Key facts
- Metro Bank customer Zoli Rutter lost £14,244 to a fraud involving the AI chatbot Claude.
- Fraudsters used Rutter's debit card to purchase credits for the AI platform.
- Metro Bank's systems failed to prevent multiple fraudulent transactions after Rutter flagged an initial suspicious payment.
- Anthropic, the creator of Claude, has refunded Rutter the full amount.
- Metro Bank provided a temporary refund and offered £300 in compensation.
A Metro Bank customer, Zoli Rutter, has detailed his struggle to recover over £14,000 after a sophisticated fraud linked to the AI chatbot Claude. The scam involved fraudsters purchasing credits to use the AI tool with Rutter's compromised debit card details.
Metro Bank initially flagged a suspicious transaction of £90.90 on June 19 and contacted Rutter, who confirmed it was not legitimate. Despite this alert, the criminals proceeded with a series of subsequent transactions, some of which were blocked by the bank, but many were processed before Metro Bank fully froze Rutter's card the following day. A bank spokesperson cited the "complex nature of the fraud" as the reason some payments went through.
Following inquiries from Guardian Money, Metro Bank provided Rutter with a temporary refund while it pursued a chargeback refund from Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Anthropic stated that a coordinated gang had used Rutter's cards and that there was no evidence the compromised card details originated from its systems. The user involved has been banned from the platform.
Anthropic has since refunded Rutter the full amount, and Metro Bank is set to reclaim its temporary refund. The bank acknowledged Rutter did not receive the expected service and offered him £300 in compensation. Rutter plans to escalate his complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Metro Bank has stated it has taken steps to improve its card-blocking processes.