I used a Visa card to buy monthly Pro subscription. One day I ran out of credits so I go to buy extra credit. But my card got declined. I recheck my card limit and try again. Still declined.
I try extending the Pro subscription. It works. Turns out my card had a "Secure by Visa" feature. To complete transaction I needed to submit OTP on a Visa page. This page appears when I pay for Pro but not while buying extra credits.
I open a ticket and mention all the details to Claude support. Even these details they come back with "We have no way of knowing why your card was declined. You need to check with your bank".
Later I get hold of a Mastercard with similar protection. OTP triggers on both subscription and extra usage page.
I share the finding and response is still - "We checked with our engineering team and we have no way of knowing why the other Visa card was declined. You have to check with your bank".
I gave up trying to buy extra usage.
My experience with Replicate has also similarly absurd. For testing I loaded $10 to my balance. But I keep getting rate limited with error that my balance should be above $5. Responses have been absurd. AI bot responded that my balance had to be above $10. On asking why the message said $5 the "human" support responded that it might be a "temporary hiccup". Later they came back that my balance had to be above $20 for full rate limits. I asked again - why was their rate limit error message not clear enough? No response for past 10 days.
Its like all these AI companies want to replace developers but their own systems is built using super glue.