With nearly half of buyers using agents as the lone source to procure homebuying services, the more money-saving tools an agent possesses the better.
A relatively new subscription canceling service, San Francisco-based Trim, could be something worth adding to the toolbox.
According to Daniel Petkevich, the Houston-born co-founder of Trim, the free app on average saves users $180 a year. On Trim’s website, a number of individuals are profiled that save anywhere from $375 to $750 a year.
Launched in early November 2015, Trim hit 1,000 users during its first day and has since reached a base of 10,000 users.
Millennials represent the apps primary user base, as these individuals tend to have more online subscriptions and overall memberships then other demographics.
The most common cancellations: gym memberships and paid monthly credit score services.
Trim
How Trim works
The app can be utilized by signing up and entering your credit card info. That info is sent to Plaid, a service that provides security access to banking info and is not stored by Trim. A user’s credit card is scanned and probed for merchant names that use recurring payments.
According to Trim, this method identifies 98 percent of subscriptions instantly. Next, the system looks for recurring payments of the same amount to the same merchant in subsequent months.
Following this search, a user receives a text that lists his or her subscriptions.
A user can then send a reply text stating which subscriptions they’d like to cancel. Trim then contacts the biller, typically with a template email, and occasionally with a phone call. Petkevich notes, some billers require Trim to send certified mail in order to cancel.
In the future Trim plans to offer a premium, advising-type service for users looking to speak with a real person.
