'I watched as scammers stole £165,000 from my Revolut account in just one hour'

Revolut has around 45million customers worldwide, with nine million in the UK, but has not yet been granted full status as a bank

A man shared how he watched £165,000 stolen from his business account by fraudsters.

Jack told BBC Panorama that the money was stolen from his Revolut account and blamed the firm's security measures for the theft. The scammers had managed to bypass Revolut's ID verification process to gain access to his account, but as of this writing, the e-firm has refused to refund the stolen cash.

Revolut is a digital-only financial institution, so it only has services online and through its app, and it has no physical branches. Revolut has not yet been granted full status as a bank. It currently has around 45million customers worldwide, with nine million in the UK.

The firm offers a range of features, including competitive foreign exchange rates, which appealed to Jack as he runs an international business and needs to hold multiple currencies. Jack also said Revolut's security features - which are promoted in the firm's advertisements - were a factor in him signing up.

The scam occurred back in February of this year when Jack was in a co-working space. He received a phone call from a scammer who claimed to be from Revolut and was told that his account had been compromised, likely through being on shared wifi. The scammers then tricked Jack into sharing enough information for them to access his Revolut account, which means they could see all his previous transactions, including a £21.98 purchase at the online retailer Etsy that morning.

Jack told the BBC that while on the phone with the scammers, he received a text from Revolut asking him to confirm the exact amount he had spent on Etsy by typing in a six-digit security code. Jack read the code to the scammers which - without realising - authorised a new payment to a fake account set up by the scammers.

The first fake payment was to an account set up by the scammers called Etsy; two more payments were then taken to other fake accounts called “Revolut Fees” and “Revolut Fees Care”. As Jack had unknowingly approved these new payees, more money began to be taken, and thousands upon thousands of pounds started to come out.

As soon as Jack realized he was being scammed, he tried to contact Revolut but struggled because the firm does not have a dedicated helpline, just an online chat function in its app. Jack used this chat tool, sending the message: "I’ve been scammed; please freeze my account."

However, after reporting the incident, it took a further 23 minutes to reach the right Revolut department and freeze the account. This delay saw another £67,000 taken from Jack's account - overall, £165,000 was stolen by the scammers.

Jack told the BBC that he believes the scammers bypassed Revolut's facial-recognition software, allowing them to access his account on their device. Under Revolut's fraud measures, if you want to set up a new device, you need to provide a selfie, which Jack did not do. Jack asked Revolut to show him the image used to authorise the new device.

However, Revolut eventually told him the image was not stored in its system, so there was no way of knowing how the scammers accessed Jack's account. Panorama investigated this issue and found that it appeared to have been fixed.

Jack also said Revolut should have suspected foul play as 137 individual payments were made to three new payees in the space of an hour - which was not the norm for Jack's account. Major banks and financial institutions often monitor accounts for unusual activity and steps in if something is suspicious.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request from BBC Panorama to Action Fraud revealed that Revolut had been named 10,000 times in reports to the fraud and cyber-crime centre. This was 2,000 more than Barclays, which is one of the biggest banks in the UK, and double the number from Monzo, which is a competitor of similar size to Revolut.

BBC Panorama spoke to eight former employees of the firm who said the issues came from Revolut's appetite for growth and "high-pressure" work environment. One anonymous source told the BBC: "Protecting Revolut from being used for financial crime always played second fiddle to the desire to launch new products and to get existing customers to use products more."

Revolut told the BBC it had a “high performance culture” with an “expectation to deliver good customer outcomes” and that all new product launches involved comprehensive risk assessment and governance approval processes. The spokesperson also said it had “robust controls” to meet its legal and regulatory fraud obligations. Alongside this, it said it “invested heavily” in its financial crime prevention team, which makes up more than a third of its total global workforce.