I hope everyone is doing well. I am reaching out to share a pressing concern regarding our inability to process payments for our organization’s API access, despite having the means and desire to do so. I believe that sharing our experience here might help others who may be facing similar issues and also expedite the resolution process.
Background:
Our organization, Poly186, has been trying to clear invoices E944438F-0005 and E944438F-0004, amounting to $77.20 and $66.76 respectively. We have attempted to pay these invoices using several cards, but each attempt has been unsuccessful. We’ve also diligently followed the guidance provided in the OpenAI Help Center, including the articles on why credit cards might be declined and how to contact support about billing, but to no avail.
Impact:
The inability to process these payments has led to the suspension of our API access, severely impacting our operations. We are currently running the Humanity’s Utopian Pact campaign and rely heavily on the GPT-4 model for our Self Executing Social Agreements Platform (SESAP). This suspension has significantly slowed our progress.
Timeline of Events:
May 2: Invoice E944438F-0004 issued.
June 5: Invoice E944438F-0005 issued.
June 8-16: Multiple interactions with OpenAI support regarding payment issues.
June 21-July 10: Numerous attempts to contact OpenAI support about the unpaid invoices and suspension of our API access.
Despite our efforts, the issue remains unresolved. We understand that the OpenAI team might be swamped with requests, but we believe that effective communication is essential for a successful partnership.
Request:
Assistance in resolving the payment processing issue so we can clear our dues.
Reinstating our API access immediately after the payment is processed.
We kindly request the community’s support and advice on this matter. If anyone has faced similar payment processing issues or has any suggestions, please share. We also hope that this post brings attention to the OpenAI support team for a swift resolution.
I understand the frustration this is must be causing, unfortunately, the technical support forum has no ability to alter, inspect or review account and payment issues.
The only advise I can give is to use the help site to contact the relevant people within OpenAI, this is done by using OpenAI Help Centre in the bottom right corner is a message icon. click the icon and enter your issue, the bot will take your details and a member of the account support team will get back to you, it may take several weeks due to the number of people currently using the system.
Thanks for the reply. I have tried contacting the other OPENAI teams through the help center, emails and even through other channels. This is my Hail Mary to try to have someone look at my case and help me since I have been waiting too long with no response. This is affecting our business.
There has been a recent change in the billing system that may help you pay.
New accounts are forced into a prepaid plan, paying for $5-$50 credit before they can use the API beyond the trial credit and trial rate limits.
For past users that were using post-payment, they’ve also found that removing all payment methods from the existing account would get the account to where they are forced to make a new signup for this system.
When enrolling in it, the credits seem to go first to paying off your existing bill. Put in $50 and it will probably be all consumed by your balance, and you’ll have to buy another $50. It also has been reported even within a week of it existing that many aren’t able to spend their full purchased balance due to bugs.
If you like the convenience of post-pay and wanting the ability to go up to your hard limit monthly without further interactions, you would not want this system.
If you have a different phone and email, you can create a new account. A mobile phone is also allowed one additional account. If OpenAI doesn’t want to take your money on the first account, and it could get more screwed up by modifications, I would start a new account without prior API use and see if the new prepayment system wouldn’t take your credit card then.
Interesting, thanks for the very comprehensive reply @_j, I have had this organization account since 2020 so I’d like to keep it. I can try to create a new account in the organization that can the pay the bill, this is a long shot but based on what you said, I might as well try it.
I did try to pay the bill through the stripe link but that didn’t work either.
On the account I do have $2500+ worth of credits that haven’t been used for these bills either.
I’ll try the new account angle and see what comes up since I need to get my APIs working for our products.
I had to rent a virtual computer and login through it to the have the ability to pay for my bills. Even during this it wasn’t straight forward, and I had to retry several times. Still having an issue starting up my plan, does anyone have any ideas on this ? here is the error I’m getting:
click the icon and enter your issue, the bot will take your details and a member of the account support team will get back to you, it may take several weeks due to the number of people currently using the system.