Not upheld: unauthorized account opening and fraudulent transactions / scam complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs C complained that Revolut allowed fraudsters to open an account in her name without her knowledge or consent as part of a cryptocurrency investment scam. The ombudsman found on the balance of probabilities that Mrs C herself opened and operated the account, albeit under instruction from scammers who had deceived her into providing personal information and identification documentation. The key evidence was that the device used to complete live selfie verification during account setup and payment authorization appeared to be Mrs C's own phone, and that Revolut's systems require real-time completion of these steps which would be difficult to accomplish through remote access. Although the ombudsman acknowledged that Revolut's interventions could have been more probing, particularly regarding why Mrs C was making payments to new payees, the ombudsman could not conclude that further intervention would have prevented the loss given Mrs C's ability to provide convincing cover stories to financial institutions. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found on the balance of probabilities that Mrs C opened and operated the Revolut account herself, albeit under instruction from scammers. The key evidence was that the device used to complete live selfie verification steps during account setup and payment authorization appeared to be Mrs C's own phone, and that Revolut's systems require real-time completion of these verification steps which would be difficult to accomplish through screen sharing or malware. While the ombudsman acknowledged that scammers may have accessed Mrs C's email and interfered with communications, this does not demonstrate they had the level of device control suggested. The ombudsman noted that fraudsters typically rely on social engineering rather than sophisticated technical attacks, and that Mrs C was able to provide convincing cover stories to both her bank and Revolut. Although Revolut's interventions could have been more thorough, the ombudsman could not conclude that further questioning would have prevented the loss given Mrs C's demonstrated ability to mislead financial institutions.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website