I decided to give A.I control over my physical mail.

I have GPT-4 read my letters and packages, stop junk mail, and only alert me if there’s something important. It can also send mail.

Here is how I connected USPS Forwarding to create a ChatGPT mailbox within @donotpay (1/n) The first step to build an AI mailbox is allowing GPT-4 to read my mail. So I created an @EarthClassMail address, which provides API (software) access to all incoming mail.

Then, using the @donotpay ChatGPT, I filed a request to forward all mail to this address with USPS

I decided to outsource my entire personal financial life to GPT-4 (via the @donotpay chat we are building).

I gave AutoGPT access to my bank, financial statements, credit report, and email.

Here’s how it’s going so far (+$217.85) and the strange ways it’s saving money. (1/n): First, using a DoNotPay @Plaid connection, I had it login to every bank account and credit card that I own and scan 10,000+ transactions.

It found $80.86 leaving my account every month in useless subscriptions and offered to cancel every single one.

Today, DoNotPay is launching a new GPT-4 email extension to troll scam and marketing email/text messages by engaging them in an endless A.l. conversation. For example, here it is trolling an NFT scammer.

Here is how it works: When you receive an email, you can just forward it to spam@donotpay.com if you have a DoNotPay account. You can configure preferences.

OPTION 1 (Unsubscribe): have a bot find the unsubscribe workflow. If no workflow exists, it will send Federal CAN-SPAM Act violation letter.

I asked the new ChatGPT browsing extension to find me some money. Within a minute, I had $210 on the way to my bank account from the California Government. (1/4) The first idea it came up with was to visit an obscure government website: the "California State Controller."

This website holds unclaimed refunds from companies that can't contact you.

It gave me a link with step by step instructions on what to do. (2/4)

Bad news! Jay Edelson, America's richest class action lawyer, is suing my startup @DoNotPay in California. Mr Edelson, who has made billions suing companies, is attacking us for "unauthorized practice of law" and seeking a court order ending any A.I product.

Here's my response: Jay Edelson inspired me to start DoNotPay because he symbolizes everything wrong with the law. In a recent Facebook settlement, for example, he made $97,500,000. A minority of consumers made $375 and, the majority, who couldn't fill out complicated "claim forms," got $0. (2/10)

Here is an unknown (until today) story that Warren Buffett told me when I was 21.

It has to do with the first ever lawsuit he was involved in. It is not previously reported anywhere, online or offline, and inspired me to change the direction of DoNotPay: Every year, Microsoft hosts this secretive gathering of about 120 people of Fortune 500 CEOs in Seattle.

It is strictly off the record and is attended by Bezos, Gates, Nadella, Jamie Dimon, Rupert Murdoch and 100 other CEOs in Corporate America (Geico, Chase etc).

With FTX in bankruptcy, it may seem like there is nothing that people can do to get their funds back.

But, I have spent the weekend brainstorming with lawyers out of the box strategies for people to get their funds TODAY.

Here are five things retail investors can do: 1. Reverse an ACH Deposit under Regulation E/NACHA rules:

FTX US allows consumers to deposit funds using bank transfer. Under Federal rules, any ACH transfer can be reversed within 60 days, if it was fraudulent. Call your bank and choose words carefully
nacha.org/news/which-60-…

At @DoNotPay, we run a very frugal company culture and try to reduce unnecessary expenses.

Here are 7 things that I think every startup should do to save money, without any real downside: 1. No physical corporate credit cards (virtual only). Psychology means savings of $20k+/year from employees.

2. Constantly renegotiate interest rates in company bank account. At this point, your bank should be giving you a minimum of 2.5% with 1 day liquidity and no risk.

I had a great chat with @GuyDealership, who runs a large car dealership.

Today, DoNotPay saved a consumer $480 on their car payment.

Here is the number 1 way that car dealerships scam consumers, and how you can a “free money” refund, even months or years later: Car dealerships don’t make much profit from actually selling cars (6-8% margin).

Instead, they make much more from financing and insurance products (60% margin).

This is part of a broader trend of an overly financialized society, but that is a discussion for another day.

