Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs S complained that Revolut should refund money she lost to a scam between December 2024 and March 2025. She had been contacted by scammers claiming to help recover funds from a previous scam, and was instructed to set up Revolut and cryptocurrency accounts and download remote-access software. She transferred funds from her bank account to Revolut to buy cryptocurrency and send to other platforms. Revolut intervened on several payments and warned Mrs S about scam risks, but she claimed she was investing based on family recommendation and denied downloading remote access software. Although Mrs S reported the scam in February 2025, she withdrew the claim despite warnings, and later made further payments. The ombudsman found Mrs S authorised the payments and that Revolut's interventions were adequate, as Mrs S's responses did not make the true scam risk clear. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Mrs S authorised the payments by completing the steps to make them, even though she was coerced and deceived about their purpose. Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, authorisation is about whether the consumer completed the payment steps, not whether they gave informed consent. While firms must intervene on payments presenting fraud risk, Revolut's interventions were adequate. Mrs S's responses to Revolut's warnings (claiming family recommendation, denying remote access software download, insisting on proceeding) did not make the true scam risk clear. Although Mrs S reported a scam in February 2025, she withdrew the claim despite adequate warnings from Revolut about this tactic. The ombudsman concluded Revolut did not miss a reasonable opportunity to prevent the payments and could not have recovered the funds through viable mechanisms.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website