AI agents that fight for your denied refund

What to build

A browser extension / micro-SaaS for consumers that takes over refund disputes after a first denial: it drafts escalation emails, argues with merchant support chatbots, retries with new angles when denied, and tracks each case until resolved — targeting people fighting airlines, retailers, or subscription services.

Consumers routinely get their first refund request denied by airlines, retailers, and subscription services, and DoNotPay already proved people will pay an AI agent to fight that battle for them.

Demand

Shoppers and travelers who've been denied a refund once want someone (or something) to keep escalating without their time; the HN thread on this exact idea pulled 80 points and 99 comments, showing strong interest in how far AI agents can push a refund fight.

• Hacker NewsEngagement

  Thread 'How Far Will AI Assistants Go for a Refund They Can't Get?' reached 80 points and 99 comments, indicating high engagement with the refund-automation idea.

• DoNotPayProduct

  Built and monetized a consumer product automating legal/refund disputes and chargebacks, showing prior willingness to pay for this category of automation.

Stack

• Playwright (browser automation)
• OpenAI API / Claude API for drafting and negotiation logic
• Chrome Extension Manifest V3
• Supabase (case tracking + auth)
• Resend or Postmark (email sending)
• Stripe (billing)

Solo + AI difficulty

Easy to MVP a single-merchant email-escalation bot in days using an LLM for drafting; hard part is robust chatbot/web automation across many merchant UIs plus handling CAPTCHAs and anti-bot defenses, which is an ongoing maintenance burden, not a one-time build.

Entry threshold

Buildable solo in weeks using an LLM API plus lightweight browser/email automation, no capital or licences needed, but care is required to stay framed as negotiation assistance rather than legal advice to avoid the regulatory pushback DoNotPay faced.

Window

6-12 months

Where to find first users

• r/personalfinance and r/travel communities
• Product Hunt launch
• TikTok/YouTube Shorts demos of a real refund win
• Indie Hackers and X/Twitter build-in-public threads

Competitors

• DoNotPay

Counter-signals & risks

• Merchant terms of service and anti-bot measures (CAPTCHAs, chatbot abuse detection, account suspension) can block or penalize automated dispute agents acting on a user's behalf.

• AI agents sending escalation communications or negotiating on a consumer's behalf could trigger consumer protection, electronic communications, or unauthorized-representation issues in the US and EU.

• DoNotPay faced FTC scrutiny and a settlement over deceptive claims about its AI capabilities, signaling regulatory and trust risk for similar products.

• Refund disputes are infrequent, one-off events for most consumers, which may weaken recurring SaaS revenue compared to a one-time or contingency-fee pricing model.