Revolut Ltd · DRN-5963918

The complaint Mr J is unhappy that Revolut Ltd won’t refund payments he made as part of a scam. What happened Mr J says he was contacted about a job opportunity, which involved reviewing restaurants to increase their rating. He was told he’d earn commission by completing sets of review tasks. Sometimes a task attracting high commission would put Mr J’s account on the job platform into a negative balance, and he was told he’d need to deposit cryptocurrency before continuing. So he used his Revolut account to buy cryptocurrency from an external provider and sent that to the platform’s wallet address. Mr J received some commission back into his Revolut account for completed tasks, which reassured him it was legitimate. So he continued to make deposits onto the platform as required. Across five days in June 2026 Mr J sent transfers (some international) totalling almost £2,500 from his Revolut account as part of the job, with the highest being for £900. Before approving one transaction for £499 Revolut asked Mr J a series of automated questions. He selected the payment was for an investment he’d seen online (though the option for saying it was job related was there), and that he’d invested in cryptocurrency before. He also said he’d researched the company and it was regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Revolut then showed Mr J a series of warnings highlighting the features of cryptocurrency investment scams – after which he opted to continue with the payment. Revolut stopped another transaction two days later and eventually spoke with Mr J over the phone. During that conversation Revolut uncovered he’d fallen for a job scam. It attempted to recover the funds already sent but that was unsuccessful. Mr J complained that Revolut’s human intervention had come too late, and it should have spotted sooner that he was at risk. Revolut’s final response said the transactions weren’t eligible for a refund under the Payment Systems Regulator’s Authorised Push Payment (APP) scam reimbursement rules, and it believed sufficient scam warnings had been provided. Mr J wasn’t happy with the response and so referred the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service for review. One of our investigators considered everything and didn’t recommend the complaint should be upheld. In her view, the transactions made prior to Revolut’s successful intervention wouldn’t have looked overly suspicious – and warnings had been provided based on Mr J’s answers to the automated questions. So the investigator didn’t think Revolut ought to have uncovered the scam earlier than it did. Mr J didn’t accept the investigator’s opinion – and maintained that Revolut should have identified the unusual transaction pattern sooner. His response to the view emphasised that the scam had occurred during a period of financial pressure, which unfortunately had made him more susceptible to believing the job was legitimate. As no agreement could be reached, Mr J requested that an ombudsman reconsidered the matter. So the complaint was passed to me to decide.

-- 1 of 3 --

What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Having done so, I’m not upholding the complaint. I appreciate that will come as a great disappointment to Mr J, who has sadly lost a lot of money to a cruel and sophisticated scam. I have a good deal of sympathy for what he’s been put through at the hands of the fraudsters. But, on balance, I can’t fairly say Revolut should be held responsible for the loss. I’ve explained why below. In broad terms, the starting position in law is that a payment services provider like Revolut is expected to process payments and withdrawals that a customer authorises it to make, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the account and the Payment Services Regulations. Mr J ‘authorised’ the transactions in question (he made them), albeit under the false belief they were for a legitimate job opportunity. So the starting position was that Revolut was under an obligation to process the payments – but that isn’t the end of the story, as far as its responsibility in the matter goes. I’ve also taken into account the regulator’s rules and guidance; relevant codes of practice, along with what I consider to have been good industry practice at the time. That means I consider Revolut should fairly and reasonably have been on the lookout for the possibility of fraud at the time, and intervened if there were clear indications its customer might be at risk. Revolut did intervene and eventually uncovered the scam. So the question for me to decide is whether the checks it carried out were proportionate in the circumstances. While Mr J had previously only transacted in the low hundreds of pounds, none of the disputed payments were concerningly high in value. An obvious scam pattern didn’t form on the account during the period in question either. Most of the payments were identifiably going to a cryptocurrency provider, which does carry some elevated risk – but I consider the warnings Revolut provided (based on his answers to the automated questions) were sufficient given the amounts and overall risk involved. The international payments were relatively low in value too, so wouldn’t have appeared suspicious or particularly out of character to Revolut. Overall, I wouldn’t have expected Revolut to have been concerned enough to speak with its customer prior to when it did. So I haven’t found that Revolut ought to have done more to prevent the loss that’s been claimed, or that it missed signs Mr J was vulnerable. I’ve thought about whether Revolut acted fairly once alerted to the scam, and I’ve decided it did. The payments weren’t covered by the mandatory reimbursement scheme, as they’d been sent internationally or to an external wallet under Mr J’s control. The funds transferred to cryptocurrency had been converted and sent on, so recovery wouldn’t have been possible on those. Revolut also attempted recovery for the other payments but that was unsuccessful. Having considered everything, and whilst I recognise that Mr J has sadly lost this money, I don’t think Revolut could reasonably have been expected to prevent any more of his losses than it did. So, I’m not directing Revolut to refund the payments he’s disputed. My final decision I’ve decided not to uphold Mr J’s complaint about Revolut Ltd.

-- 2 of 3 --

Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr J to accept or reject my decision before 28 April 2026. Ryan Miles Ombudsman

-- 3 of 3 --