It's not even precedence per-se. Ad networks are abusable products: there's tons of ways someone could be making use of the service in a fraudulent fashion. Y

It's not even precedence per-se. Ad networks are abusable products: there's tons of ways someone could be making use of the service in a fraudulent fashion. You can't know someone's fraudulently using the service until they actually fraudulently use the service, at which point by design the service will appear to "owe" them money; thus, anytime you're shutting someone down who's making fraudulent use of the service you're going to appear to owe them money right before you shut it off. Which is why they're not going to pay this guy: as far as they're concerned he defrauded their customers -- publishers -- out of some $700, which is how his account got into a state where it looked to him like he was "owed" some $700; there's not really a reason to pay him, though, for obvious reasons, which is why they're not going to pay him.