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Reddit Posts - Twilio

Score: 5 | Comments: 42

Twilio responded, Hello David, Thanks for reaching out! My name is Joselyn, writing to you from the Billing Support team. I definitely understand the concern regarding the charges and would be happy to help look into this issue. It is correct when an account reaches a zero balance, you will no longer be able to make/receive phone calls or send/receive SMS messages however, this only applies to new SMS and phone calls being sent after the suspension. The SMS/Calls that were already made before the suspension will finish processing. For example, A customer sends 100 SMS at 11:59am These are already sent, but may not finish processing the cost. right away. Account suspends at 12pm The SMS already sent will still finish processing. The account will not "stop" these in any way. There is a cost to Twilio and the customer for these already, there is just a delay. New SMS will fail after suspension, as intended. If the message was already in a "sent" state at the time of suspension, it will complete its journey and will end up returning either delivered or undelivered (depending on destination/filtering/etc.) and be charged. Due to the complexity of our billing and processing systems, there may be delays to charges against your account. While usually minor, these delays could cause discrepancies if attempting to reconcile real-time data. Delayed billing usage is also possible when reinstating an account from suspension. If an account reaches $0 balance before all usage (including MRCs) is processed against the account balance, the unpaid usage will remain on the account as a negative balance until payment is added to the account. When reinstating a zero balance account, we recommend increasing your normal refill amount to compensate for the delayed usage incurred while the account was suspended, and monitoring your balance closely for a short period of time to prevent delayed billing from suspending your account again. For more details please see https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223135487-How-Twilio-billing-works As I understand this issue was caused by application runaway, please allow me to check with my team for a courtesy credit. I will update you shortly. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding in the meantime. Kind regards, Joselyn | Twilio Support
Just joined this sub and was scrolling through old messages. Take this as you will, but Twilio (and other API vendors) often give you sharp knives. You cut yourself and blame them? If an API vendor does not provide direct cost control measures, well maybe they should. But, since they don't, as an "engineer" when those affordances aren't there YOU get to provide them. I see this all over--not just Twilio. Woe is me, my vendor screwed me because I did not build adequate safeguards to ensure my kill switch works and now I'm stuck $xx. Suing over this is laughable. You weren't diligent enough. As the kids today say, this is 100% a skill issue.
Twilio, responded, and they kind of reimbursed me. Weeks later, they provided a credit. But, once the credit was applied, the rest of the SMS message sitting in the queue from my presumption went through, racking up another negative bill. My response to Twilio. Waiting for their reply. Hi, I have been away working on a very large project. I'm just getting back and working through all my emails. First, thank you for crediting my account for the error, but I do have a few additional things to discuss. One, I still show that there is a balance of $31.88246 Which is what very much concerns me. I "think" I still know why I have a balance $31.88246. While I was away I consulted with my legal team regarding this in case i had to file a claim in court. Please correct me if I am wrong. Facts: 1. I was working on a Rule Chain in ThingsBoard (a sophisticated MQTT broker) for a new product for our customers. I was working on settings up alerts utilizing Twilio's SMS API. During the testing, for reasons unknown, a dump of SMS messages were all sent in a matter of a few minutes. The time it took me to disable the rule chain by clicking a few web UI buttons. 2. The dump of SMS messages that were sent to Twilio and as each one was sent it reduced by Twilio balance. When my balance hit $0.00, the Twilio system continued to allow the SMS messages to be sent even though I had a negative balance, allow me to rack up a ridiculously large balance compared to my normal monthly balance. 3. I contacted Twilio, and you stated on July 27, 2023, "Due to the complexity of our billing and processing systems, there may be delays to charges against your account. While usually minor, these delays could cause discrepancies if attempting to reconcile real-time data." 4. You provided a courtesy credit as all the SMS numbers that were sent were all sent with the same message to my cell phone, the cell phone registered as the test phone number on the account. Which, I'm very much appreciate, thank you! 5. However, after the courtesy credit was given, my account is now back in the negative. I'm guessing/assuming is due to remaining text messages that were still in the queue waiting until my balance hit $0.00. Is this correct? Here is my concern and what I spoke to my legal team about: Your argument would have a very difficult time holding up in court. Your argument as you stated and which is in your terms "Due to the complexity of our billing and processing systems, there may be delays to charges against your account. While usually minor, these delays could cause discrepancies if attempting to reconcile real-time data." Counterargument which why my legal team believes I would win and more importantly my concerns moving forward with Twilio. 1. Twilio is for most if not all customers a prepaid service. You pre-pay for services in advance. There is no credit given. 2. Twilio is a computer technology company offering API services. In addition, your company offers a plethora of education / how to documents regarding coding in a multitude of computer development languages, Python, Go, C/++, to name just a few. Obviously, your entire company understands computer development including API as that is your primary service that you sell. 3. Stating "Due to the complexity of our billing and processing systems" is absolutely ridiculous. As a computer engineer myself specializing in C/++, Python, JS, to name this is complete nonsense. I just developed a simple Python Django website that performs API GET, POST, PUT, DELETE requests. That's all it does. It's very simple. Each time an API call is made, a reduction in the balance is made. It's not "complex at all". Especially for a highly sophisticated computer technology company like Twilio. I highly doubt this argument would stand up in court. Especially, since you DO NOT have any type of "kill switch" either. What if, a million SMS message were sent in a matter of two minutes. My bill would be outrageous. That's what you are PREPAID. That said, one I'm demanding that my remaining balance be written off as I did not have the balance in my Twilio account to allow for the remaining API calls to be sent, two you have no kill switch. Last but not least. This terrifies me. I'm SO THANKFUL that this happens now in early development of our product. Until I have assurances that this has been resolved with Twilio, in which a few things should and need to take place. 1. Some sort of emergency rule. If this happens and the rule that if so many API calls are made in a minute, and hour, etc., pauses all remaining calls. And possible a kill switch too in case of emergencies. 2. Each API call reduces your balance in "REAL TIME" and unless the customer agrees for "margin" aka credit, that this pauses the account, and you do not allow for just unjust business practice of allowing a customer balance to exceed their balance and go into the negative. I look forward to your reply.
Same thing happened to me couple of days ago, $3,200 bill. What's crazy is after my debit card maxed out at $1400, it kept sending and now my balance is -$1800. At the very minimum it should stop as soon as your balance reaches $0. I cannot believe the fraud settings are hidden away in the settings are not on by default. I immediately switched to Vonage API - and guess what, their fraud options are enabled by default. Sure, this might get Twilio a short term one off income of few thousand, but this is not the way to keep a customer and extract long term revenue from them. I'm going to try and get my money back, but if not - I'm very onboard to a lawsuit.

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Ridiculous, outrageous bill from Twilio.

Not able to receive messages from Twilio number (Open AI Integration test)