📆 Monday, November 10, 2025 — 5 Days Left
Body is Hidden for Privacy Reasons
After discovering {“message”: “* Body is hidden for privacy reasons *”} in every text message JSON file, I email Follow Up Boss Support requesting that the redaction flag be removed. The privacy flag is not applicable to Jean Scott Homes’ own text messages.
Source: 📧 Request for Unredacted SMS Bodies via Follow Up Boss API — Nov. 10, 2025 (on file)
Idea: Crawl Like Google
A short time after I send the email, I get an idea. The text messages are right there on my computer screen, in the team’s Follow Up Boss account. I should be able to copy the text messages and save them to a file.
Playwright is a web browser automation tool by Microsoft. It does what a person would do at the keyboard: navigate to a page, read the contents, and save to a file.
I write the program, log into Follow Up Boss, and run it. It reads the contact record and timestamp from a JSON file and navigates to the associated text message. It reads the text message body and saves it to the JSON file, replacing “* Body is hidden for privacy reasons *.”
📆 Tuesday, November 11, 2025 — 4 Days Left
Follow Up Boss API Support Response
The content of a text message is not retrievable with the API. However, when you export your Contacts from Follow Up Boss, the file created will contain the last 50 text messages with a lead and their timestamps of those texts.
Source: 📧 Follow Up Boss Support — Re: Text body content in Follow Up Boss API — Nov. 11, 2025 (on file)
Support recommends a process, “Efficient Data Capture and Management in CRM Systems.” [hyperlink redacted]
Note: 📒 The [redacted hyperlink] includes a screen recording of an actual Jean Scott Homes contact record. The transcript and a blurred screenshot are provided.
Efficient Data Capture and Management in CRM Systems
The link in the support expert’s email opens a webpage, “Efficient Data Capture and Management in CRM Systems.”
Source: 📥 Efficient Data Capture and Management in CRM Systems — Transcript
Source: 💁🏻♀️ Efficient Data Capture and Management in CRM Systems — Screenshot
The Demonstration
In this video, the support expert suggests the following four steps as efficient data capture and management:
- Pull up a contact record.
- Use the filter to show only the content that you want to capture, such as text messages, notes, and calls.
- Once the filters are in place, scroll down and click the “expand” icon to open messages as needed. That is most of them.
- Once you have all the messages and other content expanded, click Print Save as PDF.
Remember, we don’t need to do your email. Email is already in your email address, so unless you’re changing email addresses, no need to do email here in Follow Up Boss because... It’s just like the kind of being streamed to Follow Up Boss like a Netflix movie would be.
Again, most teams aren’t doing this for every lead or every transaction they’ve had, but they’re definitely doing it for those leads or clients that may have had a fishy transaction or something that’s just wrong or off.
The Reality
There are 23,735 contact records. At about five minutes per record, the efficient method takes about 1,978 hours. That is just short of a year working 40 hours a week. I have less than four days.
The video demonstrates what I am already doing. Find the text messages and save them to a file. Instead of having the print program save them in PDF, I have Playwright save them in JSON.
📆 Wednesday, November 12, 2025 — 3 Days Left
The process is glacially slow. I run more instances of the program. They all share the single queue of JSON text files that are missing text message bodies. The program keeps timing out. I update it to automatically pause, reset, and try again.
Jean Scott Homes’ phone numbers in Follow Up Boss are transferred to its own Twilio account. Team members are using their personal phones.
📆 Friday, November 14, 2025 — The Last Day
The team ceases using all Follow Up Boss services. They print out the records of customers they are working with. Everyone has a spiral-bound notebook and access to the 2-click CSV download for reference. No one is happy.
📆 Saturday, November 15, 2025 — The Deadline Passes
Zillow’s policies and terms take effect. I keep working to retrieve missing text messages.
📆 Sunday, November 16, 2025 — 1 Day Late
Getting Out of Dodge
By midafternoon, as best I can tell, I have retrieved as much of Jean Scott Homes’ IP as I am going to.
I delete all of Jean Scott Homes’ contact records, business records, API keys, and the account.
Zillow Placed on Notice
I email a formal custodial notice to Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman and Follow Up Boss co-founder Dan Corkill.
Source: 📧 Custodial Notice — Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman and Follow Up Boss Co-Founder Dan Corkill — Nov. 16, 2025 (on file)
I assert that Jean Scott Homes paid Follow Up Boss for its services as a fiduciary custodian of highly sensitive client information. That information includes private conversations across calls, texts, emails, and notes regarding family matters, finances, legal situations, and medical information over Jean’s 18 years as a real estate professional.
Additionally, in part:
It is noteworthy that Zillow is also our direct competitor. Zillow’s unauthorized access to our business data gives it an unjust competitive advantage.
To protect our clients and our business, we have deleted all data from our Follow Up Boss account, including call logs, text messages, emails, attachments, and notes. We request written confirmation that deleted data will not be processed, analyzed, retained, or used in any system—including analytics or AI training—and that it will not propagate into any Zillow Group environment under the new policy framework, except as required by law.
In the event Zillow Group retains this data, it shall bear sole responsibility for any and all unauthorized use of our clients’ data and their personal, private communications with us, and our writing, to which we claim copyright.
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