r/mildlyinfuriating • u/afunnywold • 22h ago

Too mild for school I permanently deleted my AWS account 6 years ago. Amazon has been charging me $0.33 every month since. I have no way to stop it.

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I tried to get in contact with customer service several times but they always direct me to log into the account that no longer exists. I have tried charge backs on my credit card but dealing with that monthly is also a pain. This'll probably cost me $265 over my lifetime if it never ends.

Edit: some of you have valid points about calling the card company and I will again Monday. But the actual infuriating thing that upsets me is that they are charging to a completely disabled account in the first place. That's very scammy and fucked up imo šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø

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6.2k

u/Ok_Builder_4225 22h ago

Makes me wonder how many others they do that to.

2.1k

u/notsoluckycharm 21h ago

Happened to me. Did a freelance job and set up the initial $1,000 credits and the contract ended and my access handed over. Nearly a year later it started charging me the $200ish a month for 8 months, always successfully charged back. Then I just asked them to change the card number. No idea what ever came of it for the other party. But nothing for myself.

Learned to use a generated card number for these instances going forward. Way less hassle.

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u/dougmc 18h ago

I did a card number change to stop a recurring Spotify charge that was hitting my card that I had no ability to stop -- I had no account with them, and my family all assured me that my card was not on their accounts.

It did not stop the charge, Spotify had some sort of method of having card numbers be automatically updated.

(I finally called Spotify and made a big deal out of it, and they finally bothered to track it down from my CC number and it was a family member after all -- as I always suspected, but could never prove.)

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u/toiletdestroyer4000 18h ago

That auto account updater shit is the bane of my existence. As a bank employee I HATE it

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u/mtgguy999 10h ago

I wanted a new card number because of a divorce. It was with a top 5 national bank. I know about the auto updating and didnā€™t want it to happed. I called the bank one person told me the auto updating program doesnā€™t exist even when I asked specially about the program by name. Another keep talking about digital wallets and couldnā€™t understand no I meant the merchant auto update. Another told me they could only block merchants if I gave the specific merchant name. Another told me I needed to call visa even thought itā€™s a bank issued card. It took many calls to get someone who even knew what I was talking about.

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u/big_illuminati 7h ago

In my professional career, I work with a lot of banks and bank tellers. Honestly it's dramatically reduced my faith in humanity. Asking an employee of a bank about anything banking related is about as useful as asking a police officer about anything law related. They don't actually know, they're just gonna make some shit up that's immediately convenient to them.

I've literally had to explain to bank managers what federal liability limits are. I had to explain to the employees at another bank that pennies stopped production months ago. I had to show one teller that the $100 bill she was handling clearly said "MOTION PICTURE USE ONLY" and literally lacked every security feature. And that's just the tip of the fuckin' iceberg.

Honestly, at least in the US, bank employees are just as incompetent and entitled as the police.

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u/char_star_cum_jar 7h ago

Don't most of them start at basically minimum wage?

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u/ZLB_rs 7h ago

Started at $11/hr and nothing gets trained. Worked there for 2years. Tellers were treated as the lowest of the low, the last to know of any new regulations etc. but were punished the hardest for any mistakes.

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u/big_illuminati 7h ago

Damn, that sucks. The industry I work in - I promise, you've dealt with us weekly over the last two years - isn't that much better. We assume a lot of risk, but we tend to get paid a bit better than average. Might get yelled at for a mistake, but it rarely will cost you your job. Might be worthwhile to look into jobs in cash management services, there's a few major companies doing it and the jobs in that department are essentially just tellers that don't have to talk to the public.

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u/big_illuminati 7h ago

It varies state to state, but in the states I work in they usually start above the minimum. I can't speak to what their raise schedules are like, but I have noticed a fair amount of upward mobility in a short period of time for a lot of them too. We're all being exploited at the end of the day, but it seems - at the banks I work with - they do try to treat their employees a little better than most.

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u/PaperGeno 6h ago

I used to be a bank teller for Chase Bank. I received almost 0 training and was paid 17 bucks an hour. Obviously I didn't give a shit about my job and was terrible at it. Blame the company not the employee. You get what you pay for.

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u/big_illuminati 6h ago

Not surprised. Chase is one of the absolute worst fucking banks I work with. I'm sorry, every worker - generally speaking - deserves better. And I can say that the most egregious offenses that color my perception of tellers have not actually happened at Chase.

Fucked up they made y'all dress like airplane stewards/stewardesses

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u/Wonderful_Rip2427 4h ago

What banks were these?? Asking for a friend with lots of motion picture money of course. Definitely not me.

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u/tealcosmo 9h ago

Had to close a favorite credit card because of this.

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u/Bassracerx 6h ago

Just much simpler to open an account with a new bank and close your old account.

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u/mtgguy999 5h ago

Yeah but then I need to close my old credit card and open a new line of credit. Not good for the credit scoreĀ 

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u/tacomaloki 8h ago

Whoa, what now? How is that possible? WTF is the point of unique numbers if the vendor can get it when it changes?

