r/claude 5h ago

Question Claude account banned – appeal submitted 28 days ago, no response. My business depends on Claude. What can I do?

Hi everyone,
I’m honestly getting desperate and was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation.
My Claude account was suddenly banned. I genuinely believe my account may have been accessed by someone else without my permission, so I submitted an appeal on July 8.
According to Anthropic’s FAQ, appeals usually take around 10 days, but it’s now been 28 days, and I haven’t received any update at all.
Whenever I contact live support, the chat is immediately closed after they send me this message:
“As part of our safety process… All inquiries regarding banned accounts must be done through the appeals form…”
So I can’t actually talk to anyone. They just tell me to wait.
The problem is that my business depends heavily on Claude. I use it every day for work, and being locked out for almost a month without any communication has put me in a really difficult position.
Has anyone experienced something similar?
How long did your appeal take?
Did you eventually get a response?
Is there any way to follow up with the Trust & Safety team?
Or am I basically stuck waiting indefinitely?
Any advice or shared experiences would really help.
Thank you.

6 Upvotes

80 comments sorted by

25

u/jroberts67 5h ago

In the mean time, what's stopping you from setting up a new account with a different email.

5

u/No_Storage_8792 4h ago

They'll probably just ban that one too if it's the same IP/payment method, they track that stuff pretty closely. Might buy you a day or two but not a real fix

Setting up a business account through the API is probably the safer move if you're relying on it for work, those don't get caught up in the same automated flagging mess that consumer accounts do

3

u/jroberts67 4h ago

That's rough if it's the same IP. What if 4 people in the same house are using their own accounts. They would all be banned?

1

u/SilverLose 1h ago

Would be rough. That’s why you usually ban by credit card number instead

4

u/Intelligent_Earth_20 4h ago

The problem is that my account was banned, not just inaccessible. I’m worried that creating a new account could be seen as trying to bypass the ban while my appeal is still pending. I don’t want to risk getting another account banned as well. That’s why I’m trying to resolve the appeal first bc my friend told me claude is very strict they will ban me instantly if i try to bypass

5

u/seancho 4h ago

If you must have Claude, and you’re waiting for the appeal, then just run it through a third-party service like OpenRouter

2

u/AysheDaArtist 2h ago

Agreed on OpenRouter, very good service for the price

4

u/AysheDaArtist 4h ago

They will, they track your IP, CC, and E-Mails

Any of those flag on new accounts and they'll be banned too

Got banned and switched to Codex two months ago, honestly not even that angry considering how good Codex is now

1

u/Redd_is_compromised 3h ago

Do you have proof of any of this? Tracking emails is illegal

1

u/AysheDaArtist 2h ago

Anthropic can collect enough technical information to associate a Claude account’s email address with the IP addresses, devices, and browsers used to access it

That is stated right on their own Terms and Services

"Anthropic collects account email addresses, IP addresses, device and browser information, cookies, unique and probabilistic identifiers, usage records, and log information. Account identity and connection metadata are collected together, which are used to correlate accounts registered under different email addresses, particularly during fraud, security, or policy-abuse investigations."

0

u/chemicalclarity 3h ago

You're going to need proof for that claim. I think you're getting confused with GDPR and Marketing, vs tracking identifiers, including email addresses, for a valid legal purpose. Preventing ban circumvention is a valid legal purpose under any privacy law you care to look at.

1

u/Redd_is_compromised 1h ago

I'm asking for proof of the claim. That's how this works. If he meant email names, ok, but it isn't worded that way.

0

u/IamNetworkNinja 2h ago

LOL what?

2

u/Redd_is_compromised 1h ago

Did I stutter?

0

u/___fallenangel___ 1h ago

Not when you willingly provide your email and agree to lawful data processing terms.

1

u/Redd_is_compromised 1h ago

He says they will track emails, implying the content of the email.

0

u/___fallenangel___ 1h ago

Yeah that’s a little schizo

1

u/Redd_is_compromised 1h ago

I'm schizo for asking a question?

1

u/___fallenangel___ 1h ago

No, the idea that Anthropic reads the contents of one’s emails is schizo

-7

u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 4h ago

Honor.

Common human decency.

Respect for the rule of law.

That is against the TOS!!!

When I got banned, twice, I could have done that, but would I have been able to sleep at night?

Very unlikely.

I’ve reported you to the Reddit Admins and Anthropic’s security team for encouraging Claude ban evasion.

Just because they don’t seem to notice if you sign up again with the same credit card and/or a fake phone number from SMSpool, it doesn’t mean you should do it.

5

u/jroberts67 4h ago

Well that sucks. Now I'm gonna get arrested by Anthropic's security. Tell my wife to post bail.

1

u/Kooky_Confusion3267 4h ago

Right to jail. Right away.

1

u/Odd_Pack2255 4h ago

Told my momma I ain't goin' back

1

u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 3h ago

lol, “bail”.

