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Still locked out of my AWS account

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Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#221

Post by Cacti »

vivekd wrote: post #196
stickydink wrote: post #141

I've been locked out of my AWS account for almost 3 years now. I have 2FA enabled, tied to a phone number I no longer have access to. I receive two emails per month. One invoice, for $0.80 (I cannot remember what is running on there, but I guess it must be something). One threatening, "Your AWS Account is about to be suspended". I've been "about to be suspended" for the entire 3 years. I want to pay the bill, I can't…

I don't understand, why don't you just notarize the form and send it back to them, notaries are really cheap.

They like having something to complain about. The poster lives in/near SF and has hundreds of notaries available to them for 0 to minimal cost, time, and effort.

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#222

Post by sschueller »

throwaway76543 wrote: post #206
CaptSpify wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you haven't actually tried disputing debt. It's not a simple process, and can wreak havoc on your credit even if you are clearly not at fault.

I have disputed debt. Simple is relative, but I certainly did not have any trouble with the process. It's true that your credit can be damaged by false reports. It's also true that damages resulting from false reports are recoverable. If you don't feel like you can do it yourself, hire a lawyer and have them sue Amazon to recover their fee.

They are not recoverable. Good luck trying to get your rewards back once the credit card company cancels your card because some moron enter you social security instead of someone else's at the dept collector. Sure you can get a new account once your credit score is back but you get no simpathy from the credit card company. Even after more than 10 years with them.

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#223

Post by CaptSpify »

komali2 wrote: post #204
CaptSpify wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't paying your bills, then you shouldn't be surprised that it gets shut down.

The idea being that it wasn't Amazon that shut it down, but the fraudster.

I guess I fail to see the importance of difference. Legal reasons?

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#224

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

aianus wrote: post #134
mirekrusin wrote: post #70

Also having problem with AWS - can't access it and they keep billing me for something there I want to shut it down (EC2?) but I can't. I recently moved from Brazil to UK (new address) and changed phone + sim card (Authenticator after restore from backup lost all 2 factor auth entries). This is the moment when you realise that you're outside of predefined use cases of The Machine and you're fucked. Nobody is here to h…

This anecdote makes me very happy with AWS. I want loss of 2FA to completely revoke access to my account. Otherwise any smart hacker can social engineer Amazon support with some fake drivers license photo and steal all my BTC (for example).

Yeah, that sounds good and all, but what happens if you lose your 2FA then?

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#225

Post by renolc »

yebyen wrote: post #190
renolc wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of see chargeback as a potential resolution for this. If you lost access to your account and can't shut down billing via the normal route, you could still stop payments from your bank or credit card. That is the ultimate source of truth anyway, in regards to payments, so you could "prove" who you are by stopping all continuing payments to the service.

So say I do this, and later my account is sent to collections. Can you think of a worse possible outcome when your phone is dropped in the toilet if you have no scheme for 2FA recovery? My cloud-hosted business gets shut down, credit score tanks, because of the combination of my butter fingers and your secure authentication scheme! Might as well not employ any CSR drones at all if you're not going to handle this case…

I haven't heard of hosting companies sending anyone to a collection agency. It could happen, sure a but I think it's more likely they just cancel your account and suspend all continued hosting (which, if you believe 2fa should be impossible to circumnavigate, this is probably the ideal outcome). From there you would probably open a new account and start over.

I could see the argument either way on if this is the most optimal solution or not.

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#226

Post by acdx »

Macha wrote: post #159
analyst74 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry for what you have to deal with, and I think as an industry we have definitely not thought through on the 2FA-over-phone system. But I feel like asking for a notorized letter confirming you are actually "you" is quite reasonable. Otherwise it'll be all too easy for malicious social engineering.

What's the consequence of him being impersonated here though? Some fraudster pays his bill and gets nothing out of it?

Someone gains unauthorized access to their data stored in AWS.

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#227

Post by eridius »

CaptSpify wrote: post #180
eridius wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some fraudster shutting down an account that should actually be kept running, owned by someone who is merely very lax about paying bills.

If you aren't paying your bills, then you shouldn't be surprised that it gets shut down.

That's not particularly relevant to the question of whether a fraudster should be able to shut down your account simply by offering to pay the current bill.

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#228

Post by kavok »

michaf wrote: post #203
stickydink wrote: post #141

I've been locked out of my AWS account for almost 3 years now. I have 2FA enabled, tied to a phone number I no longer have access to. I receive two emails per month. One invoice, for $0.80 (I cannot remember what is running on there, but I guess it must be something). One threatening, "Your AWS Account is about to be suspended". I've been "about to be suspended" for the entire 3 years. I want to pay the bill, I can't…

I was locked out of my AWS account for about 2 years due to loosing my 2FA authenticator on my phone. But had no open bills and didn't really care about it, so I did not try to gain back access. Until last week, when I decided that I need to use the account again. I simply clicked the recovery link on their 2FA login form. Had to enter my account details and my phone number. Within 15 minutes (as stated on the websit…

Could the number be spoofed?

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#229

Post by ericras »

falcolas wrote: post #105
Twirrim wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all seriousness, email jeff@amazon.com. The most likely outcome is that some relevant managers will receive one of the infamous "?" emails from him. If so, that'll result in two things: 1) Your problem will be resolved ASAP, managers right up the chain will be tracking it extremely closely, as they'll have to justify every action to Jeff. Everyone goes scrambling when one of those emails goes out. 2) A post-mortem…

I think that's gone the way of the dodo. Last I remember, he didn't read those anymore, and they were automatically just shunted into the normal escalation flow. Too many people got wind of it and abused it.

I don't care if he personally reads them or not but it worked for me in January. I was locked out and phone/email support ignored me or sent me in circles. One email to jeff@amazon.com and my account was restored in a few hours.

Re: Still locked out of my AWS account

#230

Post by jimrandomh »

leereeves wrote: post #201
CaptSpify wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't paying your bills, then you shouldn't be surprised that it gets shut down.

Who downvoted you for saying one shouldn't be surprised when an account gets shut down after not paying for 3 years? On that note: why hasn't the account been shut down for nonpayment?

Presumably because that only happens when it crosses a threshold dollar amount, and $0.80/month isn't enough to get it over that threshold.

(That price is too small for there to be a running instance; it's most likely for storage belonging to an instance that was shut down, such as a 16GB EBS snapshot. It is reasonable that Amazon would be very careful about deleting that.)

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