Dev says Google warned him about account hijack – then charged him $11,000 anyway

A developer's Google Cloud project was hijacked via a compromised firebase-adminsdk service account key, producing $11,089.77 in fraudulent Gemini API/image-generation charges; Google suspended the account for 'abusive activity' but declined to forgive the charges. The story highlights repeated similar cases, inadequate project-wide spend caps, and a lack of forensic detail from Google about how keys were exposed.