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Useless, hopeless Revolut: can anyone recommend a better alternative??
accorian
Posts: 98 Forumite
I've been with Revolut for 18 months. In that time -- when there haven't been any IT problems -- it has worked fine. But when there are IT problems, the service is useless. Here's this morning's as-yet-unresolved experience (with apologies for length of this post):
(1) My Revolut phone app wants me to verify my email address to help Revolut improve its security service to customers. I click on the request. Am taken to a verification screen. The email address with which my Revolut account has always been associated appears. I click on VERIFY. The screen reports: Verification failed. A problem seems to have arisen. Please try later.
(2) I wait 10 minutes. Try again. Same outcome. I happen to be working on my desktop PC at this time and it pings to signal an incoming email. I open the message. It's from Revolut. It says that which the original verification screen couldn't be bothered to say, words to the effect: "After you have clicked VERIFY, we will send you a confirmatory email. Please click on the link in that email to complete the verification process." This newly received email says, please open this email on your phone and click on the VERIFY link;
(3) I open the gmail inbox on my phone and then the two Revolut emails sitting there. I click on the VERIFY link in the email. It says: "Just one more step to verify your email address. Simply tap the button below." So I tap: "VERIFY EMAIL".
(4) An inset screen appears: "Open with Revolut". I do. The message appears: "One moment, we're verifying your email." I wait for considerably more than one moment. Finally: "Email verification failed. Sorry, something has gone wrong. Please try later."
(5) The app tells me that if I have any problems, please use the in-app Support facility. Two options appear there: "Chat", and "Ask the Community". I press "Chat". The screen goes into a 10-minute -- yes, 10 minutes -- spinning wheel. And then vanishes;
(6) Only other option is to use "Community". As I'm at this desktop computer, I use that to make my visit. I've been a community member since opening my Revolut account. I have had to post twice on it when Revolut IT problems arose in in the past. I input my log-in details which haven't changed since last time. Revolut says it doesn't recognise them. I'm asked to wait;
(7) Eventually, Revolut announces "we have found your email address" -- good God above, how did they manage that? Was it in a dustbin somewhere? -- and is sending me an email link so I can log in to Community help;
(8) ANOTHER Revolut email arrives with the link. I click on it and finally, I'm into the "Community help" section where I can raise with Revolut the support issue that Revolut's in-app support isn't there to answer;
(9) The "Community" screen has NO option to post NEW TOPIC. The words: NEW TOPIC appear nowhere at all. I search through the Revolut "Bugs" section to see if anyone else has had problems with email address verification. Instead, I find past posts complaining that POST NEW TOPIC never appeared at the time they originally wanted to POST NEW TOPIC. You really couldn't make it up;
(10) I now need to find a recent post to which I can reply. Hi-jacking another Revolut customer's thread is the only way to communicate with Revolut. So I do. I flag up Revolut's failed verification process. Revolut's failed in-app "Contact Support" process. Revolut's failed POST NEW TOPIC process. Revolut's failed in all and every respect customer service. As my post is actually a reply on a hi-jacked thread, I press REPLY;
(11) . . . after which Revolut responds: "Thank you for your post. It will not appear until it has been approved by a Moderator."
Un-be-liev-able.
This is a licensed financial institution that makes a dog-and-pony show look professional: you have a support question but if you ask it in-app there's no-one around to "Chat" so you must visit "Community" where you still can't ask for support because you can't have a NEW TOPIC so must to hi-jack someone else's topic and then you still don't get any support because you're told that your message will not be published until a "moderator" has approved it???
As to how long that might take:
I find another thread in the forum from another Revolut customer who had a much more serious / urgent problem than myself because he was actually overseas and trying but failing to get his Revolut card to work. Fortunately, he managed to get his urgent request for help into the community forum without needing to hi-jack another customer's post. But then, like myself, he discovered that "a moderator" needs to approve it. So he had to post again 24 hours later to ask if the "moderator" had actually finished reading it yet? And could someone at Revolut PLEASE get their finger out and provide support??
Had I known, before I opened a Revolut account, that (a) it has no meaningful Customer Support; I(b) in-app Chat doesn't respond when you need it; (c) Customer Support is a, er, "moderator" who may or may not be around at a time of emergency, I wouldn't have touched this outfit with the proverbial barge-pole.
