A Sussex businessman has engaged in a dispute with Metro Bank over fraudulent charges totaling £14,244 that were processed through his account without authorization. The scam involved criminals using Rutter’s debit card details to purchase credits for the Claude AI chatbot platform operated by Anthropic.
The fraud came to light on June 19 when Metro Bank detected a suspicious transaction of £90.90 and contacted Rutter via text message to verify its legitimacy. Upon his confirmation that he had not authorized the charge, the bank indicated his account would be frozen. However, only the individual transaction was blocked rather than the entire account, allowing fraudsters to continue making additional purchases ranging from £90 to £200. The bank eventually froze Rutter’s card the following day, but by that point, more than £14,000 in unauthorized transactions had already been processed.
Rutter had been a subscriber to Claude for approximately £15 monthly, using the tool to track and analyze business invoices. According to Anthropic, a coordinated criminal group exploited his compromised card details and has since been banned from the platform. The company stated it found no evidence that the card information was obtained from its own systems.
Following media engagement with the situation, Metro Bank temporarily refunded Rutter while pursuing a chargeback dispute with Anthropic. The bank subsequently provided him £300 in compensation and acknowledged that he had not received the service standards expected of its customers. Rutter has now received a full refund from Anthropic, and the temporary bank refund is scheduled to be withdrawn. He has indicated plans to file a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service regarding his experience with the bank’s handling of the fraud.
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