Just searched for their actual policies to corroborate and found the policies on ID verification:

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10910291-api-organizatio...

And that credits are nonrefundable:

https://openai.com/policies/service-credit-terms/

It absolutely seems like terrible horrible customer service not to issue refunds in this case. Obviously the credits can still be used for most of the models, so it's not like you can't do anything with them. But if someone explains they bought the credits specifically to use with the verification-gated models and then discovered they couldn't (since apparently verification fails for some people), there's no question that refunds are the right thing to do. What is OpenAI thinking?

(BTW, speculation seems to be that the verification process doesn't have anything to do with know-your-customer laws or anti-fraud, but is intended to prevent competitors like Chinese DeepSeek from having large-scale access to OpenAI's best models.)

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logicchains 10 days ago | parent | next [-]

>(BTW, speculation seems to be that the verification process doesn't have anything to do with know-your-customer laws or anti-fraud, but is intended to prevent competitors like Chinese DeepSeek from having large-scale access to OpenAI's best models.)

It's not because OpenAI's CEO is also the founder of WorldCoin, a project to ID everyone?

	▲	egorfine 10 days ago \| parent [-]
		Funny though their KYC process is not done via WorldCoin. Obviously because WorldCoin KYC is useless for authorities.

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pjmlp 10 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depending on where the post author is located, whatever says on those links is worth garbage if they are located in Europe.

Most European countries have consumer protection agencies with teeth, and a company cannot decide on their own what they refund or not.

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retube 9 days ago | parent [-]

This may be true, but potentially involves much time, energy, and money by the author to challenge.... so for 99% of people, OpenAI will get away with it

	▲	privacyking 9 days ago \| parent [-]
		A chargeback can be started in minutes.

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potamic 10 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's kinda scammy. It's not like they have to manage shipments and handle goods or anything. I wonder if they're banking on a percentage of users leaving credits unused like credit card companies do with loyalty points.

	▲	helicone 9 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think they care one way or the other. They haven't ever been profitable, and so they're likely going to build up data and pull the rug on all of their users by suddenly declaring themselves a data broker. They won't try this against companies that can afford to sue, but most of their users will probably start to get even more creepily targeted ads directed at them.

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irvingprime 10 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Customer service? In the age of AI? What have you been smoking?