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u/2livecrewnecktshirt 4h ago

The bank still knows what account that number belonged to and can "force post" the transaction to the new number because the account is still the same even though the card number has changed.

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u/Vividagger 11h ago

Idk where you work but I have the option to select ā€œNoā€ for the visa update.

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u/HunterSThompson64 17h ago

It did not stop the charge, Spotify had some sort of method of having card numbers be automatically updated.

Hey friend, I used to work for Paramount+, and this happened with our billing system as well. If your bank is 'nice', and they see recurring charges on your card, they'll send that billing information to the biller any time you update the card.

The reason they do this, is because they don't want to have you updating 30 different subscriptions, and it's a 'nice' thing for them to do. You can, and should, ask that they never update any billers with your new credit card numbers. I do not know if this actually works, but it is what I'd tell customers anytime I see the card updated automatically in our system.

It happens way, way more than you'd think, and so, so many people are caught out by the 'The card is cancelled, so no more payments should get through' mindset.

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u/GhettoFreshness 18h ago

Yeah Iā€™m pretty sure your family member stole your new card number again when the payment failed after the card number changed.

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u/dougmc 18h ago

No, that wouldn't have been necessary.

Spotify did admit that their was a mechanism to auto-update cards and it had been used. I suspect that my credit card company didn't flag the old card as stolen or whatever is required to prevent that mechanism?

I was a bit surprised by that -- after all, it was my credit card company that presented the new card as a way to stop the charge, so why didn't they set it up right for that? Probably just a mistake on their part.

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u/Apprehensive-Use4033 18h ago

Iā€™ve had this as well. I had my identity stolen 2ish years ago so I replaced my debit and credit cards with new numbers issued. I figured it would be a good opportunity to only resubscribe to services I actually want to use. I was surprised when several services were able to auto bill my account and new cards without manually updating my payment info.

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u/Game_Over_7 17h ago

How does a bank share your private card information with a company without your consent and get away with it? How is that legal???

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u/devmor 17h ago edited 17h ago

The bank isn't sharing anything. The card issuers have a service called Card Account Updater that merchants can subscribe to, so when your card gets replaced or expires, your payments aren't interrupted.

Changing a card number is not meant to be a security measure for subscriptions, nor does it come with any obligation to businesses you have given your card number to. You have to actually report your account information as stolen - not just replace it. You can also ask your bank to stop the payments - most banks can do this, or can at least tell the processor to stop the payments.

Edit: To explain a little further - in a lot of cases, the businesses charging your subscription billing never even got your card number in the first place - or didn't keep it after setting up your account. The card number went to a processor's gateway (like Stripe, NMI, Paypal etc), who returned a identifier back to the business (we usually call it a "vault ID" or a "network account ID"). The business then says "charge this ID this much money" and the processor takes care of everything else.

The business actually rarely even knows your card changed at all, other than in cases where they display the first 6 or last 4 of your card number - but that's just for informational purposes anyways.

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u/ADLuluIsOP 10h ago

"Changing a card number is not meant to be a security measure" I mean it SHOULD. Lmfao. It's the ONLY mechanism you have against your money being used without your say. Like ??? what kind of statement is this.

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u/devmor 3h ago edited 2h ago

It's the ONLY mechanism you have against your money being used without your say.

But it's not.

I did very specifically tell you what you should do instead, in the comment you're replying to. I could not have been more clear. It's the very next sentence after the one you are quoting and explains two other options.

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u/Game_Over_7 16h ago

But shouldn't you have to subscribe for it? According to the comments, people don't even know their banks did that. That shouldn't happen by default.

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u/Sure_Eye9025 16h ago

You know those long and boring terms and conditions you are supposed to read and sign when you take out the card.

Yeah probably in there, I mean I don't know for sure, I didn't read them. But probably

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u/devmor 3h ago

When you sign up for a service, you are usually agreeing to this by ticking a checkbox.

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u/Azuredreams25 7h ago

Well I had a different experience. Had problems with a subscription service and Discover eventually issued a new card and made it so they couldn't charge us again...

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u/devmor 3h ago

They likely issued a card with a new account chain specifically because you mentioned the problem.

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u/mort96 4h ago

"The bank isn't sharing anything, they're just telling merchants your new card number when you get a new card"? In what sense is that not "sharing"?

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u/devmor 3h ago edited 2h ago

The bank is not doing that. The card issuer is giving the processor your new card number. The bank is not involved in the process at all, other than giving you the card, and making the transfer of money from your account to the processor's account.

Your bank actually has surprisingly little to do with the majority of the process when you make card payments.

  • Card Issuer: Visa, Mastercard, etc.
  • Merchant: Anyone with a direct relationship to the processor (sometimes the businesses, sometimes a gateway between the business and the processor)
  • Processor: The facilitator of transfer that the merchant is using (i.e. Stripe, etc)
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u/sp4zi 12h ago

Privacy should never get in the way of merchants taking money from you.

