OpenAI API Overcharging Me Dozens of Dollars - How to Stop Payments and Get a Refund?

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1

I’m using OpenAI API with a monthly usage of 10 to 20 cents, but I’m being charged dozens of dollars every month. I thought I’d only pay for what I use. How can I stop these charges and get a refund? I didn’t expect this when signing up. Where did I go wrong? Any advice would help!

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My last 2 months usage is 0.14$ but I paid 80$. Is this normal?

3

The “charges” you interpret may be not by usage, but instead that the prepaid credits from a year ago, with an expiration time of one year, have recently expired, reported by every credit amount and their expiration date listed except the recent one in the screenshot you provide.

You used 14 cents in the month showing, with the bulk of your unexpired amount remaining.

OpenAI policy is that they don’t do refunds of API credits, and they were willing to design and impose the expiration of credits, the system working as they desire, despite the negative experiences.

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9047769-can-you-extend-my-credits

4

So this is not a “pay as you go”, am I right?

5

It is “prepay-before-you-go” and “convert your money instantly into our system’s non-refundable, value-less, expiring API credits”…

Note that you have “auto-recharge” set to “on”: it will refill your account balance automatically if it falls below the threshold you set on it - for example if the balance falls to $0.00 by all your credits expiring.

The API is not a “subscription” service, and is not related to ChatGPT payments and subscriptions.

6

Just cancelled my subscription.

7

There is no subscription to cancel in the API. You have nearly $20.00 in balance that can be used to pay for AI model API calls, billed by the amount of language data against that credit balance.

https://platform.openai.com/docs/pricing

8

I mean deleted my credit card and unsubscribed from membership.

This is straight-up fraud. I’ve never seen such a pricing policy in my life. And everywhere it says “Pay as you go.” I was literally scammed, and my money was wasted by one of the biggest companies in the world.

9

I see over a year ago, just from the screenshots, you made many API credit purchases in the API interface, which is the platform for professional AI product development. It is located at platform.openai.com for account management.

The API is completely separate from ChatGPT, the web chatbot end-user product, at chatgpt.com, where you can make a recurring $20 subscription to ChatGPT Plus.

Perhaps back then, you were confused about where to be sending your money for just ChatGPT? Did you make and enjoy any API calls? It seems possible, as many of the refills are the same amount, like an amount that would be automatically refilled and recharged after usage of credits.

10

Here’s the presentation I would make to sending a message to “help”:

  • I discontinued active use of the OpenAI API a while ago
  • I still had a positive credit balance in the account
  • I forgot that auto-recharge was left enabled on my account
  • You expired my available credits, triggering the auto-recharge and a new refill of $20.00 that was never intended

Action desired: Please refund the new amount $20 that was just charged automatically by OpenAI.

Note: I have disabled the auto-recharge function.

A refund could restore faith if OpenAI grants it for such a recent auto-purchase.

Only support staff via “help” in the platform site can access your account.

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I was using API calls for testing. And yes, mostly it is refilled automatically but some times I filled it myself.

I’m not using ChatGPT plus.