EXPATCHOICE · COMMUNITY ACTION · 13 NOVEMBER 2026
A small business deserves
a fair hearing.
Ask Amazon Web Services to provide transparent reviews of disputed historical cloud costs, practical safeguards and an affordable route to resolution.
Started by John Gordon, Director and co-founder, Expat Choice Asia 2016.
What we are asking AWS to do
- Offer a transparent historical billing review. Examine disputed charges and resource configurations on their evidence, including explanations of unused resources, provisioning, reservation choices and the advice available at the time. Explain where charges were correct and where an error or other basis for redress is established.
- Make early warnings useful. Provide clear, actionable notices about idle resources, unexpected spending and potential savings, with understandable explanations of customer and provider responsibilities.
- Provide practical cost controls. Make opt-in budgets, alerts and supported spending safeguards clear, including their limitations and any risk of interrupting an essential service.
- Make disputes affordable to pursue. Give small organisations an accessible escalation route, a named point of contact, clear response times and a reasoned written outcome. We ask AWS to offer an independent review route where a dispute remains unresolved.
- Provide appropriate redress. Where a review establishes a billing error or another proper basis for reimbursement, explain and deliver the remedy.
Why I am starting this
ExpatChoice began in 2016 as a publishing community. When our operating costs became difficult to sustain, I used personal borrowing to help keep it going. I experienced the subsequent hosting difficulties and prolonged dispute as deeply damaging to our continuity, relationships and my own wellbeing.
Our claim papers, dated August 2025, describe disputed AWS costs for June 2017 to January 2024 and state an estimated reimbursement claim of A$30,099.90, separate from additional interest and compensation sought. This is our claim, not an amount awarded or admitted by AWS.
The estimate applies a 58.67% reduction, reported in a later optimisation exercise, across earlier recorded payments. That method requires historical, resource-level checking; a later saving does not by itself prove that earlier charges were incorrect. Eight transaction amounts are blank in the supplied tracker. We are seeking a fair examination of the evidence rather than asking supporters to accept an untested calculation as a finding.
I believe small organisations should be able to ask difficult questions about costs without the expense of pursuing a dispute becoming an insurmountable barrier. This petition invites others to support that principle and, if they wish, tell us privately whether they have a documented experience worth examining.
A clear record matters
AWS had cost tools during the period concerned: Cost Explorer launched in 2014; the AWS Pricing Calculator followed in 2018, replacing an earlier calculator introduced in 2007. Their existence does not resolve our dispute, but this campaign does not claim that no cost tools existed or that any calculator guarantees protection against unexpected charges.
We have not established that AWS admitted liability, that a court upheld our claim, or that a class action is available. Recommendations to optimise resources are not, by themselves, an admission of overcharging. Supporters do not need to have a claim against AWS to support these requests.
Sources and campaign record
ExpatChoice claim letters, executive summaries, submission packs and two invoice-tracker versions supplied by John Gordon were reviewed on 13 November 2026. They contain claimant summaries and correspondence extracts; the original correspondence and a final adjudication were not included in that review. Private account, payment and contact details are not published here.
Corrections and an attributable response from AWS can be submitted through ExpatChoice’s Contact Us page. No response has been solicited through this form. Material updates will be dated here.
Add your support
This is a petition for fair review and better safeguards. It is not a court filing, legal representation, a finding of wrongdoing or a promise of repayment.
Your privacy: ExpatChoice will store your name, email and any optional details for petition administration. Your signature details will not appear publicly. Only aggregate support figures will be used in public updates or a petition presented to AWS. We will ask separately before sharing an identifiable experience. Signing does not subscribe you to the newsletter. To request access, correction or withdrawal, use Contact Us and quote “Fair Cloud Billing”. Do not submit passwords, account numbers, payment details, legal documents or confidential correspondence.
