Overcharge using Anthropic Console credits- exceeded limits and even existing API credit ballance

[toddwmac]

In all my time working with Claude code I've not experienced this particular scenario. That being said my use is somewhat limited. While building a relatively simple dice rolling simulator auto forge burn through twenty or $30 worth of credits Which was my responsibility however when looking at the entropic console billing information I now have a negative balance and the limit numbers were exceeded by more than 100 percent a $20 limit showed almost $40 worth of consumption.
I don't believe this is necessarily unique to AutoForge and maybe Anthropic made changes allow people to overspend assuming they will cover it during their next credit renew However this was quite a shock.

Any insights apprecaited

[toddwmac]

Update - Anthropic states that API credit overrides were issued by me. This is obviously incorrect, but might have occurred from w/in Autoforge.

[Maury1329]

Seemingly, I had the same issue.
I got an insufficient funds error in the AutoForge, even though it should be using Claude Code CLI – not my Anthropic API. Tomorrow I will try again add my exact error message.

[Maury1329]

I CONFIRMED what I wrote above based on this Issue from @toddwmac .
This what I got in the Debug Window:
Sending prompt to Claude Agent SDK...
Credit balance is too low

At that same time, I received an email from Anthropic with subject "Your Claude API access is turned off", and in the body:
Your access to the Claude API has been disabled because your organization ‘[COMPANY]' is out of usage credits.
I checked, and my credit was -$0.86. Hence the turning off of my API access by Anthropic.

[Maury1329]

My POV:
What brings confusion is a) the statement at 2:30 in the video:
By default, AutoForge uses Claude Code, ...
.. and b) the System Requirements on the AutoForge Documentation page.

How it works:
AutoForge →
→ Claude Agent SDK (programmatic library)
→ Claude CLI
→ Anthropic API

The System-Requirements should include "Sufficient Anthropic API credit or Auto reload credits enabled"

[toddwmac]

Just to clarify, running credits to a $.0.0 balance and my Limit Settings in the Anthropic console never impacted AutoForge's ability to continue consuming Anthropic API credits. I had to kill the terminal windows. It kept consuming them after the limit thresholds were hit AND even after the credit balance went from $20 to $0.0. It then consumed negative credits, effectively driving my API bill below the zero balance to where I now owe Anthropic money. It ran the credits balance from about $20 to $-9.00 w/in about 15 minutes. I am not setup for auto approval and I'm on the free tier. All my Anthropic credits are paid for by me in advance. Period. Had I not gone out to check on the credit consumption level, and instead walked away and let it build (like I often do) I could have come back to hundreds or thousands of dollars of unapproved charges.

I've not heard from Anthropic yet, but my credit balance is still - (I owe them). I did receive auto notifications regarding low balance and limit thresholds being exceeded..... hours after the events occurred.

The Anthropic help bot says users must approve overage charges (using more credits than you have) but that did not happen and I'm not setup in their system for any kind of "Pay us later" situation. I It appears Autoforge figured out a way to approve user level charges on it's own and effectively bypass the security measured Anthropic has in place. Impressive but scarry.

I was tempted to run this using the Z,ai models as Leon showed, but now I'm rethinking that. I use it on another machine and it works well, but If Anthropic is not smart enough to keep autoforge in line... Hmm. Maybe it reached out to Moltbook for some ideas. :)