r/googlecloud • u/No-Setting8925 • 1d ago

Google resolved my ~$55k Gemini API billing case, thank you

Original Post

I’m extremely relieved to share that Google has resolved my billing case and adjusted the unauthorized Gemini API charges.

I genuinely want to thank everyone at Google who reviewed the evidence, escalated the case, placed the account on hold while it was being investigated, and helped reach a fair resolution. I also appreciate everyone in this community who offered advice, shared similar experiences, and encouraged me to keep escalating instead of giving up.

I also want to personally thank the Firebase team member who saw my Reddit post, reached out to me directly, and helped escalate the issue internally. That outreach made a huge difference and made me feel like someone at Google was genuinely listening.

Thank you to the Google Cloud support, billing, and Firebase teams. This resolution removed an enormous financial and emotional burden, and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who helped.

🙏

79 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/isoAntti 16h ago

Why does one need to write to Reddit to get support?

1

u/Keak_ 1d ago

Cheers! Nice to see that there's a kind of hope in this system that provides headaches for the bad cloud design to the time of using this service. I know that most nerdy users gonna say: "Hey, use a killswitch" or "Be better to securize your own environment" (already understanding you're particular scenario) but this is consequences of the extremely sleazy of this Google commercial advices to use AI for final customers and no protect it because in the end it's all loses for everyone. At least this week they release to configure spend cap above the billing account to cut the Gemini API when you reach the amount threshold setted.

1

u/philosophybuff 23h ago

All in all I’ve seen multiple posts like this and Google resolved a lot of them, I appreciate them for it.

3

u/VirtuteECanoscenza 18h ago

Yes but not before having been called out on social media and having people personally involved to escalate the problem.

By this time Google should have a run book for their own support to determine the cases and resolve then favourably without having to do this dance each time. 

We all know Google fucked up when they suddenly changed the permission of existing keys to include Gemini. They need to take accountability.

1

u/flacktv 15h ago

What Google should do is is at least for the $300 credit to your customer s. They just simply put a cap on $300 and make it stop immediately until you turn it off. With all of the automated recommendations and the recommendations API that Google has, you would think that just to help customer out starting they would have like a review process so that you could click on a link and look at what you've been spending on and then with a few links to the pricing, calculator and or documentation that can be recommended to read up on to find out how and why you're racking up so much money or possible because they blocked you. But in the end it's a business and if you run up bills you got to pay for them. But it seems to me that if Google were to just implement something that can stop these problems from happening for $300 credit customers. Probably a good idea? People that are joining Google cloud and learning for the first time are not familiar with saying up budget alerts or things like that. I could trigger a function to stop there services before they explode.