Amazon Web Services customers receive bills for up to $1.5tn after global glitch
A global glitch in Amazon Web Services caused erroneous bills of up to $1.5 trillion to be sent to customers worldwide, causing panic and stress.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers around the world were shocked to see their monthly bills skyrocket to as much as $1.5 trillion, despite normally paying only a few dollars. The glitch affected a wide range of users, from students and small charities to major businesses.
For example, the UK charity Learning Through Landscapes, which usually pays less than a pound per month, received a bill for $7.8 billion. Dan Harvey, the charity's head of marketing, said he almost had a heart attack while trying to figure out what happened.
Another user, Bharath, posted on X a screenshot of his bill showing his usage had increased by 745,728,201,771% compared to the previous month. "I saw $1.5tn on my AWS bill and my soul left my body," he wrote.
A student in Delhi who normally pays $1.28 per month was billed $10.9 billion. Meanwhile, historian Adreas Zuvich from Bolsover, who runs the website The Seventeenth Century Lady, described a "horrible half hour of extreme stress" after being billed $245 billion, nearly as much as Jeff Bezos's net worth according to Forbes. Zuvich noted that his usual bills are around $15 per month.
The glitch began on the AWS billing and cost management console at 3:38 am UK time on Friday. After an hour and a half of investigation, AWS found "an issue with unit pricing within the estimated billing computation subsystem" and shut off the bill estimation system. The company apologized for "any confusion and concern around these costs" and said full resolution would take several hours. Amazon has been approached for comment.
