Anthropics Technology Reviews 11

Absolutely Criminal!

32% of my session tokens and 2% of my weekly allowances used saying to Claude "Are you ready to work now?"

Anthropic has gone form being market leaders with Opus to being nothing short of a bait and switch SCAM operation that I am reporting to trading standards! This insane token usage renders Claude unusable for nay pourposes at all! Anthropic needs to be taken down and banned form trading! SCAM AI company!

Hi,

I'm writing with a tip about a situation involving Anthropic that I believe may be worth reporting. The short version: Anthropic's own backend bug caused a chain of events that led to my account being suspended — and after 9 days, the account remains inaccessible despite Anthropic confirming in writing both the bug and the subscription restoration.

I have documentation for every step.

────────────────────────────────
WHAT HAPPENED
────────────────────────────────

April 10 — I redeemed an official Claude Max 20x gift
card ($200/month plan, 100% covered). Anthropic issued
a receipt confirming the subscription through May 10.
(Invoice SSXODILM-0001)

April 12 — A backend bug in Anthropic's system
incorrectly downgraded my subscription two days after
activation, instead of maintaining the Max 20x tier.
I lost access to the plan I had paid for.

April 15 — After days of no response from support,
I attempted to restore access by adding a credit card.
The card lacked sufficient funds; the charge failed.
This triggered Anthropic's automated risk system and
my account was suspended.

April 16 — Anthropic sent me a written email
confirming two things:
1. The gift card subscription has been restored
2. The cause was a backend system bug on their end

April 19 — My account is still suspended. The
subscription is confirmed as valid and restored.
The account is still locked. I cannot access the
service at all. Nine days of a 30-day paid
subscription have been lost.

────────────────────────────────
WHY THIS IS A STORY
────────────────────────────────

This case raises several questions that may be of
broader public interest:

1. ANTHROPIC CONFIRMED THE BUG IN WRITING —
YET THE ACCOUNT REMAINS SUSPENDED
Anthropic's own April 16 email acknowledges the
bug and confirms the subscription is restored.
Despite this, the account suspension — which
exists solely because I responded to their bug —
has not been lifted. Anthropic has effectively
acknowledged fault while allowing the consequences
of that fault to remain in place.

2. A PAYING CUSTOMER SUSPENDED FOR RESPONDING
TO ANTHROPIC'S OWN ERROR
The failed credit card charge that triggered the
suspension only happened because Anthropic's bug
incorrectly downgraded my subscription. Without
the bug, there would have been no downgrade, no
credit card attempt, and no suspension. The
automated risk system penalized a customer for
reacting to a platform failure.

3. COMPLETE BREAKDOWN IN SUPPORT RESPONSIVENESS
Despite multiple support tickets, formal appeals,
a BBB complaint, and an FTC complaint, I have
received no substantive resolution in 9 days.
Anthropic's support infrastructure appears unable
to coordinate between the team that restored the
subscription and the team responsible for lifting
the account suspension.

4. GIFT CARD SUBSCRIBERS MAY BE SYSTEMATICALLY
AFFECTED
Anthropic has been distributing Claude Max gift
cards as promotional items. If the bug that
affected my account is not isolated, other gift
card recipients may be experiencing similar
downgrades without knowing the cause or how
to escalate effectively.

────────────────────────────────
DOCUMENTATION I CAN PROVIDE
────────────────────────────────

• Official Anthropic receipt (Invoice SSXODILM-0001)
confirming Max 20x subscription, April 10–May 10

• Anthropic's April 16 written confirmation
acknowledging the backend bug and subscription
restoration

• Screenshots of the account suspension notice
and "Missing Permissions" error

• Full support correspondence showing 9 days
of unanswered appeals

• BBB complaint confirmation

• FTC complaint reference

I am willing to speak on or off the record, share
all documentation, and answer any follow-up questions.
If this is something you'd like to pursue, please
feel free to reach out.

Thank you for your time.

⭐ 1/5 — Overpriced hallucination machine. Do NOT buy the $100 plan.

Claude hallucinates, fabricates facts, and confidently delivers wrong answers like it's a feature. The marketing promises world-class AI. The reality is a delusional, unreliable bot that makes things up and calls it intelligence.

When I asked for a refund, they deployed another AI bot to deny me — 5 times — with the same copy-pasted ToS. No human. No accountability. No shame.

They take $100, deliver garbage, then hide behind fine print. Classic bait and switch.

Now I'm doing a chargeback. That's all they deserve.

Avoid at all costs.

