Okay that sucks and I understand where the author is coming from. There are definitely some rough edges in the AWS interface. I do believe as a large corporatio

Okay that sucks and I understand where the author is coming from. There are definitely some rough edges in the AWS interface. I do believe as a large corporation Amazon does have some responsibility to waive some of the charge. In this case the intent was not to store things in S3 and just leave it there (especially if there was no access). Amazon has traditionally been good about waiving charges for account compromises and things along that nature. However you do have to keep up on it since they bill you every month. If you're running a company part of the responsibility is at least checking in on your financials every so often. Right when you see a charge for $700+ when you expect $50 is a red flag. At that point if he had contacted Amazon I'd be surprised they didn't waive the charge. I'd be curious if Amazon was willing to waive any part of the charges at all.