Google Cloud ripped me off, worst free trial deal

[Bogdan Cristian Dev]

I tried a free trial on google cloud for VPS a year ago but terms and conditions are vague and what happens is that if you don't use your free credits (300 USD) it will charge your account with the amount you didn't use but if you use all amount of money it will charge you anyway. I got ripped off with 150+ usd by google for not using all the money, I'm from romania so 150+ usd means 670+ ron and maybe if I wasn't living in a poor country that 150 usd won't mean that much.

The point of this post is because I saw google is trying to push google cloud in every aspects that points to developers like reCaptcha, google search api, console and more.

Please if anyone from LTT reads this make a video about it, let people know so they don't have to get thru this. I'm not sure what google intensions are but not good that's for sure.

[LAwLz]

12 hours ago, Bogdan Cristian Dev said:

I tried a free trial on google cloud for VPS a year ago but terms and conditions are vague and what happens is that if you don't use your free credits (300 USD) it will charge your account with the amount you didn't use but if you use all amount of money it will charge you anyway.

This does not sound right. I think you have misunderstood what happened in some way. 

The 300 dollar free credits are only valid for 90 days. It is explicitly written on multiple pages and is not described in any vague terms. If you've had the VPS for a year then you had it for free for 90 days, and then all the other days you've been billed like usual. 

 

This is what is written on the page regarding the free trial:

Quote

The 90-day, $300 Free Trial period starts automatically when you complete your signup.

 

To complete your Free Trial signup, you must provide a credit card or other payment method to set up a Cloud Billing account and verify your identity. Don't worry, setting up a Cloud Billing account does not enable us to charge you. You are not charged unless you explicitly enable billing by upgrading your Cloud Billing account to a paid account. You can upgrade to a paid account at any time during the trial. After you have upgraded, you can still use any remaining credits (within the 90-day period).

 

 

12 hours ago, Bogdan Cristian Dev said:

Please if anyone from LTT reads this make a video about it, let people know so they don't have to get thru this. I'm not sure what google intensions are but not good that's for sure.

LTT is not your personal army. I wish people would stop asking for a video to be made about every single issue they have, no matter how specific it is. 

[igormp]

On 4/18/2023 at 5:58 AM, Bogdan Cristian Dev said:

google cloud for VPS

Huh, but they do offer actual free instances that are not even attached to those free credits:

https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features#compute

 

I have one of those running for years now without paying a cent.

[askja]

It sounds like you were not using the services they offer for free and them, along with AWS and Azure, make it very clear when you are setting something up that it is going to cost money for this very reason. I believe you misunderstood something unfortunately.

[Erioch]

On 4/18/2023 at 3:35 PM, LAwLz said:

I wish people would stop asking for a video to be made about every single issue they have, no matter how specific it is. 

It almost always seems like their 1st post.

[LogicalDrm]

I have had free cloud account. Needed it to use Maps API. Nothing got charged from my card and I maybe used $30 for of credit.