The Batch API Decided to Make Hundreds of Requests That I Didn't Request. What's Up?

A week ago I asked if there were any updates. I received,

Case Number: 08359823

Hi,

Thank you for your continued patience and follow-ups on this case.

To reiterate and clarify the policy: Batch API charges are applied to completed work, meaning you are only billed for requests that were processed successfully on our end. If the batch expired and no work was completed at all, you would not be charged. However, if any task within the batch succeeded (even if you primarily received an error JSON or the final output was not as expected), those completed tasks are considered billable according to our Batch API policy.

If you’re seeing a charge, it indicates that work was completed successfully in our system, even if it wasn’t delivered as you anticipated. We’re unable to return credits or remove these charges if work was completed and returned as per our internal records, in line with our service credit terms.

We genuinely understand how frustrating this experience has been and appreciate all the detail you’ve provided

Best,

Samanta

OpenAI Support

So, still no update. Were they even looking into my case? I asked them as much and asked “Has this question been answered: Was any completed work delivered to me?” to which they responded,

Hi,

Thank you for your patience. We understand your concern about being charged when the only file you received was an error JSON rather than the expected completed batch results.

According to our internal records, some portion of your batch was processed and considered as completed work. Charges reflect this, in line with the Batch API policy, which states: if any task in a batch completes successfully on our system, that work is billable, even if you did not receive specific outputs or they were not delivered as expected due to batch expiration or other issues.

To your specific question: our system indicates that completed work was present, but you report receiving only an error JSON file. This usually means the batch was partially processed, but due to expiration or failure to finalize, the actual completed results were not delivered to you.

We understand this is frustrating and not the experience you were hoping for. While the charge reflects completed work on our system, we appreciate you raising this and will document your feedback for review.

Best,

Samanta

OpenAI Support

I then responded,

Sorry, but what are you referencing when you say “if any task in a batch completes successfully on our system, that work is billable, even if you did not receive specific outputs or they were not delivered as expected due to batch expiration or other issues”? Is there any Batch API policy besides what is in the Batch API FAQ?

The FAQ makes it clear that “any already completed work is returned.” Which clearly implies that any work not returned is not completed work.

Back to my question: Was any work returned to me?

It’s been over a week and I haven’t heard back. I asked for any updates yesterday.

Does anyone know how to figure this out?