So this happened: I started using AWS as a newbie. I had not much knowledge of its billing pattern. I started all the servers that I needed, about a month ago and logged off, forgetting to terminate the servers while leaving. And now, I stand with an unpaid invoice of about 13k INR for servers I never used. I know this was very foolish of me. I should have been aware that servers are charged based on their uptime and not upon the usage. Has anything like this happened with anyone before? Just so that I don't feel alone in this loss. 😅 I know I will have to pay the bill anyway. I don't want to invite a legal notice of any sorts from Amazon. Can I simply terminate the servers now, and choose to pay sometime in the future?

Explain the situation to them.

reach out to support and explain. Support can be quite sympathetic and offer to waive off charges. Your pending charges will continue to remain pending till you clear them or till support waives it off

@sticky-sandwich-47614 I agree with Sharang. Contact their support and tell them what happened. Mostly, they will waive of the bill. I have known of instances in which people have left their AWS keys in public github repos leading to them getting unfairly used and AWS waiving off the charges.

if you haven't terminated the services yet- what are you waiting for? these factors influence whether or not you get a waiver (ie, should have terminated immediately after realization)

Worse case, you pay the bill 🤷 No harm in asking

Yes you should definitely call support for let them know. PS - If they don’t have much of your personal info like payment information (Credit Card or anything), you can just close the account also. I made similar kind of mistake 3-4 years ago. A friend of mine suggested just close the account and nothing will happen. It was 3-4k INR and AWS never contacted. Things might have changed in last 3 years also.