Many users of Amazon’s cloud services received alarming billing estimates on Friday, indicating they owed enormous sums for services they hadn’t accessed.
On Friday, Amazon acknowledged that it is addressing a glitch in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) billing system that incorrectly indicated some customers had outstanding bills amounting to millions or even billions of dollars.
An update on the company’s status page revealed that Amazon started encountering these incorrect billing figures late Thursday. However, by Friday morning, the company admitted that reverting a recent change did not fix the problem. This change is linked to its billing calculation subsystem.
Fortunately for those who received these inflated bills, it appears they will not be charged. Amazon stated that the erroneous estimates “do not reflect actual usage and charges.”
Screenshots shared by customers on Reddit illustrate the issue, with one user reporting a staggering estimate close to $2.5 billion for AWS usage this month, while others received notices ranging from several million to various hundreds of millions of dollars.
When contacted for further information, Amazon spokesperson Aisha Johnson directed inquiries to the company’s status page but did not provide additional comments or address specific questions about the glitch. The company also did not clarify if any AWS accounts had experienced suspensions or pauses due to the problem.
Amazon’s status page suggests that the issue may persist for several more hours.
Updated with Amazon’s response.
