AWS Billing Glitch Shows Some Customers Billion-Dollar Charges
A glitch in Amazon Web Services' billing system caused some customers to see wildly inflated invoices, including one user who was shown a $7.1 trillion bill. The company says it expects to fix the issue by the weekend.
A malfunction in Amazon Web Services' (AWS) billing system led a number of customers to believe they owed the company enormous sums of money. Bill Radjewski, founder of CollegeFootballData.com, was among those affected. He received an email alert stating he had incurred over $1.5 billion in usage fees, with his August 1 bill projected to exceed $3 billion. Radjewski noted that in his six-plus years of account history, his monthly spend had never surpassed $0.02, and he shared screenshots of previous invoices showing only $0.01.
Other users on social media platform X reported similar shockingly high quotes, ranging from $22 billion to $110 billion. One user pleaded for an explanation after seeing a $5 million charge, expressing distress. The AWS Support account directed them to the AWS Service Health Dashboard.
According to the dashboard, the issue is global. It stated that the billing console began displaying incorrect estimated billing data at 10:38 PM ET on July 16. Approximately six hours later, AWS launched an investigation and concluded that the root cause was a problem with unit pricing within the estimated billing computation subsystem, without further specifics.
In subsequent updates, AWS said it was rolling back a recent change to the billing subsystem and attempting to revert to the last known accurate estimated bill computation. The company also paused estimated billing calculations. It expects the issue to be resolved by this weekend, and stated that no customer action is required.
Some customers shared their astonishing numbers online. A Reddit user posted a screenshot of their cost overview showing $7.1 trillion in service fees since July 1—more than double Amazon's market capitalization at the time.
