In two days, both of my Claude accounts got banned!
First, my own story: one got banned yesterday, the other today. Both of my Claude accounts were gone within two days. No warning, no explanation—just a message saying the account had been deactivated when I tried to log in.
Don’t think this is an isolated case. Anthropic disclosed that it banned 11.4 million accounts in the first half of 2026. Out of 398,000 appeals, only 42,000 bans were overturned; the other 90% went nowhere. The second half of last year was even worse: 1.45 million accounts were banned, and of 52,000 appeals, only 1,700 accounts were reinstated—a success rate of 3.3%.
And starting today, the rules are even stricter. Anthropic’s updated regional policy officially took effect on November 12: anyone in an unsupported region can’t use the service—even an American just passing through on a business trip. If a company is registered in an unsupported region, its employees can’t use it even if they’re in the U.S. Overseas companies controlled by such firms are also restricted. My account today was probably one of the first to be sacrificed under the new rules.
The competition hasn’t been idle either. On November 7 and 8, OpenAI had a wave of account bans with no warning. Even Pro users paying $200 a month were affected. The hardest-hit accounts were subscriptions from lower-priced regions, shared accounts, reverse-proxy services, and accounts reselling API credits. OpenAI still hasn’t provided a unified explanation, and it hasn’t disclosed how many people were affected.
Now for the personnel news: Cat Wu, product lead for Claude Code, left Anthropic on October 30 and announced on November 5 that she was joining OpenAI to lead core products. In just two weeks, three key members left the Claude Code team—and Anthropic is preparing to go public.
★ I pay for all my AI subscriptions through automatic card renewals on PayAll. After my account was banned, the first thing I did wasn’t file an appeal—it was cancel the renewal. Losing the account is bad enough; having $200 charged again next month would be a real disaster.
So this is the ecosystem now: executives are taking their experience to the competition, while users’ accounts are dropping like flies. Models can be switched, but don’t put all your workflows in the hands of one company. That’s the lesson I learned from losing both my accounts.
$BTC
First, my own story: one got banned yesterday, the other today. Both of my Claude accounts were gone within two days. No warning, no explanation—just a message saying the account had been deactivated when I tried to log in.
Don’t think this is an isolated case. Anthropic disclosed that it banned 11.4 million accounts in the first half of 2026. Out of 398,000 appeals, only 42,000 bans were overturned; the other 90% went nowhere. The second half of last year was even worse: 1.45 million accounts were banned, and of 52,000 appeals, only 1,700 accounts were reinstated—a success rate of 3.3%.
And starting today, the rules are even stricter. Anthropic’s updated regional policy officially took effect on November 12: anyone in an unsupported region can’t use the service—even an American just passing through on a business trip. If a company is registered in an unsupported region, its employees can’t use it even if they’re in the U.S. Overseas companies controlled by such firms are also restricted. My account today was probably one of the first to be sacrificed under the new rules.
The competition hasn’t been idle either. On November 7 and 8, OpenAI had a wave of account bans with no warning. Even Pro users paying $200 a month were affected. The hardest-hit accounts were subscriptions from lower-priced regions, shared accounts, reverse-proxy services, and accounts reselling API credits. OpenAI still hasn’t provided a unified explanation, and it hasn’t disclosed how many people were affected.
Now for the personnel news: Cat Wu, product lead for Claude Code, left Anthropic on October 30 and announced on November 5 that she was joining OpenAI to lead core products. In just two weeks, three key members left the Claude Code team—and Anthropic is preparing to go public.
★ I pay for all my AI subscriptions through automatic card renewals on PayAll. After my account was banned, the first thing I did wasn’t file an appeal—it was cancel the renewal. Losing the account is bad enough; having $200 charged again next month would be a real disaster.
So this is the ecosystem now: executives are taking their experience to the competition, while users’ accounts are dropping like flies. Models can be switched, but don’t put all your workflows in the hands of one company. That’s the lesson I learned from losing both my accounts.
$BTC
