Revolut - refund after scam

In_need_of_help

Sadly my parents and I were scammed out of quite a bit of money through an APP scam. Revolut have decided not to refund us. I’ve made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, however, they have a backlog and it could be months before they look at out case and there is no guarantee we’ll get our money back. 

Can anyone give me any advice on how I could expedite the process?  My parents are elderly and disabled and would really like to get their money back as soon as possible. 

Devongardener

Can you explain a bit more about what happened?  Maybe then you will get better advice regarding the chances of a successful appeal.

cymruchris

In_need_of_help said:

Sadly my parents and I were scammed out of quite a bit of money through an APP scam. Revolut have decided not to refund us. I’ve made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, however, they have a backlog and it could be months before they look at out case and there is no guarantee we’ll get our money back. 

Can anyone give me any advice on how I could expedite the process?  My parents are elderly and disabled and would really like to get their money back as soon as possible. 

I'm not aware of any option to jump the queue for specific reasons. Everyone that's going through the process has to follow the same procedure, and all will be in a similar position (and realistically quite a number will also be elderly or have particular support needs). If you want a little advice on the issue specifically though - you could provide a summary ensuring no personal details such as names and locations are disclosed. 

born_again

In_need_of_help said:

Sadly my parents and I were scammed out of quite a bit of money through an APP scam. Revolut have decided not to refund us. I’ve made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, however, they have a backlog and it could be months before they look at out case and there is no guarantee we’ll get our money back. 

Can anyone give me any advice on how I could expedite the process?  My parents are elderly and disabled and would really like to get their money back as soon as possible. 

Sorry for their issues. But there is no way to expedite the process. 

Part of the issue here is Revolut are not actually a bank, as in the sense we know banks as.
Look like they are not part of the voluntary scheme & not sure if the new regs coming in next year would cover them.

In_need_of_help

The scam started with receiving a call from someone claiming to be from the Natwest Fraud team who said the accounts we have with them had been compromised and the money need to be moved. The funds where move to Barclays and then onto Revolut where the payments were made from. 

I would really like to get my parents funds back as soon as possible.  

PRAISETHESUN

In_need_of_help said:

The scam started with receiving a call from someone claiming to be from the Natwest Fraud team who said the accounts we have with them had been compromised and the money need to be moved. The funds where move to Barclays and then onto Revolut where the payments were made from. 

I would really like to get my parents funds back as soon as possible.  

Just so I understand the chain of events:

Money in NatWest ---> sent to a Barclays account --> sent to Revolut --> sent to scammers?

Assuming the NatWest account is your parent's main account, do the Barclays and Revolut accounts all belong to your parents? Or were some/all of these set up by the scammers. Personally I'd be looking to complain to NatWest for releasing the funds in the first instance if that is the case

eskbanker

In_need_of_help said:

Revolut have decided not to refund us. I’ve made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service

On what grounds have Revolut rejected their claim, and on what basis are they contesting this with FOS, i.e. what do they believe obliges Revolut to reimburse APP scams (as a non-signatory of the voluntary code)?

In_need_of_help

@PRAISETHESUN - Yes you are right about the chains of events. 

The NatWest and Barclays accounts belong to my parents and I and the Revolut account was mine. 

I have complained to Natwest, however they have also rejected the complaint and said as the transfers were made to own accounts and therefore not a fraud/scam and they are not at fault, therefore no need to reimburse us the funds lost. 

In_need_of_help

@eskbanker - Revolut have rejected the complaint on the basis they have done what I told them to do by making the payments and they provided adequate warnings when the payments were being made, which they say I deliberately chose to ignore. They do not care about the fact during the whole process the scammer was on the phone telling us what to do and say (they were provided with call logs to show this).  Furthermore, the transactions and value of funds were abnormal as the Revolut account hadn’t been used in 10 months. 

I have also just been assigned a FOS case reference and not sure how long it will take for them to investigate. 

eskbanker

In_need_of_help said:

@eskbanker - Revolut have rejected the complaint on the basis they have done what I told them to do by making the payments and they provided adequate warnings when the payments were being made, which they say I deliberately chose to ignore. They do not care about the fact during the whole process the scammer was on the phone telling us what to do and say (they were provided with call logs to show this).  Furthermore, the transactions and value of funds were abnormal as the Revolut account hadn’t been used in 10 months. 

I have also just been assigned a FOS case reference and not sure how long it will take for them to investigate. 

While I imagine that Revolut would probably accept that your parents were being coached about what to say, and maybe even accept that the transactions were unusual, neither of those actually obliges them to refund the money.  As above, it would perhaps be a different story if Revolut had signed up to the voluntary APP scam code, but when they've chosen not to, they're not required to reimburse, so the case needs to be constructed carefully....

FOS currently say that it's typically two to three months before cases are allocated to handlers to start the process:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/expect/how-long-it-takes

born_again

In_need_of_help said:

The scam started with receiving a call from someone claiming to be from the Natwest Fraud team who said the accounts we have with them had been compromised and the money need to be moved. The funds where move to Barclays and then onto Revolut where the payments were made from. 

I would really like to get my parents funds back as soon as possible.  

Sadly, How many times do people have to be told by the banks. They never ask to move funds....

So did your parents have accounts with Barclays & Revolut before the supposed fraud call?