Aye, What’s Happening with AWS Invoices?
Your AWS billing estimate may seem a tad exaggerated at the moment. If you awoke to an email from Amazon Web Services informing you that you’d surpassed your billing threshold by several hundred million bucks, don’t freak out: Something’s gone awry in the AWS Billing Console, the company revealed.
A Witty Blunder in Cost Explorer
An ongoing issue on the AWS Health Dashboard arose at 1:33 am Pacific on Friday, alerting users that Cost Explorer was “showing erroneous estimated billing data.” As of this writing, the problem remains unresolved even though AWS is diligently attempting to address it.
The Source of the Mayhem
The company seemingly figured out the root issue within an hour and a half of commencing its investigation, only describing it as “a problem with unit pricing within the estimated billing calculation subsystem.” AWS subsequently paused updates to estimated bills, stating that customers would continue to view the inflated figures already shown, but those estimates wouldn’t escalate further.
No Need to Press the Panic Button
“The displayed billing estimates do not denote actual usage and charges,” AWS clarified, pointing out that customers don’t need to take any steps, like, we surmise, inundating the support portal with tickets informing them of what they already know, for instance.
Working on a Fix
“Once the matter has been addressed, we anticipate that full resolution will require several hours as we process the recomputation of the estimated billing data,” AWS noted. After we initially published this article, Amazon updated the issue page to confirm that it had identified the root cause and alleviated the underlying problem.
Hold onto Your Hats, Mate!
The company announced that it has started backfilling data in the Cost Management Console to rectify billing figures, and all customers should expect to see corrected amounts by Saturday, July 18 at noon Pacific.
We Owe HOW Much? Seriously?
Users flocked to Reddit and Hacker News this morning to report they’d received overage notifications for exorbitant sums. If anything, it was an understatement. Screenshots revealed one user whose AWS charges totaled merely $0.19 last month receiving an estimated bill of nearly $2.5 billion. Others in the discussion claimed to have received estimated monthly charges ranging from $126,000 to as much as $2.5 trillion.
Blame the Erroneous Estimates
Amazon stated that the amounts displayed in customers’ accounts were inaccurate estimates and not actual charges. As for when users might see their billing portal reflect a true figure, that could take some time. AWS opted not to elaborate on the issue aside from directing us to the dashboard page linked above.
Stay Alert
We’ll be monitoring this unfolding story and will provide updates as we gather more information.
Summary
When Your AWS Bill Feels Like Hitting the Jackpot (In Reverse): Cheers to all the gents and gals who experienced the shock of their lives with fictitious bills exceeding the value of a football team! Here’s hoping AWS sorts this out before we all require smelling salts.
