Not upheld: scam / fraud claim and chargeback recovery complaint against Revolut Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr M complained that Revolut Ltd refused to refund money he lost to what he claimed was a scam involving a car rental company abroad. Revolut did not uphold the complaint, and the FOS investigator agreed. The ombudsman found that the individual payment values were not of a nature to trigger Revolut's automatic payment checking system, and therefore Revolut did not act wrongly in processing the payments. The ombudsman also determined that the matter appeared to be a civil dispute over charges owed rather than a scam, and that Revolut acted fairly in raising a chargeback that was ultimately defended by the merchant. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the Payment Services Regulations 2017, noting that consumers are generally liable for authorized payments. A balance must be struck between identifying potentially fraudulent payments and minimizing disruption to legitimate payments. The individual payments were not of a value or nature to trigger automatic checking. The matter appears to be a civil dispute rather than a scam, involving a disagreement over charges owed to the rental company. Revolut acted fairly in raising a chargeback and deciding not to pursue it further when the merchant defended the claim, as chargebacks have limited grounds and the dispute could not reasonably be settled through the chargeback system.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website