API console billing bug

[omr]

I should file this story in the issue tracker, but I'll mention it
here first.

After using up my free quota for the day, I enabled billing on my
Custom Search API project.

Google Checkout emailed me about a credit card verification error ...
but the API console immediately put my project into billed mode
anyway.

(I hadn't checked my email just yet, so I wasn't yet aware of the card
verification error.)

The API console showed that billable usage was good-to-go. So I
submitted a few further requests to the API ...

Of course those requests still produced the "Daily Limit Exceeded"
error (since my credit card had not yet been successfully
processed) ...

Yet those requests accrued as billable usage (indicated by increases
in the console's quota usage indicator)!

Thus I was effectively charged for receiving "Daily Limit Exceeded"
error messages.

Suggestion:
The API console system should switch a project into billed mode AFTER
Checkout order processing fully succeeds ... so that subsequent
*billed* API requests won't produce the "Daily Limit Exceeded" error.

-- omr

[omr]

Of course I wasn't incorrectly charged IF quota usage was reset after
credit card resubmission. As I proceeded with my project I forgot to
check, so I don't know for sure, but I'll assume that the usage meter
presumably was correctly reset at that point. If so then there is no
real problem. (Still my suggestion stands: The console shouldn't
switch to billed tracking mode until after checkout fully succeeds.)

-- omr

[Adam Feldman]

Hi omr,

This is definitely weird.  To help us follow up, can you email me your project number (it's in the URL line when you're in the APIs Console) directly?

Thanks,

Adam

-- omr

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[Adam Feldman]

Hi everyone,

The issue was caused by your account being in a pending state, while awaiting credit card verification.  This is usually close to instant, but sometimes there are delays.  While in this state, your project is *not* activated for billing.  I realize that this isn't clear (where it says "billing enabled"), and we'll work on improving the messaging.

Independently, you hit upon the fact that the traffic stats page includes failed requests.  This is a known issue and one we're working to fix - initially, we actually thought it was a feature, but realized that it would be confusing and I hope that we're soon able to show both failed and successful requests independently.

I also want to make perfectly clear, that you're not charged for failed requests.

Thanks for pointing this out and sorry for the inconvenience.

Cheers,

Adam