Revolut customers warned after man sees £165,000 taken from account

The Revolut customer tells a BBC Panorama documentary, which is set to air tonight (Monday October 14), he believes the company’s security measures failed to prevent the theft.

Revolut customers have been warned after a man had £165,000 stolen from his Revolut business account by fraudsters. The Revolut customer tells a BBC Panorama documentary, which is set to air tonight (Monday October 14), he believes the company’s security measures failed to prevent the theft.

He says criminals managed to bypass the ID verification process to gain access to his account. Jack, who asked the Beeb not to use his surname, told Panorarma he was also reassured by the security features Revolut promote in their advertising.

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.

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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.

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 - £21.98 - by typing in a six-digit security code.

He said, “Yes, that was me,” and read out the code to 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.

"I messaged them saying, ‘I’ve been scammed, please freeze my account,’” he told the BBC. It took 23 minutes to reach the right department that could freeze the account, during which time another £67,000 had been taken.

Jack is now out of pocket by £165,000. “If 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,” says Nina Kerkez, a fraud specialist at data analytics company LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

“[They should] call their customer, send them a text message, engage in some way to ensure those transactions are legitimate.”Revolut says it cannot comment on Jack’s case as it is being looked at by the Financial Ombudsman Service.

“[This] shows that actually Revolut aren't doing enough to act in this area,” says Rob Lilley-Jones, from consumer group Which?. “They have a track record of not reimbursing people who fall victim to fraud or find themselves in this incredibly difficult situation, [and] of money being taken from accounts even after scam activity has been reported.”

“We hear from customers consistently that they're told to set up Revolut accounts when they are becoming the victim of a scam,” says Will Ayles from Refundee, a company specialising in fraud recovery. “It might be safe to draw the conclusion from that, that fraud victims are told to set up Revolut accounts because fraudsters find it easier to move money through Revolut than any other bank.”