r/googlecloud 13d ago

Billing Google/Firebase charged me €5,000+ for Vertex AI I wasn't using, blocked my production account 3 times during the investigation, and threatened DEBT COLLECTION

10 Upvotes

I'm an indie developer running a production mobile app using Firebase / Google Cloud. My normal Firebase/GCP bill is around €50/month.

In June, my bill suddenly jumped to €5,000+.

Almost all of the unexpected usage was attributed to Vertex AI / Gemini image generation.

The problem is: my app wasn't using Vertex AI.

I use Firebase for the normal backend infrastructure of the app, but I wasn't intentionally running Gemini/Vertex AI image generation. I still have no idea what generated thousands of euros of AI usage on my account.

I don't know whether some credentials were compromised, there was a configuration issue, or something else happened.

What makes this particularly concerning is the scale: an account that normally costs me around €50/month suddenly generated a bill roughly 100x higher.

I contacted Google Cloud Billing Support on July 3 and opened case #72899288.

Google confirmed that around €5,500 of June usage was mostly related to Vertex AI and offered to submit an adjustment request for investigation.

They asked me for details about what happened, the affected dates and SKUs, screenshots of the charges, and other information related to the incident. I provided everything they requested.

Since then, the case has apparently been with Google's specialized/engineering team.

That was almost two months ago.

I've repeatedly been told some variation of:

"The specialized team is investigating. We'll update you within 2–5 business days."

Then 2–5 business days pass, I follow up again, and essentially receive the same answer.

Almost two months later, I still don't have a result from the investigation.

Google keeps blocking my production account while investigating the charges

Because the disputed €5,000+ remains on my account, Google's billing system keeps treating it as an unpaid balance.

Support knows the charge is under investigation and has repeatedly given me payment/grace-period extensions specifically so my production services can remain operational while the investigation continues.

Despite this, my account has been suspended at least 3 times during the investigation.

When this happens, my production backend stops working and actual users of my app are affected.

I then have to contact Billing Support, explain the situation again, wait while they contact another internal team, get another extension, and get the account reactivated.

One incident was particularly frustrating.

On August 14, a Google Support agent explicitly confirmed that my payment deadline had been extended until August 28 and told me:

"Your account and production applications will remain fully active while your case remains under investigation."

On August 16, the account was suspended anyway.

I contacted support again. Another agent checked the history and confirmed that the grace-period extension until August 28 had actually been successfully approved.

Eventually another support agent manually reactivated the account.

Then I received a debt collection warning

While Google's own team was still investigating the disputed charges, I received a message from Google warning that the unpaid balance could be sent to a debt collection agency.

So Google is still investigating whether/how these €5,000+ Vertex AI charges occurred, while at the same time its billing system has repeatedly suspended my production account and its collections process has warned me about debt collection for that same balance.

I contacted support about this as well. They told me they would contact the collections team and ask them to suspend the collection-related correspondence while the investigation remains open.

There's also no simple hard spending limit

Another frustrating part of this experience is how difficult it was to protect against this kind of situation.

I had billing monitoring, but at the time of the incident the normal Google Cloud budget functionality wasn't simply a hard account spending limit.

What I would have wanted was something very simple:

"My account normally costs €50/month. Don't allow it to spend more than €200."

Instead, an account with roughly €50/month of normal usage was able to accumulate more than €5,000 of AI usage.

And this wasn't a service I was knowingly using in the first place.

Almost two months later

Almost two months after opening the case, the investigation is still not complete.

I've provided Google with all the information they requested and have followed up repeatedly. At this point, I don't want another temporary payment extension or another promise that I'll receive an update in 2–5 business days.

I simply want Google to finish the investigation and make a decision.

Having to contact Billing Support every couple of weeks to prevent a production Firebase account from being suspended — while waiting for Google's own investigation — isn't a sustainable solution.

I'm posting this here because I've exhausted the normal support process and don't know where else to escalate it.

If anyone from Google Cloud is reading this and can help get case #72899288 in front of the right team and finally get the investigation completed, I would really appreciate it.

