Zoli Rutter, a businessman from Sussex, experienced fraudulent transactions totaling £14,244 linked to unauthorized purchases of credits for Claude, an AI chatbot operated by Anthropic. The scam began when Metro Bank identified a suspicious £90.90 transaction and texted Rutter to verify its legitimacy. Upon his confirmation that he had not authorized the charge, the bank indicated his account would be frozen, but only the initial suspicious transaction was blocked rather than the entire account.
Despite the partial freeze, fraudsters continued making payments ranging from £90 to £200. While some subsequent transactions were blocked by the bank, many processed successfully before Metro Bank fully froze the card the day after the scam commenced. By that time, more than £14,000 in unauthorized charges had been completed. Metro Bank stated that the complex nature of the fraud resulted in some payments being processed before the card could be completely blocked.
Anthropology indicated that a coordinated criminal group had utilized Rutter’s card details to purchase Claude credits and stated it found no evidence that the compromised information originated from its systems. The fraudulent user account was subsequently banned from the platform. Anthropic committed to refunding customers charged for unauthorized purchases through its support site.
Following intervention by Guardian Money, both Metro Bank and Anthropic refunded Rutter. Metro Bank offered £300 in compensation for the service failure and indicated it had implemented measures to accelerate card-blocking procedures. Rutter has since announced his intention to lodge a formal complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service. This incident represents the latest in a series of fraud cases connected to Claude usage, with similar incidents reported in May involving US-based users and discussions on social media platforms.
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