I just saw today that prepaid credits will expire…WHY…?!!
I paid 1000 USD on Dec 31, 2023 and still have over 800 USD left. Expire date is Jan 01, 2025.
It is not fair at all to give prepaid credits an expire date, because why…?? And I have never seen any warning about this. Come on, OpenAI - I am supporting you with a lot of prepaid money, and then you give me this treatment!!!
Why did you pay upfront by such a large amount?
Have you contacted them to argue your case? What was their response?
I had a lot of different API-cases/projects, and used around 70-100 USD a month in the end of 2023. So I prepaid the 1000 USD, and after two months the API-projects were finished or dead.
Yesm I have just today tried to contact the support team.
I will be back, when I know more.
Where did you see that prepaid credits will expire? When will they expire?
In December 2023, it was in the fine print of terms and conditions, along with “no refunds”. That was before everybody got forced off monthly billing, and prepaid was only a requirement of new accounts, without any expiration warning when adding funds in the UI.
You did notice the very short window to opt out of binding arbitration or class action prohibition around January, right? Nah, who would find and read?
Transferring credits out of an org is an impossibility, but projects allows safer API key sharing among accountable partners 
Thanks for letting me know this. No, I didn’t see or read the terms, and I didn’t get any warning.
Living in Denmark, Europe and here prepaid IS prepaid ALWAYS WITOUT any expiration date. I am prepaying a lot of my services, and I have never seen anything like this (OpenAI),
I will try to contact the suppport again.
It is no
They could just extend with some years !!!
They also could extend a legal case years and millions of dollars to ensure case precedent is not set in what is a crime in many jurisdictions.
How does California civil code section 1749 apply to a private corporation that:
in regards to policies:
and what are the actionable penalties of consumer protection laws for such a company?
Applicability of California Civil Code Section 1749 to the Company’s Practices
Under California law, particularly Civil Code Section 1749.5, gift certificates and similar instruments are regulated to protect consumers from unfair practices like expiration dates and non-refundability. Here’s how the law applies to the company’s practices:
Definition of Gift Certificates:
Expiration Dates:
Refundability:
Actionable Penalties Under Consumer Protection Laws
Violations of California Civil Code Section 1749.5 can lead to several legal consequences:
Civil Penalties:
Injunctive Relief:
Consumer Lawsuits:
Enforcement Actions:
Summary
The company’s policies of expiring credits after one year and refusing to refund remaining credit balances violate California Civil Code Section 1749.5. These practices expose the company to substantial legal risks, including civil penalties, mandatory restitution, injunctive relief, and potential lawsuits from consumers and government entities. To mitigate these risks, the company should revise its policies to comply with state laws by eliminating expiration dates on credits and allowing cash redemption of small balances.
Using the API establishes a business relationship with OpenAI, as opposed to the consumer relationship when using ChatGPT for example.
As such, it is not considered a crime in many jurisdictions for pre-paid API credits to expire.
The civil code cited by @_j is likely not applicable.
I agree that this could be communicated more clearly. However, I’m not surprised that building an app based on another company’s API comes with additional strings attached.
That is a case to present in court though - or to an arbitrator - when you consider a “business relationship” here involves a mandatory personal cel phone number, a personal Google or Microsoft authentication login, a credit card number that is an instrument primarily issued to individuals to pay for services, and that a separate unpublished service level with business verification and credit terms is extended to actual enterprises…
Can a builder come to my house and have me sign paperwork that says I am a business, which prevents them from liability when they don’t render paid-for services.
Not your lawyer.
Or OpenAI could just do the fair thing and not keep unused credits.
Let’s get back on-topic:
When purchasing credits today we get to see something like this:
Have you searched to see if the SCT has changed? I know when they change stuff I get emails and by continuing to use service I agree to terms. Or some such crazy stuff. I’m a user too so I’m clueless but I know I get emails I was not a user back then (2023 I’m a noob) but it has not changed in a few months for me on my end. 
Coming back to the original topic, yea, keeping essentially $800 just because it was 1 year since you purchased it is nuts. I could understand it with $5 or $10, but $800 is just something else.
Hope you get your case solved.
Do you want to find some usecases in the month of December? I will be starting something of my own in tech and this would be beneficial for it.
It might be possible… Wait 10 days and contact me here again.
I fully agree, but they do not care at all.
OpenAI will NOT help me at all. I wrote to them several times and every time I got the same answer that theu cannot extend the expire date or pay me back.
I am going to leave OpenAI / API + ChatGPT by the end of this year. Luckily there are other good AI-competitors out there…!!
Thanks for highlighting this OP, very much a scummy move by openai and very bad PR for them when cases like this come into light.
I’m sure there are many people who have lots of finetuning or other expensive tasks. I wonder could you “auction” your credits at a high discount i.e. 1:2 and give API access to the purchaser? At least this way you could get some of your credit back.
