Not upheld: fraud reimbursement and failure to intervene complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr C complained that Revolut failed to reimburse £2,344 he lost to an employment scam involving four payments to his own cryptocurrency wallet between 9-10 July 2025. Revolut declined the fraud claim and the ombudsman upheld this decision. The ombudsman found the transaction pattern was not sufficiently suspicious to warrant intervention, noting that cryptocurrency transactions are generally legitimate and the activity was not unusual for Mr C's account. Although Revolut did question the largest payment and provide fraud warnings, Mr C's inaccurate responses rendered these ineffective. The ombudsman concluded it would be unreasonable to require Revolut to reimburse a loss it could not have prevented through proportionate intervention.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While Revolut has regulatory obligations to look out for fraud and make additional checks in some circumstances, the ombudsman found the disputed activity was not sufficiently unusual or suspicious to warrant intervention. The payments were relatively modest in value, timeframe, and number of instructions. Cryptocurrency transactions alone are not concerning in isolation as most are legitimate. Revolut did take proportionate action by questioning payment 4 and providing warnings, but Mr C's inaccurate responses rendered these ineffective. The ombudsman concluded Revolut could not have prevented the loss with proportionate intervention and could not recover the funds due to their nature.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website