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Comment by thriftwy | Hacker News Reader

Is this even legal? In most jurisdictions, you have to be a government to fine anybody.

Sending frivolous charges may be considered fraud and also lead to chargebacks.

It's not a government fine. It's just an agreement in the contract specifying a payment is due if your card declines.

I'm not sure that is legal either. You can charge for some product or service but, unless you are a licensed bank, you can't lend out money and charge for overdraft, which is basically something they're doing here.

And even a bank can only do it against accounts open in that bank.

You may be right. It looks like some states have specific rules for credit cards. For example, in some states businesses can't charge credit card processing fees.

However, many businesses charge late payment fees.

https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/can-merchant-ch...

There's no lending of money involved? If your card gets declined, they add a fee to your bill. You can either choose to not pay it (and stop receiving any services from that company, and possibly have your account sent to collections or even be sued since you agreed to pay something and then didn't pay it), or you can pay it.

IANAL But AFAIK in civilised jurisdictions if I offer a service for money, and you offer money, I must offer the service.

If I make up charges for you and you refuse to pay, I can cease offering the service (to everybody) but I cannot just cut you out because you will not pay the out of contract charge.

These laws are to protect people who belong to groups that commonly get discriminated against.

> IANAL

That much is clear.

Charging a fee for providing bad payment info is legal. See "bounced check" fees.

LOL @ the guy replying to you acting like collection costs ("§ 17. The debtor's responsibility for costs of extrajudicial collection") is somehow relevant... :)

> IANAL But AFAIK in civilised jurisdictions if I offer a service for money, and you offer money, I must offer the service.

First off, you need to stop using the (incredibly loaded) word "civilized".

Second, I am not aware of ANY jurisdiction in which businesses are required to provide their services or products to anyone.

Third, THIS IS NOT AN "OUT OF CONTRACT CHARGE". This is a charge which IS IN THE CONTRACT.

Fourth, anti-discrimination laws have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with charging someone a fee when they don't pay you in a timely manner and/or cause you to incur higher costs (such as decline fees or NSF fees).

When selling to consumers, you can't force an arbitrary contract on them and demand that they pay you in various tangential circumstances. Neither you are a bank neither them are your insurer.

In Europe, we don't use chargebacks in most cases. Unless the payment was truly fraudulent (i.e. you cannot get hold of someone who issued the payment or they are not in business of doing things they charged for), you have to use proper legal means of settling the dispute. As you may imagine, the life is too short for things of such kind, especially with multi-billion corps. Anyway, dug up the email:

Please note that all payments are due in full on the monthly anniversary date. Failure to remit payment for services on the monthly anniversary date will result in a $20 late fee. If full payment has not been received within five (5) consecutive days, including the anniversary date, termination of public access to Customer services and a $50 reconnect fee will be incurred. Failure to remit payment for services within seven (7) consecutive days, including the anniversary date, shall result in termination of access to the service network and all services shall be reclaimed.

And the T&Cs link: https://www.ibm.com/support/customer/csol/terms?id=Z126-6304... To my pleasant surprise, the T&Cs are quite a readable document. As you see, they call them fees, not fines.

The https://www.ibm.com/cloud/pricing page also says they offer loans, leasing, and other kinds of financing.

I always thought that chargeback was the rule of Visa and MasterCard networks, so if you used that for the transaction, you are eligible for it. I wonder what's the extent of my confusion here.

It is also a proper legal procedure.

You are right, even the consumer protection agency says as much: https://www.hallakonsument.se/en/articles/card-complaints/

However, I think now I have a better idea why: debit cards have a major share in Europe and the page above says "When you pay with a debit card, you have no right by law to turn to the bank to demand a refund."

But thanks for a reminder, and I will think about using a credit card for online purchases in some cases rather than a debit.

But here in Europe, we also have consumer protection departments that have teeth. As a company, you’d rather not get onto their radar too much.

Sure, but Oracle can probably send it to collections and at the very least waste your time getting things fixed at the credit reporting agencies. At most, they'll sell your "debt" to one of those lowlife collections agencies that keeps calling until they get through to family members and then makes veiled threats. It's not legal, but with an unlimited supply of overseas "agents" that isn't really their problem, and it most certainly isn't Oracle's problem.

> You can only charge for things that you have delivered and only the ones which were requested/consumed.

This was requested. By you requesting a product or service which included this as its terms. Same for delivered and consumed.

Not in civilised jurisdictions.

Plain language and clear notification is necessary. Just "included in the terms" is not enough.

But and body can ask anybody for almost anything and if it is provided then no illegality.

Send money now: Acc: 1927-3938277-00

You all owe me US$100 for reading this. Pay now!

It was pretty clearly plain language and clear notification.

I have no intent to purchase anything from you, unlike the customers (i.e. people who have and continue to purchase) who this thread is discussing.

An actual analogy would be more like "You all owe me $100 for reading this, if you want to purchase something else from me". Which is completely legal. In any jurisdiction. If you don't like it you're free to go buy from someone else.

If someone has contractually agreed to pay a certain amount if an event happens, and that event happens, then yes, that person has to pay that amount if that event happens.

It does not work that way when selling services or goods to a person. In most jurisdictions, anyway.

It is highly regulated and it should be so.

You can only charge for things that you have delivered and only the ones which were requested/consumed.

You can repeat that as many times as you want but it won't make it any more relevant.

I can't speak for other jurisdictions, but Norwegian law explicitly says that you can't demand payment in that case, even if you have a contract that says otherwise.

æøå

The Norwegian law you referenced appears to say you can't charge for debt collection (unless conditions are met). This has nothing to do with debt collection. In fact it has nothing to do with debt. But you know what man, go ahead, try and scam someone with an NSF or decline and see how it goes.

(Disclaimer: I don't speak Norwegian or any of the other languages)

coo' coo', go try and scam someone with an NSF, see how it goes my man.

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