Instead of billing from credits, OpenAI is attempting to bill from my card. I have had a lot of credits added due to Maldivian banks blocking OpenAI. The support staff assured me that these credits will work for at least a year, but this is month 1, and I’m getting warning emails for suspension over $2 while I have close to a $100 in credits. I have emailed help today and also contacted through the chat version of help on 9th of this month over this and I have got no replies. I will be suspended on 15th as per the email if the payment does not clear.
The way we pay for OpenAI while the block is in place is through virtual cards. But mainly the question is what happened to all the credits I added? Why can’t the bill be settled by it? And why is OpenAI attempting to charge my card while credits are present?
I guess I need to pay this amount from a virtual card to avoid suspension. But what about the credits I added? And what about the supports’ assurance that the credits would be valid?
I have the same issue now and no one answers on support chat for a week, whats going on? I added $400 in credits to avoid any problem and it wont charge me for $130.
Tomorrow my api access is gonna get blocked and I need someone to look at this.
The credits you add do not pay your outstanding monthly bill.
You’re still going to get a bill after the end of this month for what you used. (I anticipate that OpenAI might have caused a clusterF if people can’t go in and fix their monthly billing payment method for when that comes due…)
What is expected is that as soon as your account has credits added, future use will deduct from those credits. Then if your account is switched off monthly, there will be no fallback after you are out of credits.
I also experienced the same issue. OpenAI sent a notice that they were switching from the billing method to the prepaid method - in the middle of the billing cycle before it was over. The letter said to top up now to prevent being cut off from the API, and was not clear if doing so now would cover the outstanding bill. Customer support is non-existent so I could not ask or confirm if when I topped up they would take the money out of my preexisting credits that I purchased. Just in case I put a pause on my card after adding money that was meant to cover anything used for the month (though a smarter thing to do would have been to only prepurchase a few credits just in case, than to give OpenAI the benefit of the doubt). Sure enough, they charged my card for the previous cycle instead of billing from credits. I contacted customer support and as expected - support is non-existent. The entire customer system is managed by automatic billing and bots. There is no human there. Consequences for ignoring the invoice while waiting for OpenAI’s customer support - Suspension. I am now over my monthly budget for dealing with OpenAI but have been left with no choice. Pay the bill, or lose access to the credits I have already purchased.
I have no hope this will be resolved. For so many corporations to be relying on OpenAI now, that they can get away with zero customer support is truly baffling, particularly as it pertains to billing issues. The other frustrating thing is that the credits expire after 1 year. There should be no expiration on credits you purchase, and yet, here we are.
In the best case scenario, OpenAI would realize their mistake in switching everyone over like this, and simply change the system so it works as _j suggested. Failing that, after this month with the system only supporting prepaid credits now, I don’t think this will be an issue in the future, but they will, have other issues.
Fortunately, I have already decided OpenAI is not reliable enough a company to allow as a bottleneck for my company and hope by the end of the year will have a full fledge solution that does not include dependency upon them.
