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Comment by manigandham | Hacker News Reader

Yes, you're legally obligated to pay the bill. You can't decide you don't want to pay because you don't like the cost.

Claiming an unfounded dispute or transferring funds to a new company is fraud and you'll probably end up with both AWS and your bank coming after you for collections. With $80k on the line, its enough to file legal claims.

The best plan is to negotiate directly with AWS and ask for forgiveness and a payment plan. Do not try to run away from your financial obligations or you will make it far worse.

EDIT: you've rewritten your comment so this doesn't apply, but please don't recommend that people avoid their debts.

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"Yes, you're legally obligated to pay the bill"

Yes in civil court. So, no don't pay it. This isn't London 1689. Debtors prisons do not exist.

"Claiming an unfounded dispute or transferring funds to a new company is fraud"

Explaining to the credit card company you were tricked or confused in this purchase is not fraud.

1) Civil vs criminal does not change the fact that incurred bills are a legal obligation.

2) AWS did not take advantage of you and making a mistake does not absolve you of responsibility. There's nothing to dispute.

3) Bankruptcy is allowed, and is also exactly what happened. You stated other things like filing fake disputes and transferring funds to a new company, which is fraud. And that does come with criminal charges.

EDIT: to your completely revised comment - Bills are still owed, even if it's only civil, and judgements can result in wages, taxes and other assets being garnished. Saying you were "tricked or confused" when you weren't is fraudulent, and credit card companies are not going to defend you from that. Unless AWS forced those charges or failed to deliver services, there's no dispute.

"AWS did not take advantage of you"

How do you know? That is what a court system is for.

"like filing fake disputes and transferring funds to a new company"

Ah the old straw man. Nope. I didn't say file fake disputes.

"please don't recommend running away from debts"

Having the ability to not pay debts is the entire point of Limited Liability Companies. People out of human dignity should have the right to NOT pay debts. Please don't recommend paying whatever a debtor wants.

The poster clearly admitted what happened. Mistakenly running up a large bill doesn't clear your responsibility to pay that bill and knowingly filing disputes or changing companies is fraud. You can definitely go to court but without clear evidence you will likely lose and then owe even more.

Since you're revising your comments, there's no point to further discussion but please don't recommend running away from debts. That's not going to end well.

I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice: You'd be surprised. There's often enough give and take, enough ambiguity, in contract law and/or in any given contract such that disputing a debt is not a further wrong (criminal or civil). But you might be on the hook for interest and damages resulting from the delay if you lose.

You don't have to be further wrong, but going to court isn't free so you've only increased your total costs at the end if you lose.

Yes, of course. But you were suggesting it was necessarily fraud. I'm just pointing out that that's not necessarily the case.

Knowingly filing a false dispute or creating a new company to transfer funds to get out of paying a bill is absolutely fraud. Where is that not necessarily true?

A person might aspire to be responsible for a bill like that, but that doesn't make it ethical or good business for Amazon to refuse to waive or reduce it.

Familiar with The Merchant of Venice?

That's a separate topic. And it doesn't mean you should ignore your debts as the other poster was saying, because that's also unethical and possibly fraudulent.

Nobody should ignore their debts. I think maybe you should just ignore whoever you think was suggesting that, because that's obviously impractical/self destructive and not worth debating.

That was the original comment that started this whole thread. Maybe you should reply to them instead of telling me what not to do hours after the conversation is over.

It no longer says the same thing, apparently. No point in arguing with them about what it (allegedly) used to say "hours later".

Again, the conversation is over. You arrived well after the other poster and I left our replies, only to add a tangent, seemingly accuse me of lying, and to tell me not to leave those replies in the first place?

That's very strange.

Thanks for replying again and telling me the conversation is over. I wasn't accusing you of lying, it's just that I can't see what used to be in that post.

HN allows people to respond to things an hour or two after they are posted. I don't think that is extreme behavior and we've both done it in this thread.

> "I think maybe you should just ignore whoever" "No point in arguing with them"

By the time you said this, there were already 3 post/reply loops between that person and myself. I don't see the purpose of telling me to ignore them, especially when you don't have the original context of their edited comments and are downstream of the conversation that already happened on the exact topic you say should be ignored.

Isn't it a well accepted fact that cloud pricing is opaque? Does that not leave the discussion open to an argument that in lieu of not understanding the pricing of multiple interconnected services, it is very difficult for a user to make informed decisions such that perhaps not all of the liability is their own?

It's not opaque. It's actually very transparent and well-documented. The issue would be complexity, but that's going to be a very difficult claim considering that you weren't forced into using any of it.

If you cannot pay, negotiate with Amazon instead of stiffing them after agreeing to the TOS.

I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice: disputing debts is not by itself fraud, even if you end up losing. If you have some "colorable claim" (i.e. some basis in law and fact to think that a court might plausibly rule in your favor), then you are in your rights to test it in court. But don't be surprised if upon losing, you are forced to pay interest and/or other damages accrued due to the delay.

Credit cards allow for disputes when there are problems with the transaction (fraudulent seller, not honoring terms, not providing services, etc). It does not cover you mistakenly buying what you don't need.

Filing a dispute when you knowingly made a mistake is a bad move, and your bank will quickly figure this out when AWS provides the billing statement, API logs and signed TOS. You're going to have a very tough time if you try to litigate this in court.

Debts (or at least payment plans) can be negotiated. Disputing to weasel out of them will only make things worse. A little communication can go a long way.

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