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Josh Browder is the 22-year-old Stanford man who dropped out of school behind DoNotPay, a robotic legal badistant that he invented to challenge small legal claims such as parking tickets.
Earlier this month, DoNotPay raised $ 4.6 million in its first Felicis Ventures-led financing, with the participation of Index Ventures, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, of Highland Capital on Tuesday, and Coatue Management.
And on Wednesday Browder has announced a series of new products on Twitter.
This included a new virtual credit card allowing customers to sign up for free trials and cancel them automatically at the end of the evaluation period. This means that you can sign up for Netflix without fear of becoming a paying customer after the end of the month's trial period.
Browder told Wired journalist Emily Dreyfuss that he had the idea to create a "free trial card" after realizing he had been paying for a gym membership for over a year without using it.
Companies that offer free trials that automatically convert into paid membership bets on the fact that people will not remember to cancel their subscription after registration. It's not like that an opt-in service should work, he said. "Why should you give a credit card in the first place?" He asked.
Read more: This Stanford Student Fund has just reached $ 4.6 Million from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund to help people automatically fight parking tickets
You can use any name, address and email address to sign up for your new card. However, you will need to provide DoNotPay with your real email so that it can transfer all emails sent to your fake credit card account.
At the end of the trial period, the card automatically denies payment; DoNotPay will send you an e-mail informing you of the beginning and the end of the trial, in case you wish to subscribe to the service thereafter.
Wired reporter Dreyfuss tested the new service successfully. She also tested whether the card would allow her to make a real online purchase and this was rejected, she wrote.
Browder told Wired that his card is backed by a network of community banks, which provided DoNotPay with a business credit card allowing the company to use it to "act as an agent." paying for the consumer ".
When pressed, Browder does not tell Dreyfuss which banks support the new card. And that's because they do not know that the card is used in this way for free trials, he said. "They could block us if we mention their name," he said.
As the issuing bank knows nothing about the users of the service, it would be DoNotPay who would be required to pay in case of a glitch and if the customer is charged.
Financial experts have expressed concern about this new service and have stated that it could be perceived as misleading. "It's basically a product designed to defraud free trial providers," Wired told a lawyer specializing in financial technology for a large payment company. They spoke under the condition of anonymity.
But Browder said it's the free trial companies that are misleading.
It remains to be seen whether the banks that unknowingly endorse the credit card will continue to be involved if they find out. "I'm sure it will last at least a few months," he told Wired. "I hope we will not be arrested. We'll see."
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