Billed without any usage

[hpant]

Hi 

I had undertaken a Google cloud training. During the training I was told that I need to key in my Credit card. I was assured that I would not be charged anything and the card is just a formality. Its been close to 1 year since I even touched that account and now I see a heavy charge slapped on my account. I am unable to contact billing support as it is opening a chat bot account which is not going ahead. Please help me here.

[DamianS]

Hi,

most probably your free tier ended after 90 days / $300 has been used. However, according to "To complete your Free Trial signup, you must provide a credit card or other payment method to set up a Cloud Billing account and verify your identity. Don't worry, setting up a Cloud Billing account does not enable us to charge you. You are not charged unless you explicitly enable billing by upgrading your Cloud Billing account to a paid account. You can upgrade to a paid account at any time during the trial. After you have upgraded, you can still use any remaining credits (within the 90-day period). "  someone, I believe you, had to upgrade this billing account to a paid account. You should be able to create case based on https://cloud.google.com/support/billing#support-contact-for-admins . I've resolved my issue with billing based on info from this URL and chat.

cheers,
DamianS