Zoli Rutter, a businessman from Sussex, experienced unauthorized transactions totaling £14,244 on his Metro Bank account after fraudsters obtained his debit card details linked to his Anthropic Claude account. The criminals used the card to purchase credits for the AI chatbot platform without his knowledge or authorization.
On 19 June, Metro Bank identified a suspicious transaction of £90.90 and contacted Rutter via text message to verify whether he had authorized it. Rutter immediately responded that he had not. Despite his confirmation that the transaction was fraudulent, the bank only blocked that single transaction rather than freezing his entire account. This delay in security response allowed fraudsters to continue making additional purchases ranging from £90 to £200 over the following period. While some subsequent transactions were blocked by the bank’s systems, many were not. Metro Bank did not fully freeze Rutter’s card until the day after the scam began, by which time more than £14,000 in fraudulent payments had been processed.
A Metro Bank spokesperson acknowledged that the complex nature of the fraud resulted in some payments being processed before the card was fully blocked. Following contact from media inquiries, Metro Bank issued a temporary refund to Rutter while pursuing a chargeback dispute with Anthropic. Anthropic confirmed that a coordinated fraud gang had used Rutter’s card details and stated there was no evidence the card information had been compromised through its own systems. The company banned the user responsible for the fraudulent activity and offered refunds to customers affected by fraudulent charges.
Rutter has now received refunds from both Anthropic and Metro Bank, though the bank’s temporary refund is scheduled to be reversed. Metro Bank sent Rutter a letter acknowledging the service failure and offered £300 in compensation. Rutter has indicated he plans to file a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service. The bank stated it has implemented measures to prevent delays in blocking cards during future fraud incidents.
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