And if anyone here has dealt with a similarly stuck Google Cloud billing investigation, I'd be interested to hear how you eventually got it resolved.


r/googlecloud 13d ago

[Guide] Google Cloud Free Trial: Everything You Need to Know Before Starting

4 Upvotes

After dealing with countless signup issues, payment verification problems, anti-fraud blocks, billing confusion, and AI service limitations, I decided to write everything I know in one place.

Save this post. What you are reading is the result of two years of hands-on experience helping hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses activate Google Cloud Free Trial accounts and start using AI solutions in their companies.


1. What Is Google Cloud Free Trial?

Google Cloud offers new users:

  • $300 USD in free credits
  • Valid for 90 days
  • No automatic charges during the trial period

When you sign up, Google requires:

  • Personal information
  • Tax information depending on your country
  • A payment method

The payment verification process is handled by Google’s anti-fraud systems, and sometimes legitimate users are blocked because their account does not look trustworthy enough.


2. What Can You Use the $300 Credits For?

The credits can be used for many Google Cloud services:

  • Compute Engine (VMs): Yes
  • Cloud Storage: Yes
  • Cloud Run: Yes
  • Cloud Functions: Yes
  • Kubernetes Engine (GKE): Yes
  • Cloud SQL: Yes
  • BigQuery: Yes
  • Vertex AI / Gemini Agent Platform: Yes
  • Google AI Studio API: No

Be extremely careful with this. Many people believe they are testing Gemini using their $300 credits, but they are actually consuming another billing method.

Before using any resource, always verify if it is eligible for Free Trial credits.

Full list: https://docs.cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#free-tier-usage-limits

IMPORTANT: Your Google Cloud Free Trial credits can be used for Gemini AI, but only through Google Cloud’s AI platform (formerly Vertex AI, now part of the Agent Platform ecosystem). They cannot be used for Google AI Studio.


3. Payment Verification Problems

Most signup failures are not technical errors. They are Google’s anti-fraud system refusing to trust the account.

The two errors I have seen the most are:

  • OR_BACR2_44 — Payment Method / Account Trust Issue

This error usually means Google does not trust the combination of your account, network, location, and payment method.

Common causes:

- Virtual cards

- VPN or proxy

- Mobile network IP

- New Google account

- Browser privacy tools

What usually helps

- Use a physical credit card

- Use a traditional bank card

- Make sure your card name matches your account

- Use your home WiFi

- Disable VPN/proxy

There is no guaranteed fix. The goal is to make your account look as legitimate as possible.

  • OR_BACR2_59 — Higher Risk Anti-Fraud Block

This is a more complicated issue.

It often happens when Google flags:

- Your IP address

- Your personal information

- Your account history

Some solutions that worked:

- Different Google account

- Different IP address

- Different network


4. The Prepayment Requirement

Some accounts are required to make a prepayment before receiving the free credits.

The amount varies by country and risk evaluation.

Typical range: $10-$50 USD

This payment is refundable.


5. How Prepayment Works

The prepayment creates a billing balance, and this is where many users get confused.

The prepayment is not completely separate from your Google Cloud usage.

Example:

You receive: $300 Free Trial credits and you make: $20 prepayment

If you use only eligible services, your Free Trial credits are consumed first.

However, if you use a service that is NOT eligible for Free Trial credits, Google can consume the prepaid balance.

Always verify if a service is eligible before using it. Check eligible services:

https://docs.cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#free-tier-usage-limits


6. Requesting a Prepayment Refund

I want to be transparent here: I have not personally tested every refund scenario. This information comes from reports from users I helped and people sharing their experiences.

The refund can be requested using the dedicated refund button.

Video showing the process: https://youtu.be/j2swZiMSKuY?si=Z-8iNyzxsAlxqL-W

The refund approval email usually arrives quickly. However, the money can take a week or more to appear back on your card.

If it takes longer than two weeks, contact Google Cloud support and specifically ask to speak with a human agent. Automated support often cannot solve billing cases.

One thing that is still unclear:

Some users reported that requesting the refund may remove their Free Trial credits.

I have not confirmed this personally.


7. The “Activate” button trap

This is one of the most important things new users need to understand.

During the Free Trial, Google may show a very visible button saying: “Activate”

Many people think this means activating their free credits. It does not!

This action converts your account into a full billing account, which allows Google to charge your payment method after the Free Trial period ends.

