Not upheld: chargeback handling and refund denial complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr P complained that Revolut unfairly refused to refund approximately £20,000 in gambling transactions made to company W between April and July 2024, claiming W had misrepresented its service and refused to pay out winnings. Mr P requested chargebacks for over one hundred transactions, but Revolut only pursued some claims, resulting in partial refunds. The ombudsman found the complaint not upheld because the chargeback claims lacked reasonable prospects of success under Visa's rules: they were raised 10 months after the transactions (exceeding the 120-day limit), involved gambling transactions (for which no chargeback rights exist), and Mr P failed to provide necessary evidence of his inability to withdraw funds. While Revolut's selective approach appeared inconsistent, this did not constitute unfair treatment given the fundamental lack of viability of the claims.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Mr P's chargeback claims did not have a reasonable prospect of success under Visa's scheme rules for multiple reasons: (1) the claims were raised outside the 120-day time limit; (2) the transactions were gambling-related, for which Visa provides no chargeback rights; (3) Mr P failed to provide necessary evidence of his inability to withdraw funds; (4) the 'Credit Not Processed' reason code did not apply as the gambling transaction was completed successfully; and (5) Mr P did not specify which transactions related to winnings. While Revolut's decision to pursue some claims but not others appeared inconsistent, this did not constitute unfair treatment because none of the claims had reasonable prospects of success.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website