Dev says Google warned him about account hijack – then charged him $11,000 anyway
Left hand, meet right hand
During a 48-hour period from June 7 to 8, developer Charles Jones's Google Cloud account registered $11,089.77 in charges - most related to the use of Gemini image-generation models.
Yet Jones, a solo developer who runs programmatic SEO and insurance sites, told The Register that he doesn't have any workflow that generates AI images.
Google suspended his account anyway. A suspension notification sent to Jones on June 7 justified the decision by stating his account "was engaged in abusive activity consistent with hijacked resources."
"The root cause was attributed to a compromised firebase-adminsdk service account key," said Jones, who provided The Register with documentation of his exchanges with Google Cloud support.
The notification advised Jones to report his concerns if he believed the account was compromised by a third party. He did so and took the steps required by Google to have his account reinstated....
Copyright of this story solely belongs to theregister.com. To see the full text click HERE
