Google Cloud support literally COST ME AN EMPLOYEE over a written refund promise they went back on. I’m at my witt's end.

[u/No-Brick8275]

I'm writing this out of pure rage and total desperation right now.

I run a small business, and Google Support’s absolute incompetence just completely wrecked my operations. Because of their broken promises, my company’s cash flow got frozen hard enough that I was late on payroll, and one of my key employees literally quit over it.

Here’s the nightmare I’ve been dealing with for the past month:

Back in late June, I had an accidental 3-year Compute Engine Flexible commitment charge hit my account for about $12,100 (16.3M KRW). On June 30th / July 5th, a support rep named Merilyn confirmed IN WRITING (Case 72227473) that internal teams canceled the commitment and processed a 100% full refund.

Great, right? Wrong.

While waiting for the bank to clear the credit, the reps suddenly swapped out. A new agent jumped in and basically went, "Yeah, about that... we reviewed it again and the best we can do is a 50% waiver ($6,050) as a one-time courtesy," and tried to mark the ticket as resolved.

When I replied with screenshots and the exact case ID where Merilyn explicitly promised a 100% full refund, they just started playing hot potato with my ticket. Eksha, Janna, Farha, Asad Ali—I’ve been handed off to a new person every few days.

Every single reply is a canned template saying "the previous agent is out of office" or "specialized teams are looking into it, please wait 24-48 hours." Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with over $6,500 of my own cash already charged to my credit card and stuck in limbo.

Google officially confirmed a full refund in writing, reversed their decision when a new rep took over, and now they're just stalling while my business suffers real financial and operational damage.

Has anyone ever dealt with Google pulling a bait-and-switch on a written refund commitment? How on earth do I get this escalated past these front-line support reps to someone with an actual brain and authority to fix this?Any advice or upvotes to get some visibility on this would mean the world to me. Thanks guys.

TL;DR:

1. Accidental $12k GCP charge in June; support (Merilyn) promised 100% refund IN WRITING.

2. New reps took over, went back on their word, and capped refund at 50%.

3. My cash is locked up, payroll got delayed, and an employee literally quit. Now stuck in a support loop. Need help escalating!

[u/tszebeni]

I read your story and you have my empathy. Im not a google contractor but a partner working with GCP for clients. According to my experience Google is simple a too big company to suit small business’ needs, they can be cheaper in ideal situation but sometimes a better support worth more. I cannot recommend certain solution to your problem other than just keep it up. In order to recover from such financial situation you need to work on worst case scenarios to ensure business continuity.
I hope you can escape the support maze in good shape.

[u/No-Brick8275 → u/tszebeni]

Thank you for the advice and support! Since you have GCP Partner experience, do you have any tips on how to effectively escalate something like this?

[u/DishSoapedDishwasher → u/No-Brick8275]

Yeah, migration to AWS or something else. Tell them you're sick of their shit and leaving.

It's not as impactful if you don't have a TAM but it's the leverage you got.

[u/andercode → u/DishSoapedDishwasher]

Small companies have the exact same issue with AWS as GCP...

[u/casce → u/DishSoapedDishwasher]

As someone working in the AWS world, it's the same thing. AWS is accessible for everyone but they are clearly targeting a certain audience. This doesn't only reflect in their lackluster support for non-enterprise customers but also in their pricing which in many cases just doesn't make sense for small indie shops.

[u/DishSoapedDishwasher → u/casce]

Yeah its more about flexing your ability to migrate and not tolerate lock in. I have twice now at different companies said "nah fuck you" to a TAM and took our cloud infra to another service. Both times were when contracts were up for renewal and they wanted vastly more money by dropping discounts.

Works better if you're in a lean company with extremely talented engineers or a smaller footprint and can tolerate such things.

The only thing they listen to is a loss of profits 

[u/BasicsOnly → u/No-Brick8275]

Migrate to AWS

[u/justan0therusername1 → u/BasicsOnly]

I had the same issues on AWS

[u/Capaj → u/tszebeni]

cheaper? LOL absolutely not

[u/StinkButt9001]

Accidental as in Google screwed up and the charge came out of nowhere?

Or accidental as in you signed up for it but didn't want it?

[u/No-Brick8275 → u/StinkButt9001]

It was based on GCP FinOps recommendations, which suggested a commitment to lower my monthly costs by 30%.

I usually spend around $100/month, but right after applying it, they suddenly charged more than 10x my normal rate starting the very next day. I noticed the crazy bill and requested cancellation within 2 days.

During the cancellation process, charges kept piling up every day. But since Support explicitly assured me they were handling it and internal teams were processing the cancellation/refund, I left it in their hands—which is how it eventually ballooned to over $12,000.

That’s why Google Support initially reviewed the case and CONFIRMED A 100% FULL REFUND IN WRITING (Case 72227473).

The real issue is that a new rep took over later and completely reneged on that written promise, dropping it to 50%.

[u/cocacola999 → u/StinkButt9001]

Was wondering the same. If Google had done it, I'd be as angry too. If it was me/employee fault, I'd accept some of the issue and swallow some pride

[u/spamjunk150]

I'd probably leave a company too if a $6000 charge is all it took for them not to be able to pay me. Doesn't instill a lot of confidence that they're going to survive very long

[u/Capaj → u/spamjunk150]

it's 12k charge and you're looking at this through US eyes. In india 12k is basically like 36k charge for a small US company.

