If you’ve ever stared at a bill and thought, “I should call, but I genuinely can’t deal with this today,” you’re not alone.
In 2025, thousands of people used Pine to take on the stuff that tends to drain your time and patience: negotiating bills, chasing refunds, canceling subscriptions, fixing delivery issues, and pushing for compensation when something goes wrong. Research from The Guardian in 2025 found that Americans feel there's "not any wiggle room" as everyday costs bite, with 67% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, up from 63% in 2024.
So that's the context and why we pulled the data and built a simple list.
What is the Consumer Friction Index?
The Pine Consumer Friction Index is our snapshot of the companies that showed up most in Pine requests during 2025, across a few big “life admin” categories:
- Lower my bill
- Get me compensation or a refund
- Cancel this subscription
- Fix a delivery problem
- Other high-friction customer service tasks
It's a view into where consumers feel the most stuck, and need help with their digital chores.
The Pine Consumer Friction Index (2025)
Here are the 12 companies that appeared most often in Pine requests:
- Xfinity
- AT&T
- Verizon
- Spectrum
- T-Mobile
- Chase
- Amazon
- Netflix
- GEICO
- Delta Air Lines
- United Airlines
- Progressive
The clearest pattern: “recurring charges” are where people feel trapped
The top five are all internet, TV, and mobile providers.
These are recurring charges that quietly creep up over time, with billing structures that feel hard to question. People often know they’re overpaying. They just don’t have the hours (or energy) to follow-up.
Pine CEO & Founder Stanley Wei says about the data:
Most people don’t have time to resolve a complex bill or refund on their own, and the friction has gotten worse, not better.
Life is getting more complex, and after a long days work, people are mentally exhausted. If you do finally carve out 45 minutes to call, you get placed on hold, you get transferred, the rep reads a script, you repeat your account details twice, and you still hang up wondering if anything actually changed.
1) Telecom and insurance bills: the biggest “please just handle this for me” category
In Pine’s 2025 data, lowering bills was the most common reason people used Pine across telecom providers and insurance.
A few standouts from the Index data:
- Xfinity: 83% of requests focused on bill negotiation
- AT&T: 80% focused on bill negotiation
- Verizon: ~75% focused on lowering bills
- Spectrum: 82% focused on lowering bills
- T-Mobile: 64% focused on lowering bills
Insurance followed a similar pattern, with many requests to GEICO and Progressive also centered on lowering premiums.
Pine’s internal benchmarks from 2025 showed:
- 93% success rate in negotiation workflows
- ~$400 average bill reduction
- Real user wins included savings like $1,800 on AT&T fiber and $1,900 on car insurance (examples from Pine user outcomes)
2) Refunds and compensation: people are done wasting time “following up”
The next big cluster in the Index is compensation, especially for:
- Amazon (delivery, returns, incorrect items, missing refunds)
- Chase (fees, disputes, credits)
- Airlines like Delta and United (delays, disruptions, baggage issues)
More than half of Amazon- and Chase-related Pine prompts sought compensation. That’s a strong signal: consumers are starting to trust digital agents to do the annoying chasing on their behalf, especially when the fix is technically “possible” but practically painful.
And for travel, rules and entitlements can be real money. If you’ve ever tried to figure out what you’re owed while standing in an airport line, you know how quickly that becomes a mess.
3) Subscription overload: cancellation is still weirdly hard
Netflix showed up as a top “friction brand” largely due to one thing: cancellation.
In 2025, 80% of Netflix-related Pine prompts were requests to cancel.
That fits broader consumer behavior too: lots of people feel oversubscribed, and many admit they overpay or forget what they’re even subscribed to.
And the “hard” part often isn’t clicking a button. It’s the maze:
- the hidden settings page
- the “chat first” flow
- the retention offers
- the “are you sure?” screens
- the cancellation that “didn’t go through” (somehow)
With Pine, users canceled subscriptions like Xfinity plans costing $60+ per month, saving $700+ per year in some cases.
So what do you do with this list?
If any of these companies are in your monthly spend, here’s the practical takeaway:
A quick self-audit (10 minutes)
- Pull your last 2 bills (internet/mobile/insurance)
- Look for price jumps, add-ons, equipment fees, or “promo ended” changes
- List any subscriptions you haven’t used in 30+ days
- Flag any refunds you’re “waiting on” that are past the promised date
- If you’re thinking “I’ll deal with it later,” that’s normal. That’s also the trap.
Where Pine fits in
Pine is simple, it is your consumer advocate to handle all your digital chores end to end. Not just give suggestions. It calls, emails, and follows through on multi-step workflows end to end.
The companies on this list aren't necessarily "bad", they're just complex. And complexity is hard for some people to overcome.
But you don't have to handle it alone anymore. Pine isn't just a chatbot that gives you advice; we are your consumer advocate to handle those "digital chores". We make the phone calls, we send the emails, and we handle the awkward negotiations so you don't have to.
- Ready to reclaim your time (and money)?
- Lower your bills: We have a 93% success rate.
- Cancel the noise: One "cancel" command handles it all.
Get paid: We chase the refunds you didn't know you were owed.
Important Note
This Index reflects the brands consumers asked Pine to help with most during 2025. It is not a claim of wrongdoing by any company.
