Is OpenAI's service fraudulent?

Community
1

Today, I registered another personal account for open ai’s api service, and charged 10 dollars for chatbot API. When I tried to verify the phone number, I found out that there is the number of accounts for a phone number is limited by 3. Therefore, I tried to get a refund, but OpenAI just gives a very “automated-like” reply that they can’t because of terms of service.

I believe this is a fraud since I believe there is no way for me to use the charged 10 dollar credit which I believe expires in a year. I didn’t use a penny from it, and sent a request for the refund in less than a hour via the messenger.

Am I wrong, or is OpenAI’s service a fraud? 10 dollars may not be big in an amount, but I believe getting people’s money like this seems immoral for this renowned company.

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I have the first message I sent to OpenAPI below:

I made a purchase for using API, but the phone verification failed with number of uses exceeding the limit of 3 times per phone number. I used my number for one of my personal accounts and the rest for my company, and cannot do the verification further for my new personal account. Therefore, I would like to get a refund for the newly charged 10 dollars in the account as I cannot generate an API key

And got a reply like below:

Hello,
​
Thank you for reaching out to OpenAI support.

We understand that you’re requesting a refund for your API credits, and we’re sorry to hear this is due to exceeding the maximum number of accounts associated with your phone number when generating API keys.

We understand this may not be the response you were hoping for, but we regret to inform you that we are unable to issue a refund for prepaid API credits. Please refer to our Service Credit Terms for more details.

If there’s anything else we can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to reach out—we’re always here to help.
​
Best,
Ivana
OpenAI Support

3

Hi,

You will need to continue this with help.openai.com and the support system there as the Developer forum is ran by volunteers with no access to accounts or billing systems.

There has been a 3-account limit for phone numbers for about 2 years now, the only alternative I can think of is to use a different phone number.

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4

Still, this post illustrates a procedure that should be fixed. A problem that can be immediately replicated. Escalation is due.

It is unconscionable to take money for a service, and then keep it by immediately denying on some second criteria, and also deny a refund for booby-trapped monies via the system set up for customer support, any more than I can take $10 out of the OpenAI dining hall tip jar for someone’s troubles.

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5

As mentioned above, this is due to the limitation on the number of accounts that can be verified with a single phone number.

Different companies have different billing models for their APIs, such as prepaid credits or postpaid billing.

In OpenAI’s case, according to their Service Credit Terms, prepaid credits are non-refundable.

However, the $10 you paid has not been lost; you can still use it by completing the phone number verification process with a different number.

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