Not upheld: scam protection and fraud prevention complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs I lost £979.22 when she was scammed into purchasing cryptocurrency through her Revolut account to pay for a fake job. She requested a refund from Revolut, which declined. The ombudsman found that while firms must have fraud protection systems in place, the transaction amount and circumstances were not suspicious enough to require Revolut to intervene. As this was the first activity on a newly opened account, the ombudsman concluded Revolut could not reasonably have identified fraud risk and therefore was not required to refund the loss.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While firms must have systems to protect customers from fraud, the ombudsman found that the £979.22 exchange was not suspicious based on its size alone. As Mrs I had only recently opened her account and this was her first transaction, there was no pattern of behaviour to raise concern. The ombudsman concluded that Revolut could not reasonably have been expected to identify fraud risk from this single transaction and therefore was not required to carry out additional checks or interventions.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website