Unfortunately we weren't left with much option. Amazon do pricing per product so there was no way of segmenting users and only charging those that were "active". So it was either all TKLBAM subscribers or none.

We did briefly look at trying to weed out all the inactive users and cancel their DevPay subscriptions. But there were very few users who had no backups at all. And just because a user hadn't backed up for a long time, we couldn't safely assume they were abandoned backups (perhaps they were being kept for historical/archival reasons?)

Besides the difficulties noted above, we discovered that there was no way for us to cancel individual accounts anyway. We could cancel their Hub account, but not the AWS DevPay subscription (Amazon only accept cancellation direct from the user).

We didn't like having to do what we did any more than you liked getting an unexpected bill. Please see my above posts detailing the background and the options we were left with. As I explained we didn't really have any good options. Whilst I understand that you would not have been expecting this charge, and I agree that it is unfair, in our opinion the other option was worse. I'm sure that you would agree if you had been one of our many current customers that may have risked losing mission critical data.

Regarding your old account. You may not recall, but you would have had to agree to the terms and conditions when you originally signed up. As we were charging a premium on storage right from the start (even if you have never been charged previously), if you had not agreed then you wouldn't have been able to create the account initially. IIRC we used Amazon's standard agreement, something like "application terms and conditions". That details that pricing may be changed at any time so long as at 14 days notice is given. Between Amazon and ourselves, 3 emails were sent out. Regardless, I can't stress enough that we still didn't like doing it, but saw no other option to ensure that we protected our users' data from the impending DevPay shutdown...

I totally understand that you would like a full refund. There is no need to dispute this with your credit card company. We have a general policy of making full refunds if anyone is not happy with any of our products or services (not just in unsavoury circumstance such as this).

I did post some details of how to ensure everything is cancelled above. But for completeness, I'll detail it start to finish here:

To cancel your TurnKey "application" billing, please go to your DevPay "applications" page. For any/all TurnKey entries that show there, please click the "view/cancel" text link directly below the entry. Cancellation will trigger an automatic pro-rata refund.

To claim the remaining balance (probably a dollar or 2) please open a support ticket with AWS customer service via your AWS console. We have already blanket pre-approved all DevPay refunds for October so AWS should process it very quickly.

If you have further concerns or would like to discuss anything with me directly, please do not hesitate to contact me via support AT turnkeylinux.org or directly via jeremy AT turnkeylinux.org

From my post above:

To claim the remaining balance (probably a dollar or 2) please open a support ticket with AWS customer service via your AWS console. We have already blanket pre-approved all DevPay refunds for October so AWS should process it very quickly.

Obviously it's more than a dollar or 2 now, but the theory remains the same. The link should take you straight to the "open new support ticket" page in your AWS console. Make sure that you are logged in with the correct AWS account (if you have multiple accounts).

If you were told you need to contact us by AWS customer support, please reopen the support ticket and point them to this post and/or ask them to contact me (jeremy AT turnkeylinux.org).

We totally agree with you Jorge, but as I mentioned (above and elsewhere) we weren't left with any good options.

I'm sure it was a rude shock to you and it's unfortunate that you missed the 3 emails that were sent out to warn you of the coming charges. But imagine if we'd used an opt-in system!? What if users with mission critical production servers and data were to lose it because they missed the emails and didn't migrate before DevPay shut down?

I know what happened is far from ideal, but under DevPay's "application" model, it was the best bad option we had.

We are 110% happy to provide refunds, no problems. And we deeply apologise for the inconvenience. If you are having any issues getting a full refund, please do not hesitate to contact me. The best way is via our support email (support AT turnkeylinux.org).

I think many people don't consider just how much effort it involves to produce, maintain and develop TurnKey. Thanks for your recognition and understanding Silvo. You're a champ! :)