All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Tired of fighting with customer-service teams? These startups' automated systems will get that refund for you. In Silicon Valley – where the idea originates – it's called justice-as-a-service. "Because legal fees are so high, people will often go straight to the internet for a legal query," says Catherine Bamford, CEO of Leeds-based legal tech firm BamLegal. "This, along with cuts to legal aid, has provided demand." Most are automated, so robot lawyers can undercut those uncompetitive humans. "We will see more chatbots and online services disrupt the market," she adds. Here are some wrangles that startups are waiting to fix for you.
This Y Combinator-backed startup, which automates compensation for delayed flights, is where it all begins. Co-founders Henrik Zillmer, 35, and Nicolas Michaelsen, 33, coined the term “Justice as a Service” as a way of marketing their app when it launched in 2013. Since then, Michaelsen says AirHelp has helped more than 1.2 million passengers worldwide claim back a total of $85 (£70) million. If a claim is successful, the team charges 25 per cent commission.
Launched in 2015, this Los Angeles-based startup acts as a neutral third party to help broker resolutions between customers and companies. “We don’t take on cases that aren’t fair to the business, that wouldn’t be justice,” says founder Michael Schneider, 35. So far, Service has raised $3.6 million in seed funding and saved consumers over 4,500 hours in complaining time: it’s top three categories for help are travel, telecommunications and retail.
Launched in 2015 out of Harvard Business School, Boston-based BillCrew has saved patients an average of 20 per cent on their medical bills through claims and appeals, according to its co-founder Iulia Iliut. “A lot of the issues arise from administrative inefficiency in hospitals,” says Iliut. “Basically, wrong codes entered and overbilling.” The rates depend on the case, but the team has taken on pro bono cases for patients who cannot afford legal aid.
Stanford student Joshua Browder, 20, created a robot lawyer in 2015 to appeal his parking tickets. Now 190,000 drivers have successfully contested more than $5 million, so Browder (who was featured in WIRED December 2015) is expanding DoNotPay into a bot-building platform. “So many lawyers say it is impossible to automate the law,” he says. “However, a huge number of lawyers charge hundreds of dollars for menial work – something that technology is very good at replacing.”
Since its launch in 2014, this Berlin-based startup has helped more than 20,000 photographers pursue instances of image theft online. Put your picture into its reverse image search engine, see where it’s been used, then get in touch to claim the revenue. Its core service is free, but Pixsy receives a 50 per cent share of any money recovered. “Our goal is to educate both photographers about their rights and image users about copyrights,” says CEO Anders Fleck, 30.
“Each year, there is about €50-70 million of unclaimed refunds in the French railway sector,” explains Edouard Nattée, 32, whose Paris-based startup helps customers claim refunds for delayed or cancelled train trips. Launched in 2016, Misterfox has analysed more than 600,000 train tickets, helping over 10,000 users get a refund. The free service includes SNCF, Thalys and Eurostar.
UPDATE, 29 March 2017: Misterfox is out of the train game – and into shopping instead. "We had to stop managing train delays because SNCF did a great job on improving the whole system online," its team tells WIRED. "That is why we focus now on getting money back for our customers when their Ecommerce orders are late." The company is currently managing delays to Amazon orders and says 90 per cent of the delays are compensated, with an average sum of seven euros. "Compensations for ecommerce delays represent more than €100 M just in France," says Marketing & Communication Manager Louis Balladur. "But the thing is nobody ever thinks of asking for a compensation!"
This startup lets UPS and FedEx customers claim a full refund on late shipments, invoice errors and lost or damaged packages. Launched in 2013 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 71lbs offers a free service, but typically charges half of the refund amount. “If your shipment is late, even by 60 seconds, you are entitled to a full refund,” explains founder Jose Li, 44, who says 71lbs gives the average customer approximately $600 (£494) in refunds every month.
Brothers Julian, 26, and Ben Kurland, 23, put a post on Reddit in 2014 saying they’d haggle over bills for anyone who asked. Enough people got in touch that they turned the idea into a business. “We do this because for many of the claims, the amount could be entirely absorbed by court costs and legal fees,” explains Julian. The Nashville, Tennessee-based team of “expert” negotiators at BillFixers takes 50 per cent of the recuperated costs if the claim’s successful.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