I've now spent almost 2 HOURS of my time trying to deal with an issue which a functioning financial institution could've handled in 30 seconds. I had enough problems with Revolut last year and its (belated) apologies about an IT issue; I should've realised then that this enterprise is unfit for purpose. I should also have wondered then how come a licensed financial institution can get away with having no Customer Service support for urgent queries. I am certainly wondering now.
So. I am transferring all funds in my Revolut account back to my bank, and closing the account. I've had enough of this shambolic outfit. Hence the question:
Can anyone here with a satisfactory customer experience of an alternative to Revolut kindly let me know? Thank you.
(1) My Revolut phone app wants me to verify my email address to help Revolut improve its security service to customers. I click on the request. Am taken to a verification screen. The email address with which my Revolut account has always been associated appears. I click on VERIFY. The screen reports: Verification failed. A problem seems to have arisen. Please try later.
(2) I wait 10 minutes. Try again. Same outcome. I happen to be working on my desktop PC at this time and it pings to signal an incoming email. I open the message. It's from Revolut. It says that which the original verification screen couldn't be bothered to say, words to the effect: "After you have clicked VERIFY, we will send you a confirmatory email. Please click on the link in that email to complete the verification process." This newly received email says, please open this email on your phone and click on the VERIFY link;
(3) I open the gmail inbox on my phone and then the two Revolut emails sitting there. I click on the VERIFY link in the email. It says: "Just one more step to verify your email address. Simply tap the button below." So I tap: "VERIFY EMAIL".
(4) An inset screen appears: "Open with Revolut". I do. The message appears: "One moment, we're verifying your email." I wait for considerably more than one moment. Finally: "Email verification failed. Sorry, something has gone wrong. Please try later."
(5) The app tells me that if I have any problems, please use the in-app Support facility. Two options appear there: "Chat", and "Ask the Community". I press "Chat". The screen goes into a 10-minute -- yes, 10 minutes -- spinning wheel. And then vanishes;
(6) Only other option is to use "Community". As I'm at this desktop computer, I use that to make my visit. I've been a community member since opening my Revolut account. I have had to post twice on it when Revolut IT problems arose in in the past. I input my log-in details which haven't changed since last time. Revolut says it doesn't recognise them. I'm asked to wait;
(7) Eventually, Revolut announces "we have found your email address" -- good God above, how did they manage that? Was it in a dustbin somewhere? -- and is sending me an email link so I can log in to Community help;
(8) ANOTHER Revolut email arrives with the link. I click on it and finally, I'm into the "Community help" section where I can raise with Revolut the support issue that Revolut's in-app support isn't there to answer;
(9) The "Community" screen has NO option to post NEW TOPIC. The words: NEW TOPIC appear nowhere at all. I search through the Revolut "Bugs" section to see if anyone else has had problems with email address verification. Instead, I find past posts complaining that POST NEW TOPIC never appeared at the time they originally wanted to POST NEW TOPIC. You really couldn't make it up;
(10) I now need to find a recent post to which I can reply. Hi-jacking another Revolut customer's thread is the only way to communicate with Revolut. So I do. I flag up Revolut's failed verification process. Revolut's failed in-app "Contact Support" process. Revolut's failed POST NEW TOPIC process. Revolut's failed in all and every respect customer service. As my post is actually a reply on a hi-jacked thread, I press REPLY;
(11) . . . after which Revolut responds: "Thank you for your post. It will not appear until it has been approved by a Moderator."
Un-be-liev-able.
This is a licensed financial institution that makes a dog-and-pony show look professional: you have a support question but if you ask it in-app there's no-one around to "Chat" so you must visit "Community" where you still can't ask for support because you can't have a NEW TOPIC so must to hi-jack someone else's topic and then you still don't get any support because you're told that your message will not be published until a "moderator" has approved it???
As to how long that might take:
I find another thread in the forum from another Revolut customer who had a much more serious / urgent problem than myself because he was actually overseas and trying but failing to get his Revolut card to work. Fortunately, he managed to get his urgent request for help into the community forum without needing to hi-jack another customer's post. But then, like myself, he discovered that "a moderator" needs to approve it. So he had to post again 24 hours later to ask if the "moderator" had actually finished reading it yet? And could someone at Revolut PLEASE get their finger out and provide support??
Had I known, before I opened a Revolut account, that (a) it has no meaningful Customer Support; I(b) in-app Chat doesn't respond when you need it; (c) Customer Support is a, er, "moderator" who may or may not be around at a time of emergency, I wouldn't have touched this outfit with the proverbial barge-pole.
