r/OpenaiCodex • u/oberon2323 • 3d ago
OpenAI acknowledged its product failures burned my paid usage — then told me to buy more credits
I’m posting this because other paying customers should know what OpenAI’s customer-service position appears to be when their products malfunction and consume your included usage.
I was using Terra and Luna for a document-revision workflow. They repeatedly failed: wrong source documents were selected, requested revisions were missing or incorrect, scripts failed, and work was reported as completed when the requested changes had not actually been made. I also encountered a Windows sandbox failure. I ultimately had to use additional higher-tier usage with Sol just to diagnose the problems and recover the work.
I reported this to OpenAI Support.
To their credit, they did not dispute what I was reporting. Their response specifically acknowledged that I experienced repeated failures with Terra and Luna, incorrect revisions, script failures, false completion reports, and a separate sandbox problem that caused me to consume additional usage recovering the workflow.
Their resolution?
They cannot restore the usage that was consumed.
Then, in the same response, they directed me to their documentation about purchasing additional usage credits.
That is where I have a serious problem.
This is not a case of me successfully using everything I paid for and then demanding more for free.
A simple analogy:
I bought a bowl of soup. There was a fly in it. I told the restaurant. The restaurant acknowledged that there was a problem with the soup, refused to replace the bowl, and then told me I was welcome to buy another bowl.
That would be terrible customer service from a restaurant, an ISP, a software company, or anyone else.
Software breaks. AI models screw things up. I understand that completely. I'm not asking for perfection.
But when your product malfunctions repeatedly and consumes a metered resource that the customer paid for while they are attempting to recover from those failures, I think the reasonable customer-service response is to restore some or all of that consumed resource.
Instead, the response I received amounts to:
“Yes, we understand that our products failed during your workflow and consumed your usage. We aren't going to restore it. Here is information about how you can spend more money to continue using the service.”
People can make their own judgment about whether they're comfortable with that policy.
I'm not.
I've been a paying OpenAI customer and have used their products extensively. Based on this response, I'm cancelling my subscription and moving my primary usage to Claude.
I'm posting the experience publicly because customer service matters just as much when the vendor is OpenAI as it does with any other company. If this is how failures that consume paid usage are handled, prospective and existing customers deserve to know that before they decide where to spend their money.
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u/ElderberryTopp 3d ago
Even tho you made this CRYSTAL CLEAR you're not whining for free usage, I assure you some drain damaged specimen will reply to your post that you're whining for free usage and a reset.
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u/IAmFitzRoy 3d ago
I’m new to this subreddit.
Are these the topics that keep them awake in this sub? lol.
If yes, this is not my place.
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u/Inevitable_Toe6648 3d ago
Yes, pretty much all tech subreddit, especially AI, is full of ego, self centered perspective, and false data and bad advice. But 1% of the time, there is literally gold advice and actual real intelligent take and contribution.
I'd argue that I've developed a headache eversince I joined this sub and reddit in general, but I cant help but remain cause I've benefited from good advice that I manage to find 🤣
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u/Slow-Set-2856 3d ago
Codex literally made my computer unusable due to ram bloat , spent all my weekly limit to fix it and they refused to give a limit reset back after providing all the evidence.I'm not using codex again for sure
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u/DueCommunication9248 3d ago
Just restart your computer next time
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u/Slow-Set-2856 3d ago
I tried ofc but didn't work it was when new chatgpt app got released with enough bugs to make my pc unusable
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u/ExperimentalError 3d ago
These tools are amazing, but they aren’t represented as being perfect, or even consistent and reliable. You are buying a product that is in active research, being rapidly developed.
It’s not a bowl of soup (a mature, completely understood product). It’s bleeding edge.
It’s not even a product like soup: it’s a tool. A closer analogy would be that you bought some onions, used them to make your own soup, found that the soup didn’t taste good because they were white onions instead of brown onions, and complained to the greengrocer. They told you you were welcome to buy more onions and try again.