Azure Budget Alerts Go Berserk After Microsoft Account Migration Misfire

Some Microsoft Azure customers have had a worrying few days after a problematic account migration caused forecast costs for the cloud service to skyrocket, triggering budget alerts.

An alarmed Register reader got in touch after receiving warnings from Azure's automated systems that they had significantly exceeded their budgets, and a glance at Microsoft's support forums indicates their issue was not isolated.

The problem was that costs had suddenly ramped up. One user, with a budget threshold of £63 ($85), received an automated alert indicating that their spend was forecast to reach £758.71 ($1,027). Another said: "We're actively seeing the same issue, costs have blown up by a crazy amount. No official notice or announcement from Microsoft either, it's appalling."

Suggestions from Microsoft that users should contact the support team did little to assuage concerns. A user (their caps) said: "AND I CANNOT CONTACT THE SUPPORT ANYHOW... Just automated 'do this, do that'."

According to messages seen by The Register, troubles appear to have stemmed from accounts being migrated from the Microsoft Online Subscription Program (MOSP) to the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA). The transition triggered incorrect cost calculations and, in some cases, resulted in retroactive charges affecting multiple customers.

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Microsoft's engineering team swung into action amid the cries of alarm, and a spokesperson told us: "We have addressed the underlying issue and impacted customers should now see the correct values in their portal."

The Register understands that invoices and billing shouldn't have been affected. However, that is likely of little comfort to administrators sent into a panic by an official alert from Microsoft warning that cloud forecasts were much higher than usual. We'd recommend keeping an eye on the portal and submitting a support request if the figures have gone awry.

One user reported that their comments in the support forum were being deleted. While Microsoft has a lengthy Code of Conduct, it wasn't clear precisely what was causing comments to vanish. The user suggested that perhaps it was related to the words "customer" and "care."

We asked Microsoft if this was possible, and whether an automated moderation system was responsible, but the megacorp has not responded. ®