They indeed will be expired, I had $18 balance expired back in 2023. Sadly OpenAI is still one of the best at the moment. There is an auto recharge option but it might be too late for you to know.
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This is really problematic because Chinese companies may engage with cheap “Trojan Horse” models that bypass GDPR regulations and exploit user data.
Allowing credits to expire after just one year undermines user trust and reflects poorly on OpenAI’s commitment to fairness.
At this level, mistakes like this are unacceptable because they risk driving users to competing models, which may exploit data, profile individuals, companies, and nations, and potentially create national security risks.
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I am producing a lot of articles and images, and now only have 560 USD letf.
GO GO GO
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Do embeddings, use text to speech, make some audio books → do not let them a cent! Is not ok what they did…
Yeah, make audio books and upload them on YouTube, maybe maybe :))
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I’ve had a very similar experience with credits unfairly expiring outside our control. It’s also not clear during purchase they expire in the first place, and I received no warnings about an approaching expiration date. I wanted to share my story while adding further documentation for reference.
I’ve been locked out of my API account for several weeks due to an issue with OpenAI’s handling of Apple Private Relay emails. The system required email verification, but a bug on OpenAI’s side prevented the verification emails from being sent. With no way to switch to a functional email address and support often redirecting users to Apple (which didn’t help), or not responding at all, I was left completely locked out for a very long time.
During this time, my prepaid API credits expired—credits I couldn’t use due to no fault of my own. Despite repeated attempts to reach out to customer support, I’ve yet to receive a resolution. It feels deeply unfair to have my prepaid credits consumed without receiving the services I paid for.
For additional context, here’s further documentation from other OpenAI API users detailing similar problems since January:
Urgent Assistance Needed - Issues with Apple Hidden Email on OpenAI Account. This thread also highlights accounts where credits were used up or services possibly unable to be ceased, with users unable to fix the issue or get a resolution from customer service despite reaching out.
I’m kindly requesting that my expired credit balance be fully restored. It’s critical that OpenAI resolves these issues promptly—not just for me but for the many others impacted.
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The warning wan’t there when I bought. Okay, yes maybe in the terms…but who reads them?
Today I “only” have around 486 USD prepaid credits left. A 100 USD of them I gave to my usual webdesigner. So it is more like 386 USD left. I have activated around 150 sites automatically creating articles on various topics.
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In 1-2 days all the prepaid credits are gone. I succeeded in getting more than 800 USD used in 1,5 months. I got a developer to make me a custom WordPress plugin, that automatically could create longform articles on specific topics and it also created keywords to be used in the articles. Finally, it produced more titles for new articles, when the title list was empty. Now I have several hundred sites with 1500-5000 articles and some of the sites are getting a lot of visits.
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Be careful → Gen AI may face major backlash this year. Many people distrust AI, fear job losses, and resent manipulation, as seen in growing sentiment on Reddit, fueled by Chinese videos.
Ensure your system uses RAG with real, fact-based data and sources to build trust.