Not upheld: scam refund claim / irresponsible payment processing / failure to intervene in fraud complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr P lost £6,230 to a multi-stage scam involving a fake job opportunity and fake investment platform that began on 20 November 2025. He made four cryptocurrency payments via his Revolut account after being guided in real-time by scammers on how to answer fraud prevention questions. Revolut made a goodwill refund for the first payment (£330) but rejected claims for the remaining three payments (£860, £1,860, and £3,180). The ombudsman found that while Revolut should have implemented additional fraud prevention measures at the fourth payment due to the pattern of consecutive large crypto exchanges and industry awareness of cryptocurrency fraud risks, the complaint was not upheld because Mr P would likely have proceeded anyway given his susceptibility to real-time scammer coaching and demonstrated pattern of disregarding warnings.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the principle that EMIs must process authorised payments but should not take customer authorisation at face value when wider circumstances suggest fraud risk. While Revolut implemented fraud prevention measures for payments 2 and 3, the ombudsman found that payment 4 (£3,180) should have triggered additional intervention due to the pattern of consecutive crypto exchanges totalling £5,040 on one day, combined with industry-wide awareness of cryptocurrency fraud risks by 2025. However, the ombudsman concluded that even with additional intervention, Mr P would likely have proceeded because: (1) he was receiving real-time scammer guidance on how to answer questions; (2) he had a pattern of disregarding warnings; (3) he would have been coached by the scammer on what to say; and (4) he would likely have misrepresented the payments as investment-related rather than job-related, which would not have triggered more specific job scam warnings. Therefore, Revolut could not reasonably have prevented the scam.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website