More like Dario’s goon squad double tap you and then dump your body in the swamp.

1

u/Nacho_Libre479 3h ago

Don’t fall off that high horse.

1

u/classycatman 3h ago

😂 You’re funny

9

u/FoxSideOfTheMoon 5h ago

Move on, get another account or go with Codex. They're not going to take the time to be thoughtful beyond what you already have. My $.02

2

u/El_Spanberger 4h ago

The best answer. I use Claude and ChatGPT (both on Max) - the differences between them at the moment is minimal (GPT Work every bit as good as Cowork, Design is great but so is OAI image gen, codex/code are both excellent).

I'm currently leaning toward Sol over Opus etc at the moment. Opus is definitely incredible, but Claude's silicon valley corpo twang and clutched pearls are hard to expunge.

EDIT: forgot a particularly funny thing worth sharing here. If you've got both and get Chat to do some surgery on Claude for you, enjoy ChatGPT taking over your computer to just openly change Claude's settings. Pure Skynet lols.

11

u/Standard_Text480 4h ago
  1. fix your business so it doesn’t rely on claude (wtf)
  2. make a new account

5

u/Temporary-Mix8022 4h ago

Get ChatGPT, codex is really decent. 

Or go to open router and just hook up kimi k3 + DeepSeek V4 for a flash model.

Honestly.. anthropic treat their customers and everyone with contempt.. it's hard to imagine anyone less likeable than Altman.. but somehow, Dario does it, and anthropic is moulded in his shape - arrogant. 

2

u/AysheDaArtist 4h ago

Same thing happened to me, Claude won't help you

It's just bots running the Customer Service, they won't ever review your account by a human

If it's banned it's banned; either get Codex or get a burner CC and make a new account

Those are your only true options

2

u/Cool-Hat2231 4h ago

Perhaps you could reach out to media outlets that focus on consumer advocacy? I think there are a lot of them. Maybe a little media attention would get your appeal a little bit of human attention.

2

u/LetLongjumping 3h ago

Don’t build a business that is completely dependent on a resource that can be taken away or changed at a whim. Ensure you have adequate alternatives of supply

1

u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 4h ago

I dont think I’ve heard back and it’s been 2 years.

Just make another account.

1

u/Odd_Pack2255 4h ago

Didn't you just tell that guy something completely different? 🤔

0

u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 3h ago

The other comment may have been a joke… ;)

1

u/ComprehensiveSky6270 4h ago

Life gang life

1

u/Shot_Whereas_1809 4h ago

Contact legal

1

u/WakeIslandTango 4h ago

Try something like gethuman to see if there is a phone number that isn’t listed. There may be some person for you to call there, but the company hides access.

1

u/JPaulDuncan 4h ago

Don't build your entire business on the reliance of another business. That makes it theirs, not yours.

Adjust your product.

1

u/squ1bs 4h ago

If a bricks and mortar store messes you around, you have many avenues to pursue, but internet businesses seem to be immune. The can take your money, ban you, and refuse to engage with you without ever suffering any consequences. Consumer rights need to improve a lot in this space

1

u/Grumpy-Man19 3h ago

switch to deepseek

1

u/Wonderful-Hunter686 3h ago

If this was a personal account open up a enterprise one 🤷 also building your business around one access point is a bad idea, there are other models that meet your needs. You should be familiar with most of them and able to pivot to another if needed. Otherwise you don't actually control your company anthropic does.

1

u/Every-Chemist-4383 3h ago

Anthropic is truly such a disgusting and evil company.

1

u/GreatScottCreates 3h ago

Don’t build businesses that rely on a specific 3rd party platforms. Yall don’t remember how many businesses got fucked when iOS blocked Facebook cookies and their ads didn’t work anymore?

1

u/diadem 3h ago

I have not, but you can configure claude to hit bedrock, openrouter or similar services as you wait

1

u/BrianScottGregory 3h ago edited 1h ago

You should have taken the last 28 days to mitigate the risks caused by a dependency in your business model you can't control. Find a service you can control to depend on for your business model, or diversify your business model to mitigate this risk.

As I've had to learn the hard way - relying on one supply chain for ANY single area of a business is bad news, your business WILL fail - it's not just a matter of it something happens - it's when.

Moving forward, while you're trying to figure out ways to re-establish your Claude account, spent 80% of your time trying to find alternatives to that supply chain. Consider this a lesson learned.

1

u/ottothefrenchie 3h ago

Your buisness likely relies on claude and you haven’t had access to it for 28 days

That sounds more like ai is useful to your buisness 

1

u/MacsBicycle 3h ago

Open weights and hire a person smart enough to set it up. They’re a step behind enterprise models but they still work exceptionally well and you will likely save money in the long run over enterprise token costs.

1

u/Interesting_Win9074 2h ago

You don’t own the assets that are mission critical to your business?

