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Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

Did you consider taking them to small claims court to recover your costs?

Not really. The thought crossed my mind but I figured it'd just be more of my time being spent. I can make more money. My time is a finite commodity. I'd rather waste it on fun things.

Didnt you think for a minute of your precious time that you had perfect opportunity to teach them a lesson and burn some of their money in the process? These scumbags dont exist because we dont have laws strictly prohibiting what they doing - they exist because only very tiny fraction of people they tried defraud will do something about it.

Nope.

This, I don't consider myself a vindictive person, but financial vultures need to be punished.

I doubt that would go over well. He could have simply stuck to asking for proof before paying and that might have been the end of it.

I doubt it.

The nature of debt collection, and many other legal pickles is that if you are seen to be passively ignoring it, then it just ramps up.

Merely asking for proof is indistinguishable from ignoring claims because it leaves no paper trail. You have to actually get documents from them (or from a court) saying that they have no claim. And it costs a lot (whether in time, money or both) to get that.

  > You have to actually get documents from them
  > (or from a court) saying that they have no claim.

Naturally this varies in different jurisdictions, but generally speaking, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

If I say that you owe me money, it's not necessary for you to obtain documents (from either me or from a court) stating that you don't owe me money - the onus is on me to _prove_ that you me money.

Why would the burden of proof be on the person in debt? How do you prove a negative?

Apologies, perhaps my post wasn't clear - I agree, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim (i.e. claiming that someone owes them a debt), rather than the person supposedly in debt.

Actually, it’s my fault. I was agreeing with you in the form of a question

In Germany it would have been sufficient to ask for proof in writing with a return receipt. There's your paper trail. If they insist after that, threaten criminal charges. This worked wonders for me in the past. Additionally, loser pays (unfortunately, not for my time, though). This would never go to court.

But you can't ignore it, that's true.

Asking for evidence of the debt is hardly ignoring it.

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