Sounds like you're from the UK; I think you're probably thinking of when Jeremy Clarkson gave out these details and a Direct Debit was set up on his account using them: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/jan/07/personalfinanc...

However the Direct Debit guarantee allays most concerns one might have about this particular attack: https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/pages/dir...

If one presumes that there are exceptions to the "pay-in-only" constraint then it will be vulnerable to fraud one way or another.