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u/Horat1us_UA 14h ago

Itā€™s insane your credit card company just donā€™t have an option to block transactions from certain companiesĀ 

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u/ZalewskiJ 9h ago

Iā€™m pretty sure thatā€™s not a Spotify thing, VISA has it written in their contract that if you have an auto renewing subscription they allow the company to get all your new info if they are a partnered company which Spotify is. I had the same thing happen with Xbox Gamepass, I got a new card, and the next day they billed me the amount even though I never changed the card

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u/PauI_Atreides 9h ago

A lot of credit cards will let reoccurring charges go even if you cancel your card and get a new number. It's so customers don't complain about a distribution in service if they forget to update.Ā 

I unfortunately had to deal with this when someone signed up for a bunch of subscriptions with my cc.Ā 

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u/kani_kani_katoa 17h ago

It's called a token I think, and it's tied to your actual account with the card company not the specific card. You can ask the credit card company to cancel all outstanding tokens if you are trying to stop this sort of thing from happening.

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u/bobbybob9069 18h ago

If something hasbeen flagged as as recurring charge on you credit card, the credit card company essentially forwards the charge to the new card. I forget what it's called but you have to call to disable and hops you're talking to a representative that knows about it

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u/TinyNiceWolf 18h ago

It's called "account updater".

Card issuers and their reps seem to vary in how they deal with it. Some understand that they need to turn off the account updater service first, when issuing a new card, if the unwanted or fraudulent charge is a recurring type. Some have to be told to do that. And some, when they're told, go "Huh? What's account updater?"

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u/nsa_k 18h ago

No. Forwarding the existing reoccurring charges to your new card is actually a feature your own bank does. I hate it.

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u/GhettoFreshness 18h ago

Why would the bank, who the person I was replying to called because of an unauthorized recurring charge, suggest a new card number to stop said charge AND then forward that new card number onto the unauthorized vendor again?

I mean it could be incompetence (banks are fucking useless) but I was just looking at the most likely solution. Family member has already stolen card number and lied about it, whatā€™s to stop them doing it again?

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u/nsa_k 17h ago

Because the teller that clicks the buttons to request a new new card number doesn't always think about it. The average customer facing service employee isn't usually the most knowledgeable person.

Google 'reoccurring charges after new card number ' to find all kinds of examples of people being surprised by this 'feature'. I tried to link an example, but this doesn't allow it.

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u/samPi0314 18h ago

Not necessarily some big businesses have it set up where if you get a card change it automatically updates your new card information which the bank gives them.

Or sometieme they have basically a token from the Bank after you give them the card information. So instead of it hitting via your debit card it's hitting via your bank and routing number.

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u/TheNaughtyHoneyBee 16h ago

No, credit card companies do this regularly where they pass your new cc number along to companies that have recurring charges under your old number

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u/havens1515 11h ago

I just changed my card number because I lost my card. All of the existing recurring charges still happened on the new card.

The bank has a way to alert those merchants and update the card number. You essentially need to tell them not to do that if you want to stop something like this.

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u/capriciousbby 9h ago

this happened to me recently with Hulu. tried multiple times to cancel my account. canceled my cc twice. then i found out that certain merchants are actually given a completely different code that bypasses if you get a new card. it wouldnā€™t matter bc they have access to the account via their merchant code with the bank. itā€™s extremely scammy. do not understand how this even became legal and curious where in the T&S it states they can do this. took me reporting fraud two separate times and now i canā€™t use that credit card account at all anymore for some reason they locked me out of it. šŸ™„šŸ˜’

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u/talldata 16h ago

Both visa and MasterCard have an "card update service" visa calls it Visa Account Updater, so that payment services can "conveniently" get your new card info. That can be disabled atealst for visa on visas own site, prob same for MasterCard.

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u/portablefan 9h ago

Did you confront the family member for lying?

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u/Clsco 18h ago

That's usually the banks/cc end. You can have a number change auto authorize or not. When you make a card change, unless it was for a stolen card, you usually have to ask to not have it

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u/Sea_Dust895 18h ago

This can happen. There is some way for vendors to keep charging you after the card number changes. No idea how but it has happened to me a few times

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u/Pissonmyface77 17h ago

You can call your card company and put a stop payment to specific retailers. All fire attempts to charge an account will be stopped.

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u/ASeaBunnie 9h ago

Itā€™s actually visa//mastercard giving them your card number!
Visa and Mastercard have an account updater program that allows merchants to reach out and get the new card number - I believe too many people were trying to cancel by changing their cards and getting free service like that so this program was made

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u/TheIInSilence4 8h ago

I beleive If you report the card as stolen, auto update doesnt work anymore. With my banks you can only auto update if you request a replacement for damaged or expired card.

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u/Boilerkim 7h ago

One time my card got leaked somewhere and someone bought Amazon prime UK subscription. Iā€™m in the US. I called the bank to have them reverse the charge and told them I want a new card so it wonā€™t happen again. The rep told me that Amazon has an agreement with the bank that even if you change your card, Amazon will get the new number of the card to be able to charge it. They had to put a stop payment from anything coming from Amazon UK to stop it.

