Not upheld: scam reimbursement and APP fraud complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Miss A complained that Revolut should refund £1,165 she paid to a seller named K across 21 transactions between October and November 2025 after seeing an advertisement for trainers on social media. She claimed the seller requested additional payments for various reasons and that she was scammed. Miss A disclosed vulnerabilities and stated she was not fully in control of her spending. Revolut declined to reimburse her, citing lack of evidence of a scam and inconsistencies in Miss A's testimony. The ombudsman upheld Revolut's decision, finding that the available evidence was insufficient to conclude that an APP scam had occurred, as there was no evidence of what purpose Miss A intended for the payments or that K fraudulently deceived her. The payments did not appear unusual on her account, and Revolut was not aware of her vulnerabilities at the time the payments were made.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the FPS Reimbursement Rules definition of an APP scam, which requires either that the recipient was not who the consumer intended to pay, or that the payment was not for the purpose the consumer intended and resulted from criminal fraud or dishonesty. All payments were made to account details provided by K, so the recipient was as intended. Regarding purpose, the ombudsman found insufficient evidence to determine what purpose Miss A had in mind for the payments due to inconsistencies in her testimony and unavailability of messages between Miss A and K. Without evidence of what K told Miss A or what was discussed, the ombudsman could not safely conclude that K fraudulently deceived Miss A or that the payments met the definition of an APP scam. The payments did not appear unusual compared to Miss A's normal account activity and did not follow common scam patterns, so Revolut had no obligation to intervene. Revolut was not aware of Miss A's vulnerabilities at the time of the payments.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website