California consumer protection
Advertise to clients who match your criteria.
Payback negotiates refunds directly with brands. When those attempts fail, your firm can advertise to consumers who bought from stores that match your criteria.
- One flat membership
- $195 a month for your profile in the California directory. No bidding, no tiers, and a paused rate when you are full.
- Pay per client who chooses you
- $695 once, when a client picks your firm and the inquiry is in your inbox. Nothing when your ad is shown, and nothing when it is not.
- Shown only on matching cases
- Your firm appears only when a case meets the criteria you set: order value, how long the item sat on sale, the discount claimed, the share of the catalog on sale.
- Only after Payback's own attempt
- Every case has already been through a written refund request and an escalation to the store. If the store had refunded, you would never have seen it.
Your criteria decide who sees you
You set the standards for the cases you want, against measurements Payback takes from every store's own public prices. Your firm is shown to a client only when the facts of their case meet those standards.
A case outside your criteria never shows your profile, and you are never charged for one. Payback's own view of a store plays no part in it.
- stores read in the last 45 days
- 550,000+stores read in the last 45 days
- products, 900 million variants
- 195 millionproducts, 900 million variants
- price observations since January 2025
- 20 billionprice observations since January 2025
- prices read on a typical day
- 200 million+prices read on a typical day
The standards you set
Order value
What the client actually paid for the order. Set a floor, a ceiling or both. This is the real purchase amount, not the store's average order value.
How long the item was on sale, 90 days
The share of the last 90 days the item the client bought was already marked down, counted from days Payback actually observed rather than estimated.
How long the item was on sale, 180 days
The same measure across 180 days, offered where Payback holds that much history for the store. Where it does not, the shorter window is what you are setting against.
Average advertised discount
The average discount the store claims against its own compare-at prices. That compare-at price is the reference the discount is measured from.
Share of the catalog on sale
How much of the store's observed catalog is advertised as marked down, as a daily average across the period. A store where most of the catalog is on sale is not running a sale. It is running a price.
Your criteria decide what Payback chases
Your criteria do more than filter what you are shown. They tell Payback which stores to pursue refunds from on the consumer's behalf in the first place, so the cases that reach the end of that process are the ones you said you wanted.
Every lead you see is qualified against your standards, not against ours.
Meeting your criteria is not a legal assessment. It means the facts matched the standards you set, and nothing more. Whether there is a claim worth taking is yours to decide.
What happens before your name appears
Payback is a refund service first. It pursues the store on the consumer's behalf, and turns to lawyers only when that has failed. This is the whole process, so you can judge for yourself what a case that gets through it looks like.
01
The store is already on record
Payback reads the store's public prices every day and keeps the history. A store enters this process because its own pricing record shows a sale that does not end, and because firms like yours have set criteria that record meets.
02
The receipt opens a case
The client connected their inbox, and a receipt from that store is matched to the pricing record. The case opens once the order is 14 days old.
03
A written refund request
Payback asks the store for the refund in writing, with the pricing record, and captures the storefront and the product page that day. The store has ten business days to answer.
04
One escalation
If the store refuses or stays silent, Payback writes once more and captures the pages again. Ten more business days.
05
Only then, your firm
A store that still has not refunded ends Payback's process. The client is shown the firms whose criteria the case meets, in random order, and picks up to four. That is the first moment your name is involved.
Payback does not assess legal merit and draws no conclusion from a refusal. What arrives is the record: what the store was asked, when, with what evidence, and what it did.
What lands in your inbox
The order
The receipt out of the shopper's own inbox: store, date, item, what they paid and the discount the checkout page claimed they were getting.
The pricing record
How many of the last 90, 120 and 180 days that item was already marked down. Payback reads the store's public prices every day and keeps the history back to 2025.
Dated screenshots
The storefront and the product page, captured the day the case opened, the day we asked for the refund and the day we escalated.
The refusal
Payback asks the store for the refund first, in writing, and escalates once. Whatever the store said, and when it said it, comes with the case.
A client who chose you
A verified email and phone, and someone who has already sat through a refund request and an escalation before your name ever came up.
