Sudden OpenAI Account Ban with No Explanation – Lost Access to Custom GPTs and Business Workflows

ChatGPT Bugs
1

I’m posting this here mainly to document what’s happening and hopefully reach someone who understands or has been through something similar.

My OpenAI account was suddenly suspended without prior warning or explanation. I only realized it when access stopped working entirely. I can no longer log in at all. This affected everything: ChatGPT, Codex, my subscription, all my custom GPTs, and years of stored conversations.

I’ve been a paying ChatGPT user since January 2023 and have not only relied on it personally, but also implemented it into workflows for my own business and for clients. With the account gone, all of those workflows have effectively stopped working overnight.

A major part of this is that I had built multiple custom GPTs and systems that were central to my daily operations. Losing access to them, along with all historical data, is a serious disruption.

One relevant detail: I used Codex to help recreate and structure a website based on my own company website. I own all rights to that content. The data used came from my own site, which I accessed and processed via Codex, so I do not see how this could violate any policy.

Also I used a coupon code for the business subscription a day before the ban, which was public on a deals website. The code worked for many other users, no one got banned except me.

I have already submitted appeals, but they were denied without any explanation. I still have no idea what exactly led to the suspension, whether it was automated, or what specific rule I allegedly violated.

The lack of transparency is the most frustrating part. There’s no clear reasoning, no meaningful feedback, and no way to understand what happened or how to resolve it.

If anyone from OpenAI sees this, I would really appreciate clarification. And if others have experienced something similar, I’d be interested to hear how it turned out.

Right now, I’m just trying to understand why my account was banned and whether there is any path forward.

Oh and I paid for the business pro subscription but didn’t get my money back. Messages are ignored.

2

Hey @nextfav, welcome to the forum 👋

Yeah, that’s frustrating. Accounts can get restricted or disabled for a few different reasons, and since this looks account-specific, the best next step is to open a support case.

Once you have the case number, share it here and I’ll take a closer look from my side.

- Avinash

3

Hi Avinash, thank you for your message!

One Case Number is: 09254941

Another Case Number: 09067273

Then I had some Appeal ID in my mail: Appeal[C-p0E1ZkhlEmkk]

I did a GDPR Request to find out the reason why I was banned, there the Case Number: 09081814

I didn’t get any answer with a reason why I was banned. The ban still persists. Last answer to an appeal was “We will no longer consider additional requests to appeal this case.”

I stopped implementing ChatGPT for my customers since this is a huge risk for them and for my business.

4

Thanks for sharing the case numbers.

I’ll make sure the issue gets looked into from the right side and I’m going to close out the thread here.

- Avinash

5

Thank you. I really hope we can clarify this. I’m even afraid of ever creating another ChatGPT account and paying for it, due to arbitrariness, losing my money and the account with everything I created there. If I have done anything wrong - I didn’t - then at least it would be respectful to let me know what the issue was.