u/IntroductionDry9638

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone here can help or point me to the right channel — I've hit a complete dead end with Google Cloud support.

What happened:

A while back I signed up for Google Cloud as an individual user to experiment with some services using the $300 free trial credit. At some point my account apparently converted to a paid account without me realizing it. After the free credits ran out, charges kept accumulating on services I had forgotten were still running. The total came to US$156.08, billed on an invoice from late October 2025.

I had no intention of using Google Cloud as a paying customer — this was purely an experimental personal account. I never knowingly opted into paid usage.

The actual problem — I can't reach support:

The billing account is now suspended, and Google has effectively locked me out of every support channel:

• Every official support link redirects to the "Fix now" payment page
• The billing chatbot tells me: "The Cloud Billing account you have selected is closed. Live billing chat and email support is not available to closed accounts."

So Google has designed a system where: account gets suspended for non-payment → you can no longer contact anyone to dispute it → you must pay first → then maybe talk to someone. It's a deliberate catch-22 that prevents any good-faith dispute.

Today I got a debt collection threat email saying I have 10 working days to pay before they transfer the account to a collections agency.

What I'm asking:

1. Has anyone successfully gotten a billing waiver for an unintentional trial overage like this?
2. Is there ANY working contact method that doesn't loop back to the payment page?
3. Any Googlers here who could point me to the right team or escalation path?

I'm not trying to dodge a legitimate bill - I'd happily pay if I had knowingly used paid services. I'm asking for a one-time adjustment as a first-time individual customer who got caught by the auto-upgrade from trial to paid.