the latter category,
0:19:30 you can maybe connect to data source,
0:19:32 maybe link your transactions
0:19:33 and it will go through them
0:19:35 and figure out where the money lies.
0:19:37 So I think in the case of the bank of fear appeal,
0:19:40 lots of people don’t even know that they have these bank fees.
0:19:43 They’re just being silently collected from their account
0:19:44 and you can connect your bank account
0:19:47 and it will identify all of these opportunities for you.
0:19:49 – So okay, so you sign up like all,
0:19:50 just all your different bank accounts
0:19:53 and in the banks aren’t disputing
0:19:54 that you signed up for these fees?
0:19:57 Like how is it circumvent that process?
0:20:00 – So either the bank is making a legal promise to you.
0:20:01 So lots of credit cards.
0:20:03 If you see an ad for a credit card,
0:20:05 it’ll say no ATM fees.
0:20:07 But all of a sudden you go to an out-of-network ATM
0:20:09 that’s not owned by the bank
0:20:11 and you start getting the fees on your account
0:20:13 and the bank actually has to reimburse you for that
0:20:14 but you have to let them know.
0:20:17 So do not pay, identifies that and lets them know.
0:20:20 Separately maybe with overdraft fees.
0:20:23 Sometimes it’s the law, sometimes it’s customer service
0:20:26 where using all of this data that do not pay can compile.
0:20:27 It will make the best case
0:20:29 for why these fees should be appealed.
0:20:32 So like say, I’ve been a customer for X years,
0:20:34 I’ve held X minimum balance.
0:20:35 You should refund the fees.
0:20:39 – I literally the day before got an email saying,
0:20:44 congratulations, you just got $61.62 worth of like fees
0:20:46 from your bank back into your account.
0:20:47 I’m like, oh my God, this is great.
0:20:49 – So it works in the background.
0:20:50 – Oh wait, wait, wait.
0:20:52 So you start off with a parking ticket
0:20:53 and it’s like, well, by the way,
0:20:54 let me save you some cash.
0:20:58 – Originally what happened was, as he said before,
0:21:00 it starts to bill you when you win your case or whatever.
0:21:02 So if you win a case with them, then it starts,
0:21:03 and I’m like $3 a month,
0:21:06 like you just literally gave me my money back.
0:21:10 – So when you link your bank account to get reimbursed,
0:21:12 then it just starts working like,
0:21:14 oh, by the way, you got some money over here.
0:21:15 – That’s what it did.
0:21:16 It went through my transaction.
0:21:18 – No other law firm is proactive like that.
0:21:19 – It does ask you somewhere,
0:21:22 but once it’s on, it will get you the money back.
0:21:24 And because you’re keeping a hundred percent,
0:21:25 you don’t even have to worry.
0:21:26 – I cannot be the only one in this world
0:21:29 who like literally has like so many issues sometimes
0:21:32 where it’s like, can I not like, you know, lose to win?
0:21:33 Can I not like get something done?
0:21:35 – Well, you know, it’s so interesting
0:21:37 ’cause the financial services are like
0:21:40 low-key criminal organization
0:21:43 in that they sell you something,
0:21:46 they hit you with print, you can’t read things
0:21:49 that nobody would ever look at, all this kind of thing.
0:21:53 And then they work around all these laws.
0:21:54 So like, you know, they’re a usury law,
0:21:56 so nobody’s gonna charge you over that percentage,
0:22:00 but the overdraft fee, you know,
0:22:03 is way bigger than the interest would ever be
0:22:05 on a user’s requirements.
0:22:07 So they’re doing all this stuff
0:22:08 and there’s no way to fight it,
0:22:10 which is why nobody ever does.
0:22:13 – I had a small loan, I actually took the money out,
0:22:14 I paid it back.
0:22:16 There was one point where we kind of fell behind
0:22:17 a month or so.
0:22:20 And like literally the next thing you know,
0:22:21 all of a sudden they just start taking,
0:22:23 they decided what amounts they want to start
0:22:25 taking out of your account without letting you know.
0:22:27 So I literally, I’ve had to use do not pay
0:22:29 to actually try to get those fees back or whatever.
0:22:30 And I worked for that.
