The easy way to claim compensation for delayed flights …

A student entrepreneur who created a website for drivers to quickly appeal parking tickets has seen 50,000 sign-ups after This is Money originally covered its launch two weeks ago.

Joshua Browder, who is 18 and has just started a degree at Stanford University, California, created his website donotpay.co.uk as a summer pet project.

However, he says with help from the This is Money coverage, it’s now turned into a ‘sort of Robin Hood of the internet,’ with dozens of people already contacting him to say their appeal has been successful.

Student wizard: Joshua Browder has been featured in a number of publications since our story earlier in the month – and has added a flight compensation tool to the website

In a whirlwind September, the student – who learnt coding at just 12 years of age – claims to have had offers pour in from private firms to buy the website, including a recent £40,000 bid which he rebuffed.

Last weekend, he says the website reached the 50,000 user milestone – just ten days after we reported on the launch, suggesting more than 200 people are signing up to use the website every hour.

He says he has been working hard in between studies – early morning and late nights – to expand the website further, while it is gaining traction.

As such, he decided the technology could be used to help consumers claim compensation for delayed flights under EU rules.

He told This is Money: ‘There are services that already do this, but they all charge a large commission, typically 25 per cent.

‘I wanted to make the service available for free, so consumers can get 100 per cent of what they deserve.’

Common bugbears: The website was created to combat parking tickets – and now has airline delays in its sights

The flight compensation tool is already live and sending claims to airlines.

He adds: ‘I have tried to make it as user friendly as possible. For example, the site will automatically check a claim to ensure the user is eligible, calculate the distance between cities to determine the exact amount owed (from six different possibilities) and even send it to the airline on the user’s behalf.

‘Unsurprisingly, airlines have done as much as possible to hide their customer serivce email addresses. 

‘After the site has calculated just how much someone is owed, it will find these hidden addresses and allow the user to send their generated claim by just pressing a button.’

Screenshots: How the new feature to claim compensation for flight delays looks after Joshua launched it at the weekend

Joshua has further plans to fight for consumers. Next, he is planning to add a reclaim tool for delayed trains.

On turning down offers from firms to buy the website – which is free for people to use – he said: ‘I’m not looking to make some quick money from the site. I ultimately want to keep control and expand it.’

Joshua created the website to make quick parking tickets appeals to councils after he became fed up with numerous parking fines dished out to him since passing his driving test in January.

Motorists pick one of 12 reasons of defence, then enter the relevant details and send a custom generated appeal created by the website’s algorithm to the council in question.

Of the dozens of tickets he was issued, the majority of them were quashed upon appeal – and the website was born.

He says it not only saves time, but also ensures drivers have the best possible chance of winning their appeals. He says motorists can generate appeals in less than a minute.

He created the service after scanning thousands of pages of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and consulting a leading traffic lawyer.

You can read more about the parking ticket appeal process and the donotpay.co.uk website on the original This is Money article.