Small enough amount of money that I didn't bother chasing it up, but surprising to see other people saying the same thing, maybe I will

Do they care?

> $379 spent on credits in July alone

Still heavily subsidized, you should be thankful they let you use a bit of their compute.

> July 9. My Codex balance - 491.8 credits - vanished to zero.

Well, someone failed a couple of RAFT cornercases. Happens. They are smart boys and will (eventually) make their RAFT consistent.

> Then I asked one simple question: what exactly did I pay for?

You financed development of AGI which will be here soon (er or later) and will make you happy.

> If you prepay OpenAI for credits, know this: if they ever disappear, the company’s official position is that you are not entitled to know where they went.

It very well might be they also have no idea. In a multi-trillion industry your personal signal is just some noise well below noise level.

Also, if you are unhappy with OpenAI - try Anthropic and don't be surprised when you waste $200 in API credits in TWO single requests (not prompts). If you are not happy with Anthropic - give Kimi a try, they still could surprise you even after Anthropic.