A South Korean developer said a free Claude account with zero API usage and no linked credit card received escalating billing alerts over two days.
A South Korean developer said billing notices tied to Anthropic's Claude pointed to attempted charges despite the account being on a free plan, showing zero API usage and no linked credit card. The developer said Stripe (payments processor) sent failed payment notifications for about $1.67 million on July 7, then roughly $16.6 million a day later, marking an almost tenfold jump within 24 hours. The episode, if confirmed, would raise fresh questions about billing controls and error handling in AI platform payment systems.