A Sussex businessman has detailed his struggle to recover over £14,000 that was fraudulently withdrawn from his Metro Bank account. The incident centered on unauthorized purchases of credits for Claude, an AI chatbot developed by Anthropic, using debit card information linked to the customer’s account with the platform.
The customer, Zoli Rutter, had been paying approximately £15 monthly to use Claude for business purposes, specifically to track and analyze invoices. On 19 June, Metro Bank identified a suspicious transaction for £90.90 and contacted Rutter via text message to confirm authorization. When Rutter indicated he had not approved the charge, the bank stated it would freeze his account. However, only the individual transaction was blocked rather than the entire account, allowing fraudsters to continue making additional charges ranging from £90 to £200. Although Metro Bank eventually froze the card the following day, the total unauthorized withdrawals had already exceeded £14,000.
Metro Bank attributed the breach to what it described as a complex fraud scenario involving a third party to whom the customer had previously made legitimate payments and provided card details. The bank stated that some transactions processed before the card could be fully blocked. Following intervention by a financial news organization, Metro Bank issued a temporary refund while pursuing a chargeback dispute with Anthropic. The bank subsequently offered Rutter £300 in compensation and confirmed it had implemented measures to expedite card-blocking procedures.
Anthropric stated that an organized fraud ring had exploited the customer’s card details and that the compromised information did not originate from its systems. The company banned the account involved in the fraudulent activity and indicated it would refund fraudulent charges to affected users. Rutter has since received reimbursement from Anthropic, with Metro Bank set to recover its temporary refund. He indicated plans to file a formal complaint with the Financial Ombudsman Service regarding the matter.
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