[Shank]

> There's always an understanding with services like this that credit offers come with a lot of hand-waving and "caveat emptor"-ing: notice founders "have access to" free credits (emphasis ours), which could imply that some founders have the capacity to call on those funds, but not all. But still, the language does seem very direct and makes it easy to believe signing up includes $5,000 in AWS credits.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction between why they got $1k vs $5k. Is there some clause in the contract that states that it's "up to $5k under certain situations?" It seems like a lot of information is missing here.

[nathanyz]

This is unfortunately the case in many of these offers where the big banner number is used to entice people in, but the actual amount given is much lower. There is really no accountability to these types of over-promises as its not really regulated like a sweepstakes or other free contest. And providing no easy to understand rules keeps anyone from figuring out how to actually receive the top amounts.

Not sure that is what's going on in this case, but without accountability or penalties for bad behaviors this is likely to continue to be the case. No fine print necessary.