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Revolut has hit back at a BBC documentary that accuses the firm of “prioritising growth ahead of protecting customers”, saying that it takes complaints of fraud “incredibly seriously”.
Less than three months after receiving a provisional UK banking licence, questions are being asked about Revolut’s readiness for the new licence, following a BBC Panorama investigation into its handling of fraud.
The documentary, which aired on Monday (October 14), features three Revolut customers who lost five- or six-figure sums to authorised push payment (APP) scams.
None of the customers have been reimbursed by Revolut, and each feels that they were abandoned by the firm when they reported their experiences.
Jack, who asked for his surname not be revealed, lost £165,000 to an impersonation scammer who took over his account after bypassing its selfie verification controls.
He contacted Revolut to report that he was being scammed, but had to do so via a chat function within the app, as Revolut does not have a dedicated fraud phone line.
It took 23 minutes to reach the right department to freeze the account, during which time the scammer had managed to extract another £67,000 from the account.
Jack has not been reimbursed, despite the fact that Revolut allowed 137 payments to be made to three new payees in less than hour, ultimately draining the entire account.
Laura, who lost £25,000 to a similar impersonation scam, said she was made to feel as if it was “all her fault” when she contacted Revolut.
“You’re violated,” she said. “Your whole life — it’s like someone has just come in and taken it, and you’re left there, out on a limb, with absolutely no help from Revolut.”
A market leader in fraud complaints
The documentary also features statistics pulled from Freedom of Information (FoI) requests and other data sources, highlighting Revolut’s disproportionate number of fraud complaints.
Last year, Action Fraud received almost 10,000 reports of fraud in which Revolut was named, according to a FoI request submitted by Panorama.
This was 2,000 more than Barclays, one of the biggest banks in the UK, and double that of Monzo, a neobank rival similar in size to Revolut.
In addition to fraud complaints, Revolut also vastly exceeds every other UK bank in the amount of money linked to APP fraud that flows through its accounts.
In 2023, data from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) showed that for every £1m paid into Revolut accounts, £756 was from APP fraud.
This was more than ten times the amount of APP fraud-linked cash that flowed through Barclays accounts, and five times more than that which flowed through HSBC and Lloyds accounts.
Fraud controls improving, says Revolut
Speaking with Vixio, a spokesperson for Revolut said the firm is subject to the same regulations as any other high-street bank in combating fraud, and that it upholds its obligations as required.
“We of course would refute any suggestion that we do not, or do not wish to, abide by these standards,” it said.
“We use a range of different approaches designed to ‘break the spell of the scammer’, not all of which we communicate externally so as to not jeopardise their effectiveness.”
For example, Revolut said it delays payments to allow customers to stop, think and complete additional checks. It said it also uses “specialist agents” to speak to the customer, either through the in-app chat or through a phone call to uncover potential scam risks.
“So far in 2024, through our fraud intervention warnings, we have stopped nearly twice as many customers proceeding with potentially fraudulent transactions compared to 2023,” the spokesperson said.
Revolut also said it is “investing heavily” in its financial crime prevention team, which now makes up more than a third of its global workforce of 10,000 employees.
In 2023, according to Revolut’s internal data, these employees helped to prevent more than £475m of would-be losses to fraud globally.
The spokesperson noted that these improvements have been achieved while Revolut continues to onboard more than a million new customers each month.
“We recognise a small number of our customers have had experiences with Revolut [that] have fallen short of our expectations,” she said.
“We do not recognise this as the experience held by the vast majority of customers who continue to enjoy Revolut’s products and services.
“Nevertheless, there will always be more to do to tackle this multi-industry issue and we will continue to work towards reducing fraud rates further.”
