Downgraded from business to free plan by GitHub system ("ghost" account)

[Valharault]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Hi everyone,

We've been fully blocked for over 24 hours and can't get a response from GitHub support, so I'm posting here hoping someone can help or escalate.

What happened

Yesterday morning, our organization was automatically downgraded from the business_plus plan to the free plan. The action was triggered by a ghost account (GitHub system), not by anyone in our organization. Our payment is fully up to date.

Audit log events (all within the same minute)

ghost - account.plan_change → business_plus to free
GitHub System - billing.lock → billing access disabled
GitHub System - repo.pages_soft_delete → GitHub Pages disabled

Impact
15+ engineers fully blocked. CI/CD down. GitHub Pages offline. Billing locked so we can't fix it ourselves.

What we've tried

Support ticket opened 24h ago, no response. Contacted our sales rep, no response either.

Ask

Is there anyone at GitHub who can look into this and escalate? Any help appreciated.

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[amitabh-phule-07]

Hi 👋

This type of issue (unexpected plan downgrade + billing lock + system-triggered events in audit logs) typically cannot be resolved from the community side because it involves account-level billing state.

Since you've already:

• Opened a support ticket
• Contacted your sales representative
• Verified audit logs showing system-triggered changes

the only actionable path is escalation through GitHub Support / Sales channels, as they are the only ones who can:

• Restore the correct billing state
• Investigate the "ghost/system" triggered events
• Re-enable billing and affected services (CI/CD, Pages, etc.)

If possible, also include:

• Organization name
• Billing account ID
• Screenshot/export of audit log events
• Impact summary (you already clearly listed this 👍)

These help support prioritize the case faster.

Hopefully GitHub support can resolve this quickly since it looks like a system-side billing state change rather than a manual action.

[sahare-mayur-0071]

One additional suggestion: before the billing state is restored, preserve as much evidence as possible from the audit log.

Since you already have entries showing:

• ghost - account.plan_change
• GitHub System - billing.lock
• GitHub System - repo.pages_soft_delete

it may be useful to export or screenshot:

• Exact timestamps (including timezone)
• Organization settings showing current plan state
• Billing pages showing the lock condition
• Any email notifications received around the same time

If GitHub Support investigates this as a platform-side issue, having a complete timeline may help identify whether the downgrade was triggered by an automated billing process, an account synchronization issue, or an internal service event.

Also, if your organization has multiple owners, it may be worth confirming whether all owners see the same billing state and whether any billing-related notifications were sent to a specific owner account.

[Valharault]

Hey Sahare,

Yeah we already activate all this channels, but nobody seem's to care about us, what a amazing situation.

[sahare-mayur-0071]

I completely understand why you're frustrated. Given the impact on your team and the fact that the audit log points to system-generated events, I'd be feeling the same way.

Unfortunately, because this appears to involve GitHub's internal billing state, there's nothing the community can change from our side.

I hope a GitHub staff member notices this discussion and can help route your case to the appropriate team. When the issue is resolved, it would be greatly appreciated if you could share what the root cause turned out to be. It could help others who encounter a similar system-triggered plan change in the future.

Wishing you a quick resolution.

[Valharault]

Hey, thanks for your answer.

Update: Nothing move since 4 days ... Thanks Github !

[sahare-mayur-0071]

I'm sorry to hear it's still unresolved after four days, especially with your engineering team blocked.

At this point, since the issue appears to involve a system-triggered billing change rather than a user action, there isn't much the community can do directly.

A couple of things that may help while waiting for GitHub:

• Reply to the existing support ticket instead of opening a new one, emphasizing that production services (CI/CD, GitHub Pages, and billing) remain unavailable and that the business impact is ongoing.
• If you have a GitHub Enterprise account manager or Customer Success Manager, try reaching out to them again with the support ticket number and a brief impact summary.
• If any new audit log events or emails have appeared since the incident began, add those to the ticket as well—they may help the support team identify what triggered the downgrade.

Hopefully a GitHub staff member sees this discussion and can help route it to the appropriate team, as this appears to require an internal investigation rather than a configuration change on your side.