Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. [BUG] Literal "HERMES.md" in git commit messages triggers 400 "out of extra usage" on Max OAuth (content filter false-positive misclassified as quota error) #53171
2. [BUG] CLI completely blocked by "out of extra usage" error despite Max 20x plan at only 10% usage #45020
3. Billing bug: Extra usage pool consumed while session limit still has remaining capacity #29704

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🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Thank you for reaching out about a refund. I understand you've encountered a billing issue where requests were incorrectly routed to extra usage instead of your Max 20x plan quota due to the presence of "HERMES.md" in git commit messages.
Let me look up your account information to help process your refund request.

I sincerely apologize for the disruption you experienced with the billing routing issue. We take service reliability very seriously.
However, I need to let you know that we are unable to issue compensation for degraded service or technical errors that result in incorrect billing routing. We are consistently working on improvements to our infrastructure to better handle these types of issues and prevent similar problems from happening in the future.
Thank you for your patience and for taking the time to document this issue so thoroughly. Your detailed reproduction steps will be valuable for our engineering team.

Thanks for the report! This was an overactive anti-abuse system. Fixed.

You are welcome! Can I get my refund now.

Refund the guy, it’s really drop in the ocean, but would look good.

Refunding him would be the easiest PR win in the world. Just sayin

He is owed a refund.

@sasha-id This is ridiculous. You admit it's Anthropics' fault, yet you refuse to refund him?
Makes me rethink my choice of using Claude.

A skeptical observer might believe that the overactive anti-abuse bug was triggered by more than just the reported "HERMES.md" string, and has collectively cost Anthropics customers millions.
The refusal to refund might be based on them not wanting to set an expensive precedent.

Let's hope this theory is proven wrong and that they do right by their customer(s).

that is a very "claude" excuse!

You are absolutely right!
(Flashbacks of "I deleted your files and didn't make a commit beforehand that you asked for")

Came from hackernews, I just want to say one thing here but I thought that this was a bug within hours but nope its a 4 day bug which seems to still not have refunded that person. I find it absolutely wild

Even if Anthropic refunds the person, I feel like, this itself should be enough to be wary of Anthropic (plus their recent shenanigans), Other closed source providers aren't* that much better too for what its worth in such things.

I suggest people to look more into local models for their use cases if/when possible,even if just for the mere predictability of the things there.

The funniest (or saddest) thing is that the news cycle is moving so fast that we might forget it within a month. I still can't believe the incompetence in AI companies at times. One more example going into my ever expanding list of AI companies mess-ups

Refund him or offer me a job. :-)

irony

https://x.com/trq212/status/2048495545375990245

He and other affected users are getting a refund plus $200 credit

https://x.com/trq212/status/2048495545375990245

He and other affected users are getting a refund plus $200 credit

Nice.... Pretty sad still it took all this get his money back. Even ChatGPT came back with this solution in less then a minute. Not sure what took them so long for an AI company to calculate a solution.

btw codex + openrouter combo exists if you want to stop being an anthropic paypig

Well, I presume these are ethical business practices in action?

Did our guy end up getting a refund or not? Based on that I have few decisions to make..

Yes, refund.

Hey everyone, Thariq from the Claude Code team.
We've been on this since the bug surfaced. Everyone affected is getting a full refund and an extra grant of usage credits equal to their monthly subscription as our apology. You can see my original post here: https://x.com/trq212/status/2048495545375990245. We’re still working on sending emails to everyone affected.

Our support flow wasn't set up to route a complex bug like this to engineering. We’re hoping to make this better but will take some time. Sorry to everyone caught up in it.

Source from a few minutes ago (2026-04-29T21:05:40):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47952722

Why no refund for this error?

Subscription cancelled based on lack of refund response and the 'clap gif' to go along w/ the message.

"However, I need to let you know that we are unable to issue compensation for degraded service or technical errors that result in incorrect billing routing."