One day, around a month after my initial contact with Revolut, I see a pop-up on my phone from the app that my payment for my mobile phone service has been completed. Two thought go through my head. One was that I forgot to change my auto-billing for my mobile service to my regular bank. The second was, how could this happen because I had been told by multiple people at Revolut that, “Revolut was no longer able to provide you with its services” and that my money would not be returned to me. So, how was the payment made if my account was closed and the money in my account transferred to another bank?
I logged into my account to find that the money was there. All of it, in fact. I hadn’t received a message from customer service on the app. Even though I had been told by multiple customer service agents that “as soon as I get any news on this, we’ll get back to you.”
So what happened? They never fully explained, but I received a final response, to one of my many emails, from a different person on the complaints team. Not the same person who told me “we determined Revolut is not at fault and is acting according to the regulatory requirements.”
This next person sent a very long and detailed email actually acknowledging they were at fault. Apparently, they have one person in that company who is useful.
You were repeatedly told that a relevant team was working on your account, but no specific updates were provided to you.
Unfortunately, the funds in your account were moved to Barclays by mistake. As a result, all the money was credited back to your Revolut Ltd account… We also reverted our decision to close your account at the same time.
There is a limited amount of information that can be disclosed to you about what has occurred here. Reviews that we conduct on our customers’ accounts are confidential and the full logic and specific details regarding them cannot be fully explained to the customers due to our regulatory obligations. However, I can confirm that no funds should have been moved in your account by us and this happened due to a human error on our side… I understand that there were mistakes made on our side on this occasion and funds were moved out of your account in error. In addition to this, this has taken a long time to resolve and you have not received clear and consistent updates about the state of your account in the chat when the review was ongoing.
So what happened? My guess is that someone in the company manually transferred the funds out of the account in error. Possibly they were working on the wrong account, and should have been working on someone else. It’s also possible it was done by someone internally acting fraudulently. Which is, of course, why they hide behind statements like, “There is a limited amount of information that can be disclosed to you about what has occurred here. Reviews that we conduct on our customers’ accounts are confidential and the full logic and specific details regarding them cannot be fully explained"
What lessons were learned that I can now share with you?
UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service, which is a regulatory agency, is useless. I filed a complaint with them and never hard back.
If you are in the right, you need to escalate, escalate, and keep escalating to get something resolved. This is unfortunate. I emailed the co-founders of the company, the director of complaints, chairman of the board, head of customer affairs, public affairs, multiple people in the complaints department, and constantly messaged customer service agents through the app.
Publicly shaming, the company seemed to have the most impact. I had to write on various social media platforms, calling out Revolt. When I started pointing out the number of people who were responding to my posts on LinkedIn and Reddit, I finally got them to do something.
Revolut has terrible customer service and hides behind its terms and conditions. More concerned about covering themselves from liability than helping customers. For example:
Filipa in the complaints department writing, and referencing the T&Cs “in the section 27, we mention the following: We will not be responsible for losses resulting from us failing to meet our obligations for payments into and out of your account because: of a legal or regulatory requirement; or unforeseeable events outside our control, which were unavoidable at the time.”
Multiple customer service agents copying and pasting the exact same text, “at the moment, we cannot provide any information regarding this transaction.”
Social media and customer service agents saying, it is being handled by the relevant team. or being looked at by the relevant team.
This issue possibly cost them more money than what was in my account. I transferred my funds out of the account as soon as they were returned and won’t be using them anymore. So, that’s no money from me. I know of two friends of mine who closed their accounts with Revolut as well. From the responses on social media, it could be more. And of course, the amount of money they must have spent in labor hours of people in the company replying to me. All costs that could have been avoided if they simply resolved the issue right away instead of wasting time trying to say it wasn’t their issue and hoping I would just go away.
I didn’t go away, and that is the lesson. Don’t give up and keep badgering to get the issue resolved. Another lesson learned here is to use a real bank. In the UK Revolut is not actually a bank. That is why they kept referring to themselves as a financial institution. They have applied to be one, but it has not been approved yet. However, even when they get approved, I would not recommend using them, as there are advantages to having a real live person to speak to occasionally. If looking for a financial institution, find one that values customer service over profit and self-preservation.
My previous posts on this issue:
- My Fight With Revolut Continues
- My Revolut Bank Account Was Hacked And All The Money Transferred Out
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