{"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}]}