Credit repair companies offer to “fix your credit,” for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

We sent a DoNotPay employee to interview for jobs at credit repair companies to figure out how they do it so that we can automate it and replace them.

This is what we discovered: If a consumer makes a minor mistake, such as forgetting to return a Comcast cable, a business/lender can destroy their credit score by “sending the account to collections.”

Even though it can ruin someone’s life, nobody verifies that the info is accurate.

Late last year, I unfortunately received a letter from some California prosecutors.

They were investigating me personally for criminal “Unauthorized Practice of Law,” which carries up to 1 year in jail for every count (100k+ potential counts!).

This is how it played out: First, some context:

The US spends $200bn+ a year on legal services, more than any other country. Top lawyers cost $1000+/hr.

To keep the gravy train running, the industry has instituted protectionist measures, including trying to stop churches from giving legal advice!

Every month, DoNotPay receives Cease and Desist letters from the big corporations we are fighting.

In the past month, we have gotten them from LegalZoom, Bank of America, a Michelin restaurant in SF that hasn’t been able to charge consumers cancellation fees and Craigslist The letters always clutch at straws, trying every tactic possible to get us to stop helping consumers fight them. From copyright infringement to defamation, they are trying everything!

If you have under $10,000-25,000 with @CelsiusNetwork (or any crypto exchange that has frozen your funds), here is a step by step guide on how to get your money back ahead of everyone else using the law: 1. As of right now, these exchanges have not yet filed for bankruptcy protection. Therefore, they are subject to small claims court judgements.

Small claims court cases typically take 1-2 months. As long as this drags on longer than that, this strategy will work.

There are a lot of heated arguments about the Supreme Court.

But it is not well known that over the past decade, they have destroyed many consumer rights.

Here are the five recent Supreme Court rulings that have made it much easier for shady companies to exploit consumers: 1. TransUnion v. Ramirez (June 2021):

Outcome: It is more difficult to sue credit rating agencies. You can only sue them if their inaccurate information has caused direct harm.

Before, you could sue them just for the inaccurate info. Now you have to have your life ruined first!

You may have noticed that robocalls/texts have decreased over the past three months.

Before robocalls end entirely, here is a step by step guide on how to get paid up to $1,500 per call.

If you don’t do it for your next robocall, you may never get the chance again!

1/n In 1991, Congress passed the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act).

This law allows you to get paid $1,500 per call if four things are true:

A dark pattern is when a product’s design tricks you into doing something (like stopping you from cancelling a subscription).

Here are the five biggest dark patterns that I have noticed from large companies.

All of these are still live as I write this: 1. Cancel by registered mail. No online option available.

Guilty company: @PlanetFitness

In 2022, you can’t cancel your gym membership online. To cancel remotely, you have to mail in a letter by registered mail.

Young people have no idea what a stamp even is

After investing in 100 companies, there are only three things that make an incredible pre-seed investment.

Here is the “secret” sauce:

1). Does the idea improve the world?
2) Can they actually build it?
3) Will the opportunity excite downstream institutional investors? (1/n) 1) The idea:

The vision has to be a drastic improvement to what is already out there.

Two examples from my preseed bets:

@LuminousAI is building a chip that is 100x faster than existing versions.

@seriesfinancial is taking on JP Morgan.

The bigger the vision, the better!

Controversial opinion: I think uncapped SAFEs are bad for founders.

It’s obvious why they’re bad for investors, but here’s why I have never accepted an uncapped note: Reason 1: Uncapped SAFEs mean your own investors don’t want you to succeed in the medium term.

It’s an economy certainty: the more progress you make, the higher the conversion price on the SAFE.

Dangerous incentives are at play!

The most important fundraising advice I have for new founders:

Get a top tier institutional investor from the Seed, even if it means a hit to valuation.

In this climate, it can be tempting to raise endless rounds from angels. But institutions set the company up for success Stripe, Airbnb, Snapchat, Coinbase, Robinhood, Uber and Figma all had a top 15 institution lead the seed. Your company is not the exception.

In fact, it is difficult to find a single successfully backed VC company that wasn’t institutionally backed at seed.