I've now spent almost 2 HOURS of my time trying to deal with an issue which a functioning financial institution could've handled in 30 seconds. I had enough problems with Revolut last year and its (belated) apologies about an IT issue; I should've realised then that this enterprise is unfit for purpose. I should also have wondered then how come a licensed financial institution can get away with having no Customer Service support for urgent queries. I am certainly wondering now.
So. I am transferring all funds in my Revolut account back to my bank, and closing the account. I've had enough of this shambolic outfit. Hence the question:
Can anyone here with a satisfactory customer experience of an alternative to Revolut kindly let me know? Thank you.
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Have to say I've used them now for about the same length of time & have never had any issues - well that's not strictly true ....card didn't work when we got to Toronto but I realised afterwards it was because I hadn't unfrozen the card before I travelled.
I've used it quite extensively in the US as well as Canada, NZ and recently Norway without any other issues.0 -
EveryWhere wrote: »
Sincere thanks, EveryWhere.
I am now seriously concerned about Revolut's fitness for continuing approval by the UK financial regulator. As a result of this morning's epic, time-wasting and ultimately useless inter-action with Revolut, I have done a quick Internet search and found this within only the past 48 hours:
(1) Revolut Chief Financial officer resigns as company faces questions over money laundering (Daily Telegraph):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/02/28/revolut-cfo-resigns-company-faces-compliance-questions/
and this:
(2) Revolut insiders reveal the human cost of fintech unicorn's wild rise (Wired):
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-fintech-politics-storonsky/
Logging back into Revolut's "community" (and yes, it still knows my email address, hasn't had to go search somewhere so as to find it) I discover that there appears (though only "appears") to be a, uh, "Moderator" on duty whose ID is a jokey name ending in sex.
And that's what this outfit offers up to the FCA by way of customer service: an unknown "moderator" called something-something-sex who is there -- if and when he or she is actually there -- to approve urgent customer correspondence relating to management of a customer's private financial affairs?? Ye gods.
Final irony: buried in the small text of Revolut's app is a Q&A about closing the account. It says, even after an account is closed, it will hang onto a customer's personal data for 6 years because that's what the regulations expect of it. Funny that: it doesn't seem to have done too well in recognising the money laundering provisions elsewhere in those same regulations; Chief Financial Officers don't resign their (presumably) lucrative jobs without reason. Also:
To close an account, says that small-print Q&A, I must contact a Customer Agent (or Customer 'Adviser") because that's the only way the process can be accomplished. Does this therefore mean I'm expected to wait for funny-funny-sex 'moderator' to wake up after his/her early shift at wheever he/she is actually employed??
There really is far too much going on here for me to be comfortable with -- though no doubt some Revolut fanbois, somewhere, will come on this thread to say how wonderful it all is. Who knows, I might even hear from a member of Revolut's senior management who last time there was a ridiculous IT glitch sent me a letter of profound apology and by way of compensation for all the wasting of my time, offered to "upgrade" me to Revolut's Premium Account for one year. I declined: an ordinary account had problems enough; God alone knew what a premium account might bring.
I'll go have a look at Starling, then. T'only other question is: I already have a Nationwide FlexPlus account providing commission-free cash withdrawals overseas and a Halifax Clarity Mastercard allowing the same facility at the prevailing Mastercard exchange rate.
D'you think I'm unnecessarily duplicating the facilities of both Nationwide and Halifax by even bothering with another card -- I'm a retired senior and therefore only an occasional traveller nowadays, overseas holidays twice or three times a year.
Thanks again for your advice. It is appreciated.
PS: no response from Revolut. No sign of my post in its "Community" forum. Mr or Ms funny-funny-sex must still be asleep, then. Either that, or my unverifiable ("sorry, there seems to be a problem") email address is now entirely beyond Revolut's comprehension. :mad:0 -
Sincere thanks, EveryWhere.
I am now seriously concerned about Revolut's fitness for continuing approval by the UK financial regulator. As a result of this morning's epic, time-wasting and ultimately useless inter-action with Revolut, I have done a quick Internet search and found this within only the past 48 hours:
(1) Revolut Chief Financial officer resigns as company faces questions over money laundering (Daily Telegraph):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/02/28/revolut-cfo-resigns-company-faces-compliance-questions/
and this:
(2) Revolut insiders reveal the human cost of fintech unicorn's wild rise (Wired):
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-fintech-politics-storonsky/
Logging back into Revolut's "community" (and yes, it still knows my email address, hasn't had to go search somewhere so as to find it) I discover that there appears (though only "appears") to be a, uh, "Moderator" on duty whose ID is a jokey name ending in sex.
