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TIL OpenAI pre-paid credits expires...
So, if you pay $100 and don't use it within the next year
Well... You just lost $100!
Anyway, there's +$400 left in my OpenAI pre-paid credit balance expiring on September, and wondering if selling it at discount would make sense, instead of losing it all, for a second time... (already lost $100 a few days ago)
👋 Join WIP to participate
200$ 🙄
but how are you selling, api key?
It's a bit low, but yeah, I would just give you the API key and happy to find a way to share the usage consumption (to prove I'm not scamming or anything)
its an auction so anyone can bid higher )
True ahah
also if I had a way to place them into my OpenAI account, I'd probably pay 300$ for it, but the inconvenience of having to regularly account for this (are there enough credits left? do I ask you the credit) is not worth the hassle :)
Far point... I previously asked them to transfer credits and they don't do it sadly.
Piggybacking: I have $2,000 in credits expiring EOM. Send me a DM if you want them and I'll figure something out!
Damn, that's a lot! Did you just learn like me about the credits expiration?
No, I knew, I just wanted to make sure I got my use out of them first.
I was given them for free as a part of the Azure + OpenAI deal for startup founder credits a while back. Think they discontinued the program.
Ah okay, in my case they were paid... breaks my heart even more...
I strongly advise against selling them. It's very likely against their terms of service to either sell (or buy) such credits. It's not something we want to facilitate on WIP either.
September is a long time from now. Maybe you can use it as push to build a OpenAI-powered product and "sell" them that way? (i.e. by wrapping useful functionality around them).
Fair point... it's would just be a shame to lose it all... Also noticed Anthropic have the same one year expiration, I'll have to use this one too.
PS: Let me know if you prefer me to remove this post completely.
I would look at it differently. You never truly owned the credits to begin it. It's always been OpenAI's, but they let you use their service free of charge a bit to give you some leeway to build up your business.
I don't mind leaving the post up. As it's an interesting discussion I think. But if you prefer to have it removed I can do that
Edited the post to orient it less towards "selling".
I understand your point of view, but it's heartbreaking to see $100 you paid just disappear if you haven't used it in a year.
I thought there was some rules in Europe that credits needed to have a minumum of 2 years or something
Oh sorry I didn’t realize you paid for these. I assumed they were free credits.
If you paid, I’d just ask them for a refund or extend the validity.
That was there response, even when asking for a refund or something
Wow okay that's really bad
Yep...
This is like gift cards that expire. Lots of countries have protection against it but openai clearly doesn't care.
Yeah... Learned it the hard way 😅
When OpenAI switched to the credit system a little bit ago they changed it so all credits you purchase expire within a year. Their models are so cheap I essentially just waste around $3 a year because I only ever use $2 ish of usage every year, and the minimum you can buy is $5.
Pretty dumb. It would be like if you bought a gift card and then your giftcard expired after a year.
Surely this is illegal
In what way exactly?
Most countries have consumer protection laws that stop things like charging for services and then never providing them.
I know right, I would have thought the same, but looks like they don't care at all...
I recently got a bunch of errors back from their API endpoint that didn't make sense until I realised that I didn;t have an credits left. Weirdly enough, it didn't say "No credits, pay us" but something else.
I then checked and I also must have lost like $100 or so that I topped up a year or 2 ago. Went back to top up again, but this time I actually use them quite a bit. But I'd never update large amounts with that policy as it doesn't really make sense to upgrade more than the minimum.
Credits should never really expire in my opinion.
Agreed! If you pay it, it should be yours forever, which is different than if you get credits for free.
Yeah I had the same with Anthropic credits, worth noting they do the same thing!
True! I heard the same, it's so sad to see that they are willing to somewhat "steal" people's money... At least paint it in red everywhere when you purchase the credits, don't hide it in the terms...