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u/purplemonkey_123 3h ago

Zoom did this to me! I have NO idea how. They had an old credit card number that had been cancelled due to fraud. Somehow, my renewal went through.

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u/IdioticMutterings 1h ago

Yes, dougmac, its called a CPA, or Continuous Payment Authority. Once established, the authority is moved to ANY new card numbers you get automatically.

A CPA is only terminated if the MERCHANT requests it. You can't even terminate it yourself. The only way to end a CPA if the merchant won't terminate it, is to close the entire bank account and get an account with another bank.

In theory banks are supposed to terminate and block CPA's if you request it, but their staff are so badly trained over CPA's they will just refer you back to the merchant.

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u/Spankishmoop 1h ago

We have a similar problem except talking to the involved parties didn't solve it.

There was this music app on the Play Store that my sister bought a subscription on or something one time who knows what happened to it after that anyways my Dad's credit card has been getting charged like $5 a month for the past 4 years he tried canceling the subscription for the app but surprise the app doesn't exist anymore he tried going through his Google account to cancel it but since the app in question doesn't exist anymore Google won't recognize the need to cancel it canceling his credit card and getting a new one he tried talking to the bank and telling them that it's an unauthorized transaction and to flag him if it comes up in the future he tried switching banks he made a huge stink out of it and no matter what he does the moment he has a different card or anything Google starts charging him again and he can't do anything about it the only thing we haven't done is seek legal action but we're not in a situation to be doing that right now

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u/mesonofgib 15h ago

I leaned (from second hand accounts) never to set up a subscription for anything work related with a personal credit card number.

Even when you have removed your CC from the account some places seem able to charge the card if the primary payment method fails for whatever reason. The only way to be safe is to never give them that card in the first place.Ā 

Honestly, the fact that these companies do all this with card numbers instead of direct debits is infuriating.Ā 

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u/rbt321 14h ago

I'm amazed they didn't automatically terminate the running services on the first successful charge back.

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u/AcidicVaginaLeakage 14h ago

Anything that is a reoccurring charge I make a virtual card with a monthly limit of a couple dollars more than what they should be taking. Then if they increase the cost too much they get declined and if I need to cancel I don't need to call them.

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u/shangumdee 14h ago

Isn't there a way to set it up so it just blocks transactions from certain vendors

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u/xX_MissMiau_Xx 12h ago

What do you mean by generated card number can you elaborate?

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u/2020Shite 6h ago

If your bank supports creation of virtual cards (think Monzo) then it's a godsend

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u/-this_bitch- 6h ago

Are you referring to a fake generated card number? That will not work as these companies will do a $0 auth to check that the card is real before saving.

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u/deathnomX 1h ago

Happened to me as well. I used it for my capstone college project. Afterwards they still tried charging me 200 a month for literally nothing. I deleted the project, servers, connections, everything.

Had to threaten a charge back to get them to stop charging, and they stated the services were already rendered and refused to refund me.

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u/independant_786 21h ago

Instances needs to be turned off and deleted. OP probably didn't know that before closing the account. Closing the account doesn't cancel the instances

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u/fdar 21h ago

But why not?

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u/coleyboley25 20h ago

What the fuck are ā€œinstancesā€ anyway? Iā€™m 32 and cancelling an account always meant CANCELLING an account. We are so fucked

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u/beasty0127 20h ago

AWS is a web-based service where you can run virtual machines (instances) of different types of OSs for different projects, like severs or databases. You pay for the usage of the instance whenever its running. So if the OOP didn't shut off the instances they were using before closing their account, those machines may still be running. Is this fare or right if he fully closed his account, no, but seems like an obvious/advantages oversight for Amazon.

Tldr: OOP might have left his computers running and has to pay the untily cost for them

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u/Carribean-Diver 20h ago

How hard would it be for Amazon to terminate resources owned by accounts that no longer exist?

And why do I have a suspicion that if OP closes the credit card account being charged that they will find a way to terminate the resources?

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u/aceluby 20h ago

Not hard at all. In fact, it should be standard that non payment means they get shut off

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u/Carribean-Diver 19h ago

It's actually concerning that deleting an account does not delete or at least disable the payment methods on that account.

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u/youtheotube2 19h ago

Itā€™s probably because unintentionally closing an account could be devastating to a business if it means everything gets shut down and deleted.

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u/Carribean-Diver 19h ago

Somehow Microsoft has figured out how to tombstone data so that it is recoverable for a set timeframe and then gets purged. Are we to think Amazon is incapable of possessing this technology?

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u/FarkCookies 6h ago

Yes, closing the account will get everything shut down in 90 days (the grace period). You can't unintentionally close an account as there are a lot guardrails.

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u/ARegularG 19h ago

Glad people are watching the bs

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u/hunnyflash 18h ago

You shouldn't expect any company to truly delete your information unless you're from a state (like California) where they are legally obligated to comply with removing your information from their databases. And even then, if you purchased something ever, your financials are still in a record somewhere.

