This is not Anthropic. It's a parody by a paying customer. For real support, go to support.claude.com.
Not Anthropic Support
The unofficial waiting room

Now serving——
I've been waiting
5d 00h 00m 00s

Since 5 Nov 2026, 2:44 PM IST, when I first reported being locked out of the Claude Max plan I had paid for that morning.

It won't be today.

That's what Anthropic's support bot told me on day one. It was right. It hasn't been any day since, either.

I paid for Claude Max. The same day, Claude asked me to verify my identity, the check failed, and the Verify button stopped working. I've been asking for a person ever since.

24messages I've sent the human team
3replies from a human
0fixes

Counted on 10 Nov 2026. Before that: three chats where the bot said I will pass your conversation on to a human agent and then closed the chat.

Meanwhile, shipped by Anthropic

Status: All Systems OperationalWhat the support widget showed above my open ticket on 10 Nov.

Think you'd do better?

Take a number and try to reach a human. Every line from the bot and the agent is copied from my chats. So are the replies you can send. I removed names and IDs, and trimmed long messages where you see an ellipsis.

Your goal: get one person at Anthropic to unlock an account you've paid for.

What happened, in order

Times are mine (IST). Quotes are exact.

  1. I pay for Claude Max. Anthropic's agent later confirms the payment has been processed successfully.
  2. Claude shows Identity verification required. My national ID, the one my bank accepts, fails at the photo step several times. Then the Verify button greys out and does nothing.
  3. Three support chats. In each the bot says I will pass your conversation on to a human agent. Each is closed minutes later with a pointer to the Help Center for my phone verification issue. I never had a phone verification issue.
  4. The identity verification help form, which the bot calls the designated channel. No ticket number, no confirmation email. The bot: there isn't a tracking number or status page for these submissions right now. The form's last screen thanks me for completing this typeform and adds Now create your own — it's free, easy & beautiful.
  5. Fourth chat. They work through these in order, so it won't be today, but your request is successfully in our queue and you don't need to follow up or resend.
  6. Anthropic launches Personal Finance in Claude.
  7. First human reply. It asks for screenshots of the error. I send them 14 minutes later.
  8. Second human reply, 22 hours after my screenshots. It opens Thanks for getting back to me. Thanks for reaching out! Step 1 is to submit the help form. Possible causes include wearing glasses in the selfie.
  9. I stay up in case someone answers. Nobody does.
  10. A new chat tells me I can see your organization is currently on the free plan, apologises, suggests clearing my cache, promises a human, then says I already have a conversation open.
  11. Third human reply. I'm looking into this now and working through it with my team.
  12. Anthropic launches Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2.
  13. Still locked out. The support widget says Status: All Systems Operational.

To be fair

I pay for Claude because it's good. Claude built this page in an afternoon. That is why being locked out of it, with nobody to ask, is so maddening.

Any one of these would have ended this on day one:

  • a ticket number when you submit the verification form
  • somewhere to see where your request stands
  • a person who can look at a paid account within a day

The hour my account works again, this page will say so.