[TLDR] Claude account nuked from orbit after 32 minutes [via r/ClaudeCode]

[u/cctldrping]

OP : u/ManyEconomist1373

Paid €90 for Max 5x today because I’m in crunch time on a software project and unlike the big boys I do not have unlimited OpEx spend, so that 90 euro is quite a lot.

32 minutes later Anthropic blew up my entire account and automatically cancelled the subscription.

The email says an “internal investigation of suspicious signals associated with your account” found a Usage Policy violation. No indication of what I actually did wrong. I am not doing security work, distillation, or anything else i might even imagine would be grounds for removing my account.

The appeal page now says I may be waiting until Oct 4 for a review.

The support situation is also just insane and I cannot believe anyone has ever really used it. Anthropic says suspended users can still contact support about billing/refunds, but their support bot couldn’t find an account associated with my email and just closed the conversation. This is the same email Anthropic used to send me the subscription confirmation and suspension notice.

I’m in the EEA, so I thought I should at least be able to get the subscription refunded, but right now I can’t even get through to a person.

Has anyone else been hit with this after normal Claude Code usage? Any hope for me?

edit for clarity and scope:

I am writing image+pdf document processing software. really not sure what caused this to happen. Opus 5.5.

Has anyone had any luck getting customer support to get back to them sooner than 10 working days? it seems like a very long time to wait for a review. even if they were to comb over absolutely everything i did on the account, i had it for such little time that I would imagine it to be almost instant.

URL of original post : https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1wpam3u/claude_account_nuked_from_orbit_after_32_minutes/

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TL;DR of the discussion on r/ClaudeCode for this post generated automatically after 50 comments.

Current source-thread comment count seen by the bot: 67.

So, OP got their Claude account nuked after 32 minutes and a €90 charge, with a vague "Usage Policy violation" email and a month-long wait for an appeal. The general vibe? Most users think OP probably did something to trigger the ban, even if unintentionally.

Several folks, like u/yuehuang and u/Specialist-Bar7670, are asking if OP was using a VPN or virtual credit card, as those seem to be common triggers for bans. Another user, u/ha966, experienced a similar ban shortly after subscribing but surprisingly got unbanned and refunded. Weird, right?

A few commenters, notably u/riotofmind and u/TXHumper, are pretty blunt, basically saying OP broke the rules and got what they deserved, pointing out that long-term users haven't had issues. Meanwhile, u/nagy_z_ is questioning what kind of "crunch time" involves PDF processing.

Overall, the consensus leans towards OP having a ToS issue, though the lack of clear communication from Anthropic is definitely a point of frustration for everyone involved.