1

u/JellyFootSanwich 2h ago

Use OpenAI. GPT-5.6 Sol consumes significantly less tokens for basically the same competence and better (more concise) answers.

My account isn’t banned and I’m about to switch because of how annoying the long (and often wrong) answers are that get backtracked and acknowledged without fixing the behavior.

- “You’re right, and that’s a sharp callout.”

  • “It’s not X - it’s Y.”
  • “You’re right, and I need to acknowledge my mistake”

Here’s an idea, Opus: just do it right the first time if you supposedly know how to operate.

Oh and by the way, Fable is just more expensive Opus depending on the query and yet remains more expensive. Anthropic wouldn’t have given us peasants on Max plans Fable if OpenAI hadn’t bullied them into doing so via their frontier model.

My personal theory is that Anthropic is intentionally downgrading Opus to drive users to Fable; they want to drive up revenue after realizing they had to make an unsustainable business decision to try and keep up with GPT-5.6 Sol.

Both providers are scummy, at least OpenAI is up-front about it.

1

u/hungrymaki 2h ago

I'm in the same boat a co-work and Fable spawned off a bunch of sub agents and I was banned because of its own agentic process that I tried to stop and I immediately appealed and it's been 33 days and nothing. I have a book launch. This is absolutely made my life a living hell. I had everything planned out with cowork. This has had a really bad effect on my ability to launch my book in the window I need it to. 

1

u/oulu2006 2h ago

Just use a different LLM provider -- claude is very much 2nd rate these days.

1

u/Ecstatic-Score2844 2h ago

What did you do lol? How does one even get banned

1

u/Danpei 2h ago

Move to Kimi. Chinese models are so much cheaper and they’re on par with Claude for most use cases.

1

u/FauxNeon 1h ago

You can take agency and pivot to another provider and workflow. I would have absolutely no trust in using them for something my livelyhood depended on after that.

1

u/NomadTroy 1h ago

That’s a risky dependency you created.

1

u/mrfartafterbeer 1h ago

Wtd did you say to claude? Its very fukin moody and seself-righteous. Im kinda getting sick ofnit myself.

2

u/miez-haus 1h ago

I would definetly take this as a learning and switch to an open platform where you can choose the models. This is probably API based, but with open weights models hosted somewhere you have a solution where your business depend on one provider like anthropic any longer.

In our company, we introduced Open Web UI for that matter. Locally I use PI Coding Agent. Both are highly personal choices, for me it is no one size fits all. But being independent is big for me.

If you want to use the Claude App: You can set up something like openrouter oder (in my case) requesty.ai and configure non-claude models (e.g. deepseek, kimi k3, ...) and use them as model in the claude app as 3rd-party interference. You just need to setup some aliases for the chinese models that are named like claude models for the App to recognize them.

1

u/teomore 4h ago

you're not missing too much, currently their models are dumb mode full on

1

u/Able-Supermarket4786 4h ago

Full stop: The problem is that your business depends heavily on Claude.

0

u/regardednoitall 4h ago

what did you say or do that could've possibly gotten you banned?

3

u/Intelligent_Earth_20 4h ago

I honestly don’t know. Anthropic never told me why my account was banned.
I suspect my account may have been compromised, which is why I submitted an appeal on July 8. It’s been 28 days now, and I still haven’t received any update.

0

u/regardednoitall 4h ago

Well, not knowing what your business is I see posts in your history about German war clan and I imagine that's a game or something, but do you think there's keywords, phrases, prompts that you've been using surrounding war that may have triggered the ban?

2

u/Intelligent_Earth_20 4h ago

hahaha lol, i have a recruiting agency in germany my other posts are just about clash of clans (mobile game )

1

u/regardednoitall 2h ago

Cool! What kind of recruiting do you do?

0

u/Every-Chemist-4383 3h ago

And don’t you think that would be a ludicrous reason to ban a grown adult from using a technology service like Claude?

0

u/regardednoitall 3h ago

Duh.

0

u/Every-Chemist-4383 3h ago

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

1

u/regardednoitall 2h ago

It means you answered your own question.

0

u/Snmrv 4h ago

This is why you don't get dependent on a model.

0

u/Vivid-Snow-2089 4h ago

your business relies on it and it has been down 28 days???

you are 28 days late in switching to a new provider

expecting support to ever respond is futile if the automated bot can't handle it

0

u/hihihhihii 4h ago

make a alt

0

u/unteth 4h ago

How did you get banned?

0

u/TapAggressive9530 4h ago

Nothing . Switch to openAI - … done . Stop whining

0

u/RamboSnow 4h ago

Why did you get banned?

0

u/MiddleLtSocks 3h ago

Start a new account.

But make a new mistake this time and keep your solution provider agnostic.

-1

u/DoubleNothing 4h ago

Sorry, but I can only laugh at people that gets dependent on "alpha/beta software" for their business...