Revolut refuses chargeback for fraudulent transactions

Brendan Burgess

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An odd story here in the Irish Times

Sinister Revolut scam sees reader’s account drained of thousands

Pricewatch: Nearly €6,000 was taken from a company account within a matter of minutes but Revolut maintained the fraudulent transactions had been legitimate
www.irishtimes.com

1) Why would a company use Revolut? Makes no sense to me.

2)
He immediately contacted Revolut to freeze the card and cancel the transactions which, as he repeats, were still showing as “pending”.

“The only way to contact them was via their chat system,” he writes. “There was no way to get directly in touch by phone or otherwise. I waited and eventually got to someone. They refused to cancel the transactions and insisted that I had to wait until they were processed and then process a chargeback.”

Why did he contact Revolut to freeze the card. Could he not have done this himself via the app.?

3) Why did Revolut not explain why?

He then received a response from Revolut which said it “would not be charging back the transactions”.

He said he had to request more information as to why the company would not process the chargeback given that he had not made the purchases and had certainly not received the goods. “To this day I still have not had a proper reason. There were nine transactions in total, ranging from €160.24 to €1,062.51. In total, €5,958.65 was taken from our account in the space of five minutes. They continued to process transactions until there was no money left and the remainder were declined due to lack of funds. I find it incredible to believe that they can maintain that these were not fraudulent, since it would not even be possible for us to make those orders in that space of time. It had to be automated in some way. Even An Garda Síochána agreed that it was 100 per cent fraudulent and they agreed to follow it up with AliExpress also. Revolut did not even try to flag the transactions as suspicious, even though they clearly were!
 
Presumably he can now go to the Financial Services Ombudsman with the complaint.

It will take him at least two years, but he should get his money back.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Presumably he can now go to the Financial Services Ombudsman with the complaint.

It will take him at least two years, but he should get his money back.

Brendan
Click to expand...

He appears to have received his money back already?

'It accepted that the level of customer care offered to our reader had been less than desirable. “Revolut would like to apologise to [David]. The support and communication he received fell below our usually high standards. As a gesture of goodwill we are covering the stolen funds in full.”

Pricewatch also understands that the company has in recent months implemented a range of new security measures to place more obstacles in the way of criminals who have been using Apple Pay and Google Pay to make purchases but we are also aware that the criminals are almost certainly working out new and increasingly nasty ways to work around banking systems to get at our cash.'
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Presumably he can now go to the Financial Services Ombudsman with the complaint.

It will take him at least two years, but he should get his money back.

Brendan
Click to expand...

Conor Pope continued:

"The exact nature of the fraud is unclear but what can happen in a case such as this is a victim’s credit card details are compromised by criminals. That can be done if a rogue link is followed or a third-party site is compromised with users’ credit card details stolen or through multiple other means. The criminals then add the compromised card details to a phone – also probably stolen – and, possibly, using social engineering techniques get the verification code details from the victim. They can then use Apple Pay or Google Pay to effectively empty that person’s account without them being aware of anything untoward happening or without them receiving an alert or a request for verification.

Exactly what happened in this instance is uncertain"................

“Revolut takes the protection and support of its customers extremely seriously and is fully aware of the industry-wide risk of customers being coerced by organised criminals,” it said in a statement. “We are very sorry to hear about any instance where our customers are targeted by ruthless and highly sophisticated criminals.”"

Sinister Revolut scam sees reader’s account drained of thousands

Pricewatch: Nearly €6,000 was taken from a company account within a matter of minutes but Revolut maintained the fraudulent transactions had been legitimate
www.irishtimes.com
 
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Early Riser said:
They can then use Apple Pay or Google Pay to effectively empty that person’s account
Click to expand...

Is this a weakness in Apple Pay or Google Pay?

If the guy gave his verification details to the criminals, then he should not have got his money back.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Is this a weakness in Apple Pay or Google Pay?

If the guy gave his verification details to the criminals, then he should not have got his money back.

Brendan
Click to expand...

I take it that is why Revolut refunded the money as a "gesture of goodwill" (and in relation to his interactions with customer service, rather than accepting responsibility for the actual loss).
 
I looked at Revolut for a business account as it would be handy for travel esp to the UK.

