{"id":28416,"date":"2024-10-14T06:22:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T10:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28416"},"modified":"2024-10-14T06:22:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T10:22:51","slug":"customers-say-they-were-let-down-by-revolut-one-lost-165k-to-fraud-in-an-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/10\/14\/customers-say-they-were-let-down-by-revolut-one-lost-165k-to-fraud-in-an-hour\/","title":{"rendered":"Customers say they were let down by Revolut – one ‘lost \u00a3165k to fraud in an hour\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A man who had \u00a3165,000 stolen from his Revolut business account by fraudsters has told BBC Panorama he believes the company\u2019s security measures failed to prevent the theft.<\/b><\/p>\n

He says criminals managed to bypass the ID verification process to gain access to his account.<\/p>\n

So far, Revolut has refused to refund this money.<\/p>\n

The BBC has found that Revolut was named in more reports of fraud in the last financial year than any of the major High Street banks.<\/p>\n

The e-money firm – which has not yet been granted full status as a bank – says it takes fraud incredibly seriously and that it has \u201crobust controls\u201d to meet its legal and regulatory obligations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Rise of new type of banks<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Revolut is among a number of new digital-only financial institutions that offer all their services online or through an app – there are no branches to go to.<\/p>\n

The firm has grown rapidly and amassed more than 45 million customers worldwide, of which nine million are in the UK. It almost tripled its revenue to \u00a31.8bn in 2023. Its accounts are quick to open and offer competitive foreign exchange rates in an easy-to-use app.<\/p>\n

These were the features that attracted Jack – who runs an international business and needs to hold multiple different currencies – to Revolut.<\/p>\n

Jack, who asked us not to use his surname, told us he was also reassured by the security features Revolut promote in their advertising.<\/p>\n

In February, Jack was in a co-working space when he received a phone call from a scammer pretending to be from Revolut. He was told he was being called because his account might have been compromised through being on shared Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jack was tricked into handing over enough information to allow the scammers to put his Revolut account onto their device. This meant they could see all his previous transactions, including a purchase at the online retailer Etsy that morning.<\/p>\n

While Jack was still on the phone to the scammers, a text message from Revolut arrived, asking him to confirm the exact same amount he had spent – \u00a321.98 – by typing in a six-digit security code.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cYes, that was me,\u201d and read out the code to the scammers.<\/p>\n

What Jack didn\u2019t realise was that they had set up their own account – also called Etsy – and by sharing the code Revolut had sent him, he was authorising a new payment to their fake account instead.<\/p>\n

Two similar texts followed to authorise payments of small amounts to two further fake accounts, called \u201cRevolut fees\u201d and \u201cRevolut fees care\u201d. Jack also approved these \u2013 which meant he had been tricked into setting up three new payees.<\/p>\n

This opened the floodgates and thousands of pounds began to fly out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"List<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Payments to a fake account in the name of online retailer Etsy started flying out<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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 <\/p>\n

As soon as Jack realised he was being scammed, he contacted Revolut – but there was no dedicated helpline, just a chat function deep within the app.<\/p>\n

“I messaged them saying, \u2018I\u2019ve been scammed, please freeze my account,\u2019\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

It took 23 minutes to reach the right department that could freeze the account, during which time another \u00a367,000 had been taken.<\/p>\n

Jack is now out of pocket by \u00a3165,000. He thinks Revolut\u2019s systems failed him in several ways.<\/p>\n

He believes criminals managed to bypass facial-recognition software to gain access to his account on their device. If an account is set up on a new device, Revolut asks for a selfie, which Jack says he did not provide.<\/p>\n

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Jack says he asked Revolut to show him the image used to authorised the new device. They eventually told him that it wasn’t stored in their system, so there was no way of proving what the fraudsters had done, or what photo was used.<\/p>\n

Panorama investigated this apparent vulnerability and found that it appeared to have been fixed.<\/p>\n

Jack also believes the fact that 137 individual payments were being made to three new payees in the space of an hour, should have raised concerns with Revolut.<\/p>\n

Most banks and financial institutions monitor customers\u2019 accounts for unusual activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody is suddenly processing a vast amount of transactions and a ton of payments to a new account, it is something that is a red flag – and banks should typically start to investigate some of that behaviour,\u201d says Nina Kerkez, a fraud specialist at data analytics company LexisNexis Risk Solutions.<\/p>\n

\u201c[They should] call their customer, send them a text message, engage in some way to ensure those transactions are legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Revolut features in crime reports<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Last year, the UK\u2019s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber-crime Action Fraud, received almost 10,000 reports of fraud in which Revolut was named, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by Panorama.<\/p>\n

That is 2,000 more than Barclays, one of the biggest banks in the UK, and double that of Monzo, a competitor of similar size to Revolut.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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