Image you created an S3 bucket on Amazon Web Services a few years ago and stuck a couple files in it.  Months roll by and you’re accustomed to getting a bill for a few cents each time.

Then one day you wake up and your bill is $2.5 billion dollars.

That’s the latest cockup at AWS.  The Internet is abuzz today with subscribers howling how they needed a change of underwear after getting an insane billing notice from the orange giant.

$2.5 billion…$9 billion…on Reddit the worst I saw was $58 billion.

According to Amazon:

We have identified the root cause as an issue with unit pricing within the estimated billing computation subsystem and we are working on a mitigation. The displayed billing estimates do not reflect actual usage and charges. There are no customer actions required at this time.

I don’t have anything running at Amazon at present, but when I did, I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a $58 billion charge limit on any linked credit card.  One wag on Reddit quoted a famous quip by J. Paul Getty (which also appears in Civilization VI):

If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem.  If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an incorrect bill from a LowEnd provider.  There are a couple who are famous for not canceling unless you took positive action.  BuyVM was this way (maybe still is).  You’re expected to actually cancel service by clicking cancellation in their panel.  However, to my knowledge, they don’t come after you if the service isn’t canceled.  They terminate it and then you may owe them a month if you come back.

OTOH NetCup is famous for pursuing people to the ends of the Earth if you don’t cancel properly.  This seems to be a trait shared by other German hosting providers.

No LowEnd provider has ever sent me a bill for $58 billion dollars.  Maybe Amazon should try WHMCS? 😉

raindog308

raindog308 is a longtime community LETizen, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, raindog308 runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, raindog308 has a life-long love of German Shepherd Dogs, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, playing guitar, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.