0:22:31 – So it worked and getting your fees back?
0:22:34 – Yeah, it definitely did because I was able to
0:22:37 at least express myself or show to the app itself,
0:22:39 like this money was taken for this
0:22:42 and here where they already took money out.
0:22:43 Like you can’t charge me an SFV
0:22:45 and then already take the money out.
0:22:46 It doesn’t work that way.
0:22:48 And so like, I’ve been able to show my bank like,
0:22:49 okay, you’re double dipping.
0:22:51 People, somebody’s double dipping here.
0:22:54 So it actually went through and actually found like two or three.
0:22:55 – Wow.
0:22:56 – So Jess, how do you go from like,
0:22:57 what was that moment where you was like,
0:23:00 okay, this is more than just helping my friends
0:23:02 beat dumb tickets to like,
0:23:04 oh, this is actually a business model
0:23:08 that can help people, but also that I can monetize.
0:23:10 – I think the reason it can be a business
0:23:13 is because you’re creating a huge amount of value for people.
0:23:14 And it’s a universal need.
0:23:16 We have homeless people use our product.
0:23:18 We have top VCs who use the product
0:23:20 to cancel their expensive equinox gym
0:23:22 and everyone in between.
0:23:24 We have a whole range of people
0:23:26 based on socioeconomic factors.
0:23:29 So it’s really everyone from a socioeconomic standpoint
0:23:32 and it skews older, about 80% on iPhone
0:23:34 and then the rest on web.
0:23:35 We don’t spend any money on marketing.
0:23:38 It’s all word of mouth and people talking about us
0:23:40 in the media and things like that.
0:23:43 Also, we post a lot of content on our website
0:23:46 and that ranks very highly organically on search engines.
0:23:49 So for example, if you search Sue United Airlines
0:23:50 with the number one result,
0:23:52 it’s more like they cancel a flight
0:23:55 or you cancel a flight and the refund just never went through.
0:23:57 So you never get your money back.
0:23:59 And so it’s a lot of this stuff.
0:24:01 – It’s not like they won’t give you your money
0:24:04 but they’ll make you jump through 30 flaming hoops.
0:24:05 – It’s really common.
0:24:06 I think it’s a business practice.
0:24:09 There’s this very famous Comcast calls
0:24:11 where someone phoned up Comcast
0:24:12 and they recorded it on YouTube
0:24:14 and they said, “I want to cancel my Comcast.”
0:24:17 And the Comcast representative held them up for an hour
0:24:20 rather than just canceling their service.
0:24:22 Do Not Pay actually has a product called Skip Weighting On Hold
0:24:24 that allows you to, a bot weights on hold
0:24:26 that transfers it to you.
0:24:28 – So I literally just got through moving.
0:24:29 You have to change your license,
0:24:31 you have to change everything else about everything.
0:24:33 And they actually have a thing where it says,
0:24:35 I think it’s like fill out government papers.
0:24:37 So like you click on that and then it says,
0:24:41 it gives you like CSA, DMV and like two other like items
0:24:41 or whatever.
0:24:42 Well, of course I need the DMV.
0:24:44 I also need to, you know, get my plates
0:24:45 and everything changed over.
0:24:47 Cause Los Angeles is very isonomous
0:24:49 for basically like pulling you over and saying,
0:24:51 “Oh, I’m sorry that this doesn’t fit the car.
0:24:52 This doesn’t feel whatever.”
0:24:54 Or they’ll try to find something on you.
0:24:56 And so basically I just like to try to stay on the up and up
0:24:57 when it comes to that,
0:24:58 especially being a delivery service.
0:25:00 So I was able to actually do that.
0:25:03 They actually made the appointment for me to actually go in
0:25:05 and actually do the thing for my plates
0:25:07 to change address or whatever.
0:25:08 – But what’s the difference between you just calling
0:25:10 and making an appointment yourself?
0:25:12 – I don’t know if you’ve ever called the DMV before
0:25:14 to even get to a person on the phone.
0:25:16 You have to wait the longest time ever.
0:25:18 So like literally it actually will sit up there
0:25:20 and do everything for you.
0:25:22 It’ll wait on hold the whole time for you.
