Anthropic’s billing system tried to charge a Korean user $16.6 million

Per ZDNet Korea, a Claude user in Korea got hit with a bill for $16,627,739.70. The first failed-payment email landed July 7 at 10:20 PM for $1,669,875.90 (about 2.5 billion won). A day later, on July 8 at 11:42 PM, the amount had jumped roughly tenfold.

The emails came through Stripe, Anthropic’s payment processor. The user suspected phishing, but says the sender address and payment link both pointed to Anthropic’s official domain. He claims he was on the free plan, never added a card, and found no API activity on his account.

Bank screenshots show two declined charges on a KB Kookmin card on July 8 from a US merchant listed as “ANTHROP.” Anthropic told ZDNet it doesn’t comment on individual accounts and wouldn’t say whether this was a billing error.