[BUG] Weekly allowance consumed during periods of no activity, beginning immediately after an unrequested change to the account's plan tier

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?

Two things happened to my account in sequence. I am reporting the second one; the first is included because the timing suggests they are related.

1. The account's plan tier changed without any action on my part.

I held a Pro annual subscription. On July 29, 2026 (US Pacific) the account was changed to Max 20x and my card was charged. I did not click an upgrade option, was shown no confirmation prompt, and did not authorize it. I learned of it only from my bank's charge notification. At the time it occurred I was at work and not on any billing or plan-selection screen.

A change to an account's paid tier that the account holder did not initiate is an unauthorized state mutation, independent of the amount involved. I raise it here because it is the only thing that changed on this account immediately before the metering behaviour described below, and because the documented behaviour of the action I did take does not include it.

Shortly before this, I had claimed the one-time promotional usage credit offered to Pro subscribers when Fable 5 moved out of plan limits. The Help Center describes that action as follows:

"Claiming turns on usage credits for your account so they're ready to use." "Claiming them turns on usage credits for your account, but you're only charged if you buy additional usage credits later." — https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15862783

I did not subsequently buy any usage credits. The documented behaviour of claiming does not include a change of plan tier, and the promotion's own eligibility condition is holding a Pro plan — Max plans include Fable 5 and do not need the credit.

2. Immediately afterwards, allowance began being consumed while I was not using the service.

This is the part I am filing as a bug.

I captured the Usage screen at three points. Times in this table are UTC+8; US Pacific equivalents are in the timeline below.

| | 22:49 (Jul 30) | 04:29 (Jul 31) | 09:43 (Jul 31) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current session | 100% used | 40% used | 20% used |
| Weekly - All models | 42% | 48% | 51% |
| Weekly - Fable only | 21% | 29% | 32% |
| Usage credit balance | 57.62 | 57.62 | 57.62 |

The session window can be reconstructed from two of these readings:

• At 22:49, Current session read 100% used, resets in 3 hr 20 min → that window ended at 02:09.
• At 04:29, Current session read 40% used, resets in 2 hr 40 min → this is a new window, spanning 02:09 - 07:09.

Therefore the 40% shown at 04:29 was consumed between 02:09 and 04:29 — a 2 hour 20 minute interval during which I was asleep, with no client open on any device. Weekly usage rose over the same period.

Two further observations:

• The usage credit balance did not move across all three readings. The consumption was drawn against the subscription allowance, not against credits. (Some of the promotional credit had been spent before any of this, while the account was still on Pro — by me, deliberately, by switching pay-as-you-go on to use Fable 5 and off again afterwards. That is the intended use of the credit and is not what I am reporting.)

• Weekly - Fable only rose 11 percentage points across these readings. I cannot state that I never invoked Fable after the plan change, but my use of it was minimal — nothing approaching this magnitude, and certainly nothing during the 02:09-04:29 interval. I understand the two bars may have different denominators, so I am not claiming the numbers are internally inconsistent. I am asking what was drawing on the Fable allocation while no client was running.

Over the following three days the weekly Max allowance was exhausted, during a period in which I was barely using the service.

Separately, during periods when I was using the service, consumption was disproportionate to the workload: a short conversation consisting of a handful of exchanges and three web searches consumed a substantial fraction of a weekly allowance. I mention this because it points toward metering rather than unauthorized access — an unauthorized user would produce usage corresponding to real requests, not inflate the cost of my own.

Timeline

| US Pacific | UTC+8 | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 6, 2026 | Jun 7, 2026 | Purchased Pro annual, self-initiated |
| between Jul 20 and Jul 29 | — | Claimed the one-time promotional usage credit. I no longer have a record of the exact date; the claim window opened Jul 20 |
| Jul 29 (invoice date; no time recorded) | Jul 30, 11:00 (bank notification) | Plan changed to Max 20x, card charged. No action on my part. The invoice shows only the date; the time comes from my bank's charge notification, which corresponds to roughly 20:00 Jul 29 US Pacific |
| Jul 29, 22:07 | Jul 30, 13:07 | Contacted support. Told the case would go to a human agent |
| Jul 30, 07:49 | Jul 30, 22:49 | Screenshot A |
| Jul 30, 11:09-13:29 | Jul 31, 02:09-04:29 | No activity - asleep. 40% of a session window consumed |
| Jul 30, 13:29 | Jul 31, 04:29 | Screenshot B |
| Jul 30, 18:43 | Jul 31, 09:43 | Screenshot C |
| Jul 31 - Aug 2 | Aug 1 - Aug 3 | Weekly allowance exhausted |
| Aug 5 | Aug 6 | No human response received to date |

<img width="1080" height="2412" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2e2d5f3a-6037-4ca1-b117-0342e1c245a4" />
<img width="1080" height="2412" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9dd626b6-2732-4b2d-b422-e62ad556ec0f" />
<img width="1080" height="2376" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/c31f7c53-c22a-4f11-aacd-20c9d9fe5a92" />

What Should Happen?

• An account with no active client and no open session should not accrue usage.

• Claiming a promotional usage credit should turn on usage credits and nothing else, per the Help Center text quoted above. It should not change the plan tier.

Error Messages/Logs

Steps to Reproduce

I cannot reproduce this on demand. The observed sequence was:

1. Hold a Pro annual subscription.
2. Claim the one-time Fable 5 promotional usage credit.
3. Some days later, the account's plan tier changes to Max 20x with no user action and no confirmation prompt.
4. From that point, usage accrues against the weekly allowance during intervals with no client running — including a 2 hour 20 minute overnight interval documented above.

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

N/A — Claude for Windows desktop application, version 1.25927.0 (003700)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

On the client version above: that is the current version. The Claude desktop application updated once in early August, after the incident. I did not record which version was running during the intervals in question (July 29 - August 2, 2026, US Pacific), so the version field should not be taken as the version under which this occurred.

What I have already ruled out:

• API keys — the account has zero API keys provisioned.
• Scheduled tasks / cron — none configured; verified locally.
• Other sessions or devices — I revoked all sessions and logged out of all devices. Consumption continued afterwards.
• Local background processes — consumption continued overnight on days when the machine was powered off.
• Third-party MCP server — the only MCP server configured runs inside a local editor, binds to 127.0.0.1, is a callee only (it cannot initiate requests to Claude), holds no credentials, and was not running during the intervals in question.
• Trusted devices — Settings > Account shows "No trusted devices". No device is authorized to control my machine through remote sessions.

None of this is provable from my side alone. That is why I am filing this.

What would help most: a usage audit for Jul 30, 11:09 - 13:29 US Pacific (Jul 31, 02:09 - 04:29 UTC+8) — what requests were recorded, from which client or session, and against which model. If something on my side caused this, I would like to know that; I have not been able to find it. If nothing on my side caused it, then usage was recorded that did not occur.

I am also happy for the plan-tier change to be examined as part of this, since it is the only thing that changed on the account immediately beforehand. I am not filing this to request a refund; that is a separate matter I have raised through support.

I reported this through support on the day it occurred. That conversation contains my original account of events, written before I had time to reconstruct anything:

• Support conversation ID: 215475284068393 (opened Jul 29, 2026, 22:07 US Pacific)
• Org ID: 5810957d-a1b0-4209-921e-42d1184b6e29

Related reports of the same downstream symptom: #61012, #65687, #58355.
Related report of a similar plan-state change following a promotional credit claim: #51168.