Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Miss A lost over £35,000 to an investment scam conducted via social media between October 2023 and March 2024, making over 60 payments from her Revolut account through transfers and crypto exchanges. She complained that Revolut failed to prevent the scam through inadequate monitoring and warnings. While the ombudsman agreed Revolut should have intervened more, particularly at a £1,500 crypto exchange transaction, it found that Miss A had ignored relevant warnings when provided, given misleading answers about payment purposes to multiple providers, and trusted the scammer, meaning proportionate intervention would not have stopped the fraud. The complaint was not upheld as funds sent via crypto could not be recovered under reimbursement schemes.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While Revolut should have intervened more than it did, particularly at transaction 5, the ombudsman concluded that a proportionate intervention would not have stopped the scam. This is because: (1) Miss A did not provide accurate answers about payment purposes, meaning warnings would either be irrelevant or ignored; (2) when Miss A did receive a relevant warning about investment scams via social media with high returns, she ignored it; (3) Miss A had built trust with the scammer and believed they were legitimate; (4) Miss A was providing misleading information to other account providers as well, suggesting deliberate concealment; (5) funds sent via crypto cannot be recovered under reimbursement schemes.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website