ChatGPT Plus subscription renewal double charge

[thorn sky]

I've found an interesting bug w/ how the subscription payments work with ChatGPT Plus. This issue is related to the side effects caused by https://discord.com/channels/974519864045756446/1081224690388967525.

If someone could take a look I'd appreciate it!

Summary:
User's payment method failed downgrading them to free status, fixing the payment method at a later date does not upgrade the user to ChatGPT Plus and the billing cycle continues from original failure date. The workaround is to cancel original subscription and create a new one, causing a billing cycle to be double charged.

Problem Statment:
If a user currently does not have a ChatGPT Plus subscription but was previously subscribed due to a failed payment method OpenAI will not grant the user ChatGPT Plus access, this so far is intended and reasonable behavior.

But once the user fixes that payment issue, OpenAI will now "renew" the subscription for the original billing cycle, not from when the user fixes the payment method.

This means the user is charged for ChatGPT Plus for the days they do not have access to ChatGPT Plus.

This in of itself is annoying, but in my case fixing the original payment did not give me ChatGPT Plus back, it still claimed I was on the free-tier. The only fix was to cancel my previous subscription the follow it by creating a new subscription with a new billing cycle to reset the backend system, this triggers a new charge on the card.

Intended behavior:

• Users should expect that when fixing the payment methods, if ChatGPT Plus access is removed, that the new billing cycle should restart from the date that they fix the payment method
• Users should expect that fixing the payment method should grant them ChatGPT Plus access
• Users should expect when canceling then creating a new subscription, the new subscription begins at the end of the ongoing subscription cycle.

I wonder if it's possible to start multiple parallel subscription as well. The billing page seems to imply it, but I haven't checked if there's a sanity check

[thorn sky]

I've also reported a related issue to the support line a few days ago and haven't gotten a response :l

[rough sable]

i got exactly the same problem, how did you get these billing informations? i cant even reach this. @thorn sky

[thorn sky]

i hit manage subscriptions and it came up with this page

[thorn sky]

upgrade to plus -> manage subscriptions

[rough sable]

thats the point, there is no manage hahahaha

if i click upgrade, goes direct to payment

[thorn sky]

oh wierd—you probably have a similar but different problem to me

my issue comes up specifically when the payment method you use to pay for chatgpt plus fails

cause the system thinks ur still subscribed but u just haven’t paid

[rough sable]

in one month i have paid 3 times 20 dolars and today i paid one more tim and just lost my plus for the second time in one month.
1 payment on 14/02/2023 (first payment)
2 payment on 10/03/2023 (urgent payment to do not lose acess)
3 payment on 14/03/2023 (first recurrence and lost the access today also hahaha)

[thorn sky]

haha mans that’s unfortunate:l

their billing system is really screwed up ig

ik lenny has been looking at these issues, i hope theyre getting triaged correctly

[cinder cave]

Folks seeing this issue, please DM me your email that you use with ChatGPT

[fallen vector]

Sent you a DM.