Last week I tried something fun and romantic: I wanted to give my boyfriend a special birthday surprise, so I fine-tuned a large-language model with Google Vertex AI using our past chat history. The goal was for the model to know my memories and being able to reply exactly like a digital version of me.
I ran the job for about four hours at night and was confident it’d stay under the free USD $300 credits. I even set a £5 budget alert. The next morning, a few hours after waking up, I opened an email titled “Issue with your Cloud Billing” → £11,550 (€13,600 / $15,500) due.
As a full-time student living on a €425 monthly stipend (after rent I have €212 for everything), this was devastating. I thought the training would cost maybe $150-200. Instead, one short run got me a charge worth years of living expenses.
What went wrong?
Budget alerts in GCP don’t hard-stop resources. Additionally, the budget warning email didn’t arrive until several hours after I had already discovered the huge charge).
The UI never warns you when the free credits are exhausted; it simply continues billing against you.
I was naive about GPU-hour pricing and the volume of parameter-efficient tuning.
What happened next?
Google Support provided a partial goodwill credit - for which I’m extremely grateful for - reducing the bill to £2,887.72. However, this still accounts for 16 months of my disposable income.
I shared the story on the platform called Red note; it reached 1.2 million views, 15 k likes, 2 k comments within 48 hours. From the engagement there I could see that many developers fear unexpected cloud bills.
Why I’m telling this story here
Awareness – Budget alerts ≠ hard limits. There’s no hard limits and you will end up with an astronomical bill using Google Vertex AI, even with spending caps.
Advice Needed – Have you successfully negotiated further waivers or instalment plans with a cloud vendor? Any DevRel or FinOps folks at Google willing to guide a student?
Call for Change – Cloud-cost UX still has dangerous blind spots. Students and indie devs deserve real safety rails.
If you have ideas, internal contacts, or volunteer credits that could help, please DM me. I’m happy to share full billing details confidentially.
I still love experimenting with AI and GCP – I just hope this hard lesson can become a catalyst for better cost controls for everyone.
Thank you for reading & amplifying.
Mods: if this post violates rules please let me know – no promotion intended, just genuine help request.
“Modified by moderator”
— Lyahn Wang | Third-year Economics & Management student
This is SUCH a good story. I cannot believe Google will hold you to it. Have you hit local/ national papers? If you’re comfy on a mic it would make a good podcast interview too!! I’m co-promoting via my blog. If you want to chat - I’ll interview you! I am UK based, but lacking audience. Ha Ha. “Modified by moderator”
Thanks so much for your support and gave me the links! It really is quite a story, over 1 million views on social media within two days also shows that. Right now, I’m still prioritizing escalating the issue internally (although my Google cloud support rep declined to escalate my case, I’m planning to reach out directly to responsible managers via linkedin) If I find myself completely stuck, I will definitely consider reaching out to various media outlets and your podcast. Thanks again for reaching out Lucy!
I’m sorry this happened to you. Definitely reach out to Cloud Billing and request a refund. Here’s the link with instructions: Resolve Cloud Billing issues | Google Cloud I hope they can help!
Thanks so much for your compassion and the link with instructions! It’s great to be supported during this hard time.
I’ve been in contact with the Google Cloud support rep these days, and they kindly gave me a partial waiver, which I’m deeply grateful for. But the rest of the bill is still financially impossible for me to pay, and they confirm that they’ve made the final decision.
I’ve been in contact with some Google Cloud case escalate managers via email, but I didn’t get any response so far.
Maybe I can try to accept the interview with the media and let them tell my story?
I really don’t know what to do at this moment. I’ll really appreciate it if anyone can give me any advice.
Hi Lyahn.
I’m curious if your story had a happy ending.
It happened to me too:
I want to share my experience with Google Cloud because it shows a serious billing transparency problem that EU users should know about.
I tested Vertex AI Video Generation for ~20 short video clips.
Google then started attempting to charge my card PLN 3,000 daily (~USD 750).
There is no clear, itemized invoice explaining these charges.
My card had to be blocked, and my Google Cloud account (including Maps API) is suspended. See my non-commercial project here: [Travelja.eu](currently broken due to the suspension).
Why this is not just my fault
In the EU, consumers have legal protection:
Art. 384¹ Polish Civil Code + EU Directive 2011/83/EU require that the total price of a digital service is disclosed clearly and unambiguously before the user is bound by the contract. Google failed to provide this.
Art. 471 k.c.: Google is blocking services while simultaneously demanding payment, which is improper performance of a contract.
This is not just a “mistake on my side” – it’s a systemic problem, confirmed by other cases:
The $11,550 overnight Vertex AI fine-tune bill shared on Google’s own forum.
AWS users hit with $300k+ “bill shocks.”
In almost all cases, providers first deny refunds or blame the customer, then sometimes issue a “goodwill credit” only after public pressure.
Why I’m posting this
Google Support keeps copy-pasting “fraud investigation” replies, completely ignoring the real issue: pricing transparency and abusive billing practices.
I believe this violates EU consumer law and I’m escalating to:
UOKiK (Polish Competition and Consumer Protection Office)
ECC Poland (European Consumer Centre)
This isn’t just about money – it’s about whether we can trust Google Cloud’s billing transparency at all.
P.S.
Finally, a fun fact.
I tried to post my post on my desktop, but it didn’t work because I have Windows 8.
I had to do it on my smartphone.
Thanks for sharing your story, and I’m really sorry you’re going through something similar. Your situation sounds very frustrating, and I can imagine how you feel. I still remember how anxious and afraid I was at the time, it was a truly traumatic nightmare.
To answer your question about my case: Google eventually offered a partial goodwill credit, for which I’m very grateful. But I wouldn’t call it a happy ending. The remaining amount is still impossibly large for me to pay as a student, even though I really want to pay.
You’re right about the transparency. If I had seen a clear, real time estimate of the costs I was about to incur, I would have stopped the job immediately.
I truly hope you manage to find a resolution. Please keep us updated on how things go.
I don’t think we should give in. Google expects us to relent and agree to their terms. Even though my loss is smaller than yours, I won’t give in and will fight to the end. We deserve compensation for this situation, not partial write-offs.
How is Google avoiding liability? The “Shared Inertia” Model
Google is based on a “shared liability” model. In theory, it sounds reasonable. In practice, it works like this:
No default protections: The pay-as-you-go model has NO default spending limits. You create a project and immediately generate infinite costs. It’s like getting a credit card with no limit and no way to set one by default.
Initial refund denial (ALWAYS): In almost all cases, Google support’s first response is a firm denial, citing the terms and conditions (TOS). Their stance is simple: “you used the service/service – pay.”
Public pressure as the only viable tool: The report clearly shows that refunds are granted almost exclusively after escalation on public forums like Reddit, Hacker News, or X. Google only reacts when faced with reputational damage. If you lack clout or followers, your chances of success decrease dramatically.
Shifting the risk to the user: The entire responsibility for security configuration rests with you. Google offers tools (budgets, alerts, IAM), but they are hidden in the documentation and disabled by default. Failure to use them is an argument for Google to deny assistance.
I still love experimenting with AI and GCP – I just hope this hard lesson can become a catalyst for better cost controls for everyone.