Revolut Ltd · DRN-6238932

The complaint Mr B is being represented by a claims manager. He’s complaining about Revolut Ltd because it declined to refund money he lost as a result of fraud. What happened Sadly, Mr B fell victim to a cruel investment scam. He was approached via social media by an online acquaintance (it later turned out the contact was from scammers who’d hacked the account) about a cryptocurrency investment scheme offering high returns. After satisfying himself the scheme was legitimate, Mr B used his Revolut account to exchange the following amounts to cryptocurrency that he says was then transferred to the scammers: No. Date Amount £ 1 5 Apr 2024 1,000 2 7 Apr 2024 1,200 3 9 Apr 2024 100 Mr B then used his Revolut account to make the following transfers to two different cryptocurrency exchanges, from where I understand the currency purchased was transferred to the scammers: No. Date Amount £ Method 1 11 Apr 2024 1,000 Card 2 13 Apr 2024 1,000 Card 3 15 Apr 2024 1,000 Card 4 15 Apr 2024 1,000 Card 5 15 Apr 2024 1,000 Card 6 15 Apr 2024 500 Card 7 20 Apr 2024 50 Transfer 8 25 Apr 2024 2,000 Card 9 25 Apr 2024 3,500 Card 10 25 Apr 2024 500 Card 11 26 Apr 2024 3,500 Card Mr B says he realised this was a scam when the scammers asked for fees to withdraw his money. Our investigator didn’t recommend the complaint be upheld. He noted that Mr B spoke to one of Revolut’s agents about the payments and that he was also shown written warnings about investment scams. He didn’t think further intervention would have prevented any of Mr B’s losses. Mr B didn’t accept the investigator’s assessment and his representative made the following key points:

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• Revolut’s interventions were ineffective. The reasons for its questions weren’t made sufficiently clear. The written warning was vague and lacked context, for example the warnings about high returns and social media weren’t clearly explained. And when Mr B spoke to Revolut’s agent, he should have been asked more open and probing questions and his answers more closely scrutinised. For example, he wasn’t asked to explain what he’d be doing with the cryptocurrency he was buying. • While he was initially told not to tell his bank that he’d be buying cryptocurrency as banks are resistant to this, Mr B wasn’t given a compelling cover story by the scammers and further questioning would have uncovered the scam. • The bank failed in its responsibility under the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) Consumer Duty to protect Mr B from foreseeable harm. The complaint has now been referred to me for review. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Having done so, I’ve reached the same overall conclusions as the investigator. I haven’t necessarily commented on every single point raised but concentrated instead on the issues I believe are central to the outcome of the complaint. This is consistent with our established role as an informal alternative to the courts. In considering this complaint I’ve had regard to the relevant law and regulations; any regulator’s rules, guidance and standards, codes of practice, and what I consider was good industry practice at the time. There’s no dispute that Mr B authorised the above payments. In broad terms, the starting position at law is that an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) such as Revolut is expected to process payments a customer authorises it to make, in accordance with the Payment Services Regulations and the terms and conditions of their account. In this context, ‘authorised’ essentially means the customer gave the business an instruction to make a payment from their account. In other words, they knew that money was leaving their account, irrespective of where that money actually went. There are, however, some situations where we believe a business, taking into account relevant rules, codes and best practice standards, shouldn’t have taken its customer’s authorisation instruction at ‘face value’ – or should have looked at the wider circumstances surrounding the transaction before making the payment. Revolut also has a duty to exercise reasonable skill and care, pay due regard to the interests of its customers and to follow good industry practice to keep customers’ accounts safe. This includes identifying vulnerable consumers who may be particularly susceptible to scams and looking out for payments which might indicate the consumer is at risk of financial harm. Taking these things into account, I need to decide whether Revolut acted fairly and reasonably in its dealings with Mr B. The payments I must take into account that many similar payment instructions Revolut receives will be entirely legitimate. I’m also conscious this was a new account and there was no history of past activity against which these payments might have looked suspicious. Finally, I need to consider its responsibility to make payments promptly.

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The initial transactions didn’t directly involve regulated activity. But even if I were to conclude they did fall within our jurisdiction to investigate, having considered what Revolut knew at the time, I’m not persuaded it ought to have suspected Mr B may be at risk of harm from fraud. The amounts involved were relatively low and this activity was in keeping with Mr B’s declared purpose for opening the account the previous month. By 15 April at the latest, however, I think the pattern of multiple, rapid payments had begun to resemble that seen in many known scams and this is the point at which I think Revolut should have identified Mr B may be at risk of harm from fraud. In saying this, I’m also conscious the payments were going to cryptocurrency, which Revolut should have known meant they carried a higher risk of being associated with fraud. Having thought carefully about the risks presented by his activity at this point, I think a proportionate response would have been for Revolut to ask him in the app to confirm the purpose of the payment and then to provide a tailored written warning based on his response. As the sequence of payments continued, I think further intervention would have been warranted by 25 April at the latest. Due to the number of transactions in quick succession and their increasing value, I think a more robust intervention was now required and that Revolut should have contacted him, either through its online chat function or by telephone, to discuss the circumstances of the payments and provide appropriate warnings. It appears Revolut did recognise this risk and its records show Mr B was taken through an in-app intervention and shown written warnings on 13 April when it declined an attempted payment to one of the cryptocurrency exchanges. This intervention started with a warning that ‘there’s a high risk this payment is a scam’. After being warned about the importance of answering truthfully and that anyone telling him to ignore these warnings was a scammer, Mr B confirmed that he wasn’t being guided by anyone else in making the payments and that they were part of an investment. Revolut then says it showed a series of warning screens relating to investment scams that included the following: • This could be an investment scam. High returns in short periods of time aren’t guaranteed, anywhere. Please be careful. • Beware of social media promotions. They can be fake investment opportunities. Research the opportunity to see if it’s legitimate. • Do your own crypto research. Most crypto exchanges aren’t regulated. Search for mentions of scams in reviews. In my view, this was an appropriate intervention at this stage. Revolut explained the reasons for its questions, asked Mr B about the purpose of the payments and showed a series of warning screens setting out common features of investment scams that I believe he should have recognised in his own situation. I note Mr B’s representative has said the warnings were vague, for example the reference to high returns. But he has provided extracts of his communications with the scammer and these show he was told he’d be guaranteed to get back £18,700 within three hours of investing only £1,000. In my view, that level of return could only be described as ‘high’ and I think the warnings shown should have led to some concern on his part. As should the fact he’d been approached about this opportunity via social media. So, while the warnings didn’t stop Mr B from going ahead with further payments, I don’t share his representative’s apparent view that this means they were inadequate.

