- Is this legal advice?
- No. DepositClaim is an automated self-help document-preparation tool, not a law firm and not a legal advocate. It computes your state’s deposit deadline and penalty exposure from a verified statute dataset and drafts a demand letter you send as yourself. It never represents you, never files anything, never appears in court, and never tells you your landlord “broke the law.” For advice about your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney.
- Do you guarantee I get my deposit back?
- No. We never promise a dollar outcome. What we do is cite your state’s actual statute, compute how many days past the deadline your landlord is, and hand you a firm demand letter plus a small-claims escalation roadmap. You send the letter and decide whether to pursue small claims. The penalty exposure is framed as something a court may award if it finds bad faith — which you would still need to establish.
- Which states are supported?
- Right now we ship kits for Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. We only sell a kit for a state whose deposit statute we’ve verified against authoritative sources — every deadline, citation, and penalty in your letter comes from that dataset. We add states by verifying more law, never by guessing.
- What if my state isn't supported yet?
- The free leverage check tells you honestly if your state isn’t in our verified set yet, and lets you leave your email so we can notify you when it’s ready. We will not generate a statute-cited letter for a state whose law we haven’t confirmed — a wrong citation would be worse than no letter.
- How is this different from a free demand-letter template?
- A generic template is a fill-in-the-blanks letter. It doesn’t know your state’s return deadline, doesn’t compute how many days past it your landlord is, and doesn’t cite the bad-faith penalty (often 2× or 3× the deposit, plus fees) you can claim. DepositClaim does all three from your state’s real statute, andhands you a per-state small-claims escalation roadmap for when the landlord doesn’t respond. That deadline-plus-penalty leverage is the value.
- What's in the $39 kit?
- A hosted kit page at depositclaim.forage.bot/kits/{id}and a downloadable PDF, both containing: your leverage summary (the deadline your landlord missed and the penalty exposure under your state’s statute), a firm statute-cited demand letter you send as yourself, and a small-claims escalation roadmap — certified-mail instructions, the response window, and how small claims works in your state.
- Do you send the letter to my landlord?
- No. You are always the author and sender. DepositClaim never contacts your landlord, never files anything, and never represents you. We prepare the documents; you review, edit, and mail the demand yourself — the roadmap recommends certified mail with return receipt so you have proof of the date your landlord received it.
- What do you do with my data?
- We use the facts you enter only to compute your leverage and draft your demand letter. We never sell your data. See the privacy policy for retention details.
- Why $39?
- It’s a flat, one-shot fee — no subscription, and no cut of whatever you recover. Percentage-of-recovery advocates take a slice of your deposit; DepositClaim doesn’t, so you keep 100% of any money you get back.
- What's your refund policy?
- Two automatic paths from your kit page: if our pipeline couldn’t produce a usable kit (the letter failed our quality gate, or generation errored after retries) you can refund; and if our logs show you never opened or downloaded the kit after delivery you can refund within 30 days. Both run through Stripe from the kit page — no email required. Outside those paths, email depositclaim@forage.botand we’ll work it out case-by-case.
- How long does delivery take?
- Usually well under a minute after checkout completes. The kit page polls automatically while your demand letter and PDF are being assembled.