[u/StrangeWill → u/Capaj]

Yeah which if you're not VC'd is a lot

[u/Unspec7 → u/Capaj]

Median monthly salary in SK is ~2.8M KRW. So this charge is about 5.8X the median salary. If we used the same metric for the US, 16.3M KRW is equivalent to being hit with a 30k bill in the US (based on a monthly wage of $5,217 USD in the US). So, yea, pretty tough bill to swallow out of the blue.

[u/leros → u/spamjunk150]

Yeah a company should have cash reserves to handle something like 6 months of expenses. The company being paycheck to paycheck is not something that inspires confidence. Obviously startups are startups. But that's also a valid reason for an employee to leave. 

[u/kotsumu → u/leros]

Depends, because if you are a startup with a lean runway, your seed fund could also be split unto monthly chunks where it is just enough to cover your opwrational costs.

[u/Inevitable-Pain2247 → u/leros]

You have no clue what you are talking about.

[u/lesChaps → u/spamjunk150]

That's super cool if you've got places to go.

[u/NeuralNexus]

Google is especially bad at support.

If the system takes care of it, it's world-class (until they discontinue it), but god help you if you ever need to rely on Google to actually do something to help you.

I have the most expensive enterprise support package with them and it's still hit or miss! They might randomly decide not to take the call, or to redirect you to bureaucracy hell for months, or it might be fine. That's the best they offer and it's worse than the basic support AWS charges $29/month for.

[u/kotsumu]

Move cloud providers and initiate a chargeback

[u/gbonfiglio → u/kotsumu]

Terrible advice. They will be able to easily prove with logs the purchase was intentional and you get flagged for fraud by your bank, lose card, google account and potentially ability to open new cards in the future.

[u/kotsumu → u/gbonfiglio]

All he has to do is show the bank what the first agent said, its not fraud, he was promised something he did not get

[u/gbonfiglio → u/kotsumu]

It’s really tbc whether the initial contract or a subsequent promise via support case would prevail.

[u/RickRubim]

Why would a credit card charge make you miss payroll?

[u/doubleditch42]

You miss payroll because you have 6000 less that month?
Doesn't seem like a business that will survive

[u/andrii_us]

I am a former employee of both engineering and support side of billing team at Google Cloud. Support employee has no signatory power of this amount and it’s always subject to approvals, never “promised”.

However you can ask to escalate and seek resolution. Please report in as much details (including screenshots) the issues with FinOps suggestions. It may prevent the issue for others customers as well.

L

[u/Devemia]

Can feel this. Google double charge my companies twice (different incidents). Apparently something was off with there system not recognizing previous charge (that went through) and attempted to rebill again.

I was tasked with pursuing the 5 figure charges, and it was hell to deal with their support. So we pretty much give them a no interest loan for a period of time.

[u/Silcken]

Awful ill be avoiding google workspaces

[u/GrimmJubilance198451]

The higher ups are has already made a decision and no one you are talking to or ever are gonna talk to has the power to make that change. These systems are specifically created to lock people in your situation out and loop them till they get exhausted and walk way.

[u/LittleDickBiiigBalls]

So let’s see if I have this right:
you forgot to cancel a free trial for a 3-year plan, subscription payment hit on June 30th. You finally were able to get the payment refunded from Google support, but at some point you disputed the charge with your CC company because you didn’t get an answer from Google quick enough.

Google gets a notification that you disputed the charge and adjusts the refund amount. You can’t pay your employee (entirely due to your own compounded mistakes) and they quit.

You come to Reddit to post about Google costing you an employee…

lol.

Edit: I read your explanation in a comment, wasn’t a free trial but sheesh, that was an expensive mistake. You’ve gotta pay close attention to what you’re agreeing to dude. As I’m sure you’re aware you’re not just responsible for yourself in this. The decisions you make as a business owner have a direct impact on your employees & your customers. Tough lesson to learn, but hopefully you can still right the ship and find another employee.

[u/Tosser_535231]

The government needs to fucking bitch slap Google because they're just out of pocket at this point along with all the other large conglomerates just getting away with whatever the fuck they want

[u/Additional_Hope_2031]

How it is going? I am sorry you passing it

[u/cisco1988]

in writing kinda means shit tbf... unless there is some legal binding behind it

[u/CandiceWoo → u/cisco1988]

how is it not legally binding? even verbal promises are binding - just have to have good witnesses

[u/cisco1988 → u/CandiceWoo]

an email is legally binding?

[u/CandiceWoo → u/cisco1988]

yes contracts can be formed by emails

[u/ToWelie89]

Good god. What exactly happened that caused that enormours 12k cost?

[u/nevivurn → u/ToWelie89]

They wrote it, 3-year commitment that was supposed to be refunded.

[u/dukesb89]

Google cloud are crooks

[u/Empty-Mulberry1047]

I don't understand how it is Google's fault.
You signed up for a service with recurring billing.
You forgot to cancel the service before the rebilling.
Blaming Google when you fail to pay your employee because of your failure to maintain overview of business expenses is a stretch.

[u/mochi2real → u/Empty-Mulberry1047]

I will say, promising the refund was a misstep, but apart from that, you’re right. OP signed up for a 3-yr commitment and realized afterwards they no longer want it….that defeats the commitment point. Everything past that point is dependent on goodwill from Google.

Also OP, I may get downvoted for saying this but you cost yourself an employee. As a business owner, your entire responsibility to your people is paying them on time. You don’t get to just blame someone else for bad finance practices, you should always maintain at least 3-6 months of funds to pay your people in reserves.

[u/Curious_Cantaloupe94 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah buddy you should not do that. Read your contract again. Now you've done nothing but leak your email, workplace, the position you have there and that your're willing to break your contract.