The e-money firm Revolut has been named in more reports of fraud in the last financial year than any of the major high street banks.
This discovery comes alongside the firm refusing refund a customer, named Jack, who had £165,000 stolen from his business account by fraudsters. He believes that the company’s security measures failed to prevent the theft as they bypassed the ID verification process to access his account.
Due to Revolut’s customer service chat function system taking 23 minutes to reach the right department — as there was no dedicated helpline — Jack had lost £67,000 from his account in the time it took him to report the initial scam and theft.
“I think there might be a political element to Revolut’s licensing, because it’s becoming of a size to challenge High Street banks,” says Frances Coppola, a financial journalist and expert on banking risks and regulations.
“I think no government would want to have something of that size playing fast and loose with the rules.” However, she adds, “I suppose you could question, given there are so many complaints, whether Revolut should have a licence.”
The UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cyber-crime received almost 10,000 reports of fraud naming Revolut in the 2023-2024 financial year. This figure is double that of Monzo (a competitor of similar size to Revolut), and 2,000 more than one of the UK’s biggest banks, Barclays.
This revelation and latest story from Jack highlights possible issues surrounding Revolut’s customer service and satisfaction.