Unjustly account terminations because of "suspicious activities"?

ChatGPT
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I doubt we get our accounts back, because of the (not requested) refunds, we got flagged as friendly fraud users. You can search reddit for unrequested refunds and you see this happens frequntly. In the past they did not block accounts, but it seems they changed this. I think their whole refund process is highly unsecure and exploitable beause only the email address and a subscription date is required.

I will go for the subscription offered by google play store, I do not want to give OpenAi my credit card details, I cannot trust them any longer.

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I also feel the need to consider the possibility that they are simply taking the system’s numerical judgment as the final decision, given that the additional messages and materials I sent to support have been marked as “Not Seen” and remain unread.

It may be somewhat naive to assume that the “further investigation” they mentioned is actually being carried out.

The possible countermeasures individuals may take are roughly as follows, I believe:

Carefully judge whether one should readily submit personal information or not.

Always have accessible alternative means prepared.

I think it is very important for one to do their utmost to protect themselves, above all others.

However, I cannot say that I do not understand at all their rationale that the investigation is taking time. Therefore, waiting a bit longer while giving more consideration to the possibility that they are burdened by the investigation may be a more balanced approach.

If their statement of “usually within 1 week” is true, then there is reason to wait 1 week.

Of course, we are not free either and time is a precious resource, so for the time being, I think connecting with alternative means while waiting for a response is a balanced approach.

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I just received the same useless copy-paste email from OpenAI:

“”
Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to us. We’ve confirmed this action was associated with suspicious payment activity. We are unable to reinstate your account at this time; we will investigate further. Please reach out if you can provide any additional information.

Best,

Mary

The OpenAI Team
“”

Complete waste of time!

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I will share one more point I noticed.

I submitted an opt-out request form and then checked to see if my opt-out was accepted.
After that confirmation, I was told the following two points

The opt-out has not yet been accepted.
That they would accept it if I submitted the opt-out request form again.

I then told them that I would submit the opt-out request form again and that I would like to receive a confirmation when it is successfully accepted.

I received a notification confirming that my opt-out request was accepted, and although I was using both the API and ChatGPT, I noticed that my phone number was removed from the OpenAI platform just after the acceptance of that opt-out.

ScreenshotBeforeTheAccountWasFrozenOrDeleted

I thought that either an OpenAI employee or an outsourced third-party organization had accidentally deleted it during the opt-out process, but since the phone number field is not user-editable, I did not try to do anything that I couldn’t and did nothing further.

I use a tool to manage my computer usage and save screenshots for work purposes. Therefore, I went back in time and found evidence of this.

Has anyone had a similar experience in this regard? If so, sharing this experience may be of some help.

I would like to point out that even if the above phenomenon is related to what they call “suspicious payment activity”, it is not a reason to freeze the account, given that it is not up to the user to manipulate the registration of the phone number.

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I had just noted the addition of the phone number box when doing another walkthrough for a forum post. There was previously no way to see this information (which gave an account hacker less of an attack surface).

That a new box showed up might hopefully mean they’re putting in place the option of more account self-management not needing forms and messages for everything.

It would be nice to know what nonsense is being detected and wiping accounts, and have that fixed first. I can’t think of many other platforms with millions of users that delete accounts with no warning and with no violation of any published criteria…

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Hello everyone,

Exactly the same problem for me, and NO ANSWER from BOT support (they look like at least…)… I need to talk to a real human.

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There seem to be no humans on the support team.
Also, there seem to be no bots in support now.

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This is not acceptable when people pay for a service, I think…
They do more than just paying, it’s more like “TAKE MY MONEY PLEAAAAASE !”
Such a nice product like this, it’s like a stain on a white chothe…

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I received this email on 19th October (Thursday) and I sent an email back and say that I would like to provide any documents/receipts/proof about bank payments whatever is necessary from my side in order to reinstate my account. I still wait for a response but I see that my message is still not seen…

At the moment, I cannot access https://help.openai.com/ , is it same for you guys?