0:25:25 And then it’ll ring you and let you know, like, hey,
0:25:26 you know, you pick up the phone and they’re like,
0:25:28 “Hi, you’ve been on hold for such and such.
0:25:29 How can I help you?” or whatever.
0:25:31 And it’s like, it took your place.
0:25:33 So it doesn’t work for you.
0:25:36 – Yeah, I mean, you’re clearly ahead of the bureaucracy.
0:25:40 Do you think they’ll try to catch up to you in any way
0:25:43 or they just like hopelessly slow
0:25:44 or how do you think about that?
0:25:46 – I think that in the long run,
0:25:48 we’re actually doing them a favor.
0:25:50 And that might sound a bit crazy to say,
0:25:53 but when Do Not Pay launched in Los Angeles
0:25:54 for parking tickets,
0:25:56 someone asked the head of the Los Angeles
0:25:58 parking enforcement, “What do you think about
0:26:00 all of these appeals that all of a sudden
0:26:02 come from Do Not Pay?”
0:26:04 And he said that, “Well, it’s actually quite good
0:26:06 because at least when they come from Do Not Pay,
0:26:07 it’s standardized.
0:26:09 People write such gibberish in their parking appeals.
0:26:11 It saves us processing time.”
0:26:13 And I think that Do Not Pay can actually help
0:26:17 in the long run by siphoning through the legitimate cases
0:26:19 and getting those people refunds quickly
0:26:21 and then also siphoning through the gibberish
0:26:23 and making sure everything is fair.
0:26:26 So hopefully a better, more efficient society
0:26:27 is good for everyone.
0:26:28 – So speaking of that,
0:26:30 I remember when I was in prison,
0:26:33 like guys would literally file lawsuits
0:26:35 for any and everything.
0:26:37 How have you seen any just kind of like
0:26:40 extremely ridiculous cases of people just being like,
0:26:43 oh, I want to litigate this or litigate that?
0:26:46 Or is there some type of way that it can kind of rule out
0:26:48 just frivolous like lawsuits?
0:26:51 – So we haven’t seen really any of that.
0:26:53 And I think the reason is that the crazies
0:26:55 already know how to abuse the system.
0:26:57 And really, this is a tool for people just entering in
0:26:59 to get their access to their rights.
0:27:01 The only frivolous lawsuit that I can think of
0:27:03 is when people try and test out
0:27:07 the sue product against us to get their $3 back.
0:27:09 And we just refund it in those cases.
0:27:12 – Probably lawyers from the big financial services firms.
0:27:15 – Yeah, and so Josh, one of the things that really stood out
0:27:19 is when you talked about how do not pay
0:27:21 is helping people establish their rights
0:27:22 and really get an understanding.
0:27:24 How does that work in a broader context
0:27:29 for people who may not on a normal circumstance
0:27:31 and know that they have a right to certain things
0:27:33 as opposed to just being disruptive?
0:27:36 – So I think that the system is stacked against everyone.
0:27:40 Like bank fees alone is $20 billion a year plus.
0:27:43 And that’s more than all election spending combined.
0:27:46 And so there are so many ways to get out of these fees.
0:27:49 So many laws that exist that have been created
0:27:52 to protect consumers, but nobody knows about them.
0:27:54 So there’s the small claims court process
0:27:57 where you can take companies to court for under $10,000
0:27:59 and lawyers are black band.
0:28:00 There’s the charge back process
0:28:02 where you can refund from your credit card.
0:28:05 All when companies are taking money out of your bank account
0:28:08 like we saw with the case we discussed earlier,
0:28:11 within 60 days, you can get that money back.
0:28:14 No questions asked based on the laws around ACH.
0:28:16 And so all of these laws exist
0:28:17 and the infrastructure exists,
0:28:18 but people don’t know about them.
0:28:20 And so do not pay can help fight
0:28:22 and get consumers their rights.
0:28:25 – So Josh McCurry, thank you for being here.
0:28:27 Thank you all for joining us today.
0:28:30 We’re really excited to see what the platform goes.
0:28:31 – Thank you.
0:28:33 (upbeat music)
0:28:36 (upbeat music)
0:28:39 (upbeat music)
0:28:41 you
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