jonfougner

Hypo: Suppose your cable company promises that your bill will be $100 per month but instead it's $150. Is it worth spending hours on the phone trying to get them to correct it, getting your call passed around like a hot potato, being left on hold and even hung up on -- all for $50 (or $0)? David lets you produce a demand letter in 5 minutes at no upfront cost, which the cable company takes more seriously than a call to customer support.

On the software development side, something to be excited about is the mobile-first approach, responsive UI, single-page app with Ember.js, using Django on the back end.

Give us your feedback on both!

1. David is independent of the companies listed on the website and does not have agreements with them to resolve disputes. David's software lets you resolve disputes with those companies using pre-existing dispute resolution frameworks, such as the "notice of dispute" that AT&T and Verizon purport to require as a prerequisite to taking them to arbitration.

2. There is an enormous need for lawyers. 85% of Americans with serious legal problems don't seek the help of a lawyer, often due to cost. The tool David currently offers would not be appropriate for all types of disputes with your telco. For instance, especially if your dispute is high-stakes or complex, you should consider hiring a lawyer. But technology has an important role to play in helping people who can't afford, or choose not to use, lawyers.

Lawyers simply aren't taking on small disputes, because their fees exceed what the recovery would be. That's a big part of why only 1 in 4 million AT&T customers takes it to arbitration, despite widespread dissatisfaction with it.

It's an allusion to the historical figure David, who faced the bigger but less agile Goliath and prevailed. Our hope is for you to be David.

Like Goliath, big corporations have obvious advantages and less obvious disadvantages. The latter include bureaucracy, politics, risk aversion, being taken for granted, and the innovator's dilemma (http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business/dp/0062060244). Historically, in their legal interactions with consumers, corporations' advantages have generally outweighed their disadvantages. With technology, it's not clear that that will continue to be true.

It's an interesting question. Historically, there have been so many asymmetries between large corporations and individual consumers.

One is the use of call centers. Another is the use of form letters. A third is repeat player advantage in litigation. If we believe in equality under the law rather than "might makes right", it's not clear whether these asymmetries are appropriate.

What do you think?

Bait and switch -- an oldie but a goodie. We've hand-coded hundreds and hundreds of consumer complaints about telcos; bait-and-switch is one of the most common.

If memory serves, I saw that Sprint cut-your-bill-in-half ad, with a ton of fine print next to it. An interesting question to research is whether fine print that, by virtue of its tininess or brevity, is de facto illegible, actually serves its intended purpose as a disclaimer. Judges and juries are people, too, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear them answer "no."