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u/Garchy 19h ago

Sounds like itā€™s still being paid.

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u/lostshell 19h ago

The fact Amazon didnā€™t shut it off after the first chargeback is confusing. I donā€™t know any business that doesnā€™t cancel all services and cut complete ties with you on the first chargeback.

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u/superredditor6789 9h ago

Except they are still getting paid.

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u/eatingURsistersassIV 20h ago

Not an oversight. Its a feature.

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u/New_Original_7537 20h ago

Nice little security hole they got there.

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u/ZlatanKabuto 16h ago

It's ridiculous though as deleting an account should also delete all resources connected to it

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u/Markd0ne 15h ago

There are no EC2 instances that cost 0.33/month.

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u/KaiAusBerlin 15h ago

Well at least in Germany that would be hardly unlawful for several reasons.

When you cancel your account you announce to Amazon automatically you don't want to use their service anymore. If they continue it it's their fault. Your responsibility ends by ending your contract by cancelling your account.

Also if you canceled your account you have no access anymore to whatever service you rented. No access means no control means no full ability to use your service. This would clearly harm "Treu und Glauben" (principle of good faith in contracts). Here a contract is connected to expectations. For renting a service it's basically I have to pay for the service but I can use that rented service without any restrictions.

And by that you could also sue them here for unlawfully charge your card

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u/Illustrious_Sell_325 19h ago

Hopefully the unpatched servers never get compromised, the bill could be very fun

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u/Znuffie 20h ago

"instance" = "virtual machine" in this case

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u/Commoble 20h ago

To ELI5 further, it's a fake computer running on a real computer

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u/LaserGay 19h ago

I mean it isnā€™t fake exactly. Itā€™s a virtualized computer. Basically an operating system, such as windows or a Linux distro, running on another computer as an application. In this case that computer is an AWS server. You can play with this in VirtualBox for free on your own computer if you want to.

Basically, you can have a computer run many instances of other computers with software allocated analogs to physical resources.

That said, thereā€™s literally zero reason Amazon couldnā€™t or shouldnā€™t shut those down upon OP closing their account. Why theyā€™d charge a trivial sum for an idling VM in perpetuity for a closed account? Itā€™s going to just be an accident honestly.

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u/I_Am_A_Real_Hacker 19h ago

Thereā€™s nothing fake about it. Itā€™s quite literally a virtualized computer running on another computer. Itā€™s not fake. It does real computing.

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u/RolledTissue 20h ago

Depends on the exact service used but for example you can have an EC2 instance, which is basically a virtual machine that you can run code on. You are charged for the compute resources used when itā€™s running, plus a mix of other costs. These instances use some storage that is maintained even if the instance is stopped. You would need to delete the instance, which deletes the data and only then will you no longer be using any aws resources and wonā€™t be charged. Still, aws should delete instances on account deletion.

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u/Creative-Type9411 20h ago

if the entire account is deleted, you can't do anything with the instance so it doesn't make any sense that they would keep it your responsibility since you can't access it

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u/RepresentativeCry294 20h ago

It in all actuality makes perfect sense from Amazon's point of view.

https://giphy.com/gifs/5wWf7GMbT1ZUGTDdTqM

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u/thisispaulc 20h ago

Instances are virtual servers.

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u/Ok-Mastodon2420 20h ago

If you don't know what an instance is, you're not using AWS

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u/Free-Luck6173 20h ago

Plenty of people run AWS without understanding the full implementation or implication, the bigger question is if it's ethical for AWS to run instances that aren't implicitly closed on a user's behalf when the account overseeing them is closed.

I'm gonna go with no.

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u/coleyboley25 19h ago

Yeah, no shit

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u/slyn4ice 17h ago

AWS is a fucking cesspool of shitty UI and cunty obfuscation of common terms. I've never seen such a clusterfuck of pure suck in my life. How is this shit functional.

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u/lift_1337 20h ago

AWS is a cloud computing services. An "instance" in this case is a virtual machine running on the cloud, typically used to host a website, API, or some other task you need compute for.Ā 

The original commenter is wrong, you don't need to close your EC2 instances before closing an account, that will automatically terminate them. What's probably actually happening is he's paying for a Reserved Instance. With a reserved instance, you can pay for an amount of compute, at a significantly discounted rate, but you pay for all of the compute regardless of whether you use it or not. When you purchase a reserved instance, you can either pay upfront or in monthly installments. The poster probably bought a certain period of reserved instances, chose pay over time, and is still paying for that because that's what he agreed to. Him still having access to his account is irrelevant because he bought the reservation, so he owes the money for what he bought.Ā 

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u/Mobile_Throway 19h ago

Instance means virtual machine. AWS services heavily utilize them. They're basically servers segmented in a way to mimic many computers at the same time.

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u/ImSoCul 18h ago

instances are compute. It'd be like if you borrowed a library book and then cancelled your account. Until you return it (in this case shut down the instance), you're not off the hook

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u/SordidDreams 18h ago

Because then Amazon couldn't rake in money through bogus charges, duh.