And that's what this outfit offers up to the FCA by way of customer service: an unknown "moderator" called something-something-sex who is there -- if and when he or she is actually there -- to approve urgent customer correspondence relating to management of a customer's private financial affairs?? Ye gods.
Final irony: buried in the small text of Revolut's app is a Q&A about closing the account. It says, even after an account is closed, it will hang onto a customer's personal data for 6 years because that's what the regulations expect of it. Funny that: it doesn't seem to have done too well in recognising the money laundering provisions elsewhere in those same regulations; Chief Financial Officers don't resign their (presumably) lucrative jobs without reason. Also:
To close an account, says that small-print Q&A, I must contact a Customer Agent (or Customer 'Adviser") because that's the only way the process can be accomplished. Does this therefore mean I'm expected to wait for funny-funny-sex 'moderator' to wake up after his/her early shift at wheever he/she is actually employed??
There really is far too much going on here for me to be comfortable with -- though no doubt some Revolut fanbois, somewhere, will come on this thread to say how wonderful it all is. Who knows, I might even hear from a member of Revolut's senior management who last time there was a ridiculous IT glitch sent me a letter of profound apology and by way of compensation for all the wasting of my time, offered to "upgrade" me to Revolut's Premium Account for one year. I declined: an ordinary account had problems enough; God alone knew what a premium account might bring.
I'll go have a look at Starling, then. T'only other question is: I already have a Nationwide FlexPlus account providing commission-free cash withdrawals overseas and a Halifax Clarity Mastercard allowing the same facility at the prevailing Mastercard exchange rate.
D'you think I'm unnecessarily duplicating the facilities of both Nationwide and Halifax by even bothering with another card -- I'm a retired senior and therefore only an occasional traveller nowadays, overseas holidays twice or three times a year.
Thanks again for your advice. It is appreciated.
PS: no response from Revolut. No sign of my post in its "Community" forum. Mr or Ms funny-funny-sex must still be asleep, then. Either that, or my unverifiable ("sorry, there seems to be a problem") email address is now entirely beyond Revolut's comprehension. :mad:
Starling is good for both withdrawals and purchases. So only you can decide whether having such a fallback might be useful to you.0 -
If you only need a card to convert and spend your pounds in other currencies, there are several good options, such as the mentioned Starling Bank, others in the MSE info articles. If you also want to send and receive funds in various currencies then try the TransferWise Borderless account, which also provides a card.Evolution, not revolution0
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Many thanks, EveryWhere and eDicky. I'll follow up the information you've both provided. As for Revolut, as I can find no immediate way of closing my account, I've withdrawn the bulk of it in cash from our nearest ATM and left Revolut with some small change. I've also, for the umpteenth time, gone through hoops to get my email address verified. This time, finally, it has been. However, when it comes to "terminating your Revolut account" I'm given a rigmarole text about how the company needs to keep my personal data and that I should talk to a Customer Advisor. Of course, there's no explanation or guidance or link as to how to do that. Presumably, a funny-funny-sex moderator will need to "approve"? As EveryWhere said: Revolut is a nonsense. And, on the basis of the Wired report and today's follow up in The Times, a repellent nonsense I be best keeping many a mile from. Thank you again.0
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If you only need a card to convert and spend your pounds in other currencies, there are several good options, such as the mentioned Starling Bank, others in the MSE info articles. If you also want to send and receive funds in various currencies then try the TransferWise Borderless account, which also provides a card.
Sorry to hijack a thread but do you know if I could sell some Swiss shares and use this borderless account as the receiving account , meaning I could save on conversion costs0 -
Starling Bank are amazing - OH and I both have one as we regularly go to Europe and I even use mine at home too. App works perfectly customer service is really great when I had an issue with the app not working on my new phone (it was the phone) when you spend money it immediately updates. I like it because it's separate from my current account and credit card so I can put my holiday money in it and know how I'm doing on spending because I'm on a tight budget. If you're just going on hols a couple of times a year and don't have a tight budget then you're probably set up fine as you are."I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better." Paul Theroux0
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TransferWise Borderless does not give personal CHF account details for receiving funds (not for me anyway), but I believe Revolut does, and Fineco UK may do... PoSorry to hijack a thread but do you know if I could sell some Swiss shares and use this borderless account as the receiving account , meaning I could save on conversion costsEvolution, not revolution0 -
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