Production down for 2 days because Google can't unblock a billing account after spend cap removal

Gemini API
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I run a production service that relies on Gemini API. On April 10, my billing account hit the project-level spend cap I had set in AI Studio. Fair enough. I removed the cap immediately.

That was over 36 hours ago. Every single API call still returns 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED: “Your billing account has exceeded its monthly spending cap.”

Here’s what makes this absurd:

  • My actual spend this month is well below 5% of my billing account tier cap.
    There is no active spend cap on any project.
  • I created a completely new billing account, new project, new API key. That key works instantly. So the API itself is fine — it’s just my original billing account that’s stuck.
  • This proves it’s a stale block on Google’s side. Not a quota issue. Not a rate limit issue. A bug.

I contacted Google Cloud Billing Support via live chat. The agent spent 30 minutes pasting generic 429 troubleshooting documentation and Vertex AI quota links — none of which are relevant. When I explained the issue in detail with evidence, he sent me a “Quota and Billing Cap Increase Request” form. That form is for requesting higher limits. I don’t need higher limits. I need Google to remove a block that shouldn’t exist.

When I pushed back again, he pasted another generic article about error code 429. At no point did he acknowledge the actual problem or attempt to escalate.

My production service has been completely down for nearly 2 days. Real users are affected. And I’m stuck in a loop where support can’t help and won’t escalate.

Questions for the community and any Google engineers reading this:

  1. Has anyone else experienced a stuck 429 after removing a spend cap? How long did it take to resolve?
  2. Is there ANY way to reach someone at Google who actually has backend access to clear billing account blocks?
  3. Is the spend cap feature fundamentally broken? Because if removing a cap doesn’t actually remove the enforcement, what’s the point?

I’m on Paid tier 3. Two projects affected. Happy to share account details with any Google engineer who can actually help — DM me.

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