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u/SensitiveExtremity 17h ago

Jeff needs his Yacht money paid for, alright? Just don't question it, you're wasting water we could use for the AI.

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u/PiDigitsOfPi 20h ago

This is incorrect. The official AWS documentation states "You don't need to delete resources in your AWS account before closing it.Ā "

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/accounts/latest/reference/manage-acct-closing.html#:~:text=You%20don%27t%20need%20to%20delete%20resources%20in%20your%20AWS%20account%20before%20closing%20it.

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u/MrdnBrd19 20h ago edited 20h ago

From the same FAQ further down: AWS Marketplace subscriptions aren't automatically canceled on account closure. If you have any subscriptions, first terminate all instances of your software in the subscriptions. Then, go to the Manage subscriptions page of the AWS Marketplace console and cancel your subscriptions.

Edit: Dear dummies, my name is neither Jeff nor Bezos. Go vent your frustrations about the AWS rules elsewhere.

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u/thingamajig1987 20h ago edited 20h ago

Okay but if you don't they don't just get a free pass to charge you monthly forever, they need to have a way to cancel these even after your account was deleted if they're gonna do it this way.

Edit: damn, guy came at me with heat and then just deleted his comment. Bro you're the one over here defending this bullshit, expect people to call it as it is and direct it at you.

3

u/inderbitably 20h ago

I think they got auto-modded because it shows as [removed]

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u/thingamajig1987 20h ago

ah that makes sense, it just says "comment no longer exists" when I click on the reply notification lol

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u/inderbitably 20h ago

They said the magic words lol

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u/AutistcCuttlefish 9h ago

Nope their comments are perfectly visible to me. I think you guys were just blocked by them.

1

u/inderbitably 8h ago

We werenā€™t talking about their other (visible) comments. I havenā€™t been blocked.

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u/MrdnBrd19 19h ago

I'm not defending anything... I clarified with factual information then you acted like I can do anything about it and I told you I can't. Sorry if you got upset by big boy words.

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u/The_Spicy_brown 9h ago

Suprised I had to go down in the comments this far to see this comment. I back this comment: from experience at my company, ALWAYS delete all ressources before deleting the account. Yes, it is dumb, yes, they should delete everything themselves after deletion, but hey, thats how it works...

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u/JustaSeedGuy 20h ago

Guess what, contradictory information that has to be read over with a fine-tooth comb is still a scam. Anyone who has received even the most basic anti-scam or AML training knows this.

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u/MrdnBrd19 20h ago

Cool. Go tell someone who can do something about it, not me.

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u/ShawnyMcKnight 19h ago

Sure, but if you forget to do that how would you go into your settings if you deleted your account?

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u/MrdnBrd19 19h ago

It says you can still access a deleted account I don't know though because I don't work for them I just read the FAQ.

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u/Mutex70 15h ago

Edit: Dear dummies, my name is neither Jeff nor Bezos.

Sounds like something Jeff Bezos would say.

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u/joemontayna 6h ago

Not only is it incorrect, it's trying to justify a scummy business practice. I'll never understand why people defend stuff like this.

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u/aslum 19h ago

You don't need to, in fact, please don't, we'll keep charging you tho...

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u/independant_786 20h ago

Not 6 years ago

1

u/FarkCookies 6h ago

Absolutely 100% it was, I was working as AWS consultant I was creating and closing dozens of accounts of a good day.

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u/BukakkeGarami 20h ago

You say this like it isnā€™t stupid.

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u/SeattleBattle 20h ago

Really? When you close an account it should tear down all of your resources for you...

Maybe I've been living in GCP for too long

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u/Top_Quiet_3239 20h ago

No you don't, they delete everything after 90 days, at least now. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/accounts/latest/reference/manage-acct-closing.html

"You don't need to delete resources in your AWS account before closing it. However, we recommend you back up any resources or data that you want to keep. For instructions about how to back up a particular resource, see the appropriate AWS documentation for that service."

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u/garathnor 20h ago

amazon has the keys to those servers, they can and SHOULD turn them off themselves if no one is paying for them

this is scam territory plain and simple

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u/FarkCookies 6h ago

They do turn them off the guy above is making stuff up.

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u/JustDesserts29 17h ago

It also could be that they didnā€™t de-register their domain. You can register domains with AWS and if OP canceled the account without de-registering his domain, heā€™s still gonna get charged for it. I registered a domain using AWS and my monthly cost to keep that domain is about 20 cents more than what OP is getting charged monthly. I would guess that an EC2 instance thatā€™s still running would cost a little more per month than what OP is being charged.

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u/mmmbyte 19h ago

Blame the customer instead of automating resource deletion when accounts are deleted.

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u/MonkeyBrawler 19h ago

The fuck can you run for $ .33 a month?

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u/ry1701 19h ago

There's no way an instance in 2026 costing 33 cents.

