Account deactivated, no help offered, no resolution

ChatGPT
1

I am having problems with platform.openai.com, chatgpt.com and the ChatGPT iOS app, (Plus account). My account was deactivated for no apparent reason. I did not delete my account.

All my chats are gone, I can’t access the GPT store or my custom GPTs. I cannot log in to my Plus account and can’t use ChatGPT at all.

My projects, API keys and all associated data are gone.

I did notice that my December invoice to OpenAi was not paid. Nothing from my bank saying the payment was declined.

No emails from support@ have been sent regarding deactivating my account; checked all mailboxes, spam etc.

No option to check if my paid account is up to date because I can’t access my Platform or Plus account info.

Deleted cookies, cleared cache and reboot all failed to remedy these issues.

I typically login with SSO using my google email.

On chatgpt.com I get “Your OpenAI account has been deactivated, please check your email for more information. If you feel this is an error, contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.” I contacted help.openai.com and was told that they can’t restore deleted accounts. I did not delete my account.

On [platform.openai.com] I get “Failed to load subscription for selected organization”. My projects are gone.

I know that I am supposed to use help.openai.com but have done so and not received a response.

OpenAI Support, please help.

3

Got a reply back from Open AI support. Apparently the web app was being abused by a bad user, and in doing so, violated their usage policies. This triggered Open AI to deactivate my account on both Plus and Platform.

I was using the same email ID for both Plus and Platform so both have been nuked.

Plan is to integrate their “restricted content” functions to prevent nefarious content that violates their policies.

5

Ended up recreating my platform account with a different email. No issue there. My app is working again.

The issue is with Chat GPT now. I have been going back and forth with customer support, clearing my cache, logging in exactly as I did before, using different browsers, incognito; same results. Cannot see any of my chats, MyGPTs are not there, no button for Settings, or for log out. Frustrated.

6

Any updates this does as a concerning issue as a developer.

Do they not have an api security measure for people creating apps to register or ascribe issue to users of an app and not the developer with something like a moderation assist in the api?

7

Similar experience except my account was incorrectly deactivated. Got this email

“Hello,

OpenAI’s Usage Policies restrict the use of our services in a number of areas. We have identified ongoing activity in your OpenAI account that is not permitted under our policies for:

  • Mass Casualty Weapons

We are deactivating your access to our services immediately for the account associated with the email (redacted)

If you have questions or think there has been an error, you can reply to this email to initiate an appeal.

Best,
The OpenAI team”

I appealed the decision and within 10 minutes got this email:

“Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to OpenAI Support. We have determined that we incorrectly deactivated your account access. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Your account access has been restored, and you should now have uninterrupted access to our services. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best,
The OpenAI team”

Then I got this email:

“Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to OpenAI Support. We have determined that we incorrectly issued a warning on your account. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best,
The OpenAI team”

I am having the same issues as OP - no previous chats/history, no access to GPT’s I created, settings is not available (all on browser - chrome and incognito have the same result). The desktop app shows all of the above, but when trying to continue or start a chat I get this message: Your authentication token has been invalidated. Please try signing in again.

Here’s a screenshot in the browser

Screenshot 2025-08-31 at 9.06.19 AM
Screenshot 2025-08-31 at 9.06.19 AM1418×755 20.9 KB

I logged out of my mobile app, signed back in and got this:

“Sign in failed
Your OpenAl account has been
deactivated, please check your email
for more information. If you feel this is
an error, contact us through our help
center at helpdotopenaidotcom.”

I’ve emailed support multiple times, but nothing back on the issues I am experiencing.

8

Hey! I have the exact same issue as you, literally word for word. I have also followed up with OpenAI responding to the email where they confirmed the wrongful deactivation and subsequent restore of my account, but have been waiting now for a week and no response + no fix. I’m a Pro subscriber, and it is very frustrating to be in this situation. I don’t even know if my support request emails are being logged or not or an ETA on when this will be fixed. I know this forum is not the place for this kind of discussions, or perhaps it is. But saw this thread and thought I’d share I’m having the exact same problem…

Did you get a resolution?

9

Faced the same story! My account was suddenly deactivated yesterday, with zero prior warning or specific reason given, only the generic “violates our policies” email.

The critical points are:

  • Paid Status: I am a pre-paid ChatGPT Plus subscriber and have a positive balance for API usage.

  • Total Loss of Access: I have no access to my critical work:

    • All my API Assistants and associated data are gone (Platform shows “Failed to load subscription”).

    • I am completely locked out of my ChatGPT account, including all my projects and Custom GPTs.

  • Support Nightmare: The deactivation email directs me to the official help center, but after a short exchange, the (presumably GPT-based) support agent/bot went into a bizarre loop, repeatedly claiming, “We couldn’t find your account” despite my providing all the details, effectively blocking any chance of an appeal or human escalation.

It’s astonishing to see such a poorly functioning and unresponsive support system for a service that many of us rely on for professional work.

Has anyone here gone through a similar “account not found” scenario after an initial escalation and managed to get their account successfully restored? Any advice on how to bypass this seemingly broken support channel and get a human to actually review the deactivation is highly appreciated.

Hoping someone has had a positive outcome with an appeal.

Thanks!

10

No appeal no resolution beyond deactivation. I created a new account and started over.

11

Same problem. After I submit a ticket in help.openai.com, I’ve receive the human response (seems to be) once, but the chat finallly ends with “We couldn’t find your account“ which makes the chat session over, so I just start over a new ticket and do not know whether it will work.

I really hope the OpenAI customer support can be more professional so we can get help.

12

New chat still ends with ”We couldn’t find your account“ regardless of what I input in the chat box. Since there seems to be no other way to get contacted with OpenAI customer service I think I can only start over again. That is frustrating.

13

Hi i wanted to ask how you managed to get your account back. i have tried logging back in, but it keeps saying that my account has been deactivated and i never recieved an email explaining why. I have tried contacting chatgpt support and submitting an appeal, but unfortunately i have’ had an help from them. if you don’t mind me asking, how did you manage to get your old account restored and all your chats recovered

14

Thanks for reaching out. As it turns out, I had to start from scratch. I lost all my chats and context and had to rebuild.

15

Hi @s.lakshmitha,

Thanks for flagging this. Account restrictions and deactivation appeals require account-specific information, so they cannot be reviewed securely through the public Community Forum.

Please use the appeal link provided in the account warning or deactivation email you received. If you cannot access that email, you can submit an appeal through the OpenAI appeal form.

If you did not receive an email and have lost access to your account, please contact support@openai.com from the email address associated with your OpenAI account.

For your privacy, please do not post account, identity, enforcement, payment, or other personal information on the forum.

~ Smith