🚨 Warning: OpenAI Can Lock You Out of Your Paid ChatGPT Team Workspace With No Resolution

[leocelis]

I am writing this to warn all ChatGPT Team users about a critical failure in OpenAI’s billing and support system that has left my paid workspace completely inaccessible for over 24 hours.

What Happened?

• I paid for a ChatGPT Team subscription for 4 seats, billed annually.
• Despite the payment being fully processed, OpenAI locked me out of my workspace and all my data with no way to unlock it.
• The UI states “User already paid” but does not allow me to reactivate the workspace.
• I have no way to fix this on my end — I can’t repay for something I already paid for, and the system does not allow access.

How Did OpenAI Support Handle This?

• Generic and automated responses that ignored my issue for hours.
• No proper ticketing system or follow-up, meaning I had to repeat myself constantly.
• Different support reps gave contradictory answers, with no clear accountability.
• No named support contacts, just anonymous responses from “OpenAI Team.”
• They even asked me for information I had already provided multiple times.

The Bigger Issue – This Could Happen to Anyone

1. There is no fallback mechanism if OpenAI’s payment system fails—you can lose access to your data.
2. Their payment integration with Stripe is broken—I can pay for API credits and Plus using the same email, but my Team workspace remains locked.
3. Businesses relying on ChatGPT Team have no real support path—there is no way to escalate urgent issues or get a fast resolution.

What This Means for OpenAI Users

If you are a ChatGPT Team customer, you should be aware that OpenAI can lock you out of your workspace and data with no clear way to fix it, even after payment. Their support is not equipped to handle urgent business disruptions.

If you are experiencing similar issues, I encourage you to speak up now —this affects everyone using OpenAI for business.

Has anyone else faced similar issues with OpenAI’s billing and support? Let’s make this known.

[mitchell_d00]

Hello welcome to the forum, you can make a ticket here use the widget in the bottom right corner .

https://help.openai.com/en/

[luka]

We’re dealing with the exact same issue, and it’s still unresolved — now going on almost one week with no access to our paid ChatGPT Team workspace (completely locked out of it). Our situation is as follows:

• We paid $1,200+ on March 13, 2025, for additional seats on our Team account.
• On March 27, our workspace was suddenly deactivated without warning — we received no notification, and we absolutely did not cancel the subscription.
• We’ve sent dozen emails to OpenAI Support and Trust & Safety with receipts, screenshots, and urgent escalation requests.
• The only response we received blamed us for canceling (we didn’t), and since then… radio silence.
• We’ve been forced to spin up a temporary workspace just to keep client work moving, but everyone lost access to the custom GPTs, instructions, and data.
• This outage is jeopardizing everything.

OpenAI, this is unacceptable. We’re relying on your platform to serve real clients. There’s no escalation path, no real support, and no way to get back online — we are completely dead in the water.

@leocelis – thank you for posting this. We’re speaking up too. Anyone else affected, please reply. This is too serious to stay quiet about.

[danadalis]

Not sure which is worse: the mere existence of the problem, or the fact that no one has bothered to resolve it for nearly a year.