Small yes. Large bill wasn't so easy. Once I had an excess $40 added to my bill after a network attack. I was able to down to $10 after a few emails back and forth. Another time I had something low like $10 and they credit me right away without problem. Depends on how large your bill...

You live in a very different world from me if a "large bill" is an extra $40. For even a small company like who I work for, any fluctuations in our AWS bill under $100 would probably go unnoticed. Our total infrastructure cost (of which AWS is a small part) is in 5 digits.

Surely your dev team laptops total 5 digits already.

Personal website of course it would be a big sum...

According to her, she would routinely have one-time massive fee's credited ($1000+).

I'd assume since it's a spike in costs, Amazon has more interest in keeping you as a customer, at your much lower typical usage, than to have you abandon, even if you have a huge bill.

Obviously if this was a typical problem, you would need to rethink your architecture and infrastructure needs.

That is so wrong it's not funny. Call? Isn't our use of computers predicated on the notion that we don't want to do manual labor?

Moving your mouth muscles isn't significantly more manual then moving the finger muscles you used to type this comment.

In either case, expending a few neural cycles prior to the action would be beneficial.

Personally, I find it hilarious that a simple verbal interaction with another human being is now categorized as "manual labor".

Please, point out to me the system that adequately resolves unusual billing situations without human intervention on both sides. I'd like to know what has set your bar so high that it prompted this level of entitled commentary.

Sat next to a businessperson on a flight to Vegas, and he was opining that "schmoozing" is becoming a lost art.

I'm all for being able to initiate billing inquiries online--in fact, I'm ditching Bank of America because I can't dispute charges on line.

But in Amazon's case, this isn't a dispute, rather this is asking them to forgive a (hopefully) one time transgression, which is much easier to do by speaking to someone, than filling out a form.

I find it similar to haggling for a temporary reprieve in my fantastically high cable bill.

My main gig revolves around bill auditing. You'd be amazed at the number of Fortune 500's that are supposedly driven by technology that have very manual processes around billing.

I used to do a billing system that processed about $15 million a year. To my horror, I realized when I joined that all chargeback processing involved someone in accounting going through the huge envelopes of chargeback claims + photocopied statements that they received in order to determine what to challenge. The online payment processor they used at the time didn't have any option for presenting the documentation online....

I work at one. I know, sadly.

I think thought that it's a failure of technologists to properly address the challenges of billing.

Well, you can do a ticket, too.