In February, I posted a deal for a tool I had put together to help dispute private parking tickets.
My idea was to build a whole load of self-help consumer tools, but the idea flopped a bit. I had the wrong model (to ask people to pay for the tool) and probably ran it on the wrong platform (a platform called community.lawyer).
This month I've decided to have another go, this time with the idea of making all of the tools free. I've used the open-source software that community.lawyer is based on, docassemble, so the look should be similar. So far, I've got the following tools up:
- Dispute a late payment fee (have successfully tried this out with one of my banks)
- Ask for a credit card fee waiver (I had good feedback on the version of this tool I previously offered, including from a few cheapies members)
- Check whether Home Direct may owe you a refund (I imagine cheapies members won't be truck shop customers, but the idea is that Home Direct stole ~$600,000 from their customers and are yet to give a lot of it back)
- Request your credit report from all three NZ bureaux, plus some overseas bureaux. You can do this directly with each bureau, but it's a bit of a hassle.
- Find out what New Zealand political parties know about you (inspired by this Stuff article over the weekend)
Over the next few weeks, I'm also aiming to smash out some of the following:
- the parking ticket tool
- a bunch of tenancy tools
- flatmate agreement
- agreement for private sale of secondhand goods/vehicles
- a tool to apply to your local council under the DIA rates rebate scheme
- a tool to ask for late payment penalties on rates to be remitted
- a tool to prepare the court documents to apply to change the gender marker on your birth certificate (if any trans readers have any experience with this, I'd be grateful to hear your thoughts)
I hope these tools are of use to some cheapies members. Also, I'd be really grateful for any feedback you might have on the existing tools or any suggestions of other tools you'd like to see.
Awesome tools. Do you have any means of generating revenue? (just out of curiosity)