Payback assembles the record. It does not assess legal merit, and a case file is not a legal opinion.
Membership and inquiry prices
A flat monthly membership, one charge when a client chooses to connect with you, and a way to stop the inbound when you are full. Published rates, the same for every firm in California.
| What you pay for | California rate |
|---|---|
| Platform membershipYour profile in the California directory, and the advertising records kept behind it. | $195 a month |
| Paused, not taking new casesA third of the membership. Switch new inquiries off from your account for a set period when you are full. Your profile comes out of the directory for new cases, nothing new arrives, and you switch back on when you are ready. | $65 a month |
| Customer-selected inquiryCharged once when the client's inquiry is available in your inbox. Not when your ad is seen, and not when you sign the client. | $695 |
| Sponsored placement, optionalTwice the inquiry rate, for an inquiry that comes through a labelled priority placement. Inside a monthly budget you set, and you can switch it off. | $1,390 |
| Price history for one store, optionalEverything Payback holds on one store's pricing: every observed price and compare-at price, by product and variant, with dates and source addresses, as a spreadsheet with a written summary. Sold on its own, no membership needed, so you can check a store before you commit time to it. | $429 |
One rate for California, identical for every participating firm. No bidding, no tiers, and no price that moves with what a case might be worth.
Never a share of what you recover.
Never contingent on signing the client or winning the case.
Never a charge for a case the client did not deliberately send you.
Never a charge for exclusivity, because Payback does not sell it.
Never an inquiry, or a charge for one, while your account is paused.
Prices are the proposed California rate card and are not active. Nothing is charged until California is approved and open and you choose to enroll. [LAWYER REVIEW]
Check a store before you commit
Buy a store research package for a one-time $429 fee. Package includes full pricing history, product comparison prices, average markdowns, and more. Included is a PDF summary highlighting key stats to help you determine if the case is worth pursuing. No need for discovery or a request for information.
The record
One row per read of one variant: date and time, price, compare-at price, whether it was marked down and by how much, stock, and the product's address. A gzip CSV, sorted by product and time.
The summary
A PDF: how much of the catalog was marked down each month, how long products stayed marked down, the products marked down longest, and how compare-at prices moved. Counts, not conclusions.
The README
What each column means, how to read gaps, and worked examples for DuckDB and Python, so a file of millions of rows is a five minute job.
The index shows what Payback holds for a store and how far back it goes. It does not show how often a store is read. A package is a factual record of what the store displayed: not an opinion on whether there is a case, and it carries nothing about any consumer. Buying one does not enroll you as a participating firm. Read the license.
How it works
Apply
Payback checks your California bar record, your firm and your profile by hand. Eligibility review is not an endorsement.
You get listed
Set up your profile with relevant marketing and experience to encourage consumer inquiries. When a consumer case is opened, profiles are organized randomly.
Where sponsored placements appear
Sponsored placements sit at the top, above the ordinary list, in their own area marked as paid promotion. Placement there is not a rating of legal ability. Among eligible sponsors the positions are drawn at random, and paying for one never moves you inside the ordinary order below it.
The consumer chooses
After Payback's own refund attempt has failed, the client is shown the firms whose criteria the case meets and picks up to four.
The inquiry arrives
The file lands in your inbox and you are charged once, for that client only. You run your own conflicts check and decide whether to offer representation.
If you have a genuine conflict
Tell us and the charge for that inquiry is refunded. Up to two genuine conflict of interest refunds a year. A conflict is not the same as deciding a case is not for you, and the refund does not cover that.
How this works in California
California does not treat lawyer lead generation the way most states do, so Payback was built to California's rules first rather than adapted to them afterwards.
The client picks you by name, before anything is sent
Nothing about a client reaches a firm the client did not deliberately choose. California's joint advertising provision turns on consumers selecting and contacting named advertisers, and Jackson v. LegalMatch treated routing to subscribing lawyers as referral activity even where identities were withheld.