Appalling Customer Service - Condescending, Unhelpful, and a Complete Waste of Time

Where do I even start with this disaster?
I contacted Anthropic on December 4th about a simple issue: I'm an experienced app developer who's built multiple applications and needed API access. I added credits to what I thought was the right place, only to discover their system is needlessly complicated with two completely separate platforms that they do absolutely NOTHING to distinguish clearly.
After waiting OVER A WEEK for a response (8+ days - apparently they're "working hard to restore typical response times" which must mean they're normally even worse), I finally heard back from Sofia. And what a treat that was.
The email was patronizing, condescending, and spoke to me like I'm a complete idiot who's never seen a computer before. She explained the difference between consumer products and developer APIs as if I'm some amateur who stumbled onto the internet yesterday. I'VE BUILT APPS. I'VE WORKED WITH GOOGLE CLOUD AND COUNTLESS OTHER APIs. I know what an API is, Sofia.
The problem isn't my understanding - it's your TERRIBLE system design. Every other API service on the planet makes it crystal clear where to sign up and purchase credits. AWS? Clear. Google Cloud? Clear. Microsoft Azure? Clear. Anthropic? An absolute confusing mess with two separate systems and zero guidance.
Now I'm stuck with credits on Claude AI that are completely useless for what I actually need, they're "non-refundable" (of course they are), and Sofia's brilliant solution? Go buy MORE credits on the other platform. So I'm supposed to just eat the cost of their confusion and pay TWICE? Absolutely not.
Zero flexibility. Zero accountability for their poor UX. Zero attempt to actually help a customer. Just a robotic copy-paste of their refund policy and a condescending lecture I didn't need or ask for.
To make matters worse, they made me wait over a week just to insult my intelligence and tell me tough luck. That's not customer service - that's a joke.
If you're a developer considering Anthropic's API, be warned: their system is confusing, their support is slow and unhelpful, and if you make a mistake navigating their poorly designed platform, you're on your own. Save yourself the headache and the money.
Absolutely appalling experience from start to finish.

Unfortunately, my company was defrauded by Anthropics Software. I purchased an update for a program I purchased several years earlier. The company doesn't have my email address, so they refused to update me. Even though I purchased a legitimate version of the program, no one is responding to my emails, and I have neither the update nor the money I paid for the update.

We purchased this software with the hope of improving our workflow, but instead it has caused major delays and stress. After activating it, we couldn’t even use it without waiting hours for support to fix access issues. When it finally worked for a short time, our access was blocked again — right in the middle of our production schedule.
We repeatedly had to contact support just to receive a token so we could continue working. This back-and-forth has caused huge gaps in our production timeline and completely removed the reliability we expected when we paid for this product. Instead of helping our studio, it disrupted our work.
A product is only as good as its accessibility — and if you can’t use it when you need it, what’s the point? Very disappointing experience so far.

⚠️ Warning to Potential Buyers – Be VERY Careful Before Relying on PortraitPro!
I’ve used PortraitPro for a while and while the software itself has great editing features, the customer service and technical reliability are an absolute nightmare – especially if you work on tight deadlines or in professional environments.

Every time macOS updates (which is often), the PortraitPro app stops working. It won’t launch until you get a manual reset from their customer support – and here's the real issue: support is extremely slow and unreliable.

Sometimes it takes a full day or more to hear back from anyone – during which time you literally can't access the software at all. For a professional working with clients and deadlines, this is unacceptable. I’ve had project delays and difficult conversations with clients just because PortraitPro was “waiting on support to unlock my license again.”

Even worse, when I contacted customer service for help, their response was incredibly disappointing:

“Buy the new version.”
That’s it. No fix, no proper patch for the version I already paid for, no effort to support loyal customers — just a push to buy another upgrade.
This kind of response makes it feel like they're deliberately ignoring past versions to force users into unnecessary upgrades. It’s incredibly frustrating and leaves a bad taste.

This issue has happened multiple times, and there seems to be no fix in sight. Instead of improving their system or adding live support or auto-resets, they just leave users stuck, hoping someone replies to an email.

If you’re a casual user, maybe you can afford to wait. But if you’re a working photographer or editor – think twice before relying on PortraitPro.

It’s software that only works when it feels like it, and the company leaves you hanging when you need help the most.

I’m very disappointed and frustrated. I’ve paid for this software and yet I feel completely unsupported.

Disappointed.
I purchased PortraitPro with a valid license, but after a macOS update the software stopped working. The company refuses to provide a free update or patch—only a discount on a new version, or the suggestion to downgrade my OS or switch back to Windows. This is unacceptable, especially since the issue stems from their software’s incompatibility. I do not recommend.