Anthropic Suspends Thousands of Accounts Over Claude Max $200 Exploit, Affects Paying Users Too

According to monitoring by Beating, Anthropic triggered large-scale account suspensions over the weekend following a pricing exploit in Claude Max 20x. Users discovered they could access a German SEPA payment interface, enter a properly formatted IBAN, and gain immediate access to the $200-per-month Max 20x subscription without payment confirmation. The system was patched within hours and exploited subscriptions were revoked.

However, suspension impacts extended beyond accounts that exploited the flaw. Community reports show long-standing paid subscribers, regular free-tier users, and employees experiencing simultaneous bans on the same day. Some users speculate shared IP addresses, devices, or payment environments may have triggered collateral suspensions. Anthropic has not disclosed suspension numbers or addressed potential false positives.