### Preflight Checklist - [x] I have searched [existing issues](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Abug) and this hasn't been reported yet - [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs) - [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code ### What's Wrong? **Note:** This is a subscription billing issue rather than a CLI tool bug, but I'm filing here because my support ticket submitted 15+ days ago has receiv

[BUG] Double-charged after Max 5x plan silently downgraded to Free mid-cycle

Status Open

Reported on v2.1.146

Maintainer reply None cached

Activity 9 comments · opened May 22, 2026

Preflight Checklist

[x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
[x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
[x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Note: This is a subscription billing issue rather than a CLI tool bug, but I'm filing here because my support ticket submitted 15+ days ago has received no response. Several similar billing issues have been filed in this repo previously (#44726, #50994, #57837), so I'm following that precedent.

My paid Max 5x subscription was silently downgraded to the Free plan only 7 days into a fresh 30-day billing cycle, forcing me to re-purchase the same plan to continue working. This resulted in two charges covering overlapping time periods.

Timeline (KST)

| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2026-04-30 | Auto-renewal payment failed → subscription auto-canceled |
| 2026-05-04 | Re-subscribed to Max 5x — payment successful, plan active, cycle should run until ~2026-06-04 |
| 2026-05-11 | Plan unexpectedly reverted to Free with ~24 days of paid time remaining. No prior notification email, no in-app warning, no refund |
| 2026-05-11 | Forced to re-purchase Max 5x to restore access → second charge for an overlapping period |
| 2026-05-22 | Filing this issue. Original support ticket: no response after 15+ days |

What Should Happen?

After a successful payment on 2026-05-04, the Max 5x plan should have remained active for the full 30-day billing cycle (until ~2026-06-04).

A paid, active subscription should not silently downgrade to Free mid-cycle. At minimum:

The user should be notified before any plan change
The remaining paid period should be honored, OR
A prorated refund should be issued automatically when the plan changes

Currently, the user has paid twice for overlapping coverage and lost access to a paid service mid-cycle without notification.

Error Messages/Logs

No CLI error messages — this is a billing/subscription state issue, not a runtime error.

Observed in account billing UI on 2026-05-11:
- Plan status displayed as "Free" despite active paid subscription from 2026-05-04
- No downgrade notification received via email
- No system notification shown in claude.ai or Claude Code

Steps to Reproduce

This is a billing state issue rather than a reproducible runtime bug, but here is the exact sequence that triggered it:

Have an active Max 5x subscription with a recurring payment method
Allow an auto-renewal to fail once (e.g., 2026-04-30 in my case) — subscription auto-cancels
Within a few days, re-subscribe manually to Max 5x using the same account (2026-05-04 in my case) — payment succeeds, plan shows active
Wait ~7 days
Observed: Plan silently reverts to Free despite the fresh paid cycle still having ~24 days remaining

Likely root cause (guess): the system may have treated the new 2026-05-04 subscription as a continuation of the canceled 2026-04-30 cycle rather than a fresh 30-day cycle, causing premature expiration on the original cycle's would-be renewal date.

Claude Model

Not sure / Multiple models

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.146 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

PowerShell

Additional Information

Account Info

Account email: [본인 이메일 주소]
Region: South Korea (KST timezone)
Payment method: [예: Visa ending in 1234]
Existing support ticket ID: [티켓 번호 — 있으면 적고, 없으면 "Submitted via support form on YYYY-MM-DD, no response yet"]

Payment Receipts

2026-05-04 charge: Receipt # [2638-6022-6009] — amount: $100
2026-05-11 charge: Receipt # [2519-6238-2542] — amount: $110
(Screenshots of both Anthropic receipt emails attached below, card numbers masked)

What I'm Requesting

Refund for one of the two overlapping charges (the 2026-05-04 charge is preferred since access was lost mid-cycle)
Root cause explanation: why does a paid plan revert to Free mid-cycle after a prior failed-renewal event?
Escalation to the billing team if this isn't the right venue, with a direct contact channel so I'm not stuck waiting on the unanswered support ticket

Suggested Fix (for engineering)

When a user re-subscribes after a canceled cycle, the new subscription should start a fresh billing period from the new payment date — not inherit the expiration date of the previously canceled cycle. If the current behavior is intentional, it should be clearly disclosed at the point of re-purchase.

View original on GitHub ↗

9 Comments

github-actions[bot] · 3 months ago

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.

If your issue is a duplicate, please close it and 👍 the existing issue instead
To prevent auto-closure, add a comment or 👎 this comment

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

M2316 · 3 months ago

Thanks for the cross-references. I've reviewed #48780, #41581, and #56897 — they share the same pattern (paid Max plan silently reverting to Free mid-cycle), but my case adds a distinct data point that may help narrow down the cause:

The downgrade happened exactly 7 days into a fresh paid cycle that started on 2026-05-04, following a failed auto-renewal on 2026-04-30.
The reversion date (2026-05-11) lines up with where the previous (canceled) cycle would have auto-renewed. This strongly suggests the new subscription inherited the old cycle's expiration timer instead of starting a fresh 30-day period from the new payment date.
I have receipts for both overlapping charges ($100 on 2026-05-04, $110 on 2026-05-11) attached above.