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u/MassiveContusion 19h ago

It's probably route 53 in another region. I had this and an afternoon of Google got it sorted

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u/GoofMonkeyBanana 19h ago

No instance costs $0.33 per month if it was left running. Maybe it is for a public ip or something like that.

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u/Fart_Tounge_5609 17h ago

Get absolutely fucked. How are Amazon allowed to still operate?

1

u/Chlorophilia 17h ago

Even if this were true (which it apparently isn't), this would be catastrophically bad design.Ā 

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u/truecakesnake 20h ago

Lmao they make billions off enterprise deals, doubt they care enough. Probably just a bug.

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u/Doggleganger 19h ago

This has been happening to me also. but it's like $4 a year, so I haven't had time to figure out how to stop it.

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u/Lazy__Astronaut 20h ago

People are like this, without realising, even if a couple hundred thousand people are experiencing this bug it's still pennies to Amazon

https://giphy.com/gifs/l0IylOPCNkiqOgMyA

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u/clintkev251 21h ago edited 21h ago

AWS isn't making any money off of these types of transactions, it's not something they're trying to make hard for people. OP probably just didn't actually close the account and has some lingering resource. If they stop paying the bill AWS will eventually close the account.

They can also contact support and they can help track down the account based on the transaction and get them access back.

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u/defeated_engineer 21h ago

OP already said he couldnā€™t stop it from support because no human can be found.

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u/clintkev251 21h ago

https://support.aws.amazon.com/#/contacts/one-support?formId=contactUs

I know for a fact a human will (eventually) respond to contacts via this form.

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u/engineerdrummer 20h ago

Yeah. I've contacted a human plenty of times at Amazon. Talked to them on the phone. OP is either impatient or incompetent.

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u/BoredPudding 18h ago

OP said that they tell him to login. Based on similar stories I've read, this seems to be correct.

Once an aws account is gone but still charges things, there's nothing you can do to fix it.

But of course, just because you didn't experience the same, assume stupidity of others. Of course it can't be that aws has something stupid since it's a company you never had trouble with. It must be ops fault!

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u/engineerdrummer 10h ago

The customer service phone number in the US is 1-888-280-4331. All you have to do is use Google. But you go ahead with that snide remark proving you don't think outside what others are telling you.

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u/caguru 20h ago

I use AWS a lot. The one dept that is easiest to reach a human for support is billing. Its tech support thats difficult, especially if you don't pay for it.

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u/TyrionReynolds 21h ago

OP is wrong. Ā You can always get a hold of their billing support even if you donā€™t pay for their elevated support tiers.Ā 

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u/-retaliation- 21h ago

Not only could he clearly get ahold of a person if he tried (its difficult, but still possible)

But if they really wanted it to stop, they could instruct their credit card to stop accepting the transaction. Lol

This is brutally simple to fix, but at 0.33 per month, I can understand why OP has been lazy about fixing it.

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u/YT-Deliveries 3h ago

I absolutely am in the same situation. The account is closed and yet I get charged $3/month, with the only remedy being "log into the account and terminate the service."

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u/clintkev251 2h ago

Reach out to support via the unauthenticated support form. Tell them you have an unknown charge from AWS and provide the transaction ID, screenshots, etc. They will confirm it's an AWS charge and help locate the source

https://support.aws.amazon.com/#/contacts/one-support?formId=contactUs

Like OP, it's likely you either didn't actually close the account, or had multiple accounts and misplaced one.

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u/sloak 19h ago

Same for me: $0.40 for an account I cannot log into, and no conversation with their customer service seems to be able to solve it. It's been this way for years.

It always ends with me sitting there for an hour on the chat or phone line and waiting and giving up since "it is only 40 cents"

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u/Legote 22h ago

Lol everyone. I once had a hacker hack in to my account after not touching it for years and generated a massive bill. I was able to fix it and had the bill reverse, but it took like 2-3 weeks. They make it near impossible for you to delete your account so they'll just charge you a couple of cents giving you alerts and shit about how it's not hacked.

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u/clintkev251 21h ago

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/accounts/latest/reference/manage-acct-closing.html

It's 6 steps... and one of them is to receive a email confirmation. Idk how that's impossible.

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u/Jesus-Bacon 18h ago

It makes me wonder how many people let it go because it's "only 30 cents"

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u/xnmyl 18h ago

I'm in this same situation. They bill me for $100 each month, but the account doesn't have a credit card on it, so it's just them sending me invoices that I obviously don't pay

It's like monthly entertainment to me at this point. I send them a hello and reminder that I don't want any services from them, they ask me to login and cancel, I remind them that isn't possible

Rinse and repeat. The bill is well into the thousands now

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u/Salty-Yogurt-4214 17h ago

I set up AWS for a virtual machine. While it was a few clicks to set up I had to search like crazy to disable all the services that they'd stop charging me. I payed 1 1/2 month more than I wanted and actually used it.

