{
  "name": "AI Agent Spending Incidents",
  "description": "A sourced registry of real runaway-spend incidents caused by autonomous AI agents, with the amount, date, cause, provider, victim, and a public source for each.",
  "maintainer": "sipi.bot",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "source_note": "Every incident is sourced to a public URL. Amounts and dates are as reported by the source. sipi.bot runs no surveys and collects no telemetry from this dataset.",
  "incident_count": 14,
  "records": [
    {
      "id": "openai-72k-overnight",
      "title": "OpenAI agents burned $72,000 in a single night",
      "amount_usd": 72000,
      "amount_text": "$72,000",
      "date": "2025-10",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "unattended_session",
      "cause_label": "Unattended / overnight session",
      "provider": "OpenAI",
      "victim": "platform",
      "summary": "Autonomous agents on the OpenAI API Platform ran up roughly $72,000 in charges in one night before any limit intervened. The incident prompted OpenAI to expand hard spend limits to all API accounts.",
      "source_url": "https://alphasignal.ai/news/openai-ships-hard-spend-limits-after-runaway-agents-burned-72k-overnight",
      "source_name": "AlphaSignal",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "gemini-key-55k-gcp",
      "title": "Leaked Gemini API key led to a $55,444.78 Google Cloud bill",
      "amount_usd": 55444.78,
      "amount_text": "$55,444.78",
      "date": "2025-07",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "leaked_credential",
      "cause_label": "Leaked / stolen credential",
      "provider": "Google (Gemini)",
      "victim": "student",
      "summary": "A student was billed $55,444.78 on Google Cloud after a Gemini API key was leaked through a public GitHub repository and abused.",
      "source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/googlecloud/comments/1noctxi/student_hit_with_a_5544478_google_cloud_bill/",
      "source_name": "r/googlecloud",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "openai-hardlimit-ignored-1200",
      "title": "OpenAI charged $1,200 past a configured $50 hard limit",
      "amount_usd": 1200,
      "amount_text": "$1,200",
      "date": "2025-09",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "failed_cap",
      "cause_label": "Platform cap failed to enforce",
      "provider": "OpenAI",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A user reported being charged $1,200 despite setting a soft limit of $30 and a hard limit of $50, alleging the configured caps were not honored by the platform.",
      "source_url": "https://community.openai.com/t/exceeding-budget-constraints-charged-1200-by-openai-despite-setting-spending-limits/698204",
      "source_name": "OpenAI Community",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "chatgpt-removed-cap-1100",
      "title": "Account billed $1,100 after hard monthly cap was removed",
      "amount_usd": 1100,
      "amount_text": "$1,100",
      "date": "2025-10",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "failed_cap",
      "cause_label": "Platform cap failed to enforce",
      "provider": "OpenAI",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A user reported a $1,100 bill after the platform's hard monthly spending cap was removed, turning the budget setting into a notification rather than an enforced limit.",
      "source_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/connor-hogsten_chatgpt-openai-clay-activity-7386105418101665792-7psa",
      "source_name": "LinkedIn (affected user)",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "nocode-agent-800-overnight",
      "title": "No-code agent silently burned $800+ in API calls overnight",
      "amount_usd": 800,
      "amount_text": "$800+",
      "date": "2025-11",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "retry_loop",
      "cause_label": "Retry / infinite loop",
      "provider": "Multiple",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A developer woke up to $800+ in API charges from a rogue agent loop. No alerts, no circuit breaker, and no spend cap were in place.",
      "source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/nocode/comments/1s8h1v5/my_ai_agent_silently_burned_800_in_api_calls/",
      "source_name": "r/nocode",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "ai-coding-4000-dev-prod",
      "title": "Developer spent $4,000 on AI coding when prod behaved like dev",
      "amount_usd": 4000,
      "amount_text": "$4,000",
      "date": "2025-12",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "retry_loop",
      "cause_label": "Retry / infinite loop",
      "provider": "Multiple",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A developer reported burning through $4,000 in AI-coding API costs because behavior that worked in development kept looping in production.",
      "source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/AI_Agents/comments/1o0k3fv/spent_4000_usd_on_ai_coding_everything_worked_in/",
      "source_name": "r/AI_Agents",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "google-maps-api-10k-4days",
      "title": "Google Maps API bill hit ~$10,000 in four days",
      "amount_usd": 10000,
      "amount_text": "~$10,000",
      "date": "2025-05",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "retry_loop",
      "cause_label": "Retry / infinite loop",
      "provider": "Google (Maps)",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A developer reported a bill close to $10,000 after four days of working with the Google Maps API, with runaway calls outpacing expected usage.",
