Ask HN: AWS refuses to stop billing me for a compromised account

Around about a year ago, I had my AWS account get fully taken over by a successful social-engineering attack. Prior to a full-take over, the screw-ups by their customer-support were bad enough that in response to a viral blog post ( https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-service-backdoor-be375b3428c4 ) they upgraded me to "executive support" for free.

Regardless, it was all for nothing when they gave my account to someone else. Besides compromising sensitive information, the attacker was able to change the account information and email address to the point I am unable to authenticate.

At this point, I do not care about recovering my account, as I have fully switched to Google cloud and have been extremely impressed by Google's Advanced Protection Program. However, my credit card keeps getting billed by Amazon. When ever I phone Amazon, I can't get through to a reasonable human being as despite having the credit-card in my hands, I can not authenticate against the account with changed details. Nor will Amazon simply remove the credit card number that I can provide them.

I've even requested a new credit card from the bank, however the bank continues to forward AWS charges to me. So I have been going through a kafkaesque ritual of disputing the Amazon charge with my bank only to win and have Amazon bill me for the next month.

However the last dispute I've made, the bank (of America) has now ruled in Amazon's favor and rebilled my account. My bank has replied: "We've thoroughly reviewed the details of your dispute(s), and based on the information we received, we're unable to pursue your dispute(s) future."

At this point, I'm stonewalled between my Bank siding with Amazon, and Amazon not speaking to me. I feel like I'm out of options. What are my options now?

If any human at Amazon sees this, my account number is: 326156978341 and dispute case number is: 92919033. Please for the love of God, stop billing me.

I'm trying to think of how to avoid something like this ever happening to me, and I think the lesson I can learn from this is to use a debit card instead of a credit card? That way, the account can go to 0. That debit card would only be for services with automated billing like this, and would have limited funds.

I mean, I imagine the main problem here is that you can't close your credit card because the bank now says you owe them that money, right? If it were a debit card, that would never be a problem.

EDIT:

> I've even requested a new credit card from the bank, however the bank continues to forward AWS charges to me.

They forwarded from one card to another? AWS charged a closed card and the bank forwarded it? Sounds like you need to close the client account (your whole client relationship with the bank), not the card.

EDIT 3: Or do you mean that you requested a new card without closing the old one? If they're both open, it's not that charges are being forwarded, but rather that the old card is still valid and both are linked to the same credit account. Maybe you can ask them to close it?

EDIT 2:

> Nor will Amazon simply remove the credit card number that I can provide them.

By the way, if you can't authenticate with Amazon as the rightful owner of that account, it sounds unreasonable for them to comply to a stranger asking them to simply remove a credit card number of some account.

Did you report the card stolen? I have never heard of charge forwarding. The number should not work. You need a new bank.

I didn't report it as stolen. But they did forward the charges. But yeah, I've just finished closing my credit card completely. It's unreasonable that I've been disputing the same charge from AWS for almost a year, and now they have decided to side with Amazon.

It's a new thing. The aim is so companies like Netflix don't lose subscribers when the subscriber loses their card and requests a new one.

The implementation is very shoddy - a mapping of old to new cards is distributed to any big provider who has charged the old card.