📆 Monday, November 17, 2025 — Mayday
✈️ Jean Scott Homes is Flying Three Engines Out and Losing Altitude
Every inbound call and text is hitting a dead end at Twilio. I set up email notifications for the team. We are using the team group chat to figure out who the phone number belongs to. Then one of us calls or texts back using our personal phones.
Jean Scott Homes’ IP — its past, current, and prospective customer records — is eviscerated.
Jean Scott Homes’ Salesforce CRM is effectively a sparsely built-out shell with minimal functionality. It contains an incomplete contact list, some notes, and other records that I can piece together.
A team member comments, “This is how businesses go out of business.”
Not this one.
Zillow is Flying High
Zillow’s market cap on Oct. 23, 2025, was approximately $18.7 billion.
Source: 🛜 United States Securities and Exchange Commission | Zillow Group, Inc. Form 10-Q — Share count as of Oct. 23, 2025
Source: 🛜 Yahoo Finance — Zillow Group, Inc. (ZG) Historical Prices
Source: 🛜 Yahoo Finance — Zillow Group, Inc. (Z) Historical Prices
Note: 📒 The number of outstanding shares is reported on the 10-Q cover page. The closing prices are reported in Yahoo Finance. B shares are valued at the same price per share as A shares.
📆 November 18, 2025
Follow Up Boss Product Support Replies
We’ve processed a refund for your account. Moreover, our engineering team is working on permanently deleting your data from Follow Up Boss.
Source: 📧 Follow Up Boss — Refund and Data Deletion Confirmation — Nov. 18, 2025 (on file)
📆 November 21, 2025
I have been working on a business phone solution since late October. I cannot find one that will work for Jean Scott Homes that is in its budget.
After some research and homework, I decide to build it myself. I create a GitHub repository, code name T.A.H.I.T.I., and get to work. That initiative becomes JoSH Phone.
📆 December 2, 2025
I have not received a response to my Nov. 16, 2025, email. I send another email reasserting Jean Scott Homes’ ownership of its IP and demanding its deletion from all of Zillow’s operational systems, excluding only legally required archives. I also demand industry-standard attestation of deletion across all Zillow business units.
📆 December 3, 2025
A Follow Up Boss Support Manager Responds
I can confirm that the account and all associated data was deleted back on November 25th.
No documentation or additional information is provided.
Source: 📧 Follow Up Boss — Account Deletion Confirmation — Dec. 3, 2025 (on file)
📆 Mid–Late December 2025
I continue the Salesforce setup and data migration. The full scope of the data loss becomes clear. It is breathtaking.
Data Missing from the Follow Up Boss API Download
There are 17,411 call records missing the “fromNumber” and 25,251 call records missing the “startedAt” timestamp. Every JSON call file contains the key-value pair {“recordingUrl”: “* Recording URL is hidden for privacy reasons *”}.
There are no transcripts or call summaries. The team relied on the call transcripts and summaries as a contemporaneous record of each conversation. Hand-typed notes document in-person conversations and real estate transaction events.
Your Data is Safe and Always Yours
I find a Follow Up Boss marketing webpage that highlights security and ownership of data.
Your data belongs to you alone, we never sell it.
Your data is more than names and numbers; it’s the heart of your business. That’s why Follow Up Boss uses industry-leading security practices to keep it safe. We’ll never sell it, and you can take it with you if you ever decide to leave.
Why does this conjure Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom? (Paramount Movies Official Trailer — 1984). I hear “Kali Ma Shakti De!” in my head.
The ad features Brandon Grass, a solo real estate professional. “125,000 calls in 2 years.”
Source: 🛜 Your Data is Safe and Always Yours
Source: Your Data is Safe and Always Yours — Undated, Captured Oct. 17, 2025 by Archive.org
Your Data Is Safe At Follow Up Boss — Three Versions in Four Months
Interestingly, the version of the aforementioned page, as captured by Archive.org on July 2, 2023, makes no promise about data ownership.
Source: Your Data Is Safe At Follow Up Boss — Undated, Captured July 2, 2023 by Archive.org
By Oct. 26, 2023, the page reads:
You can take your data with you, you own it, we never sell it.
Source: Your Data is Safe and Always Yours — Undated, Captured Oct. 26, 2023 by Archive.org
By Nov. 1, 2023, the day Zillow announced the acquisition, the page reads:
Your data belongs to you alone, we never sell or share it.
Source: Your Data is Safe and Always Yours — Undated, Captured Nov. 1, 2023 by Archive.org
📆 Early January 2026
As homebuyers and sellers return to the market after the holidays, Jean and the team get back to business. They call up contact records of prior, current, and prospective customers in Salesforce. The records are sparse and damaged. Jean and the team know many of the people. They cannot recall details of relationships or real estate transactions that span years.
Phone service is restored for basic contact lookup, calling, texting, and voicemail. JoSH is glitchy. The team has to work without group texts, texting images, and other modern phone system features.
Jean Scott Homes’ Salesforce CRM is effectively office space that is half built and under construction.
Zillow withholds Jean Scott Homes’ most valuable IP.
✈️ Jean Scott Homes is flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules) in a storm at night — two engines out and one running on spit and duct tape.
Article text and tables licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source documents belong to their owners.
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