If maintainers prefer to consolidate, I'm happy to move this to whichever issue is tracked as canonical — please point me to it. Otherwise I'd ask to keep this open, since the failed-renewal → manual re-subscribe → premature expiry sequence is more specific than the other reports and may be the actual reproduction path.

👎'ing the bot above to prevent auto-close while support response is pending (15+ days, no reply).

VenkateshwaranB · 3 months ago

Same issue here — Max 5x plan, paid $100.00 on May 20, 2026 (Invoice 52F1C159-0056). Account immediately showing Free plan. Three chat support sessions, two emails — only Fin AI Agent responses, zero human intervention over 5 days.
Has anyone here received a refund or plan restoration from Anthropic? How long did it take and what finally worked?
Also filing this for visibility — this bug is clearly systemic and still active as of May 2026.

VenkateshwaranB · 3 months ago

Good news. My refund has finally been initiated and is currently pending. It took just over a week of waiting. Hope everyone else gets theirs resolved soon!

M2316 · 2 months ago

Hi maintainers, I am still waiting for a resolution to this critical issue.

As I detailed above, my original support ticket has been ignored for more than two weeks. I am currently out of pocket for an extra charge due to a system error on your end, yet I have received no communication or assistance.

Could you please let me know when I can expect a proper response from the support or billing team? I urgently need a timeline for when my duplicate charge will be refunded. Leaving a severe billing issue unaddressed for this long is highly frustrating.

I look forward to hearing from someone immediately.

M2316 · 2 months ago

33 days on this issue. ~48 days since my first support ticket. Zero human responses.

Let me be direct: another user in this exact thread (@VenkateshwaranB, #64557) confirmed on June 1 that they received a refund for the identical bug. My case was filed earlier, documented in more detail, with receipts attached — and I've received nothing. That is not a triage backlog; that is selective handling of a known systemic billing defect.

The facts are not in dispute:

Your system silently downgraded a paid Max 5x plan to Free mid-cycle (~24 paid days remaining), with no notice and no refund.
That forced a second purchase for an overlapping period — two charges ($100 + $110) for the same window.

What I expect now:

Refund of one of the two overlapping charges.
A real human point of contact in billing within 5 business days.

VenkateshwaranB · 2 months ago

Hi,
I actually raised this concern via LinkedIn through Claude's personal chat message. I also drafted three polite emails to follow up.I believe you will definitely get your refund, but please make sure to send the email and message them directly to ensure it gets processed.

M2316 · 1 month ago

Hi, I actually raised this concern via LinkedIn through Claude's personal chat message. I also drafted three polite emails to follow up.I believe you will definitely get your refund, but please make sure to send the email and message them directly to ensure it gets processed.

Thank you for sharing this information. I appreciate you letting me know about these additional ways to reach out. I’ll make sure to contact them directly through LinkedIn and email.

COOLak · 1 month ago

Adding a sanitized related data point because this thread is about Claude billing state diverging from paid account entitlement and support not resolving the resulting charge/account mismatch.

My current case is not a Max mid-cycle downgrade, but it is the same broad failure class:

manual prepaid / discounted Claude usage-credit checkout remains unreliable;
a direct paid-invoice/payment-history path previously showed a paid state before the usable credit balance reflected the purchase;
automatic top-ups on the same paid account / saved billing setup can continue charging successfully;
failed manual purchase attempts are not consistently visible to the issuing bank as authorization attempts;
support remains bottlenecked behind the Fin / AI support path without a confirmed Billing Platform / payment-operations owner or written reconciliation.

Why this thread is relevant:

it shows another paid Claude billing state where account entitlement and charge/refund handling can diverge;
the thread also illustrates why generic support routing is not enough for billing-ledger or entitlement-state defects;
these cases need a human Billing Platform / payment-operations owner who can reconcile checkout creation, payment confirmation, invoice/order commit, entitlement state, credit-ledger provisioning, and any necessary refund or account adjustment.

Public sanitized context:

Incident page: https://coolak.github.io/anthropic-claude-billing-incident/
Reporter/reviewer brief: https://coolak.github.io/anthropic-claude-billing-incident/reporter-brief.html
Billing owner action packet: https://coolak.github.io/anthropic-claude-billing-incident/owner-action.html
Public evidence repository: https://github.com/COOLak/anthropic-claude-billing-incident

I am intentionally not posting card endings, bank names, private support IDs, payment processor object IDs, invoice IDs, screenshots, raw logs, payment URLs, one-time codes, or private support-thread text publicly.

Additional public owner map / reconciliation matrix:
https://coolak.github.io/anthropic-claude-billing-incident/reconciliation-matrix.html