AWS customers worldwide are grappling with eye-watering bills, with some invoices reaching as high as $1.5 trillion (approximately £1.2 trillion) due to a global computing glitch within Amazon's cloud services provider. The unprecedented figures have caused widespread concern among users, from small charities and students to large corporations.
Among those affected in the UK is Dan Harvey, head of marketing at Hampshire-based charity Learning Through Landscapes. His organisation's school grounds audit app was incorrectly billed £5.8 billion, a stark contrast to their usual monthly charge of less than £1 (or 43 cents). Mr. Harvey described a frantic search with his tech support team to understand the erroneous charge.
Adreas Zuvich, a historian based in Bolsover, Derbyshire, experienced a 'horrible half hour of extreme stress' after her website, The Seventeenth Century Lady, was billed $245 billion. Her typical monthly bill is around $15, highlighting the potential health implications for many customers.
The issue began on Friday at 3:38 AM UK time, with users reporting bizarrely inflated figures on their AWS billing and cost management consoles. Social media platforms filled with shocked and bemused posts from customers worldwide, including one user who shared a screenshot showing usage had reportedly increased by over 745 billion percent compared to the previous month.
AWS has since apologised for 'any confusion and concern' caused, attributing the problem to an issue with unit pricing within its estimated billing computation subsystem. The company disabled its bill estimation system after approximately 90 minutes of investigation and expects full resolution to take multiple hours as it works to recompute affected billing data.