AWS outage hits payments: Failed transactions, double charges, disputes to rise

Dubai: When Amazon Web Services (AWS) went down, thousands of users around the world — including in the UAE — struggled to stream, shop, or even log into apps.

But beyond the visible internet slowdown, the outage quietly caused one of the most disruptive ripple effects in the background: broken payment flows.

Hidden cost of downtime

“AWS is the backbone of global digital commerce,” said Monica Eaton, Founder and CEO of Chargebacks911 and Fi911. “When AWS sneezes, half the internet catches the flu.”

Eaton explains that when a cloud provider like AWS fails, the disruption doesn’t just frustrate users — it breaks the invisible web of connections that enable payments to process smoothly.

Failed authorisations, double charges, and missing confirmations can occur within minutes of an outage. Customers see “payment failed” or “try again” messages and, unaware the first transaction succeeded, re-attempt purchases, creating duplicate charges.

“The result,” Eaton said, “is a flood of disputes. You’ll see ‘I was charged twice’ or ‘I never got my service’ claims — not fraud, just confusion. But confusion is the number one driver of chargebacks.”

How AWS affects your payments

AWS hosts a massive share of payment gateways, checkout systems, and online merchants. Services that handle card processing, fraud detection, and transaction routing — such as Stripe, Shopify, PayPal, and countless retail systems — rely heavily on AWS infrastructure.

When AWS regions experience downtime or latency, the chain reaction affects:

• Authorisation requests from banks timing out before approval

• Confirmation pages failing to load, leaving buyers uncertain

• Delayed refunds or receipts, causing mistrust

• Increased error rates in digital wallets and checkout apps

Even though AWS’s main outage originated in the US-East-1 (Virginia) data centre, its impact reached global markets including the UAE, where e-commerce and digital payments continue to grow rapidly.

In a country where cashless transactions now account for over 60% of consumer spending, any slowdown in cloud-based payment systems can translate into millions in delayed or disputed transactions.

What's next for UAE residents

According to Eaton, “The outage will end long before the disputes do.” She expects a spike in chargebacks over the coming weeks as customers challenge unfamiliar or duplicate charges that stemmed from the outage.

Businesses that fail to act fast could face both financial losses and reputational damage.

Eaton’s advice to merchants:

• Audit payment logs to find and reverse duplicate charges

• Send proactive notifications to affected customers explaining the outage

• Document outage windows for future dispute evidence

• Offer quick refunds when valid to avoid chargeback fees

“Downtime happens,” she said, “but silence and slow responses cause real damage.”

What UAE users can do if hit

For UAE consumers, the safest steps are simple:

• Check bank statements for duplicate or pending charges.

• Wait before retrying failed transactions to avoid double billing.

• Contact merchants directly instead of filing immediate chargebacks.

Cloud reliability issues like this show how dependent modern payments have become on a few global providers such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

The outage may soon be over — but for businesses and consumers alike, its payment aftershocks are just beginning.