I didn't proceed, but they contacted me several times asking if I wanted to finalise the account opening.

Quite pushy and and very much selling it on the exchange rate benefits for trips abroad.

That they do not have security systems to identify multiple transactions from an unusual source would be extremely concerning. AIB will send a quick text requiring a Y or N if they detect even a single unusual transaction and block the card on the spot until you respond.

Again, this is another example where it shows Revolut are simply not something to rely on for anything other than a sideline account for a specific purpose.
 
When you add a card to Google pay, it does ask you to verify it before it adds it. It gives the option of sending a text to your phone that is registered with the bank or also verifying through the banks app. No idea how the app verification works. I tried it to see but it never did anything in the app for me. Depending on what the app verification entails I could see how someone could easily verify it without realising it isn't for their google pay app. If the message is generic and doesn't mention the email for the pay account then someone could easily think it was just their existing app needing to re-verify.
 
Revolut do have security measures for payments, and plenty of aib customers have been scammed, as has been said here it appears more of a user error than a revolut one.
 
peemac said:
That they do not have security systems to identify multiple transactions from an unusual source would be extremely concerning.
Click to expand...
It’s not clear that they don’t.

I’ve never used Revolut for business but I’d assume multiple users can be authorised. With secure customer authentication (SCA) now in place it’s simply very hard for a card transaction to be authorised without the active cooperation of the cardholder.

Apply Occam’s Razor here. What’s more likely:
1) Revolut’s systems allowed a hack and then refused a chargeback?
2) a colleague was the victim of phishing and then lied to their boss about what happened?

If I was down €6k I’d chance an email to Conor Pope too in order to get my money back by shaming the company.
 
Blackrock1 said:
Revolut do have security measures for payments, and plenty of aib customers have been scammed, as has been said here it appears more of a user error than a revolut one.
Click to expand...
There does seem to be an awful lot more with Revolut and they tend not to respond quickly nor provide refunds.


More fraud victims speak out after e-money app Revolut refused refunds

EXCLUSIVE: Victims who have lost thousands of pounds in a cruel scam that sees fraudsters impersonate their bank have slammed Revolut for their response.
www.thisismoney.co.uk
 
peemac said:
they tend not to respond quickly nor provide refunds.
Click to expand...
Yes I think Revolut are less concerned with reputation than a bricks-and-mortar operation who are more likely to be hauled before an Oireachtas committee or such like.

I use Revolut for payments and it’s great but I’d never rely on it as my only banking solution or to store large balances.
 
Do you want me to post links of scams of customers of other banks?

In most cases I'll wager it's user error, and I'm not sure aib or boi or anyone else will be rushing to refund someone when they are at fault.
 
Blackrock1 said:
Do you want me to post links of scams of customers of other banks?

In most cases I'll wager it's user error, and I'm not sure aib or boi or anyone else will be rushing to refund someone when they are at fault.
Click to expand...
Yes, every bank has customers that fraud has happened to.

Most banks are very proactive and seem to have far better security systems in place that minimises the losses when there's a definite unusual pattern. The other banks also respond far quicker to customers and have a 24 hour security line you can call.

This is yet another example of revolut's near non existent customer service and a warning to people that if something goes wrong, Revolut are extremely slow to respond and even when they do respond it is difficult to get any closure of an issue.

As I said, they are fine as a back-up payment system and certainly are good for using in different currencies (I have an account), but they simply are not a institution that I'd be happy with as a main bank account. And that's from my own personal experience with them about 15 months ago.
 
1) Presumably they were accepting payments from customers who wanted to use Revolut to pay.

I don't understand how they left that amount of money in their Revolut account. They should have been withdrawing it regularly to their bank account.
 
Páid said:
I don't understand how they left that amount of money in their Revolut account.
Click to expand...
Perhaps they make a lot of foreign currency transactions and want to take advantage of Revolut's better rates.

I agree it's unwise to leave large balances on a Revolut account given the risk of fraud/employee error and track record of Revolut's customer service when something does wrong.
 
Was the nub of this not that it was at the Apple/Google Pay stage where the supposed fraud arose?

I use my Revolut card for Apple Pay but my sense would be that if my Apple Pay is compromised, that’s not Revolut’s problem.
 
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