BUG: Account strictly locked out of Free Tier (Status 429) after deleting a Tier 1 project

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Hi Google AI Team,

I am a new user caught in a critical account state bug that has completely locked me out of the Free Tier.

**What happened:
I recently added a billing account and created a “Tier 1” paid project to test features. Due to my unfamiliarity with the UI, I mistakenly removed this Tier 1 project directly from the Google AI Studio interface.

The Bug & Deadlock:
Immediately after deleting it, my account got stuck in a “paid status loop”.

  1. ALL my remaining Free Tier API keys show as “Unavailable” and return Status 429 (Resource Exhausted).

  2. If I try to create a new project in GCP to generate a fresh key, the system now forces me to link a billing account. I am unable to create a pure “Free” project anymore.

Cloud Billing Support (Case 69513023) closed my ticket and directed me here, as they do not have the tools to fix AI Studio account states.

Could an engineer please look into my account and manually reset my state back to a standard “Free Tier” user? I just want to recover my free API access for personal learning without being forced to link billing again.

Thank you so much for your help!