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I understand your concern about unexpected charges for AWS services you thought were free or part of a learning experience. Here are some steps you can take to address this issue:
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First, log into your AWS Management Console and check your billing dashboard to identify which services are incurring charges.
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Go through each AWS service and region to terminate or delete all unused resources. Pay special attention to services like EC2 instances, EBS volumes, RDS databases, and Elastic IPs.
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To ensure you've caught everything, use the AWS documentation to check for and eliminate all unnecessary charges across your account.
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For addressing the current bill and potentially getting charges waived, you should contact AWS Support directly. Open a billing support case through the AWS Support Center. This type of support is free for all AWS customers.
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When contacting support, clearly explain your situation. Mention that you were using the services for learning purposes and thought they were part of the free tier. AWS Support may consider waiving the charges, especially if you're a new or student user and the usage was unintentional.
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If you want to ensure no future billing, you can close your AWS account entirely. However, before doing so, make sure to back up any data you might need.
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For a one-shot approach to shutting down all services, you might consider using a tool like "aws-nuke", which can delete all resources in an AWS account. However, use this with extreme caution as it will delete everything.
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To ask additional questions, and receive guidance on on your options, reach out to our Account and Billing experts in your Support Center.
Remember, even if you're not actively using AWS services, some resources may continue to incur charges if they're still running or provisioned. It's crucial to fully terminate or delete resources you're not using, not just stop them.
For the future, set up billing alerts to avoid unexpected charges, and regularly check your usage, especially when exploring new services or learning.
Sources
Billing Issues for no use of AWS | AWS re:Post
unexpexted Billing | AWS re:Post
I keep getting charged | AWS re:Post
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