Not upheld: scam / fraud - investment scam; failure to intervene; irresponsible processing of payments complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr Q complained that Revolut failed to protect him from an investment scam between January and February 2025, whereby he sent multiple payments from his Revolut account to crypto exchanges and then to scammer entity X, losing significant funds. The ombudsman found that while Revolut should have intervened with a tailored warning on the fifth exchange (£3,302 on 22 January 2025), the complaint failed on causation because Mr Q had built substantial trust with the scammer and was receiving detailed step-by-step coaching to overcome obstacles. Evidence from interventions by Revolut, H, and S showed Mr Q was willing to provide inaccurate information to proceed with transactions, and the scammer's influence was too strong for any proportionate intervention to have broken. The ombudsman therefore did not uphold the complaint, finding Revolut not responsible for the loss.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Revolut should have intervened with a tailored warning on the fifth exchange (£3,302 on 22 January 2025), the critical issue was causation. The ombudsman noted that Mr Q had built significant trust with the scammer and was receiving step-by-step coaching to overcome any obstacles. The multiple interventions by Revolut, H, and S throughout the scam journey, combined with the evidence of the scammer's coaching and Mr Q's willingness to provide inaccurate information to proceed with transactions, demonstrated that even proportionate intervention by Revolut would not have broken the scammer's influence or prevented the loss. The ombudsman emphasised that to hold Revolut liable, it would need to find not only that Revolut failed to intervene appropriately, but crucially that but for this failure the subsequent loss would have been avoided. The ombudsman also noted that crypto withdrawals fall outside FOS jurisdiction and cannot be reversed, so recovery was not possible.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website