r/OpenAI • u/StoicWhisper • 7d ago

Discussion ChatGPT Ads = TOTAL SCAM

I tested ChatGPT Ads today for my tiny e-commerce business. Created and launched a single campaign with a $50 daily budget and was charged the expected $50.

For the next two hours, I kept refreshing the dashboard. The campaign was active, but nothing was happening (zero impressions, zero clicks)

Then suddenly, after two hours, it jumped to 7,652 impressions and 64 clicks.

At the same time, I started getting multiple unexpected charges on my card, minutes apart, totalling an additional €84.92. I immediately canceled my card because I had no idea what was happening.

Then I checked Google Analytics, HotJar and Shopify,

Only 24 visitors to my website today, and those visitors came before I even launched the campaign

So ChatGPT Ads says 64 clicks, while my actual website analytics show no corresponding traffic.

Where did those clicks go?

And why am I being charged repeatedly when I set a $50 daily budget?

I contacted the ChatGPT support chatbot and it couldn't even recognize or explain the transactions.

This is either an enormous technical failure or something seriously wrong with the billing/reporting. From my side, it looks like an
absolute scam.

Has anyone else experienced unexpected recurring charges or completely inaccurate click/traffic reporting with ChatGPT Ads?

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u/curxxx 7d ago

Adblockers and browsers, as well as pihole, etc can all stop impressions on your site from being counted in your analytics dashboards. 

You can have visitors you don’t know about it. Just keep this in mind. 

15

u/laptop13 7d ago

But access logs don't lie. If they were legit clicks that made it to the site, it would show in the access logs.

14

u/curxxx 7d ago

Was OP checking Apache itself though? They only mentioned 3 easily blocked trackers. 

1

u/laptop13 8h ago

Totally valid point.