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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

I recently wanted to get some practical knowledge with cloud storage buckets and my first choice was Azure (for no other reasons that name was shrouded with mystery).

Free trial, etc. I give my phone number (something like "for legal reasons"). Then it asks for my CC. I already hate it because it's highly dubious they need my CC number for a free trial since it's not needed to deliver the product. Fine, I give it. Then the process is declined because they don't like my rechargeable CC.

I am a happy AWS freeloader and potential customer now (well, for one year at least).

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Well, to shed insight on Azure.

1. Phone number is required to minimize fake/bot/fraudulent use accounts.

2. Credit card is required in case you want to immediately scale up, and also, used as anti fraud as depending on the card used, and address is used to judge you as a customer and whether or not you should be disabled immediately upon account creation.

Credit cards first six numbers are the BIN, or bank identification number, these are used to sort whom the issuing bank is, what type of credit card line, and whether or not it is a virtual or such.

These are compounded to give you an antifraud score. Address and connecting IP address help too.

So that's why it was denied, but for a company like Micrsoft, their billing practices are very much streamlined and not so hidden vs other companies nor do they introduce "tricky" language such as Adobe's yearly contract, payable monthly SAAS.

> 2. Credit card is required in case you want to immediately scale up, and also, used as anti fraud as depending on the card used, and address is used to judge you as a customer and whether or not you should be disabled immediately upon account creation.

That's not what MS says the credit card is for (edit: which doesn't mean they aren't using it the way you explained they do):

> We ask for your credit card number to verify your identity and to keep out spam and bots. You won’t be charged unless you upgrade.

They don't want me because of my CC (I specifically want a pre-paid CC I can put money on as I need it and can never be overcharged) because my CC can't be easily charged in case I forget to cancel the service.

Amazon, PSN store, paypal, online clothing store, pro and non pro pc parts store, etc. are all fine with this card.

edit: I understand Azure is a recurring payment with potential upcost at some point or another and that the examples I gave are one time payment but then they really should find a way to let me try their stuff for free as they say they want or just stop giving me resources if the card is declined.

Fraud, and verify identity kinda go hand in hand.

The type of credit card has high fraud activity.

Remember, it is to stop bad actors from using azure services for phishing, tricky things, etc (since a default instance w/ IIS, or any web service will literally be on windows.net.)

Anti-fraud == verify identity.

> Anti-fraud == verify identity.

That card has my whole name on it and the bank has a trail of everything I do with it. MS also now have a verified phone number and can see they both come from the same country.

> Remember, it is to stop bad actors from using azure services for phishing, tricky things, etc (since a default instance w/ IIS, or any web service will literally be on windows.net.)

Nothing prevents me from doing that with a regular credit card.

Nothing prevents them from shutting down services/instances that break their ToS.

How convenient for them the only way to try out their free offer is to give them the ability to withdraw money from me.

I would never give Microsoft my credit card number after hearing all the horror stories of people trying to cancel Xbox Live.

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