We are getting charged even though there are no API keys

Community
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We are billed lot of money every day. We deleted all the keys, still utilization is not stopping. This cost is coming from Api/file-search. I have contacted the help and no one has responded to us. I am not sure what to do. This cost utilization is not stopping at all. We will go broke at this rate.
Any idea on how to stop this madness ?

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Vector storage is billed per day by the amount of data in vector stores.
This is logically file-search, the only way vector stores are used.

If you have old v1 assistants in April, they also will have had vector stores auto created that were free for a while.

Review your platform account “storage” for excess usage in this persistently billed data consumption of vector stores.

The idea of deleting all keys means you likely overlooked user legacy keys.

The playground usage also does not need an API key.

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We deleted everything, including files and threads. The cost is still creeping up.

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There was an OpenAI outage on Dec 4th. That is when our problems started. I just cannot get hold of any person from their customer support.

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This is a direct link into vector stores:

https://platform.openai.com/storage/vector_stores

You will also have to explore each project by selection at the upper-left to check scoped storage.

I am also getting random pennies of “file search” billed although there is almost no use of vector store data by my org and the first 1GB should be free.

The size of the vector store object is the sum of all the parsed chunks from your files and their corresponding embeddings.

You first GB is free and beyond that, usage is billed at $0.10/GB/day of vector storage. There are no other costs associated with vector store operations.

Makes you wonder if they decided to pass the embeddings cost on to you, under a different name…

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I’m also facing this problem, I have extreme consumption in the base of all my customers and the funniest thing is that there are 2 models that point to the use in exesso, they are GPT-4 and GPT-3.5-Turbo and I don’t use any of them. I’ve already made at least $200 in a single day, I’ve already reviewed all my services and we don’t use this model in any location. If you want to share your case with me so we can solve it together, you can call me.

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Welcome @mth_gama

One of the first things that you should do when you see charges that don’t align with your usage patterns is to secure your org’s access to the API by revoking all keys (project keys + user keys) and reviewing the members in your org.

Then you can try to find which key or member is associated with the anomalous usage, in order to remedy the problem.

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Send an email to support@openai.com with all the details.

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A lack of solutions for you would be no one answering a closed-down support email address you provided.

One would use “help” in the platform site to send a message for account-specific assistance.

But you would not bother them without first identifying the error you made causing account or key exploitation.

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I am having the same issue. I noticed this when I have $2 in the account. I removed all my keys, my cards and my plans at once. Still seeing my left credits goes down little by little. Also, I set usage is actually going over the limit I set. Tried to contact support on the API page, but it is a bot.

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While you can remove your payment method, it does not turn off your account. Billing can continue against your credit balance, even going into the negative until an organization is shut off, often requiring hours.

Limits are per-project, and then a separate one for the organization, and are based on monthly usage. They also don’t invoke an immediate shutdown.

Here are ways that your credits can be consumed:

  1. Playground - This experimentation platform is billed to your account like any other API usage. It does not need an active API key.
  2. Forgotten keys - there is the possibility of API keys in each project. The project selector is at the top-left of the platform site. Here is an overview link: https://platform.openai.com/settings/organization/api-keys
  3. Forgotten keys - an account’s “user keys” are in a different location. Full access. Generate a new one and delete others. https://platform.openai.com/settings/profile/api-keys
  4. Invited organization users - they can bill to your organization with their own keys (https://platform.openai.com/settings/organization/members)
  5. Invited project members - they can use the project scope, so review members of each organization.

Tips:

  • Utilize tracking feature on API keys, and monitor usage page
  • Deploy one API key per application, or assign one key per team user (not invites)
  • Use keys as securely as bank passwords.
  • Never include keys in code.
  • Never have client applications that make direct calls to OpenAI, thus giving your secrets to the user.
  • Lock down or reset the credentials to your account. Passwords of OpenAI accounts or the authentication method used are high-value targets.
  • Turn on two-factor authentication, after ensuring your email address and phone number are still current (they cannot be changed in OpenAI).
  • Disable models in projects and endpoints in project API keys that will not be used.
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I am also having the same problem. This is very bad.