Not upheld: scam / fraud - recovery scam; refusal to refund complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs M fell victim to a recovery scam after initially being targeted by a job-based scam in September 2023. She made multiple payments totalling thousands of pounds to a fraudulent recovery company and fake cryptocurrency exchange. Revolut refused to refund the losses, and Mrs M complained. The ombudsman found that while Mrs M was a victim of a cruel scam, she had authorised the payments and deliberately provided false information to Revolut's fraud prevention questions. Although Revolut intervened with warnings, Mrs M chose to proceed, making it impossible for Revolut to detect the scam. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Mrs M was the victim of a cruel scam, she had authorised the payments and deliberately provided false information to Revolut's fraud prevention controls. Revolut did intervene on multiple occasions with warnings, but Mrs M chose to proceed despite these warnings. The payments were not identifiably going to cryptocurrency exchanges and were not dissimilar to previous account activity, so Revolut was not unreasonable in not intervening further. Mrs M's provision of incorrect information made it very difficult for Revolut to uncover the scam.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website