Ask HN: AWS invoice completely out of touch with reality

4 points·peter_retief··6 comments

Has anyone else been horrifically surprised by an AWS invoice? I have barely used their services and just got a huge invoice without any warning. Hope this message can help someone before they deal with Amazon

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They charge me $0.80/month for just having an account I have no access to. I cancelled my card but still keep receiving new charges and termination notices. I hasn't happened in 10 months and don't plan to pay a dime.

What I found for myself as a rule of thumb is if high aws bills can surprise me or if I don't have a paid support contract then most likely AWS type of services are not for my size. Actually, I'll sleep better on fixed-price cloud targented to small/hobby/medium size companies.

Once, yes. I left a number of very large instances running for longer than they were needed and ran up a four figure bill that was quite a bit higher than we usually had.

On the plus side, I emailed support and they forgave some of it.

I have to add this I’m pleased to inform you that we’ve approved a billing adjustment for charges on your October bill, which has been applied as a refund to your credit card. Please note that the refund processing time will depend on your payment method type and can vary according to your Financial Institution. Apologies for freaking out

What service(s) drove up your bill?

AWS pricing is certainly complex, and requires some research. Not user friendly.

I did a tutorial on coap server and openthread devices, it was hopelessly over complex but I wanted to see what they offered. Services were mostly cloud I think. I switched off all my devices after

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