Not upheld: chargeback handling and refund assistance complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr K made two debit card payments totalling £1,100 to a cryptocurrency exchange (B) in January 2026 but was subsequently unable to access his account with B. He requested Revolut's assistance in obtaining a refund through the chargeback process. Revolut declined to raise a chargeback, stating the payments were money transfers that had been successfully processed. The ombudsman found that Revolut was reasonable in declining the chargeback because the transactions fell within a Visa exclusion for cryptocurrency/NFT purchases where the cardholder cannot access the asset after successful delivery, meaning the chargeback would have had no reasonable prospect of success. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Revolut was reasonable in declining to raise a chargeback because the transactions fell within a specific Visa exclusion for cryptocurrency/NFT purchases where the cardholder cannot access the asset after successful delivery. Although Mr K believed he was purchasing digital goods rather than cryptocurrency, the nature of the transaction with the cryptocurrency exchange meant the Visa exclusion applied. The ombudsman determined that a chargeback would have had no reasonable prospect of success under the scheme rules, and therefore Revolut did not err in declining to raise one.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website