You most likely stopped the DB, but the problem there is that AWS will automatically turn on the DB after 7 days. You also still get charged for storage for the time your DB is off.
Sorry to hear that though. I know it’s a really sucky situation to be in.
It is a feature! /s
You get billed monthly, so really, letting it go for a few months is on you.
> The one thing that really pissed me off was how easy it was to set up vs how hard it was to take it back down > You have to install the SDK and perform some (seemingly complex) commands.
Hu, no it's not. Really it's litterally one click to shutdown an RDS instance, and always has been.
> But they wanted this huge list of things from me in order to refund it, like a super in-depth explanation of how it happened.
I mean that makes sense to me. They did reserve and partially used these resources for you, so it's only fair that you have to go through the trouble of explaining why they would let it go. If there's no downside everyone would just reserve a bunch of resources all the time.
From your comment, it seems you didn't even bothered to answer their questions to get a refund, I would totally not hesitate to charge you if I was in AWS place.
right? what a moron, that bill could have been a surprise of only $500!
/s
Brush it off. I've worked with AWS pros who get lost in the billing. In my last job, we had a big "hackathon" where the objective was to reduce our AWS spend. Overall, we reduced our annual bill by a couple million dollars.
Pretty stupid to just assume that I "didn't even bother" to answer their questions. I'm not going to write a novel explaining every minutia of my interactions with AWS.
> letting it go is on you
I never said it wasn't. If you pay attention, you'll see that the context of this comment is discussing the "it's on you" culture surrounding AWS and how hostile it is to newcomers.
I thought I had shut it down because I clicked some button that looked like it was the turn-off button. I let it go on for a few months, only to discover that I had been charged $1,500.
The one thing that really pissed me off was how easy it was to set up vs how hard it was to take it back down. I can't remember the details, but basically you cannot simply turn off an RDS instance only in the UI (even though you can turn it on in the UI). You have to install the SDK and perform some (seemingly complex) commands.
I tried explaining that I was a beginner, and that I made this mistake by accident, and that they could easily see that I had not actually used this instance at all or even put any data into the DB. But they wanted this huge list of things from me in order to refund it, like a super in-depth explanation of how it happened. Really shitty experience overall. So I canceled my AWS account and likely won't go back until I have a job that pays me to learn and use it.