Lost your AWS account? Do not know how to continue to live? Buy an amazon gift card and discover AWS for yourself from a new side

exposition

A long time ago, it seems until 2014, I started an account on AWS for my personal needs to play around. Screwed MFA to it. Until 2022, a lot has happened: moving within the country and changing the number, changing the country and changing the number. But one thing was the same: I did not buy anything on amazon and did not go beyond the free tier.

I decided to look at the prices for a slow cooker while I was waiting for a visa. Where to do it? And it turns out that amazon is very popular in Europe for shopping. When trying to login, it tries to verify through the second factor by sending SMS to the cell. SMS did not come. Well, probably problems due to roaming, I’ll try later. Then it didn’t work either, not a week later, not a day later.

Here somewhere I suspected that something was going wrong. After trying to login to AWS, I suddenly realized that the truth is not so. AWS login doesn’t work either.

tie

We are not stupid people, we know how to communicate with support. Wrote in support of the mobile operator “how long?”. In support, they surprisingly responded with a completely official paper that the SMS did not come from amazon.

In support of amazon to get this is another adventure turned out to be:

1. Do not leave a request from the site, just call.

2. Calling from roaming to an American number – well, such a pleasure, saved by the presence of a stash of $$$ on a skype account.

3. If you call, they could not verify me, i.e. I do not remember the exact address specified in the account.

4. Well, ok, sometimes I went through the address level.

   1. Later it turned out that the problem was in the house number. The account said 23k4 and I dictated 23-4. sometimes it rolled, sometimes it didn’t.

5. But in order to disable mfa and / or you need to go through the confirmation procedure: purchase address, purchase amount, sms. I couldn’t do anything.

6. What about starting a ticket? You can start only on the quality of service. Didn’t help by the way.

7. Once I was able to get through by phone to the 2nd level of support, who communicated with the team responsible for SMS and promised to start a ticket. But something didn’t work out either.

At this stage, support only offered to delete the old account and create a new one. How this would affect my AWS account no one could say. Whether I lose access to it or not was not clear. Although the account is a personal sandbox with no load, I didn’t want to lose it.

Development

What to do?

1. Look for people you know in AWS/amazon who work. – by, surprisingly not found, only MS, google and other FAANG.

2. Write to reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/aws/comments/utwndj/5_steps_to_lose_your_aws_account/ – I read a couple of similar stories, deal with the provider. In general, nothing useful. From the interesting I learned that in 2017 amazon separated AWS.

3. I decided to write to the group in the telegram https://t.me/aws_en/120990 . At the entrance, the bot banned me, since there were familiar admins and they unbanned me there. The guys sympathized and said that usually the problems are on the side of the provider.

Did you know that amazon & aws have different support? Am I having problems logging into AWS? There is! Let’s try to contact them. Oops… You can’t do that. You can leave requests only after login. And what if I can’t, because problem with MFA? there is such a page https://support.aws.amazon.com/#/contacts/aws-mfa-support where you can describe your case and MB will help you.

It turned out to be very productive. But not the first time. At first, I was kicked for amazon support, but then someone very, very adequate with 3 (?) support levels got caught. Listened to all my proofs:

• The old number on the account and the current one are available for calls and other SMS come.

• He calls the number listed for the second factor.

• I know the number, the text of tickets from 2012-2014.

• I threw off a letter from a mobile operator.

• That there is a kindle reader on which I am logged in.

• Mail is available.

We talked for a long time and it was interesting. Took notes from communication with mfa support aws team:

• If the account was created before 2017, then verification from amazon is used and you need to deal with them. because indeed they then shared logins.

• The problem is that my account is very old. Since those times (until 2017) when Amazon & aws were one. And it was amazon that triggered two step verification.

• They have a bunch of emails, and theoretically, if you delete your amazon account, then AWS will be unblocked. But he’s not sure about that.

• He has no right to do anything. the problem is on the amazon side, suggested contacting the court team.

• He suggested trying to contact kindle support, like maybe they can unlock me and this will give progress

• My case was escalated somewhere for extra verification. Spoiler: got rejected.

climax

There was an idea how to hack the system. There’s a catch right now that they can’t confirm me because there isn’t enough information in the amazon account (not AWS). Not enough I have never bought anything through it and have not added security questions.

The life hack is that I have a kindle on which I am logged in and can buy something for confirmation. Here the truth comes out the difficulty is that the rotten card is tied and for its update it is necessary to log in. Let’s omit the moment that the card is from the Russian Federation and on the mainland it does not work. But after all, you can buy a book and try it with a gift card …. It remains to figure out how to do this when you do not have a work card.

denouement

1. Asked a colleague to buy a gift card from amazon.

2. Bought a book with kindle gift card.

3. I called support, they tortured me there, but in the end they launched some kind of process “regain accessand asked:

   1. Kindle serial number.

   2. The last 4 digits of the credit card and the date (bank support helped with the details of the expired card).

   3. Gift card balance.

After that, I got access to the account. Success!

Epilogue

The story dragged on for about 3-4 weeks. The case is rare, funny and few people can reproduce:

1. We open an account until 2017.

2. We never buy anything on amazon.

3. Specify the phone number in the amazon profile.

4. We use the phone number from tinkov.

5. Login to amazon from a new location.

6. Amazon locks account.

7. We can’t log in to aws because amazon is blocked.

How to lay straws?

1. Recreate root account.

2. Use different mail.

3. Use applications for MFA.

4. Create secret questions.

5. Make a few penny purchases.

6. Make a backup of MFA.