Not upheld: scam / fraud - refund claim complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr J complained that Revolut Ltd refused to refund money he lost to a scam involving payments to what he believed was a legitimate task-based job opportunity. Revolut did not uphold the complaint, and the FOS investigator agreed. The ombudsman found that the individual payment values were not remarkable enough to trigger Revolut's automatic payment checking system, and that Revolut did provide relevant warnings. Critically, Mr J misrepresented the payment purpose to Revolut as investment rather than job payments, which hindered Revolut's ability to provide relevant warnings and uncover the scam. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the Payment Services Regulations 2017, which establish that consumers are generally liable for authorised payments. While EMIs have obligations to protect customers from fraud, there must be a balance between identifying potentially fraudulent payments and minimising disruption to legitimate transactions. The individual payment values were not remarkable enough to trigger automatic checking. Although Revolut provided warnings, they were not relevant to the specific scam because Mr J misrepresented the payment purpose as investment rather than job payments. The customer's inaccurate responses hindered Revolut's ability to provide relevant warnings and uncover the scam.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website