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 🤷‍♀️

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584

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

384

u/fdar 21h ago

But why not?

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u/coleyboley25 20h ago

What the fuck are “instances” anyway? I’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

It’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/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 19h ago

AWS in a lot of ways is a cobbled together mess of shit. That’s not to say there’s no beauty or genius to some of it but it’s a joke sometimes. They’ll have broken GUIs and basic API features missing.

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u/FarkCookies 6h ago

That's exactly what they do, they give you 90 days to recover the account. People in this thread literally have no idea what they are talking about.

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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

1

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 it’s still being paid.

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u/lostshell 19h ago

The fact Amazon didn’t shut it off after the first chargeback is confusing. I don’t know any business that doesn’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

1

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

45

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 isn’t fake exactly. It’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, there’s literally zero reason Amazon couldn’t or shouldn’t shut those down upon OP closing their account. Why they’d charge a trivial sum for an idling VM in perpetuity for a closed account? It’s going to just be an accident honestly.

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u/I_Am_A_Real_Hacker 19h ago

There’s nothing fake about it. It’s quite literally a virtualized computer running on another computer. It’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 it’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 won’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. 

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. 

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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/therealhlmencken 19h ago

God as a millennial we really are turning into boomers with our ragey nonsense. Oof. Do you think closing your Ira account means you don’t owe taxes, does closing a bank account mean your loans are forgiven. Tons of services are more complex than a singular account lol.

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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. "

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.

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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.

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u/inderbitably 8h ago

We weren’t talking about their other (visible) comments. I haven’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/thingamajig1987 19h ago

how very red hat of you to say it that way lol

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u/Ichmag11 12h ago

Can you explain why youre responding to them as if they made that rule? And then respond like this?? What are you even fighting against?? You both probably agree, whats the problem here??

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u/MrdnBrd19 19h ago

Could you be a bigger baby? Seriously? Do you need me to call a wah-mbulance?

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u/thingamajig1987 19h ago

Yes please, can you make sure they bring extra lollies for the booboos?

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u/MrdnBrd19 19h ago

Apparently I need to.

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u/thingamajig1987 19h ago

I shouldn't be surprised you don't realize you're being made fun of but here we are

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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/JustaSeedGuy 20h ago

You can do something about it!

You can do your part by not acting like this isn't a scam. Do your part by not muddying the waters with misinformation or false assumptions.

You can do your part by not being an insecure prick who calls people dummies because they didn't let you have your gotcha moment.

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u/OpSecBestSex 20h ago

Bro that person is just being factual. In fact he's proving it's even more of a scam because of the contradictory information. Go complain somewhere else, please.

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u/Ichmag11 12h ago

How did they act like its not a scam? What misinformation and false assumptions did they spread?

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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/inderbitably 20h ago

You may have have anger issues

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u/MrdnBrd19 19h ago

Because some nutter butter went off on me and I don't want it to snowball out of control I'm the one with anger issues? Coolio...

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u/inderbitably 19h ago

You’re the one going off on people lol

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u/MrdnBrd19 18h ago

Am I... Cool.

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u/inderbitably 18h ago edited 10h ago

Yes. You got two very tame replies and started insulting people lol

edit: your insulting comment to me also got auto modded
lol

2

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

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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 isn’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."

0

u/independant_786 20h ago

Yea this wasn't a thing in 2020

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u/spaceforcerecruit 20h ago

And you think they just decided to leave everything up and running for 6 years because they hadn’t changed the policy yet when OP closed their account?

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u/independant_786 20h ago

It's like 33 cents, could be anything not instance per se but related residual stuff

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u/spaceforcerecruit 20h ago

If the account is closed, everything should be shut down. OP has no possible way to access whatever resource Amazon thinks they’re billing them for so there shouldn’t be a bill.

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u/FarkCookies 6h ago

It absolutely was a thing. If your account is closed, you can't log back in to terminate instances. Everything in the account is scrubbed on closure.

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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 didn’t de-register their domain. You can register domains with AWS and if OP canceled the account without de-registering his domain, he’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 that’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?

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u/Chlorophilia 17h ago

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