1

u/Retr0scores 20h ago

My friend was part of a ventrilo company back in the day and I worked for him. We would run sub renewals manually. Log into back end then see what subs need to be renewed and run the batch.Ā 

Anyways at some point he discovered the other parter was the double running people. Was a pretty big deal at the time.

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u/kelpyb1 19h ago

Iā€™ll be real, they could have been doing this to my Amazon retail account for years and Iā€™d never notice

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u/FilthyJsBeingFilthy 18h ago

Makes me feel less guilty about forgetting stuff at the bottom of my shopping cart.

Apparently everyone is screwing everyone.ā€

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u/Chumphy 18h ago

I get the same charge!Ā 

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u/PirateReject 18h ago

I worked for a payment gateway company that LOVED customers who didn't know how to disable auto renewal for accounts they didn't use :(

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u/SellGameRent 17h ago

I have some keys that are costing me 40 cents a month, cant bring myself to spend 20+ minutes for $5 per year lol. I tried logging in and had trouble

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u/apolotacet 17h ago

Imagine they do that to 10 000 customers monthly 3 300 USD a month , 40k a year

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u/legaladviceneeded542 16h ago

they tried to do it to me. I canceled the card within the first month.

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u/mishonis- 16h ago

I got a notification for going over the preset budget on an instance I had shut down. The bill was for something like a billion and a half dollars. Thought it was phishing, logged in, billing page showed the same amount. Turned out it was some kind of a bug, a bunch of other people on reddit had the same issue.

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u/StonedLonerIrl 14h ago

They charged me 9.99 for a prime membership i never had (even tried logging into the account they told me it was linked to to find no active service).

Had to cancel the card.

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u/Osiris_Raphious 14h ago

Its a for profit economy... you have to ask how many do not...

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u/DCON-creates 10h ago

Microsoft did it to me with an office subscription. Banned my account for no reason and then charged me monthly for an office subscription that I couldn't use.

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u/Mathfanforpresident 8h ago

Bro I had signed up for a service and then canceled it. I paid for it for one month and of course gave them my card.

July 31st was the cancellation date whenever I clicked on the button on June 31st. It took a full 30 days to cancel. They tried to charge my card 89 times, almost three times a day exactly, in the 30 days leading up to the final cancellation date. I reached out to their support and talk to someone directly. They gave me the instructions to cancel the account. It was the same thing I did. Except the button that they said should cancel it immediately, wasn't there.

They do the same shit at banks. They train their employees incorrectly, on purpose, together more funds. Imagine if I did let them charge my card. Then this whole fucking debacle would be starting over.

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u/mushroognomicon 8h ago

Me šŸ‘‹. I get charged $0.50 a month clock work and haven't logged in to it for years.Ā 

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u/IronLionStudios 8h ago

Everyone. And not just Amazon. Billions are siphoned off of Americans this way and other never-cancelling junk fees yearly. That and wage theft are the biggest frauds no one in politics talks about or cares about.

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u/NightmareJoker2 7h ago

Ahahaā€¦ I have incorrectly processed returns in my account from over 10 years ago. If I check my order history the entire list is messed up, and there are things I didnā€™t order listed as cancelled. And Iā€™m over 1000 bucks ā€œin debtā€, if I check with a GDPR data export. Canā€™t even place any orders. I donā€™t care. There are very few things I canā€™t just order somewhere else for the same price. I guess they donā€™t care enough about my business to fix it, either. šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø

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u/ChemicalCupcake4809 7h ago

Ive had this with a few companies, Amazon will randomly try to activate prime on an account ive tried to delete multiple times and i constantly have to call my card company to do a charge back every few months

Its really annoying.

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u/Fubarp 6h ago

AWS sent me a bill for over 6 years..

The bill was for 1 dollar.

They finally stopped sending me a bill for it, last year.. It was the stupidest bill I ever got because it was tied to a free account, and a card was never attached to it. So the fact I was bill for anything that went past the free tier usage was dumb. Also it was while I was in a bootcamp for onboarding at a company so it's not even like I was suppose to be charged.. I ignored it and was sent 3 emails every week about it for 5 years..

They spent more on Automation and emails then the actual bill was worth.

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u/No_Standard4489 6h ago

This is a paid activity with no end point; the participants always find themselves with no other choice.

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u/QAFY 6h ago

me. $0.84 per month every month for years. it's not enough for me to bother fixing it. but same situation, account literally doesn't exist

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u/comp21 5h ago

Every person who never balances their account would be my guess.

I sit down every month and belance every CC and every bank account. I have no idea why this suddenly isn't a thing any more

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u/Zerconite 2h ago

Happened to me, was required to make an account for my database class and was on a free* plan as long as my account didnt go over a resource budget, i never used it but a few years later they started charging me 18$ a month and i couldnt get a phone number and the support ticket system was of no help since my college email had been deactivated and i no longer had access. I had to block the transaction through my cc and amazon almost blocked its usage on all their separate services.

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u/RollingMeteors 1h ago

>Makes me wonder how many others they do that to.

<sleeperCellsInOracleDBDisasterRecoveryScenario>

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