SHUT DOWN AWS ACCOUNT - Cannot figure out what I am being charged for - Please help?

Question

I've been learning AWS for about 6 months now, have learned to disable Cloudwatch metrics when I create Lambdas so I no longer get charged for those, but I started getting charged again starting Jan. 20 2022, $.03, then $.05 per day since for something according to Cost Explorer which adds up to $.43, but I currently show a bill for $.44.  I'm having trouble tracking down what exactly is causing the charge.  AWS Service Charges is where I see where I exceeded the 10 free alarms per month by 4.430 alarms and a charge of $.44.  When I click over to Cloudwatch, I see 16 alarms triggered on 12/20/2021-12/22/2021, but none after that...so I not connecting what I am being charged for...confused.  Those alarms were for DynamoDB read/write capacity maybe autoscaling I think?  There is a policy, that AWS will not let me disable, on my tables to allow Cloudwatch alarms, which is only getting triggered on 2 of my 5 tables, something that reads "ConsumedReadCapacityUnits < 150 for 15 datapoints within 15 minutes."  Not sure if this is the charge.  Can someone help me figure this out before I have to shutdown my AWS account for runaway spending?  Thanks.

Leeroy Hannigan · Accepted Answer

Hi,

To handle an issue regarding billing, we suggest that you reach out to our [Customer Service](https://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/) team who will happily assist you with your billing issue.

jfharper · Answer

Thank you, that was helpful. CS chatted with me, my problem was when I create a new DynamoDB Table, a new alarm gets automatically created....as time goes on, if the alarm exceeds the 10 free per month it will start showing a charge in Cost Explorer, thus the costs starting Jan 20, even though the 2 new tables where made in December. I need to remember to delete the alarm once I create a new table or it will keep firing past the 10 per month...or something like that. I still don't understand it entirely yet...maybe time will help with that.

Does anyone know why I had 14 alarms going even though I only made 2 tables? I'm not getting how/where the alarms are created with making a new table.

Does anyone know why I had 14 alarms going even though I only made 2 tables?  I'm not getting how/where the alarms are created with making a new table.

RootBeard · Answer

I'm having the same issue - started being charged last month for alarms going above the 10 limit for 4 empty DynamoDB tables created back in 2012 (so 12 years ago). I don't even remember what those tables are for, I'm guessing some tutorial I followed at some point. Haven't logged in into AWS in 3 years so I wonder what caused these alarms to start increasing all of a sudden.

rePost-User-1923488 · Answer

I haven't used my AWS account for the past 2 months, but I have been charged. I don't know for what I have been charged and couldn't able to figure out. I need to shutdown my AWS account

Ranjeet Kumar · Answer

Subject: Request for first-time billing refund (Free Tier accidental usage)

Hello AWS Support Team,

I  created a Free Tier account. While experimenting with Elastic IP,  EC2, and LAMP, I accidentally incurred charges of approximately ₹1330.46 plus (for an unused Elastic IP) because I wasn’t aware that these are not covered by the Free Tier and that unattached Elastic IPs are billable.

I have now taken the following corrective actions to stop all ongoing charges:

Terminated all EC2 instances.

Released the Elastic IP.

Deleted the resources and confirmed there are no active DB instances or snapshots in any region.

Verified there are no remaining running services.

I kindly request a one-time courtesy refund or credit for the ₹1330.6 that were billed.

Thank you for your understanding and help.

Best regards, Ranjeet kumar AWS Account ID: 962541627193

SHUT DOWN AWS ACCOUNT - Cannot figure out what I am being charged for - Please help?

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