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Ask HN: AWS rejects my request to close my account, is it legal?

6 points by rossmohax ↗ HN
In short here is what happened:

- Signed up to AWS and created AWS Organization.

- Created member account in AWS Organization and made a typo in root email domain. Resulting email happened to be on a valid domain I have no control of. There is no validation step when creating member accounts, it is just an API call.

- Decided to stop using AWS and close everything down.

AWS provides one way for customers to stop using AWS service offerings - by closing all AWS accounts. Account closure is done by signing in as root into every account, which for member accounts requires password reset with new password sent to email. Due to typo in a member account email I can't access it.

I've been in contact with AWS Support and basically they said, that because I can't close account, which I created myself, I can't leave and terminate services. They keep me hostage.

Best they could offer is to apply IAM controls to "suspend" everything, but technically accounts have to stay and should AWS introduce new charges for accounts, however unlikely, I'll have to pay.

Not asking for a leagl advice, obviously, wanted to ask is there anything in law you know of which can be used to end this engagement. I could just cancel credit card and be done with it, but it really rubs me the wrong way and I want a clean way out.

I am in Europe.

12 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 27.0 ms ] thread
codegeek
AWS does not validate the email during account creation ?
rossmohax
Initial account - yes. But not for member accounts in AWS Organization, these are created with just an API call, yet treated by support as if they are fully validated: not allowed to close other than by sigining as root, refusing to change root account email, etc
blamarvt
I've made this mistake, and all it took was opening a support ticket from the root (payer) account to have them update the email address for the sub-account. Did you ask them to do that?
rossmohax
Yes I did and after many days going back and forth and multiple escalations they rejected my request to change email on a member account. They explained it because email I used is using valid domain, they can't change it. Should I made a different typo I would be much likier.

Possible resolution is unlikely to be within their internal policies. Questioning legality of their decision is my only clean way out apparently.

If two parties enter contract, there always must be a way to terminate it by either party.

YaBa
Since the typo is a valid domain, get in contact with that person, explain the situation and close the account. Domain in use? talk to the owner. Domain parked? buy it. Yes, it's stupid, Amazon should solve it, but you can try different approaches.
2rsf
It's worth a try but I doubt it would work, to me it would sound like a scam "can you unlock my AWS account, I promise it belongs to me"
TechBro8615
I’ve got an AWS account associated with an email on an old business domain that I no longer have access to (it expired and someone else bought it). They still charge me $0.57 per month and I have no way of recovering the account to cancel it.
2rsf
I don't fully understand the details but what do you want from Amazon ? what if the email was correct and you are a bad guy trying to cancel it for someone else ?
rossmohax
They clearly see that member account was created with an API call from verified account I opened support request from. So in a sense member account in question belongs to my account and I keep paying for it.

It is not that I opened request to close another, completely unrelated account.

2rsf
Maybe, but that's sounds like a legal question depending on the contract terms between you.
wsh
If you don’t want to be an AWS customer at all, why don’t you send a written termination notice under the AWS Customer Agreement (https://aws.amazon.com/agreement/)?

Section 7.2(a) says, “You may terminate this Agreement for any reason by providing us notice and closing your account for all Services for which we provide an account closing mechanism.”

Since your requests for an account closing mechanism have been refused, it would seem to me that a notice alone would be enough, if it’s sent by one of the methods allowed by section 13.10(b), includes a termination date (required by section 7.1), and identifies the account to which it applies.

If you haven’t already, before you send a notice, I’d suggest taking the offer from AWS Support to suspend the services, so that when the notice is received and processed, it will be clear that the account is no longer in use. Mention this in your notice, along with the support ticket numbers, to show that you’ve tried in good faith to close the account.

I don’t know if terminating the agreement in this way would affect Amazon’s willingness to do business with you in the future.

rossmohax
Thanks for a great advice. It took me far too long to come up with the same move.

This is exactly, except I used AWS Support issue and expressed my desire to terminate AWS Customer agrement, what I did prior to posting here and got a response that request was denied, hence my questioning of leagality of their actions. In my layman view right of contract termination is an universal right , assuming there is no outstanding obligations, but couldn't find exact references to it.

I then replied clarifying that my request is not to close a problematic account, but to terminate AWS Customer Agreement I entered when signed up with initial account. What's going to happen with those accounts is out of scope of my request it is up to them what to do. I also asked for contact detail of they legal and compliance team so that I can hand my notice of termination. I didn't read AWS Customer agreement all the way to the bottom to find addresses there, my bad.

> I don’t know if terminating the agreement in this way would affect Amazon’s willingness to do business with you in the future.

It looks to me that parties enter AWS Customer Agreement when AWS account is regisered and "I agree" buttom is clicked. Therefore there can be multiple "active" customer agreements each with own lifecycle. Again, I am hardly qualified to know for sure :)

Thanks again for a great advice.