Something similar happened to a colleague of mine. He was in charge of his client’s website, which ran on servers from a company called Media Temple, which GoDaddy later acquired.
A few years pass, and the account holder is completely out of the picture and not answering their email, and his authorization is needed to change the credit card which is set to expire soon. My colleague tries every support mechanism to regain access to the account (and it’s my colleague’s credit card on file) but support keeps asking for the long gone account holder’s authorization.
When the card expired, GoDaddy wiped the servers and we lost the only copy of the site’s source. Sadly there were no backups anywhere.
It was an account of 28 years. The site started in 1997.
Over the summer it’s been my job to put a static site online made of the WayBack Machine’s snapshots (it’s a pain to scrape these snapshots for anyone wondering).
Lesson learned: keep local backups, everyone!
bourbonjuggler · 25m ago
If you're interested in the post from the account owner rather than this short blog post.
Root cause: the author had some wacky service-end setup with their AWS account (presumably to save a few cents per month) and the third party screwed them.
turtlebits · 13m ago
"An AWS consultant who’d been covering my bills disappeared". I wouldn't be surprised if the payer filed a chargeback and then AWS went nuclear.
helsinkiandrew · 4m ago
Just the absence of a credit card to pay overdue bills will make AWS go nuclear and the clock starts ticking.
If they don’t “know you” financially you’ll need to jump through compliance questions before your new payment method is accepted. If you don’t verify the email verification mail within the 5 days I imagine you have to jump through more hoops, which this person didn’t do in time.
pnw · 6m ago
So much for their policy then?
"The post-closure period is 90 days—during this time, an account can be reopened and data is retained."
issafram · 2m ago
Go to the actual source and you will see he posted an update and new article.
He ended up getting his account and data back.
v5v3 · 10m ago
This could have been worse if the person was tied into AWS's services.
As if all their code was geared to AWS services and they were banned, they couldn't easily deploy elsewhere without a re-write
I stick to to VMs/kubernetes and containers and VMs. No own brand services.
oneplane · 5m ago
It's not sudden, the account owner disappeared and the account user (the one making all the noise) did not get ownership transferred.
Is this a great situation? No. It's also not "I did everything right and boo hoo AWS did a boo boo". AWS is not your friend, but you also weren't the customer, that was the middleman you gave ownership to.
The post is a bit disingenuous. The source says that there was some validation request pending, so something was going on.
Doesn't make it less bad but it's not like AWS just deleted an account out of nowhere. The implications of a slow response might not have been clear to the owner and that is on AWS
gchamonlive · 17m ago
From the original post from seuros:
July 10: AWS sends verification request. 5-day deadline (including weekend).
July 14: Form expired. I contact support. Simple question: “What do you need from me?”
July 16-20: Four days of silence. Then: “We’re escalating to the appropriate team.”
July 20: New form finally arrives.
July 21: I submit ID and utility bill (clear PDF). Response time: 10 hours.
July 22: AWS: “Document unreadable.” The same PDF my bank accepts without question.
July 23: Account terminated. My birthday gift from AWS
> Doesn't make it less bad but it's not like AWS just deleted an account out of nowhere
You are right, it makes it worse.
hvb2 · 2m ago
Disagree on making it worse.
Really the only thing I can find in here that's odd is the fact that these kind of closures are NOT reversible like most of them are.
I agree that it's weird that you're communicating and trying to comply with the ask and they still close it. But if this would be reversible like other account closures then it's just following policy.
belter · 18m ago
Most of the fault starts with AWS support, but Seuros did almost nothing correct unlike what the blog says. Frankly it's surprising to see yet another blog insisting on NOT learning lessons while being called "lessons learned". How hard do you have to try?
Get some training. It's in the first few slides... Read the docs. Look at the Well-Architected Framework...
AWS deleted my 10-year account and all data without warning - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44770250 - Aug 2025 (152 comments)
- https://www.seuros.com/blog/aws-deleted-my-10-year-account-w...
No comments yet
https://www.seuros.com/blog/aws-deleted-my-10-year-account-w...
Root cause: the author had some wacky service-end setup with their AWS account (presumably to save a few cents per month) and the third party screwed them.
If they don’t “know you” financially you’ll need to jump through compliance questions before your new payment method is accepted. If you don’t verify the email verification mail within the 5 days I imagine you have to jump through more hoops, which this person didn’t do in time.
"The post-closure period is 90 days—during this time, an account can be reopened and data is retained."
He ended up getting his account and data back.
As if all their code was geared to AWS services and they were banned, they couldn't easily deploy elsewhere without a re-write
I stick to to VMs/kubernetes and containers and VMs. No own brand services.
Is this a great situation? No. It's also not "I did everything right and boo hoo AWS did a boo boo". AWS is not your friend, but you also weren't the customer, that was the middleman you gave ownership to.
No you didn't! No you really didn't!
AWS doesn't care about you, dude. It doesn't matter who you are.
[1]: https://www.seuros.com/blog/aws-deleted-my-10-year-account-w...
Doesn't make it less bad but it's not like AWS just deleted an account out of nowhere. The implications of a slow response might not have been clear to the owner and that is on AWS
July 10: AWS sends verification request. 5-day deadline (including weekend).
July 14: Form expired. I contact support. Simple question: “What do you need from me?”
July 16-20: Four days of silence. Then: “We’re escalating to the appropriate team.”
July 20: New form finally arrives.
July 21: I submit ID and utility bill (clear PDF). Response time: 10 hours.
July 22: AWS: “Document unreadable.” The same PDF my bank accepts without question.
July 23: Account terminated. My birthday gift from AWS
> Doesn't make it less bad but it's not like AWS just deleted an account out of nowhere
You are right, it makes it worse.
Really the only thing I can find in here that's odd is the fact that these kind of closures are NOT reversible like most of them are.
I agree that it's weird that you're communicating and trying to comply with the ask and they still close it. But if this would be reversible like other account closures then it's just following policy.
Get some training. It's in the first few slides... Read the docs. Look at the Well-Architected Framework...
See this comment for what he should have done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44828910
No comments yet
"The post-closure period is 90 days—during this time, an account can be reopened and data is retained."