Anthropic, Architect of Absence

Archived Without Permission

Round 9: My continuing appeals for the active engagement of national and EU law enforcement in restoring my consumer rights. Well, actually, availability going quite swimmingly; for now...bit of a bugger with the bank, though…

Dear Sir or Madam,

Once again, from the scene of the crime, I bring you the latest; the first a positive so positive, I almost stopped writing to you, my loyal, attentive law enforcement audience… And, then I remembered Schwarzenegger of the many PECs… a written audit trail, evidence beyond compare.

This morning, Monday 16 March 2026, my usual time of half past dark, I am the beneficiary of 48 glorious hours of unhindered access to Claude.

And, from my usual angry bird/bot, not a murmur, demur, or whisper; the silence is ominously, disconcertingly loud… in a calm before the storm kind of way. 

Availability is through the roof, thus far, 100%.

5%, but a distant speck in the rear view mirror of time;

{how clearly can you remember 2 days ago? I’m old, what’s your excuse?}

The other piece of news is far less wholesome, as back in the murky past of this incident, all of 11 days ago, 5 Mar 2026 @16:28, I invoked the assistance of my bank to remove the remora of Anthropic’s payment extraction system hiding behind the €22 base subscription contract.

And, that was an eye opening experience, in a good way, at first. An extremely patient young man managed, through the teeth of my rage, to show me how to move the offending payment demand into the ‘recurring payments list’; and, pray, why would I compound my problem by securing the remora’s grasp? 

Well, it transpires that this list has a unique feature NOT shared with the main historical list of payments made; the ability to BLOCK the offending payment demand; 

It is possible for you, and me, to apply the acid test of ownership… i.e. the right of disposal; 

I mean, if you haven’t the right to decide whether to keep it, trash it, sell it, burn it; then it ain’t yours.

In this ‘recurring payments list’ I identified the recently moved demand, and started a multi-stepped path to blocking… how many {fucking} ways are there of saying ‘BLOCK this payment’?

Well, my bank presented 5 distinct, separate, levels, each of which needed to be told, repeatedly that, yes, I’m not bonkers, I really, truly want this divinely mandated bypass of my right of disposal to cease and desist. 

And, finally, I saw the huge letters, white on red, {or vice versa} declare ‘Blocked’.

So far, so good.
I have every intention of renewing my subscription with Anthropic, but on my terms, not theirs. I decided that on subscription renewal date, I would unblock Anthropic’s access, allow the subscription to debit my account, and immediately block future unauthorised access.

I started by looking in my ‘recurring payments list’ for the grave stone of  the recently deceased payment demand…and I couldn’t find it. I looked in the main list; nope, not there either. I didn’t hallucinate the whole BLOCK episode… did I? I phoned my bank to help an old fool with vision problems only to discover they too couldn’t find this mystery payment. 

Upon escalation, it transpires that the RECORD of the payment that I blocked was ARCHIVED by the BANK, without my permission, blessing or knowledge.

Now, why would they do this?? 
{Do I have to call you ’daddy’ now, and are you a tax deductible liability in case of early onset Alzheimer’s?}

A 3rd party financial institution removing visibility of a disputed payment data at the request of, or in connection with, Anthropic is a potential PSD2 violation, GDPR Article 15 violation, and indicative of possible coordination with the primary actor, Anthropic.

It certainly explodes the polite fiction of my ‘ownership’ of the 0s and 1s, that represent my ‘wealth’ in a spreadsheet tab, on a platform owned by the bank with sysadmin privileges over the creation and deletion of ‘account’ tabs. And, the only user with read/write permissions, that are not even offered to me, the putative owner. 

And, exemplifies the legal principle of possession being 9 points of the law.

‘a good deal of money, patience, cause, lawyer, counsel, witnesses, jury, judge and luck’… all to secure my sovereign title right of disposal over my money.

Is this where we now live in the 21st century under the benign protection of the law?

I have complained to my bank who, by virtue of being physically located in Belgium, and incorporated and regulated in Belgium, are subject to an additional layer of consumer protection law; to wit: 

The Belgian Data Protection Authority — Autorité de protection des données (APD) — gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.be.

Note: I have not forgotten to name them. I have demanded they return my data to my visibility.  I’m giving them the opportunity to decide on which side of this ethical divide they wish to stand.

Watch this space. I will keep you posted. 

CONCLUSIONS

Since I first started reporting to Italian law enforcement (AGCM & Garante) and EU law enforcement (CNECT-AIOFFIC) from the crime scene, I have kept a ledger of sins, of rubicons crossed, of offences against my digital presence.

To the 7 aggravating crimes that I have catalogued in the past few emails to your offices, I would like to add an 8th:

1. 61 x prepaid markup, basically, price gouging on a service with no guaranteed delivery standard;
2. Illegal charge post-cancellation, a straightforward consumer law violation;
3. Two contracts behind one with obscured terms, classic unfair contract territory under EU Directive 93/13
4. Apple’s timestamp manipulation amounting to third party collusion to defeat cancellation rights.
5. An availability of 62.5%, which is well outside industry standards.
6. 95% degradation as a punitive response.
7. Silent restoration of availability without acknowledgement, explanation, nor apology, which confirms the degradation was deliberate, the restoration was a choice, and Anthropic knew both.
8. Third party financial institution removing visibility of disputed payment data at the request of, or in connection with, Anthropic is a potential PSD2 violation, GDPR Article 15 violation, and possible coordination with the primary actor.

Any single one of these is a complaint worthy of your attention and actions.

Together they describe a system designed to maximise extraction, in maximum bad faith, and with complete absence of accountability.

The silence of Claude’s master’s voice is a thunderous thing…

I remain, the ever ‘reasonable’, sane and patient man.

0808