I signed up for Oracle and was able to access the Always Free resources as described here: https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm#compute__idleinstances. I was using the following resources:
OKE 2 instances of VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro with AMD processor 4 instances of VM.Standard.A1.Flex with 1 OCPU each and 6GB of memory, equivalent to 4 OCPUs and 24GB of memory compatible with Always Free, which offers 3,000 OCPU hours and 18,000 GB hours per month for free 3 50GB block volumes - According to Oracle, I could use up to 200GB of Block Volume storage However, since April 2022, I have been trying to upgrade my account to pay and register my company's international credit card. Unfortunately, I have faced problems such as being charged for amounts when I was still using resources that were within the limits of Always Free and Trial periods.
Although I opened a ticket with Oracle, I currently do not have access to it as Oracle has not yet upgraded my account to a paid one, despite my multiple attempts to do so. Additionally, when trying to upgrade, I only receive the message "Your account upgrade is in progress", but I do not see any changes.
I tried to contact them via email and WhatsApp, but I did not receive a solution to my problem. In fact, there was a charge on the credit card and invoice this month, the charge was almost 4x higher than the estimate being displayed on the site, without any change in usage.
Unfortunately, my instances were terminated by Oracle, both those that exceeded Always Free and those that were within the free limit. Now, I am also unable to create the instances that were covered by Always Free.
When requesting support, the machines were terminated instead of resolving the issue with my account, which caused even more problems.
I was running two PostgreSQL and MySQL databases with high availability, RabbitMQ, Nexus repository, and VPN server through Mikrotik. Unfortunately, I lost more than a week to recover what I had and deploy it somewhere else. Additionally, I lost a lot of data, delayed all my work, and several things were offline.
From the beginning, I have been trying to contact Oracle via email, chat, and ticket to upgrade my account, which is already being charged on my credit card and has an invoice issued. However, my account still appears in the system as "You are using a Free Tier account" and I cannot use the services.
Additionally, due to Oracle's machine recovery policy, I am still at risk of losing the current machines, not due to lack of usage, but due to the problems that have been occurring. My machines stop working, and consequently, processing decreases, not because it is not needed, but because they are causing failures.
It is also important to note that I cannot even check the charges that have already been issued in the panel. I request a solution to this problem as soon as possible as I am having losses in my work due to the unavailability of services.
I sent the above message to various Oracle channels in Brazil, and within about an hour, they terminated my other machines that were on the Always Free plan. Every time I contact them, instead of upgrading my plan, they worsen the situation, fail to upgrade it, and sometimes even remove resources.
Recently, Oracle even terminated the last free instances (about two hours before this post), which included a company VPN server used in multiple locations with various redirection rules. This event will cause significant delays in resolving the situation because the IP was authorized in several locations and releasing it again will require identifying where it was authorized and depending on third parties to change the IP. In addition, there is the additional work of reconfiguring the Mikrotik.