Not upheld: scam / disputed transactions / authorisation of payments complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr B fell victim to a phishing scam where he was deceived into entering his card details on a counterfeit marketplace page and subsequently approved multiple transactions totalling £798.77 via push notifications in his Revolut app, believing he was completing account verification rather than authorising payments. He requested a refund from Revolut, which declined on the basis that the transactions were authorised via 3DS authentication. The ombudsman upheld Revolut's position, finding that although Mr B was deceived about the purpose of the transactions, he nonetheless authorised them by completing the agreed authentication procedure, and under the Payment Service Regulations 2017, deception does not negate authorisation if the required steps were completed.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that although Mr B was deceived about the purpose and nature of the transactions, he nonetheless gave his consent to the payments by completing the agreed authentication procedure (logging into his Revolut app and approving push notifications). Under the Payment Service Regulations 2017, consent to a payment is determined by whether the customer completed the agreed steps for making a payment, regardless of whether they were deceived about the purpose or amount. The ombudsman accepted that the authentication screen would have been clear about approving a payment with visible payee name and amount, and that Mr B's deception does not negate his authorisation of the transactions.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website