Microsoft won't let me pay a $24 bill, blocking thousands in Azure spending
30 comments
·December 2, 2025bityard
You have a lot more perseverance than I do. I would have opened up an AWS or GCP account after step one. I'm the one with the money and any company that makes it difficult for me to give it to them isn't worth my time.
Javin007
Not even kidding, despite being tied to Azure here at work, I'm TEMPTED to spin my stuff up on AWS and use it to convince my branch to switch to AWS for future projects. That will move their losses into the tens of thousands per month if I can convince them.
bmcd
I've had luck with https://www.19pine.ai/ for nebulous support issues like this, worth a try!
voidsnax
I recently tried to sign up for the Microsoft Partner Network and the entire experience was grueling and excruciating from start to finish. I wasted two days on it and never managed to sign up.
Javin007
Have you ever tried to just simply set up an Azure VM that you can remote RDP into?
It's literally easier to just set up a fully functional active directory network in your basement.
deepsun
Wow people love Microsoft so much that they are ready to go to such lengths to pay them money.
viraptor
Why not open a new account? Surely for Azure you don't need a unique phone number for each one of them, right? You could run multiple companies after all. (I've got 5 independent AWS accounts, so expect some sanity like that)
Javin007
It's more the hassle of it already being attached to my email/devices/phone. Honestly, I'll likely have to do this regardless before this gets resolved.
mrinterweb
I ran into a similar issue with Hetzner. I had an outstanding bill that I forgot about (going to an email inbox I don't check often). They closed my account, and I haven't been able to pay the bill. I've tried contacting support, but I haven't got anywhere. I would love to pay the bill. I would really like to use Hetzner again, but I think I accidentally got banned. Also, I'm talking about an $8 dollar debt owed I accrued while not realizing my autopay was failing on a VM.
Javin007
Wow. You're the second person to mention Hetzner doing this same mess. I hadn't heard of them prior to this. Their reputation is preceding them.
pavelevst
Look for cheaper alternatives (many of them in Europe and not only), smaller companies than Microsoft usually have a human to deal with such cases, also their services costs 5-10x less
rdtsc
Do you have to use Azure? Maybe Azure is nice and signaling this way the state of the internals and how things will work from here on. So it's sneakily trying to help you move to somewhere else, before things become worse and you spend the thousands and then end up stuck.
Javin007
:D It's a valid argument. Perhaps they're quietly trying to do me a favor? Unfortunately, my company has gone this direction, so they're stuck in my sphere whether I like it or not.
joeframbach
Print out the invoice, write a check, and mail it in?
Javin007
Ah yes, Microsoft, bringing us back to the 1930's methods of financial transactions.
hostyle
Maybe don't use Azure? It's not like there are no other options ...
Javin007
There's a lot more details here I didn't include for the sake of brevity.
The reason I haven't messed with it in 2 years is because the personal project I'm working on (an indie MMO) was put on the back burner. However, my "real job" has asked me to set up some VM dev boxes that we could remote into. They were the ones that wanted Azure, which lead me down the road of trying to set up some boxes on my old account.
When I couldn't, the autist in me wasn't able to just shrug and move on, so I spent the better part of the day trying to "get it to work" when I don't explicitly NEED it for this particular project.
jauntywundrkind
Hetzner has a similar loop. Autopay fails and they lock your account, keeping you from logging in to pay it.
I emailed support, &bthey insisted on a wire transfer. I sent that & they said they didn't get it. I sent them all the details my bank could find, but they kept asking for some paper document, which doesn't exist afaik because it was all done online.
tormeh
That sounds so incredibly German. They love paper, and have zero understanding when that paper simply doesn't exist in a non-German system.
Javin007
Wow. I'm not familiar with Hetzner, but it sounds like that's a good thing.
altairprime
You should probably consult a lawyer, or file a small claims court case for specific performance or refund of your $24 payment delivered by certified mail. In either scenario they will be motivated to accept and process your payment and restore normal services billing to you long before you see the inside of a courtroom, as lawyers cost them much more than $24/hour for an obvious fuckup on their side (and most likely they would have to send an actual executive to small claims court, where lawyers are unwelcome).
Two years ago, a $24 autopay charge on my Azure account failed. The invoice is now marked "Locked" in their billing portal.
I cannot pay this invoice. There is no button to pay it. There is no button to dismiss it. There is no way to interact with it at all.
Azure displays a banner: "You must pay all previous invoices before creating new subscriptions." Fair enough. I would love to pay it. Microsoft won't let me.
So I tried to contact support.
The Azure portal requires a "paid support plan" to create a support ticket. To purchase a paid support plan, you must create a subscription. To create a subscription, you must clear outstanding invoices. To clear outstanding invoices, you must contact support.
Azure on Twitter, as well as the website claims to have a "free support ticket" option for billing issues, but every possible link just drives you back to the same FAQ page while refusing to let you submit a ticket.
I called every number I could find:
1-800-867-1389 rings busy indefinitely. 1-855-270-0615 connects to an AI that asks what you need, tells you to visit the website, and disconnects. 1-800-642-7676 connects to a different AI that also tells you to visit the website. The website has a chatbot that redirects you to FAQ articles regardless of what you type. If you express frustration, it throws an error and stops responding.
I submitted feedback through the Azure portal every few days for weeks. No response.
I am a software engineer, so I did something ridiculous.
I wrote a PowerShell WinForms application that authenticates via device code flow, queries the Az.Support API for problem classifications, and calls New-AzSupportTicketsNoSubscription to submit a billing support ticket directly, bypassing the portal entirely.
Note the API name: NoSubscription. Microsoft has an explicit API for ticketing without a subscription.
It worked. The ticket was submitted. I felt briefly victorious.
The API responded: "Your support plan type is Free. To create and update support tickets, you need access to our high-tier support plans."
I had built custom software specifically to work around Microsoft's broken support infrastructure, and I still hit a paywall.
The total amount Microsoft is owed: $24.
The total amount Microsoft is preventing me from spending on new Azure services: thousands. I currently run numerous websites out of my house, and it's getting to be enough that I want to offload it to Azure VMs. Additionally, I was going to shift my development to Azure boxes, etc.
I have exhausted every official channel. Every phone number, every chatbot, every feedback form, every API endpoint. There is no path to a human being without first paying for a support plan that I cannot purchase because of the billing block that I need support to resolve.
Has anyone successfully escaped a loop like this? Is there a secret handshake I'm missing? Or is the only option to abandon this Microsoft account entirely, get a new phone, and start fresh?