OpenAI has notoriously terrible engineering. Look no further than the numerous Reddit threads and YouTube videos about people trying to give them money for their services and being denied. Users routinely have to try a number of credit cards, a number of web browsers, a number of devices, and a number of physical locations.

I’m not talking about sketchy prepaid cards from weird banks on a VPN in a country the United States doesn’t do business with. I’m talking about Americans getting their Chase cards rejected on their home wifi in Ithaca.

When this initially happened to me, I assumed it was a one off thing, but I was shocked to have found out that it’s been going on for at least six months, probably longer.