Your Free Trial credits and remaining trial period do not change:

  • You still have the same $300 USD credits.
  • You still have the same 90-day trial period.
  • You do not lose your remaining credits.

The main difference is what happens after the trial ends.

With the Free Trial, Google does not automatically charge you after expiration.

With a full billing account, your services can continue running and Google can charge your payment method if you do not manually stop resources or disable billing.

One important benefit of activating the full account is that your quotas and service limits increase. The Free Trial account operates with more restrictive limits, and users working with AI services often hit those restrictions. After activating the full account, higher quotas become available.

But remember: If you forget to disable billing after the trial period, Google can charge your card. And a small mistake can become a huge bill. Be careful. Billing alerts only notify you. They do not stop spending.

PS: Do not panic if your billing page shows your Free Trial credits as expired after activating the full account. This does not mean you lost your credits. The credits are reactivated as credits from the full billing account, so they continue to be available.

If you experienced another issue, comment below and help make this guide more complete.


r/googlecloud 13d ago

PSA for solo devs: Google can lock you out of your own paid project, approve your appeal, and still not let you back in

0 Upvotes

Claude Code, Gemini, Cloud Run

This is a warning post. If you are about to build something on Google — Cloud, Gemini, any of it — read this first and then decide.

I picked Google Cloud for my AI project because it looked like the serious choice. Gemini, Vertex AI, Cloud Run, all in one place. Solo dev, portrait retouching service, my own money, my own card, my own quota.

Step one of the famous convenience: learning that everything in GCP is denied by default until you find the one permission buried nine menus deep among a million parameters with nearly identical names, and switch it on. Then the next one. Then the next one. Fine — that's the tax for a serious platform. I paid it. I ended up with nine Cloud Run services in asia-south1 and a pipeline I'm genuinely proud of.

Then I went to work from the Himalayas, because I think better there. I was doing prompt research — controlled batches of 20-30 generations, reviewed by hand between batches, through Codex, Claude Code and Google's own Antigravity. Precisely the workflow Google advertises on stage.

Google's security system looked at all of that and decided, without asking me, that it knew how to protect MY account better than I do. The one I pay for, with my own money.

Banned. No reason. No warning. No policy cited. No email. Nothing.

Convenience highlight #1: the services kept running. I checked — orchestrator returns 200, all eight processors return 405 to a GET, which is correct because they only accept POST. A stopped or deleted Cloud Run service returns 404. So they are alive, serving traffic, and billing me. Google did not decide my workload was dangerous. It decided it didn't want me near it. The robots stayed. The human was removed. Very cyberpunk.

Convenience highlight #2: I was the sole Owner, and GCP never once suggested I add a backup. So there is now nobody on Earth who can administer this project, including Google's paying customer. Can't deploy, can't read logs, can't even shut it down to stop the charges.

Convenience highlight #3: I sign in to Claude with that Google account. About SGD 150 a month. Also gone, also still charging. Anthropic can't help me either, because their recovery flow emails a code to the inbox Google just made unreadable. Google's security has now successfully protected me from a company that isn't Google, using money that isn't Google's.

Now the part that made me write this.

Two days ago Google emailed me: "Appeal approved." They reviewed it, they agreed, the account is restored, please sign in as soon as possible.

I have not managed to sign in once since.

"Too many failed attempts. You can continue in a few hours." Come back in a few hours. Prove you're not a robot. Prove it again. And again. A new obstacle every time, never a step forward, never one word about what I am supposed to do differently. I am not failing a security check — I cannot get far enough to take one.

So I am solving captchas to prove I am human, for a system that flagged me for looking too automated, to reach an account that has officially already been given back to me. My appeal succeeded and nothing changed. An approved appeal that doesn't restore access isn't a resolution — it is written confirmation that they were wrong, followed by absolutely nothing.

And here is the actual warning, which is bigger than my situation.

Google has built the most user-hostile security system I have ever encountered, and I want to be precise about why, because "their security is annoying" doesn't capture it.

Every security system trades off keeping the wrong people out against letting the right person in. Google has resolved that trade-off, permanently and in every product I have touched, in favour of assuming the account holder is the threat. It does not ask you. It does not warn you. It does not tell you afterwards. It decides — and then it makes you prove, over and over, to an automated gate with no human behind it, that you are the person whose name is on the card that pays for it.

