Revolut - refund after scam

grumbler

born_again said:

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.  

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

In_need_of_help said:

@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'm not saying that transferring money out from the OP's Revolut  account makes any sense to me.

In_need_of_help

@born_again - Yes we did have accounts with Barclays and Revolut before the scam. 

Sadly all rational thought disappeared as the scammers were able to back up what they were saying as there was unsual transactions with NatWest (which took place before the call was received) which we did not authorise. 

eskbanker

In_need_of_help said:

Sadly all rational thought disappeared as the scammers were able to back up what they were saying as there was unsual transactions with NatWest (which took place before the call was received) which we did not authorise. 

If there were some NatWest transactions that you didn't authorise then they should refund these - have they done so yet?

robatwork

A horrible story and I have no useful advice.

I am idly wondering how a bank convinces itself that the claim itself isn't a scam. If I wanted to commit fraud I could just do the transactions above and then get a friend in another location/IP address/via VPN to transfer from Revolut to themselves. How does Revolut or the FOS know the events as reported actually happened? Do they sequester phone logs and take witness statements? Do they trace the money even abroad?

OP I'm not of course saying any of this is relevant in your case, but it got me wondering how you'd prove it was a scam.

badger09

I might have missed something but …the money was moved from a NatWest account held jointly between OP’s parents & OP to a Barclays account also held jointly as above. 

Do NatWest & Barclays offer joint accounts to more than 2 people? A cursory look suggests not. 

The money was then moved from Barclays to a Revolut account in OP’s sole name. Money was moved by OP?
Money was finally moved from OP’s Revolut account to scammers by OP.
Why?

If OP was told the NatWest account was compromised, why move the money on from Barclays & Revolut?

jimjames

badger09 said:

If OP was told the NatWest account was compromised, why move the money on from Barclays & Revolut?

I was wondering the same, it seemed like a convoluted way to get access to their money

In_need_of_help

We were told as the NatWest accounts were compromised, and the funds needs to be moved, therefore it was moved into Barclays and then we were informed Barclays had been compromised as the scammers had got access to those which led to the final transfer to Revolut. 

Yes, high street banks don’t do accounts with three names. There was a joint account with my mother and a separate joint account with my father. 

From speaking to the FOS, they assign an investigator and they have to be given evidence from the bank as well as us. I would imagine given how long the investigation takes, they may ask the call logs etc. From what I understand they also look at how each of the banks handled the situation and if they did everything they could to stop what happened from happening. 

After all this happen, I was sent articles about similar scams happening to other people and how Revolut did not refund them. I had also seen Revolut being called the “bank for scammers” as they are aware Revolut don’t take the same precautions as the high street banks. Looking at the FOS website, they have a large number of decisions about Revolut and victims of scams. 

Also speaking to a consumer watchdog, they have said they have recently had quite a few calls from people who have lost money to quite sophisticated scams like ours. Also from what has been told to me, the more times funds are moved, the harder they become to trace. 

400ixl

Revolut is not a Bank in the UK. The FCA so far has refused to grant them a license.

They have been under a number of investigations by the FCA over the years about their controls and working practices. Their whole ethics have been called into question.

Its hardly surprising that scammers use them as part of their scams.

Even for legitimate purposes, people have more problems with them than proper banks. Why anyone uses then at all for anything is beyond me. They offer nothing that can't be had elsewhere.

Good luck with your claim against them, hope you succeed.

eskbanker

In_need_of_help said:

From speaking to the FOS, they assign an investigator and they have to be given evidence from the bank as well as us. I would imagine given how long the investigation takes, they may ask the call logs etc. From what I understand they also look at how each of the banks handled the situation and if they did everything they could to stop what happened from happening. 

My understanding is that FOS will review a complaint that you've raised with one bank and will assess how that bank dealt with it, so if you complained to Revolut and have escalated that to FOS, they'll only look at how Revolut handled your complaint, rather than considering the role of other banks further upstream in the chain of transfers, but if the transfers prior to Revolut were simply to other accounts in your name(s) then it'll be hard to argue that NatWest or Barclays were at fault, especially with Confirmation of Payee validating these.

As per earlier post above, did you raise the issue of the unauthorised pre-scam transactions with NatWest and did they refund?

born_again

In_need_of_help said:

We were told as the NatWest accounts were compromised, and the funds needs to be moved, therefore it was moved into Barclays and then we were informed Barclays had been compromised as the scammers had got access to those which led to the final transfer to Revolut. 

Yes, high street banks don’t do accounts with three names. There was a joint account with my mother and a separate joint account with my father. 

From speaking to the FOS, they assign an investigator and they have to be given evidence from the bank as well as us. I would imagine given how long the investigation takes, they may ask the call logs etc. From what I understand they also look at how each of the banks handled the situation and if they did everything they could to stop what happened from happening. 

After all this happen, I was sent articles about similar scams happening to other people and how Revolut did not refund them. I had also seen Revolut being called the “bank for scammers” as they are aware Revolut don’t take the same precautions as the high street banks. Looking at the FOS website, they have a large number of decisions about Revolut and victims of scams. 

Also speaking to a consumer watchdog, they have said they have recently had quite a few calls from people who have lost money to quite sophisticated scams like ours. Also from what has been told to me, the more times funds are moved, the harder they become to trace. 

Have you had any confirmation from Nat West & Barclays, that it was them you spoke to?
I would lay money that they only spoke to fraudsters, who simply passed phone to someone else.

TBH, I think FOS will have little info from the banks other than the funds were transferred between accounts by the account holders.