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Revolut also required Mr B to speak to one of its agents over the telephone on 24 April after it had declined a further attempted payment to a cryptocurrency exchange. During this call, the agent explained that the purpose of the conversation was to protect him from fraud and that there little chance of getting his money back if this was part of a scam. He was asked a series of questions about the payment but, while he did disclose it was for investment purposes, I don’t believe some of the answers he gave were correct. In particular, he said that: • no one had asked him to set up any other online investment accounts, whereas his representative has said that he the scammers set him up with an account on a fake investment platform that appeared to show trades being placed and profits generated on his behalf; and • nobody had contacted him to promote investing in cryptocurrency, whereas his representative’s account and the evidence provided show he was contacted via social media about the investment scheme that purported to offer very high and guaranteed returns. Mr B also said that he’d been investing in cryptocurrency for about a year. The accuracy or otherwise of this statement is less clear. In making his case, his representative has said on a number of occasions that he had no experience and hadn’t invested in cryptocurrency before. In contrast to that, it also said at one point that he had previously bought £100 worth of cryptocurrency in a purchase that had nothing to do with the scam. Whether or not Mr B had previously purchased cryptocurrency, I think Revolut’s agent would have been reasonably entitled to believe from his answers that he had some relevant investment experience, wouldn’t be transferring the currency purchased to any other account he’d been asked to set up and that he hadn’t been contacted by someone promoting the investment opportunity. Revolut’s agent also asked Mr B to provide a screenshot from his cryptocurrency account to show this was set up in his own name. Based on the information provided during the call, I think the agent was reasonably entitled to think that many common features of investment scams didn’t apply and that the risk of the payments Mr B was making being linked to fraud was relatively low. Nonetheless, I do think the agent should have concluded the call or the follow-up chat with a more detailed warning including information about common investment scam scenarios. I’ve thought carefully about the impact further warnings of this type might have had and, on balance, I’m not persuaded this would have stopped Mr B from going ahead with the payments. In essence, the agent would only have been repeating the warnings that had been shown previously in the app and that should have reminded Mr B of his own situation. But as discussed, the warnings didn’t resonate sufficiently to prevent further payments and I’ve no particular reason to believe the outcome would have been different if these points had been repeated on 24 April. The success of any fraud intervention by a bank or other institution depends to some extent on the customer providing accurate information to help identify whether they’re likely falling victim to a scam. From the limited extracts of his communications with the scammers provided, it’s not clear why Mr B chose to answer the agent’s questions in the way he did. It may be that this was on the advice of the scammers – it’s accepted that he’d previously been coached on what to say to his bank if asked about the purpose of the payments. But whatever his reasons, I think it’s clear that this hampered attempts to find out what was really going on and provide relevant warnings that might have prevented further losses.

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I want to be clear that it’s not my intention to suggest Mr B is to blame for what happened in any way. He fell victim to a sophisticated scam that was carefully designed to deceive and manipulate its victims. I can understand why he acted in the way he did. But my role is to consider the actions of Revolut and, having done so, I’m not persuaded these were the cause of his losses. I’ve also noted the comments of Mr B’s representative about the FCA’s Consumer Duty and I’ve taken account of Revolut’s obligations following its introduction, but I’m not persuaded this changes the outcome here. While Revolut was expected to avoid causing him foreseeable harm, I’m not persuaded its actions were the cause of the harm he suffered, nor do I think that harm was reasonably foreseeable given the information it was given at the time. Recovery of funds Mr B isn’t due any refund under the industry’s reimbursement scheme for authorised push payment (APP) fraud as it doesn’t cover card payments or the one transfer that went to an account in his own name. Mr B sent money to legitimate cryptocurrency accounts in his own name. When he notified Revolut of the scam, which doesn’t appear to have been until more than a year later, it could only try to recover the payments from his own accounts and it appears all the money had already been moved on. If not, anything that was left would still have been available to him to access. By the time Revolut became aware of the scam, the normal timeframe for making a chargeback claim in respect of the card payments had expired and it doesn’t appear this possible route to recovery was available either. In the circumstances, I don’t think anything that Revolut could have done differently would likely have led to those payments being recovered successfully after this period of time. In conclusion I recognise Mr B has been the victim of a cruel scam and I’m sorry he lost this money. I realise the outcome of this complaint will come as a great disappointment but, for the reasons I’ve explained, I don’t think any further intervention by Revolut would have made a difference to the eventual outcome and I won’t be telling it to make any refund. My final decision My final decision is that I do not uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr B to accept or reject my decision before 20 April 2026. James Biles Ombudsman

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