Please pay attention to the rules herein if you have pay-as-you-go schemes or are Alibaba Cloud Credit Customer.
Applicability
Accounts Subject to the Rules
- All Alibaba Cloud accounts
Effective Date
- The new automatic fee deduction rules take effect on June 2, 2020 across alibabacloud.com.
- Your bills for May 2020 are still settled according to the original rules. The new rules apply to bills for June 2020 onward.
Order of Payment Methods
Prepayment Balance Customer
If you are an Alibaba Cloud prepayment balance user, once a pay-as-you-go bill is generated, the system will automatically deduct the payment from your prepayment balance. If the balance is insufficient, the rest of the bill will be charged to your Alternative Payment Methods.
Alibaba Cloud Credit Customer
If you are an Alibaba Cloud Credit Customer, after a monthly bill is generated, the system will deduct the payment from your account in the following order:
Refund balance -> Account balance -> Alternative payment methods
Automatic Fee Deduction Timeline
After a bill is generated, the system will initiate at most six payment deduction attempts until the payment is made successfully. The bill deduction timeline is as follows:
- The system will make an automatic deduction after a pay-as-you-go or monthly bill is generated.
- If the deduction fails, another deduction will be made in two minutes.
- If the two deductions both fail, the third deduction will be made seven days after the billing.
- If all the previous deduction attempts fail, the fourth deduction will be made 14 days after the billing.
- For bills generated after June 2, 2020, if all the previous deduction attempts fail, the fifth deduction will be made 25 days after the billing.
- For bills generated after June 2, 2020, if all the previous deduction attempts fail, the sixth deduction will be made 29 days after the billing.
To be specific, assuming that the time of billing is T, the system will execute automatic fee deductions at:
- T
- T + 2 minutes
- T + 7 days
- T + 14 days
- T + 25 days (for bills generated after June 2, 2020)
- T + 29 days (for bill generated after June 2, 2020)
Example
Assume that you registered an Alibaba Cloud account in India on August 1, 2019 and you are an Alibaba Cloud Credit Customer.
- For your monthly bill for May 2020, the system will make at most four automatic fee deduction attempts:
- June 1: When the bill is generated, the system attempts to deduct the fees from your account balance.
- June 1 + 2 minutes (retry): If the first attempt fails, the second attempt will follow in 2 minutes to make a deduction from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- June 8 (retry): If the attempts on June 1 both fail, on June 8 the third deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- June 15 (retry): If the deduction attempt on June 8 fails, on June 15 the fourth deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
| Month of billing | Time of deduction attempts | Payment method |
|---|---|---|
| May | T (June 1, time of billing) | Account balance and alternative payment methods |
| T + 2 minutes (June 1) | ||
| T + 7 days (June 8) | ||
| T + 14 days (June 15) |
- For your monthly bill of June 2020, the system will follow the new rules herein and make at most six automatic deduction attempts (two more attempts than in the previous rules):
- July 1: When the bill is generated, a deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- July 1 + 2 minutes (retry): If the first attempt fails, the second attempt will follow in 2 minutes to make a deduction from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- July 8 (retry): If the attempts on July 1 both fail, on July 8 the third deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- July 15 (retry): If the deduction attempt on July 8 fails, on July 15 the fourth deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- July 26 (newly added retry): If the deduction attempt on July 15 fails, on July 26 the fifth deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
- July 30 (newly added retry): If the deduction attempt on July 26 fails, on July 30 the sixth deduction will be made from your account balance and alternative payment methods.
| Month of billing | Time of deduction attempts | Payment method |
|---|---|---|
| June | T (July 1, time of billing) | Account balance and alternative payment methods |
| T + 2 minutes (July 1) | ||
| T + 7 days (July 8) | ||
| T + 14 days (July 15) | ||
| T + 25 days (July 26) | ||
| T + 29 days (July 30) |
About the “Overdue Bills First” Rule
If you have an overdue bill, when funds arrive at your account (via bank transfer or online prepayment, or a refund in the case that the period for online payment to be reverted to the original payment account has expired), the system will automatically settle the overdue bill using the funds. Even if the funds are insufficient to cover the bill, Alibaba Cloud will not settle the rest of the bill using your alternative payment methods. The rest of the overdue bill will be automatically settled next time following the foregoing fee deduction logic.
For example, you have an overdue bill of USD 500. When USD 400 arrives at your Alibaba Cloud account via bank transfer and goes to your advances (or account balance), Alibaba Cloud will immediately deduct the USD 400 to pay your overdue bill. However, Alibaba Cloud will not deduct the remaining USD 100 from your alternative payment methods. Only when the next time for automatic deduction comes will Alibaba Cloud deduct the remaining USD 100 from your advances (or account balance) and alternative payment methods. If this deduction is made successfully, the overdue bill is fully settled.