TLW Legal Director Featured in The Guardian:
TLW Solicitors is Helping Nearly 100 Clients Bring Claims Against Revolut

Whilst on holiday in Italy, a Revolut client, referred to as LG, rejected a call from a withheld number. This was followed by a call from their accountant instructing them to accept the call as there had been some “suspicious attempts” to access their accounts.

Now believing the withheld number to be from the Revolut fraud squad, LG answered and spoke to an individual who had “full access” to their account details, past transactions, and verification codes. The caller told LG that someone was attempting to access their account and, as part of a security check, LG would be sent several verification codes, which they shared with the caller.

Within minutes, using the verification codes, which had allowed the fraudsters to set up new payees and make almost 40 transactions out of LG’s account, to the tune of £40,000.

LG complained to Revolut, querying how the scammer had gained access to their accounts without being given any login details and how they had bypassed the ‘selfie’ verification required to set up a new device. Revolut has not shared this information and apparently stopped trying to recover LG’s lost funds after ten days.

Revolut refuses to refund LG’s loss, placing responsibility for the scam on LG. When contacted by The Guardian, a Revolut spokesperson said:

“We are sorry to hear of LG’s case and any instance where our customers have been targeted by ruthless and sophisticated criminals. Each potential fraud case concerning a Revolut customer is carefully investigated and assessed independently of other cases.

“We take a data-driven approach to identify scam activity and use sophisticated fraud modelling for inbound and outbound transactions to protect customers from falling victim to fraud, including clear, unskippable warnings and direct interventions by our specialist fraud prevention teams. Revolut will never phone you without first confirming via our secure in-app chat.”

We recently wrote about other Revolut customers whose accounts were accessed after scammers bypassed the bank’s selfie verification.

From February 2023 to 2024, Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, has seen a rise of over 91% in complaints specifically relating to Revolut. In The Guardian article, Head of the TLW Solicitors scams and fraud team, Sarah Spruce, highlighted that the firm is dealing with 90 such claims on behalf of our clients, either with Revolut directly or by taking the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), the body responsible for resolving disputes between financial services firms and their clients. In The Guardian piece, this is the route suggested to LG to try and recoup their loss.

Many of the complaints seen by TLW Solicitors involve an element of Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud where the victim is coerced into willingly transferring money out of their bank account as part of a scam. Scammers use social engineering techniques such as manipulation and impersonation to gain victims’ trust, which is what happened to LG.

One such TLW client, Ms D, secured 100% of the money she lost to a Revolut APP scam with the help of the scams and fraud team, which successfully took her complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You can read her story here.

Sarah Spruce, TLW Solicitors Legal Director, who was featured in the Guardian piece, commented:

“LG’s story is, unfortunately, far from uncommon. As I told The Guardian, we are dealing with almost 100 active cases against Revolut for very similar cases that we are either disputing directly with the bank or have escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Dealing with banks or FOS directly can be extremely difficult and time-consuming for individuals who don’t deal with them on a day-to-day basis, which is why it is useful to have someone in your corner – like us – who can navigate these challenges on your behalf.

What this case also demonstrates, together with the sheer number of cases we are dealing with, is that fraud victims should never feel ashamed or embarrassed about being scammed – you are not alone and there is help available.”