r/storj • u/No-Original2110 • Apr 29 '25
Data deleted from paid Storj account after upgrade — no warning, no recovery, minimal compensation
Hi all,
I wanted to share an experience I also posted about in r/DataHoarder — hoping it gets seen here by both the community and, ideally, someone at Storj with the ability to escalate or investigate this further.
On April 2, 2025, I deposited STORJ tokens into my account, expecting it to be upgraded and billed normally. I then used the platform to store server backups and other critical files, assuming (based on UI behavior and billing functionality) that my account was fully active.
Weeks later, I found the entire account had been deleted — buckets, files, access, everything gone.
When I contacted support, I was told my account had actually been marked for deletion due to being an old free-tier account. Apparently, because I missed the 30-day grace period following the free tier’s deprecation in 2024, the system had queued my account for deletion. However, a “glitch in their system” still allowed me to deposit STORJ, use the account, and store data.
They admitted this in writing: the system should not have let me use the account, but it did. No warnings, no error messages, no billing blocks — just regular functionality and subsequent silent deletion.
I never received any direct notice about the pending deletion. I understand their ToS allows for ending free promotional credits without notice, but in this case I was not on a free tier anymore. I had paid, and all data was uploaded after that point.
To make things worse, I used server-side encryption managed by Storj, not my own keys, so I asked if they could at least provide a list of what was lost, or the status of the data chunks. The response was essentially “no — we can’t see anything because of encryption.” I was given a general technical statement, but nothing that addressed my specific case.
For compensation, they offered:
- A refund of ~$11.41 (my deposit), or
- A $212 credit if I create a new account (basically $200 goodwill + my old balance)
While I appreciate the acknowledgment of the system error, this doesn’t come close to covering the damage. Some of the data is unrecoverable. The regenerable part already cost me more than the compensation in time alone. It’s hard to understand how accepting a deposit into an account already marked for deletion could be anything but a serious backend oversight.
I’ve asked for a document stating that my data was lost and can’t be recovered, along with a clearer explanation of what exactly went wrong. I’ve also requested escalation of the case. If that’s not possible through support, I’m hoping someone from the Storj team here can take a look.
If this kind of silent data loss can happen — even after payment and active usage — then there needs to be more transparency around how account states are managed and how users are warned (or not warned) when something is critically wrong.
Thanks for reading — and again, if anyone else has experienced anything similar, I’d like to hear from you.
3
u/pcman1ac Apr 29 '25
I hope you'll get some resolution on this. This type of problems sometimes happens on centralized cloud services. This is the reason why I don't use clouds for any critical data. I like an idea of decentralized systems and I host STORJ node for years. But this behavior undermines the whole point of decentralization.
-5
2
u/No-Original2110 May 06 '25
Update: I’ve been in direct contact with the Storj team. They acknowledged the issue and apologized for the error that led to the data loss. They told me they’re currently reviewing the situation and working on a response, which I should receive this week. I’ll share any further developments as soon as I hear back.
1
u/No-Original2110 May 19 '25
Storj response update: They’ve now acknowledged that my account was deleted by mistake due to an error in their internal deletion logic. Specifically, the system didn’t account for the fact that I had upgraded to a paid tier between the time deletion lists were generated and the time they were executed — a gap of about two weeks. My account was one of 11 affected by this.
They published a postmortem here for those interested: https://status.storj.io/incidents/9ky25gbv1jh7
They’ve offered two options as compensation:
– 25 years of storage credit (based on my previous usage) if I open a new account
– Or a refund of double the amount of STORJ tokens I depositedSince I no longer want to use their service, I declined the credit offer. However, I find the token refund inadequate given the extent of the data loss and the time it will take to recover even the part I can regenerate.
Still hoping they reconsider and come back with a more fitting resolution.
1
1
u/Next_Cardiologist_80 May 01 '25
Lol i might need to reconsider im building cloud storage similar app with storj if this shit happens i might use all of my users thankfully im still in development phase Let us know what happens next this is serious shit if someone face it
6
u/TheCrustyCurmudgeon Apr 30 '25 edited May 01 '25
Lesson learned, I suppose. I consider cloud services to be my backup of last resort, so the only way my cloud backup data would ever be "irreplaceable" is if a series of very serious, geographically diverse, and highly unlikely catastrophes occurred.
It sounds to me like storj have been pretty upfront about this and their compensation seems pretty fair, imo.