I accumulated about $4,500 in AWS charges over four months. My credit card was on file, but it apparently wasn't charged because of a billing error, and I didn't realize the balance was growing.
Most of the cost came from EBS storage volumes associated with EC2. My instances repeatedly failed after rebooting, possibly because I was using an older Linux image and the volumes were not being detected correctly. I created several replacement instances and volumes while trying to get the workload running. Although AWS acknowledged part of the situation and removed some EC2-related charges, they declined to waive roughly $2,500 in older volume charges—the largest portion of the bill.
I'm willing to pay around $420, or possibly up to $1,000, but I can't afford the full amount. What is the best way to appeal this further, and how can I prevent the balance from being sent to collections?
2 Answers
Frame the appeal around a specific technical incident rather than arguing that the service was defective. Include the dates, instance IDs, volume IDs, when the resources were deleted, and the steps you took to troubleshoot. Ask whether they can offer a partial courtesy credit or a structured payment arrangement. Don’t ignore the invoices—contact billing promptly so you can negotiate before the account is escalated for collection.
EBS volumes continue incurring charges even after their EC2 instances are deleted, unless the volumes themselves are deleted. From AWS’s perspective, those are valid storage charges, so an instance failure or an old image usually doesn’t cancel the bill. You can keep escalating through billing support and request a one-time goodwill adjustment, but there’s no guarantee they’ll waive the older charges. Be honest about what happened, provide the timeline, and propose a payment plan if they won’t reduce the balance.
The fact that the card wasn’t charged doesn’t normally erase the account balance either. Check the billing console for unattached volumes, snapshots, and any other resources still running, then ask support to confirm exactly which resources generated the $2,500.
For future testing, set up billing alerts, budgets, and notifications, and use policies or automation to delete unattached volumes. It’s also worth checking whether a volume should be deleted with its instance, since that setting is configurable.