[kn100]

Oh and another fun thing! I eventually just emptied the OneDrive so Microsoft would stop bothering me. This was maybe six months ago or so. Microsoft confirms I am storing nothing there. Just a week or two ago I got yet another email begging for money because my OneDrive was apparently full. It was a genuine email, I went as far as checking the headers for SPF/DKIM. When I signed into onedrive, still empty!

[antonvs]

I suppose if you’re not paying them, your storage limit is zero, so if you have zero bytes there you’ve reached max capacity.

[jkaplowitz]

Pretty sure the free limit is 5 GB, at least for personal Microsoft accounts, not zero.

[antonvs]

Yes but that would destroy the joke

[BobbyTables2]

Isn’t there a recycle bin?

Apple has something similar. One has to delete out of the hidden deleted items area — unless they want to wait a full month!

[wallstop]

Anecdata, they might have had a system error. My Microsoft account that I use the free tier OneDrive on had the same email sent (you're over x% full, consider upgrading!). I suspected everything you did - eventually I logged in after verifying the email - nope, 5% usage or so.

I then went and deleted more stuff, but my money would be on a reporting glitch than a malicious money campaign.

[cachius]

A system error on a file storage system makes it even worse! But easy to imagine after the recent report on Azure https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47616242

[wallstop]

Sorry, what I meant by "system error" was more "notification system error". Not error as in "data loss", error as in "reporting".

[manwe150]

Myself–and many redditors–got this erroneous notification too. I don't think Microsoft ever sent out an "Oops, sorry, you don't actually need to pay us" correction though.