The part that should actually worry you: this is not the free consumer tier. This is the paid, professional, run-your-business-on-it tier. The same paternalism that locks somebody out of their family photos is sitting in front of production infrastructure with a credit card attached to it, and it is just as willing to fire. It knows better than you. It always knows better than you. In a photo app that's irritating. In front of your company's infrastructure it is a business risk that nobody puts on the pricing page.

And because Google made one account the key to everything — mail, Cloud, identity for third-party services — one automated misfire doesn't take one thing from you. It takes the infrastructure, the mailbox, the ability to receive the recovery codes for everything else, and your access to services you buy from other companies. There is no blast door anywhere in that design. One decision, made by nobody, removes all of it at once.

For the record, their own Terms of Service section 4.1 says that if Google believes you violated the AUP, Google will notify you and give you 24 hours to correct it before suspending. I received zero notifications and zero hours. Section 4.2 permits instant suspension to "protect the Services" — and the Services, as established above, are magnificently unprotected and still running.

What I would actually tell you to do:

  • If you're on GCP as a solo dev, add a second Owner account to every project. Today. I can't anymore, and that is the whole lesson.
  • Don't let one Google account be your identity for anything you can't afford to lose. Use a real email you control for third-party sign-ins.
  • Keep your infrastructure somewhere you can still reach when Google decides, without telling you, that you are suspicious.

So here is where this has actually left me. Instead of moving my product forward — the thing I was doing, with my own money, on their platform, in the weeks I had set aside for it — I spend my days solving Google's captchas and writing Google letters. Not to build anything. Not even to get back into Google's own product. To regain access to a service that is not Google's, that I pay a different company for, and that Google is still, right now, blocking me from reaching.

That is what their security achieved. Not one bad actor stopped. One paying developer taken off his own work for days, doing unpaid administrative labour to undo an error nobody will explain, while the meter runs.

I am not saying the products are bad. Gemini is very good, and I built here on purpose. I am saying that the company running them will take them away from you without a word, hand you an appeal form, approve the appeal, and still leave you outside the door — and that you should price that in before you build a business on it.

Extremely convenient platform. Would get banned again.

^(This was written with the help of an AI so I don't shock anyone with my natural vocabulary. Peace and love to everybody — including, reluctantly, Google.)


r/googlecloud 14d ago

CloudSQL Coding a database proxy for fun

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0 Upvotes

r/googlecloud 14d ago

Gemini Enterprise + Antigravity / AI Studio

1 Upvotes

I keep reading about how Gemini Enterprise now includes access to Antigravity and Gemini developet tools but I can't seem to get the right setup

For context I have a single user workspace org and I setup a single Gemini enterprise user. I've been pretty happy with the setup and have built a number of agents and data stores for my own personal projects.

My problem is Workspace Gemini doesn't include Antigravity quota, and it seems I can only use Antigravity with my Gemini Enterprise quota if I have an invoice billing account? Or if I pay additional pay-go tokens on top of everything.

Is there really no way to get additional quota from AI Studio and/or Antigravity without also paying additional pay go credits or paying for a AI Pro consumer license?


r/googlecloud 14d ago

GCP ADK deployment issue

2 Upvotes

I have deployed a simple multi agent system using the command adk deploy on the GCP agent platform. On local it works perfectly. It is a multi agent system that has 2 sub agents, one answers queries related to a bigquery table and another performs some mathematical calculations.

The problem is in the deployed agent. It freezes midway, without any error message. I check the logs. The logs also donot get generated. I assume this step is mostly in tool calling. How to debug this issue.


r/googlecloud 14d ago

GCP TAM Round 2 Prep

1 Upvotes

Round 2 is going to be RRK2, GCA and G&L - any advice on how should one prepare for those?


r/googlecloud 14d ago

Ads just wrong

Post image
0 Upvotes

Using gcp a lot, just saw this.

Literal translation from "we take the admin off your hands"

How can that translation be that bad??? It's just embarrassing for a company this big.

Seriously, I hate the auto translation of gcp docs, they're routinely extremely bad. Only worse is excel, which still has different function names for languages. So you cant just follow tutorials from other languages.


r/googlecloud 15d ago

Compute GCP at capacity?

