The BBC has reported that Revolut topped the list for reported fraud cases in the last financial year, surpassing all major High Street banks.
The company, which received a provisional UK banking license in July, was the subject of nearly 10,000 complaints filed with Action Fraud, the UK’s leading organization for reporting fraud and cybercrime, based on Freedom of Information (FOI) requests obtained by BBC Panorama.
Revolut outpaced Barclays, which received almost 8,000 reports despite having roughly double the customer base in the UK. Competitors Monzo and Starling were mentioned in nearly 5,000 and just over 1,000 complaints, respectively.
In one case highlighted by the BBC, a customer reported that £165,000 was quickly drained from his Revolut business account by fraudsters who were able to bypass the company’s fraud controls. The customer attempted to alert Revolut but discovered the lack of a dedicated helpline, relying instead on a chat function buried within the app.
“I messaged them saying, ‘I’ve been scammed, please freeze my account,’” he recounted to the BBC. It took 23 minutes to reach the appropriate department to freeze the account, during which another £67,000 was stolen.
He suspects that criminals managed to circumvent facial-recognition software to access his account on their device. Revolut typically requires a selfie when an account is set up on a new device, which the customer claims he did not provide.
Following Revolut’s refusal to reimburse him for his losses, the client has escalated the matter to the Banking Ombudsman.
Inna Lyubashevskaya, chief customer officer at KYC firm Sumsub, noted that in its pursuit of growth, it appears Revolut may have cut corners. She emphasized the importance of validating user identity through a cross-check with the original registration photo and suggested that more stringent transaction monitoring could have identified unusual payment patterns early on.
“Adding to this issue is the inadequate customer service, characterized by a slow-to-respond chat function, which leads to further losses,” she said. “With bad actors enhancing their tactics using AI, it is puzzling that there hasn’t been an upgrade to anti-fraud measures. While there’s no single ‘magic tool’ for addressing fraud, implementing multi-layered, AI-powered protection throughout the user journey would significantly help mitigate risks.”
Consumer advocacy group Which? has advised against banking significant amounts of money with Revolut. Rob Lilley-Jones, a representative from Which? featured in the Panorama report, stated: “They have a track record of not reimbursing victims of fraud and continuing to allow money to be taken from accounts even after scam activity has been reported.”
In response to the BBC’s findings, Revolut asserted its commitment to tackling fraud and emphasized that it has “robust controls” in place to fulfill its legal and regulatory obligations.