The directory order is random and kept
One unbiased order per client, saved so refreshes do not reshuffle it. Nothing you pay, and nothing about what a case might be worth, plays any part in it. Sponsored placements sit in their own labelled area, never mixed into the ordinary list.
Sponsorship is disclosed as sponsorship
Paid priority placement is marked as paid priority placement, and it is not a rating of legal ability. Among eligible sponsors the positions are drawn at random, not auctioned.
You take responsibility for your own advertising
The participation agreement has you expressly take responsibility and liability for the content of your advertising, which is what section 6155(g) requires of an executed participant agreement.
The advertising records are kept for you
Payback stores your profile and sponsored copy as they were served, the disclosure shown with them, and a record of every time the directory served your listing, including when no inquiry followed. Section 6159.1 puts a one year retention duty on the paying advertiser. These records support that duty; they do not discharge it.
Payback's own research, not legal advice and not a compliance opinion. California is not open yet: it opens when qualified counsel approves the model and the rate card. You remain responsible for your own professional obligations.
What Payback does not do
Payback does not decide whether a case has legal merit. That is yours.
Payback does not match, route or recommend. The client reads the list and picks firms by name.
Payback does not sell exclusivity, hold a case for one firm, or resell it after a firm passes. An inquiry may go to as many as four firms.
Payback does not let anyone buy their way up the ordinary directory, or buy a case before the client has chosen them.
Payback does not contact anyone on your behalf, and does not sell customer data. Research packages carry merchant pricing only.
Questions lawyers ask
Do I pay when my ad is shown?
No. Membership is the only recurring charge. The inquiry rate is charged once, when a client has chosen your firm and the file is in your inbox. Views of your profile cost nothing, and a case outside your criteria never shows your profile at all.
Why does Payback try for the refund first?
Because that is Payback's service to the consumer: it recovers refunds from stores running a sale that never ends, and the consumer pays only when it does. The cases that reach you are the ones where a store refused, or ignored, two written requests with its own pricing record in front of it.
Payback draws no legal conclusion from that. The record of the requests and the store's answers comes with the file, and what it means is for you to judge.
Can I check a store before I join?
Yes. The price history package for one store is $429 and needs no membership: everything Payback has observed on that store's pricing, as a spreadsheet you can run your own analysis on, with a written summary of the record.
It is a record of what the store charged and what it claimed, with dates and sources. It is not an opinion on whether there is a case, and buying it does not enroll you as a participating firm or send you any consumer's information.
Is this a referral service?
It is built not to be one. Payback never selects a lawyer for a client, never judges how strong a case is, never takes a share of a recovery and never sends anything to a firm the client did not pick by name.
Whether that holds is the classification question California counsel has to answer, and California does not open until they do. Nothing on this page claims the question is already settled.
Why is the price the same for everyone?
Because the alternative is a price that moves with what Payback thinks a case is worth, and that is the version hardest to defend as reasonable advertising compensation. One published California rate, identical for every participating firm, keeps the charge tied to the work of finding and preparing the inquiry.
What if I cannot take new cases right now?
Switch new inquiries off from your account for a set period. Your profile comes out of the directory for new cases while you are paused, nothing new arrives, and the membership drops to a third, $65 a month, until you switch it back on.
Inquiries that reached you before you paused are still yours, and a charge already earned is not undone by pausing.
Can I be the only firm on a case?
No. A client may send the same inquiry to as many as four firms, and Payback does not sell exclusivity or a hold. You will sometimes be one of several, and you always know the price before the inquiry arrives.
What happens to the advertising records the State Bar wants kept?
Payback keeps a copy of your profile and sponsored version as they were served, the disclosure shown with them, and a record of each time the directory served your listing, including when no inquiry followed.
That record exists to support your own retention duty under section 6159.1. It does not discharge it.
When does California open?
When counsel signs off on the classification and the rate card. Apply now and your profile is reviewed and ready the day it does.
Get in before California opens
Applying puts your profile through eligibility review now. Participation and billing begin only when California is open and you choose to enroll.
Payback is not a law firm and does not provide legal services or legal advice.
Nothing here is a guarantee of inquiries, of representation, or of any recovery.