Vercel auto-switched my builds to Elastic after Pro upgrade, $624.16 refund blocked

Hi Vercel team,

I've already tried the Vercel help assistant. The self-service refund was rejected with "Automatic Refund Limit Reached", and the assistant said it can't open a case. I'm asking for a human to escalate this.

Support case: CSE_01RxdvwtOfqTrLfo Team: Gem Platform's projects Invoices: 2USLC3WI-0005 ($100.03, Oct 1) and 2USLC3WI-0006 ($524.13, Oct 14), $624.16 in total Plan: Pro

What happened: I upgraded from Hobby to Pro on Sep 19, 2026. In that same minute, Vercel's system switched my team default and all my projects to Elastic build machines. Before that, they ran on a fixed Basic or Standard machine. My team events log shows it clearly:

"team-default-build-machine-updated", Standard to Elastic, isSystemInitiated: true (Sep 19, 15:04 UTC)
"System automatically updated build machine from Basic to Elastic on project crypto-pattern-scanner because your team's plan changed."
Oct 3: "System automatically updated build machine from 4 CPUs / 8 GB to 8 CPUs / 16 GB on project yinyang-web."

I never chose Elastic machines or on-demand concurrent builds, and I only found out when the invoices arrived. I've now moved every project back to a fixed Standard machine and set up Spend Management.

Other Pro users in this forum have reported the same thing: charges caused by a build machine default they didn't choose.

Could someone from the Vercel team please escalate case CSE_01RxdvwtOfqTrLfo to a billing specialist? I'm happy to share account details privately.

Hey . It looks like you've been working with a support engineer on your case. Please continue to follow up with them to get this solved 🙏

Hi Amy, thanks for checking in. I have been working with the support engineer, but the case isn’t resolved. They closed it with a 25% goodwill refund ($134.64) and said that’s the maximum. $489.52 is still unrefunded.

The issue is consent. My projects were explicitly set to fixed Basic/Standard machines, and the system overwrote that choice the minute I upgraded (isSystemInitiated: true, “because your team’s plan changed”). The upgrade screen said nothing about changing build machines or adding on-demand Build CPU charges. On Oct 3 it also auto-upgraded yinyang-web to 8 CPUs without asking. At best, the changelog wording (“default for new Pro teams” vs. “enable in your team settings”) is ambiguous about upgraded teams. An ambiguous term shouldn’t override a setting I chose explicitly. Budget emails that report usage “already incurred” aren’t consent to a machine I never selected.

Could someone on the billing side please take another look at case CSE_01RxdvwtOfqTrLfo? I’d like the remaining $489.52 for the unauthorized Elastic overage refunded. Happy to share details privately.