
Ask HN: Service to Collect Money You're Owed - melonakos
Anyone know of a service that provides drip pester-the-shit-outta-people messages until they pay you back?<p>Just enter the balance owed and contact information. Maybe keeps track of partial payments.<p>It can use constantly changing numbers and emails, so it can never be blocked.<p>You can select how aggressive or sweet the messages can be, like choosing the voice of a navigational system. Maybe have it play good cop &#x2F; bad cop.<p>And in time you could use machine learning to perfectly time the messages and create the content.<p>I need this.<p>And I need to be paid back by many of my friends, who all promised to repay swiftly and most of whom have not paid a dime in a year.<p>Not to mention my hoodies, coats, boxers, psycho bunny, and socks hahaha.<p>PS: I refuse to lend money ever again to anyone for any reason. Because too many bad actors. I am highly jaded. Of course, I have never lent money that I couldn&#x27;t live without. But it stings a lot and I need a solution to this problem. Might build it myself unless someone has one already.<p>PSS: I was very tempted to tag those that owe me on my Facebook post about this. But alas, I am not savage enough. I am looking for something that doesn&#x27;t mess with the public reputations of the promise-breakers and maintains a high ground.<p>PSSS:  Maybe my buddies at Pardot &#x2F; Salesloft could build a side tool for this lol. Or launch a business around it with me.<p>*Originally posted at:  http:&#x2F;&#x2F;notonlyluck.com&#x2F;2019&#x2F;02&#x2F;23&#x2F;startup-idea-service-to-collect-money-youre-owed &quot;
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greenyoda
> Anyone know of a service that provides drip pester-the-shit-outta-people
> messages until they pay you back?

There are federal and state laws about debt collection to protect debtors from
aggressive debt collectors. If you harass someone for a debt that you can't
prove they owe, you could get into deep trouble. If you continue to contact
somebody after they tell you to stop, you can get into deep trouble.

> It can use constantly changing numbers and emails, so it can never be
> blocked.

This could be a violation of anti-spam laws.

> You can select how aggressive or sweet the messages can be.

Aggressive? If you threaten someone with violence, you're going to get a visit
from the cops. If you threaten someone with reprisals like ruining their
reputation on social media if they don't pay up, that's extortion. You could
go to jail.

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melonakos
Thanks for all the info.

No no none of that aggression. I am a gentle father of 6 lol. I just mean like
a more firm wording like “pay by XYZ date” versus a “hope ya pay soon.”

And yeah, everyone should keep track of their financial transactions and
purposes for it. But those get proven or unproven in court.

And drip emails happen all the time. I don’t see that this is different.

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smt88
> _I refuse to lend money ever again to anyone for any reason._

Sounds like you solved the problem yourself...

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melonakos
It is a suboptimal outcome. I'd prefer to have a bot that knows it can get
back X% for me over time. Then I can budget for my charity to friends and
understand / maximize the results.

And it's a huge time sink to do personal AR, and a tedious ugly task.

Being scrooge is not optimal.

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cimmanom
There’s probably a market for this among freelancers.

