AI chatbot fraud: the ‘gift card’ subcription that may cost you dear
Summary
Fraudsters have been using compromised accounts to purchase gift cards for Claude, an AI chatbot by Anthropic, and charging them to users' credit cards without permission. Multiple Claude users reported unauthorized charges ranging from $200 to €225, with vouchers being sent to their email addresses, suggesting potential email compromise.
Solution / Mitigation
Anthropic says it is putting new protections in place to prevent fraudulent gift card purchases and that it cancels subscriptions and issues refunds when it identifies scam purchases. The company advises: contact Anthropic's support about unrecognized payments, cancel your affected bank card and request a new one, change your login details on the site, and contact your bank or credit card company to make a chargeback claim (a formal dispute requesting your money back) if you notice unauthorized payments.
Classification
Affected Vendors
Related Issues
Original source: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/may/03/ai-claude-chatbot-gift-card-subcription-scam-mystery-payments
First tracked: May 3, 2026 at 08:00 AM
Classified by LLM (prompt v3) · confidence: 85%