AWS Deleted a 10-Year Account and All Data Without Warning
canopic jug writes:
Some billing changes caused AWS to delete the entirety of developer Seuros' account rather than roll back to the old billing account on record. He has written an annotated timeline and analysis of how AWS came to not just delete a 10-year old, paid up account without warning but also give him quite a run around.
On July 23, 2025, AWS deleted my 10-year-old account and every byte of data I had stored with them. No warning. No grace period. No recovery options. Just complete digital annihilation.
[...]Lessons Learned
- Never trust a single provider-no matter how many regions you replicate across
- "Best practices" mean nothing when the provider goes rogue
- Document everything-screenshots, emails, correspondence timestamps
- The support theater is real-they literally cannot help you
- Have an exit strategy executable in hours, not days
AWS won't admit their mistake. They won't acknowledge the rogue proof of concept. They won't explain why MENA operates differently. They won't even answer whether your data exists.
But they will ask you to rate their support 5 stars.
The cloud isn't your friend. It's a business. And when their business needs conflict with your data's existence, guess which one wins?
Plan accordingly.
[....]At one point during this ordeal, I hit rock bottom. I was ready to delete everything-yank all my gems from RubyGems, delete the organizations, the websites, everything I'd created. Leave a single message: "AWS killed this."
It would have made headlines. Caused chaos for thousands of projects. Trended on HN, Reddit, YouTube. But it would have hurt the wrong people-developers who depend on my work, not AWS.
As he points out, having all your activities managed by a single provider leaves one at risk for such extinction events. But maybe moving over to another, similar cloud provider is just kicking the can down the road and asking for a repeat of events under new circumstances.
Previously:
(2023) AWS to Charge Customers for Public IPv4 Addresses From 2024
(2019) Amazon Slams Media For Not Saying Nice Things About AWS
(2019) Amazon is Saying Nothing About the DDoS Attack That Took Down AWS, but Others Are
(2019) Azure Might be Woefully Inefficient and Unprofitable
(2018) The Cloud is a Six-Horse Race, and Three of Those Have Been Lapped
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