Revolut Ltd · DRN-6142464

The complaint Mrs B complains that Revolut Ltd has declined to reimburse the money she’s lost to an employment scam. What happened Mrs B opened a new Revolut account as part of the scam. I’ve listed the disputed activity on that account in the table below. Date Time Amount Type of activity 9 December 2025 11:03 £330 Cryptocurrency exchange 9 December 2025 13:45 £835 Card payment to cryptocurrency provider 10 December 2025 13:04 £80 Faster payment to own account 10 December 2025 13:58 £1,420 Faster payment to own account 10 December 2025 17:52 £2,980 Faster payment to own account Revolut declined to reimburse Mrs B when she raised a fraud claim with it, so she referred a complaint to this Service. Our investigator considered the complaint and reached the conclusion that Revolut is not responsible for reimbursing Mrs B. Mrs B asked for an ombudsman’s final decision, so the complaint has now been passed to me to decide. 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. I note that Mrs B made a cryptocurrency withdrawal as part of the scam. The transfer of cryptocurrency is not a regulated activity, so I can’t consider the withdrawal. But the exchange of funds in an account into cryptocurrency is an ancillary activity to the regulated activity of accepting the deposit of funds into an account, so I can consider the exchange. According to longstanding regulatory expectations and requirements, and what I consider to

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be good industry practice, Revolut ought to be on the look-out for the possibility of fraud; and make additional checks before processing customer instructions in some circumstances. I have reviewed Mrs B’s complaint carefully, and I recognise that the disputed activity on her Revolut account was a result of fraud, but I’m not minded to direct Revolut to reimburse her. I’m sorry to disappoint Mrs B, but Revolut can’t be expected to intervene with every instruction it receives from its customers. It must strike a balance in the extent to which it intervenes, against the risk of unduly inconveniencing or delaying legitimate requests. Taking account of what Revolut knew about Mrs B and the disputed activity at the relevant time, I’m not persuaded that it ought to have identified a fraud risk, or that it ought to have intervened. That’s because I don’t think the activity was so unusual or suspicious that it ought to have alerted Revolut to the possibility of Mrs B being at risk of financial harm. The disputed activity was relatively modest – in terms of the timeframe it occurred over, the number of instructions Revolut received and the transactional value – and there’s nothing else I think ought to have been concerning about the activity in the circumstances (such as the known payment destination). As I don’t think there were sufficient grounds for Revolut to think that Mrs B was at risk of financial harm from fraud when the disputed activity took place, I can’t say Revolut was at fault for acting on Mrs B’s instructions. That said, I note that Revolut did ask Mrs B some questions about the £80 faster payment she sent to another account in her own name on 10 December 2025, and it gave her some fraud warnings based on the answers she gave. But Mrs B was being coached by the scammers and did not convey an accurate picture of what was happening to Revolut as a result. As such, the warnings it gave her were ineffective. On this basis, I find that, even if Revolut could be expected to, and had intervened further, it’s unlikely it could’ve got to the bottom of what was happening and unravelled the scam to prevent any further financial loss. I don’t consider that it would be fair or reasonable to require Revolut to reimburse a loss it could not have prevented. My final decision For the reasons I’ve explained, my final decision is that I do not uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs B to accept or reject my decision before 15 May 2026. Kyley Hanson Ombudsman

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