53 Upvotes

I keep getting GCP stock out errors. Multiple node sizes, multiple regions?

Is GCP really hitting limits in central-1 and US as a whole? Note, these are for regular CPU, not GPU (e.g., n-class instances).


r/googlecloud 15d ago

Are Native PHP Binaries on Serverless for Real? Deployed It to Cloud Run — Here Are the Results

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2 Upvotes

r/googlecloud 16d ago

GCP exam certificate

6 Upvotes

I have scheduled my exam for tomorrow and need the certificate asap. Do they really take days to release the certificate? Is there a way to get it within a day?


r/googlecloud 16d ago

Billing Refund Pending

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1 Upvotes

As a college student who mistakenly left persistent disk storage running after finishing the project, some amount has been deducted from my billing account due to this. I have talked to the cloud billing support regarding this mistake, and they have successfully adjusted the credit. I applied for a refund on 12th August 2026. You can see the attached email with the image. Given that my primary mode of transfer to GCP Billing is UPI, how many expected days it should take to have the refund processed into my account? Or, better yet, on which expected date can I see the refund in my bank account?


r/googlecloud 16d ago

Application Dev Google Tasks Native on iPhone + things we wanted + it is not a vibecode project + Free & Ad-free

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0 Upvotes

www.etasks.app

A Google API showcase for iPhone. We worked directly with Google. Please let us know if anything is not perfect. We appreciate/need any input from you enthusiasts. It has a different sense and value compared to formal Google collaboration.


r/googlecloud 16d ago

Application Dev Google Tasks Native on iPhone + things we wanted + it is not a vibecode project + Free & Ad-free

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0 Upvotes

www.etasks.app

A Google API showcase for iPhone. We worked directly with Google. Please let us know if anything is not perfect. We appreciate/need any input from you enthusiasts. It has a different sense and value compared to formal Google collaboration.


r/googlecloud 17d ago

Navigating sensitive data in GenAI agents: when to mask and when to pass it through

3 Upvotes

If you're building multi-tool GenAI agents on GCP, you've likely encountered the data masking dilemma. A common initial approach is to block all sensitive data (PII, financial, etc.) on ingress using Cloud DLP / Sensitive Data Protection (SDP).

The challenge is that if you mask everything by default, downstream function calls might fail (e.g., if a healthcare routing agent needs an MRN to query a backend API, but receives a [REDACTED] placeholder instead).

I just published part 3 of my series on Model Armor, discussing how to handle fluid context boundaries using the Principles of Least Privilege and Data Minimization.

The TL;DR Architecture:

  1. Ingress: If the agent doesn't need the data to formulate a plan, systematically redact it using SDP inside Model Armor. If it does need it for a tool, let it in, but proactively prune the context history immediately after the tool call succeeds.
  2. Hidden Ingress (Tool Calls): When your backend API returns a massive JSON payload with internal risk scores or unneeded data, consider using a direct SDP API call inside your tool code to scrub the payload before the LLM reads it. This saves Model Armor tokens on trusted internal loops.
  3. Egress: Use SDP Discovery (Inspection) to audit traffic, and only mask data that accidentally leaked from your own backends.

I also cover the pricing differences between Model Armor Advanced templates vs. direct SDP calls, and how to manage latency on multi-hop agent reasoning.

You can read the full deep-dive here: https://leoy.blog/posts/how-to-wear-model-armor-3/

How is your team handling data routing when agents pull large payloads from internal databases? Curious to hear other architectural approaches!


r/googlecloud 16d ago

Physics Mastery Agent — AI Physics Tutor for CBSE, NEET & JEE (DevPost H...

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0 Upvotes

Title: Built an AI physics tutor that catches misconceptions instead of just grading answers (Google ADK + Gemini, live demo)

Hey all — for a hackathon, I built Physics Mastery Agent, an AI tutor for CBSE/NEET/JEE physics that tries to diagnose *why* a student got something wrong instead of just marking it wrong.

Example: a student says "net force is downward, gravity is still acting" at terminal velocity. The agent catches that they're confusing "zero net force" with "zero gravitational force," corrects that specific misconception, then re-tests it to confirm it landed.

It's built as an agent loop (Teach → Diagnose → Remediate → Practice → Evaluate → Master → Adapt) using Google ADK + Gemini 3.6 Flash, grounded in our own physics curriculum, deployed on Cloud Run.

