Claude Account Bans, Suspensions and Appeals

The poster says a white American friend on a company Claude Team plan had their account banned three days after landing in China, concluding any IP in China gets banned.

Claims that Claude's web upgrade allows UnionPay and a China region are checked: it's UnionPay International with no confirmed successful payments, and selecting China may trigger KYC or a non-refundable ban.

Reuters reported on Oct 22 that Anthropic cut off paid customers representing 5-7% of its first-nine-month 2026 revenue, accusing Chinese AI labs of harvesting Claude outputs via many accounts for distillation.

A user who often returns to China says Claude itself suggested keeping a local device in Singapore and logging in remotely, so he plans to set up a Mac mini.

The poster questions why users in unsupported regions chase Claude, criticizes its privacy and closed-source issues, and mocks users who rationalize bans as 'worth it at API prices'.

The banned user says the Claude team confirmed the ban stemmed from the supported-regions policy, and questions why DHH openly using Claude Code from China was not treated the same.

The author contrasts Xiaohongshu complaints about AI-generated code with the many Claude account ban posts on X, wondering if they are using AI from different eras.

The poster's Claude account was banned last week; Gmail re-registration required KYC, but signing in with Apple and subscribing via the App Store avoided KYC.

The poster says a $125 Claude Max subscription was banned within an hour with no refund, and a China Merchants Bank chargeback recovered the money.

The author questions Altman's claim that OpenAI's internal models far surpass all others, and complains about being beaten by Claude while also dealing with bans.

A blogger recommends an environment setup for using Claude over a VPN to avoid account bans, claiming tens of thousands have viewed it with positive feedback.

The author wonders why Douyin has so much content about Claude account bans, joking that using Claude has somehow become a status symbol.