I have only asked for one refund, which was clearly the result of a bug on Amazon's part, and they haggled the whole way. They were quick to a 50% refund and slow to a 100% refund.

I've never had a refund denied. One was for 20k on an account that only billed that much monthly. If it's an honest mistake they'll wipe it if you have any history with them.

I've had $30k, and later $120k refunded on an account that billed ~$20-25k monthly. Both covered 100% of the overage.

AWS is the one major tech company where I've never had any issue getting in touch with a real human who has been empowered to actually fix my issues.

The only thing that's been required from us was to show them we were taking reasonable steps to prevent it happening again.

It's great that they forgave you. I know a startup that incurred a $30k bill that they didn't forgive. The startup folded.

AWS's unknowable policy for the cost of errors represents a huge risk for individuals and small businesses. It puts a lot of people off.

I'm sorry, what?

> AWS's unknowable policy for the cost of errors represents a huge risk for individuals and small businesses.

Assume you're paying for your own mistakes, and be thankful when you don't have to? That's a pretty easy policy.