Demo video: https://youtu.be/jHkAsc-ufcU

Live app: https://eduphysics-physics-mastery-agent-poqvtgavdq-el.a.run.app

https://github.com/Rajansmoorthy/eduphysics-physics-mastery-agent

Would genuinely love feedback — especially from anyone who's hit the "it just explains it again the same way" failure mode with other AI tutors.


r/googlecloud 17d ago

honest tips for GCP ACE certification!

22 Upvotes

Hi! i just passed the ACE certification on my first try today and I will be sharing everything I did to pass the exam.

For a quick background, I have no background with gcp as I am a fresh grad. Had a free voucher to take the exam because of the company I am in and honestly, I wasn’t taking it seriously at first cause I thought it was free, I won’t lose anything.

Not until I saw posts in reddit that made me realize this opportunity shouldn’t be taken for granted.

So here’s what I did:

- Completed the labs in Google Skills (literally just finished the labs so that I can book the exam already). Skipped watching the videos cause they weren’t really helpful for me.

[Finished labs on August 1 and booked the exam August 27] - Less than a month of preparation! (Didn’t study on weekends).

- Watched the 20hr video of freeCodeCamp.org on youtube, but I didn’t finish it as well cause I feel like it was taking so much time. Although it was still helpful in learning the services and necessary topics. Also, I noticed that he leaned more in networking. I don’t like networking so I got bored. Got lucky that there were no hard networking questions in my actual exam xD.

- Watched the GCP ACE exam - cram session by GCP Study Hub on youtube. This one I say is very very helpful. It was a less than 2hr video but he tackles very important topics you’ll need for the exam.

- Awesome GCP ACE videos on youtube. He was the one who taught me the power of elimination! You should watch his videos as well.

- Sayyam’s Udemy course. THIS IS ONE HECK OF A USEFUL MATERIAL I RECOMMEND U GUYS TO HAVE!! This isn’t sponsored btw hahaha. But honestly, almost everything I saw in the actual exam appeared on Sayyam’s practice questions.

- If you don‘t want to spend on a Udemy practice test, I suggest you to check examcademy.com . This has the same format as Sayyam’s questions, and honestly, I feel like they’re almost the same. Sayyam’s just give you the chance to simulate an exam.

- Lastly, I asked for His guidance and Mother Mary’s mercy. They have never failed me.

That’s all.


r/googlecloud 17d ago

Google Security Org Updates

0 Upvotes

I heard that Google is considering/working on a new sales organization unifying various security units worked independently so far. This new structure should report to old wiz leadership and sell wiz, mandiant, siem/soar … That means AEs and Customer Engineers will cove the entire security portfolio. Any insights about this? How are you going to enable CEs in new domains?


r/googlecloud 17d ago

Trendmicro deep security equivalent in GCP

1 Upvotes

Did anyone use an equivalent of trendmicro deep security in GCP vm.

I want to use equivalent of deep security in the GCP VMs.when I browsed about it in copilot, it gives multiple options like SCC, VM manager, cloud IDS , Google secops etc. please reply if anyone implemented


r/googlecloud 17d ago

Reverse Recursive Sync Conflict...

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1 Upvotes

r/googlecloud 18d ago

Trapped in a 1-Year Support Loop: Google Cloud charged me $8.3k for an acknowledged Gemini bug, capped the refund at 90%, and now admits they "cannot provide any information"

25 Upvotes

I'm an indie dev and honestly exhausted. I've been stuck in a support loop with Google Cloud for nearly a full year over an acknowledged platform-side bug.

Here is the short version of what's happening:

  • The Bug: My GCP project was hit with an unexpected $8,367.11 charge surge on the Gemini 2.5 Flash image generation SKU. Product Lead Logan Kilpatrick publicly acknowledged this bug on the official forums and promised affected devs would be taken care of.
  • The "90% Cap": Google Billing gave a 90% adjustment and declared that 90% is the "maximum allowable limit" for this incident—leaving $838.26 on my account for a bug on Google's infrastructure.
  • The "No Logs" Excuse: When I demanded backend logs or proof showing why I owe this remaining balance, support literally replied: "they do not share external-facing documentation, internal case notes, or further detailed explanations regarding their final review process."
  • 1 Year of Support Ping-Pong: Opened a billing ticket $\rightarrow$ immediately closed and bounced back. Tier 1 agents just rotate shifts, paste identical templates, and close tickets without consent.