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Because the behavior of accessing help.openai.com is controlled by cookies, fingerprints, and other identifying information, if you don’t turn off synchronization on a particular device (such as a laptop), the chat will be assigned to another account at some point and the original chat screen will no longer displayed.

My sent documents, such as statements, have also been left as “Not Seen” for more than 11 days.

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I got the same message yesterday about suspicious activity. I have now reached out to support to ask for reinstatement. Looking through these replies I don’t have much hope of it happening. I’m pretty upset, I had a lot of history in chatgpt, over a years worth of exciting recipes and exploration, and now I can’t access it to even back it up.

If anyone from openai is looking at this post, this isn’t how you treat customers. I will be recommending to my work and other colleagues to stay far away, lest they suddenly cut off your access without recourse.

Wow. Just stunned.

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33

I don’t know how OpenAI will find a solution for this but I started to lose my hope because my last message was not seen for 3 weeks…

I understand the cases that they can terminate accounts without notice if it violates Terms of Use, however, termination of the accounts due to “uncertain” suspicious payment activity without asking customer for supporting documents or proof, it is really unfair. I spent a lot of time and have got history of prompts for a year, no backup chance etc. at all.

I see many topics in the forum that a lot of users complain about this, but I couldn’t find any twitter post etc. why don’t we create one to get their attention? and all other users who face the same situation can join. I think Plus users should get better customer support because we pay for the service and don’t deserve such a situation!

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This company is ridiculous.
Like most of you, I was a paying customer and got banned for “suspicious payment activity” even though I’m using my one and only credit card that I use for all of my purchases.
I will NEVER give money to OpenAI again unless they unban my account and I’ll be sure to tell everyone I know that their access could be cut for no reason.
I sincerely hope competitors run OpenAI out of business.

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I received the following email.

Hi *****,

Here is your invoice - for $*. USD.

The invoice has been fully paid with your credit card ending in ****.

[View Invoice].

This invoice link expires after 30 days

Thanks for being part of our API developer community!

Best, The OpenAI team
The OpenAI team

P.S. If you have any questions about this invoice, get in touch with us at ****

You received this email because you have a paid account with OpenAI

As the phrase “You received this email because you have a paid account with OpenAI” and “Thanks for being part of our API developer community!” suggests, I have certainly created a new account.

And the fact that I was able to create an account with the exact same credit card and the exact same personal information suggests that their story of account termination related to “suspicious payment activity” was wrong.

Then, upon receipt of the above email, I sent an email telling them that “the amount appears to be correct, but the account has been closed and I cannot confirm the exact amount” and they responded with the following email.

Thank you for reaching out! We’re here to help and would love to provide support.

If you need assistance right away, please visit our help center and start a conversation with us from the Messenger at the bottom right of the screen.

Please do not reply to this email.

I have also sent a message to the chat where my message continues to be ignored, of course it remains “Not Seen”.

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Update: I have been unbanned!

As, I was not able to get in touch with OpenAI via the usual routes, I decided on the old school approach, and sent them a physical letter. I used an online service for this as I am not based in the US. While I never received a reply, my account has been reinstated and I do have access again, including all my old chats.

However, looking through the terms of OpenAI I stumbled across the disputes section. Up on reading this I also decided to open an dispute on the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform of the European Union. The email address you can use is in the terms.

As I did both at the same time, I do not know what has lead to my unban, either the letter or dispute in ODR. However, it did eventually lead to an unban, so for everyone that wants their account back, there seems to be a way.

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Another update: i have received a reply on the EU ODR from OpenAI. The issue has been resolved. I will mark this reply as the answer.

For anyone who has had their account unjustly terminated, this is what you can do:

If you are an EU citizen, you get your OpenAI services from OpenAI Ireland Ltd. Then you can open a dispute using the ODR platform. For this you need to enter an email address, I used this one: dispute-resolution@openai.com

Alternatively, you can send an email to the above mentioned email. Or, probably better, you could fill out the form linked in the terms of service of OpenAI.

At a last resort, you can send a letter to their address.

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