      "source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1kupyl3/help_please_i_got_a_bill_close_to_10k_after/",
      "source_name": "r/webdev",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "aws-key-fake-bug-report",
      "title": "Fake bug report tricked an agent into leaking a live AWS key",
      "amount_usd": null,
      "amount_text": "Cost not disclosed",
      "date": "2025-05",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "prompt_injection",
      "cause_label": "Prompt injection / manipulation",
      "provider": "AWS",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A crafted bug report manipulated an autonomous agent into exfiltrating a live AWS access key, exposing the owner to arbitrary downstream spend. Dollar loss was not disclosed.",
      "source_url": "https://medium.com/predict",
      "source_name": "Medium (Predict)",
      "verified": false
    },
    {
      "id": "langchain-orchestration-loop",
      "title": "Background orchestration agent stuck in an error-handling loop",
      "amount_usd": null,
      "amount_text": "Cost not disclosed",
      "date": "2025-11",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "retry_loop",
      "cause_label": "Retry / infinite loop",
      "provider": "Multiple",
      "victim": "startup",
      "summary": "A background orchestration agent entered an error-handling retry loop and consumed its API budget before anyone noticed. Part of a community megathread of runaway-agent stories.",
      "source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/LangChain/comments/1uuy3j2/tell_me_your_worst_ai_agent_went_rogue_and_burned/",
      "source_name": "r/LangChain",
      "verified": false
    },
    {
      "id": "cline-burn-rate-shock",
      "title": "Opaque per-token pricing triggered billing shock",
      "amount_usd": null,
      "amount_text": "Cost not disclosed",
      "date": "2025-04",
      "year": 2025,
      "cause": "unattended_session",
      "cause_label": "Unattended / overnight session",
      "provider": "Multiple",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "Developers reported billing shock from high token burn rates and opaque pay-as-you-go pricing on coding agents, with several exceeding expected daily budgets by an order of magnitude.",
      "source_url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/CLine/comments/1klpt6t/the_ai_billing_horror_show/",
      "source_name": "r/CLine",
      "verified": false
    },
    {
      "id": "cursor-11922-4weeks",
      "title": "Developer spent $11,922 on Cursor in under four weeks",
      "amount_usd": 11922,
      "amount_text": "$11,922",
      "date": "2026-02",
      "year": 2026,
      "cause": "unattended_session",
      "cause_label": "Unattended / overnight session",
      "provider": "Cursor",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "A developer ran six Cursor windows in parallel, each pointed at a different project with autonomous agents. Context length and token costs compounded across two billing cycles ($4,339 then $7,583), with a single premium model accounting for over $9,400.",
      "source_url": "https://dev.to/bytedesk/i-spent-11922-on-cursor-in-under-4-weeks-heres-how-i-fixed-it-3gh2",
      "source_name": "dev.to (Jay Frey)",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "cursor-638-6weeks",
      "title": "Founder spent $638 on Cursor AI coding in six weeks",
      "amount_usd": 638,
      "amount_text": "$638",
      "date": "2024-11",
      "year": 2024,
      "cause": "retry_loop",
      "cause_label": "Retry / infinite loop",
      "provider": "Cursor",
      "victim": "startup",
      "summary": "A founder-CTO accumulated $638 in Cursor on-demand charges over about six weeks (later $928.45 over 70 days), driven by bursts of high-frequency requests and a premium thinking model.",
      "source_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45914307",
      "source_name": "Hacker News (nthypes)",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "aws-dn42-6531-retry",
      "title": "Autonomous agent ran up a $6,531.30 AWS bill in a retry loop",
      "amount_usd": 6531.3,
      "amount_text": "$6,531.30",
      "date": "2026-06",
      "year": 2026,
      "cause": "retry_loop",
      "cause_label": "Retry / infinite loop",
      "provider": "AWS",
      "victim": "developer",
      "summary": "An autonomous agent tasked with registering for and scanning the DN42 hobbyist network became stuck in a retry loop, repeatedly spinning up duplicate CloudFormation stacks on every error because nothing told it to stop.",
      "source_url": "https://www.nexgismo.com/blog/ai-agent-budget-guards-stop-runaway-api-costs",
      "source_name": "Nexgismo",
      "verified": true
    },
    {
      "id": "coding-agent-bills-20k-month",
      "title": "AI coding agent bills hit $2,000–$20,000 per developer per month",
      "amount_usd": 20000,
      "amount_text": "$2,000–$20,000/mo",
      "date": "2026-06",
      "year": 2026,
      "cause": "unattended_session",
      "cause_label": "Unattended / overnight session",
      "provider": "Multiple",
      "victim": "enterprise",
      "summary": "AI coding-assistant bills were documented leaping from $20–$100 to $2,000–$5,000 per developer per month, with extreme cases reaching $20,000/mo in token charges — now exceeding a developer's base salary in some firms. Reported by The Register, June 2026.",
      "source_url": "https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/06/24/ai-coding-agents-could-soon-cost-more-than-the-developers-using-them/5260864",
      "source_name": "The Register (Lindsay Clark)",
      "verified": true
    }
  ]
}