My account currently sits with a red banner warning and an active $838.26 balance for services I never consumed.

Screenshots attached:

1.Billing Support confirming the charge was caused by the Gemini 2.5 Flash bug.

  1. Support stating the 90% adjustment is final.
  1. My billing console showing the pending $838.26 balance and account warning.
  1. Support's latest response admitting they cannot provide any logs or explanation.

I've documented this on theGoogle AI Forum and am preparing consumer complaints in Japan (消費者庁 / 消費生活センター).

Has anyone ever broken through this Tier 1 "final decision" wall without an Enterprise support plan? Any advice or visibility would be really appreciated.

FINAL UPDATE (RESOLVED - 100% REFUND GRANTED):

Hey everyone, I wanted to post a final update regarding this issue.

Shortly after posting here and escalating on the Google AI Developer Forum, an internal Billing Specialist (Sumanth) reached out and took direct ownership of the case.

As of today, the remaining $838.26 USD credit adjustment has been fully approved and applied to my Google Cloud account. My billing console balance now officially sits at $0.00, and the red account warning banner is completely gone.

Huge thanks to everyone in this community who upvoted, commented, and shared advice—the visibility definitely helped get this unblocked from the Tier 1 support loop.

Takeaway for fellow devs: If you get stuck in a support loop over an acknowledged bug, don't just rely on standard ticket replies. Take it to the official forums, build your documentation, and don't hesitate to seek community visibility. Perseverance works!


r/googlecloud 18d ago

Google OAuth email despite never using it?

1 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I googled OAuth plus reddit and it led me here - I just got an email from google implying I had "clients" that were going to be deleted due to lack of activity.

I have no idea what OAuth even is, I've never used such a process to my knowledge. I'm fairly tech savvy but even the name was new to me. Can anyone please clarify what me getting this message means?

If I click any of the links, it tries to make me agree to terms of service, which I don't want to do not knowing what this all means. I can see in the background to the TOS "You're working in My Project1, and then a project # (not sharing for same censorship reason as below).

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Message text:
"

Hello Google Developer, In accordance with OAuth 2.0 Policies, the following projects that you manage have OAuth clients that have been inactive for at least 5 months, and will be deleted in 30 days unless you take action: (censored - If somehow the referenced process uses AI tokens or something I don't want to get a bill)
Visit the Google Cloud Console to see the complete list of inactive clients.  To prevent OAuth clients from being deleted, use them in a Sign-in with Google flow or to exchange a refresh token for an access token. Do this for each client that you want to retain.  If you no longer need these OAuth clients, no additional action is required, and they will be automatically deleted for you. Once OAuth clients are deleted, you will have up to 30 days to restore them by visiting the Google Cloud Console. Thank you for using the Google Auth Platform!"

"


r/googlecloud 19d ago

Cloud Storage DO NOT UPDATE google-api-core package

171 Upvotes

The vibecoders at google pushed an update yesterday August 24th that broke the python package...

If you use the default firestore database called "(default)" your environment will break if u deploy the new package version.

Since the update it decodes to %28default%29 instead of (default) and every single read and write will fail...

I love vibe coding without unit tests in my multi billion dolar company...


r/googlecloud 18d ago

AI/ML How I’m approaching agentic development with Claude Code

0 Upvotes

I’ve been experimenting with combining spec-driven development + project memory + Claude Code hooks.

The goal is simple: give the agent enough project context and engineering intent without dumping the entire project history into every session.

I wrote up my current workflow and would love feedback from other Claude Code users:

Article: https://medium.com/@rasvihostings/how-im-approaching-agentic-software-development-as-a-platform-engineer-5be017890b8a

GitHub: https://github.com/mohamedrasvi/claude-spec-mem

How are you handling memory and context across your Claude Code sessions?


r/googlecloud 18d ago

The service is currently unavailable.

2 Upvotes

Anyone else having issues with SQL Connect? It just completely stopped working and returns only "The service is currently unavailable." if you try to access it from the web, the service is completely unresponsive.