Day 1
Imagine this scenario, you are sitting at your desk working and you notice an email pop-up to your personal email from your bank that says something like this:
Hi,
You sent (Insert entire balance in your account) to Barclays. You can find the details below:
To Barclays
Reference Transfer
Sort code 205997
Account number XXXX6095
On Tuesday, 29 March, 16:48
Expected arrival Today
Of course, you did not do any of that, so you quickly contact customer service for the bank to get them to stop the transfer. However, you bank with Revolut which doesn't allow you to contact customer service over the phone, the only way you can contact them is through the chat in the app on your phone. You go to the app to find out that you have been locked out of your account but can still message them. That conversation goes something like this.
Notice the timestamps. The transfer out is labeled for 4:48pm. 47 minutes after I message them through the app.
Me at 4:01 pm
my account might have been hacked.
Rita The Bot
Dear Customer, Please accept our apologies for that inconvenience. I can see your account has temporarily been restricted. I promise that we’ll do our best to get this fixed as soon as possible. This is just a security review whereby we simply need to check a few things about your account. It’s worth mentioning that we cannot provide you with a specific time frame when we’ll finalise the review, but rest assured that we’ll do our best to finish this as quickly as we can. Thank you for your understanding and patience.
Best regards,
Revolut Team
Me
Can I speak with someone from customer service.
Alex 4:02 pm
Hi, this is Alex, please provide me some time to check the details of your account and I will come to you with a reply.
Me
Ok
Alex 4:15
Please allow me some more moments as I am already checking your details. I will do my best to come back soon.
Alex has been checking my account for nearly 15 minutes. It is obvious what happened and in those 15 minutes, they could be putting a stop to the transfer, contacting the other back to put a hold on that account, doing any number of things to make sure that the person who hacked my account is unable to get the money.
Me 4:21
What's the delay? Looks like my account might have been hacked or something. I did not attempt to transfer any money to a Barkley's account.
Alex 4:21
I can see that your account is temporarily restricted due to the standard review process on your account. Unfortunately. The review of your account might take up to (12) business days. While the review is ongoing, all movement of funds would be temporarily restricted. We are fully aware of the situation and are doing our best in order to finish the review soon.
Me 4:22
What? Why is there a review. Obviously you can see what happened. It doesn't take 12 days to figure it out. Can you at least tell me was any money actually transferred? So my money is still in the account?
Me 4:28
Hello?
Alex 4:35
I am so sorry for the inconvenience caused. As a regulated financial institution, we sometimes need to perform reviews on accounts. We perform these reviews in order to make sure that you get better and secure services. I can see that there are no funds available in your account. I am sharing you the transaction history please Kindly check this transaction history for your better understanding.
Me 4:36
That's what I'm trying to tell you. I didn't make a transfer to Barkley's. That's the issue.
Me 4:38
Is there anyway I could speak to someone who can actually help me? That transfer needs to be stopped and reversed. I didn't do it. You guys block transactions all the time with me that I need to approve. How did you manage to transfer every cent out of my account without blocking that?
Alex 4:42
I am sorry, but we have only that information in the hand right now and that's the only information that we can provide you. We don't know about the transaction you are referring to. And that's the only channel where you talk to us.
We go back and forth for a bit with Alex asking me a series of unrelated questions such as, "Can you please confirm that these are the only funds that you currently have?" "Is this the only account you have?" "Do you have funds saved or available with any other bank or financial institution?" "Also, do you have any other financial liability with any other bank or financial institute?"
Me 4:56
How are any of those questions relevant? The issue is. Someone managed to transfer all the money in my account out? Your bank didn't stop that. So instead of continuing to ask irrelevant questions how about someone say, "sorry and we will get you your money back" And then start working on that. Clearly, there is some kind of security issue with Revolut and your irrelevant questions are not solving that.
Alex 5:04 pm
The transaction you are referring to is completed and we have no other information about it. The reason for asking all of these questions is to expedite your case.
Me 5:05
How does that expedite my case? I contacted you the instant I received that notification, and you have done nothing to stop or reverse the transaction. And it takes you a bizarrely long time to respond. I've been chatting with you for over an hour now.
Alex 5:27
To speed up the case we need to have some more important details of you so we can let our team know that your case should be on top priority, that's why we need some of above said information from you. And as mentioned above unfortunately, we don't have any further details related to that transaction.
Me 5:33
Are you an actual person or a bot? If you are a bot this conversation would make more sense. If you are a person, what is wrong with you? Are you new and need to check everything with the person next to you? You are not being helpful at all!
Alex 5:49
Definitely, I am a person, and after checking all the possibilities of your account and your scenario I have given you all the information which was supposed to be provided to you. I have already provided you with the estimated time frame. Further, I cannot tell you the exact time. The only thing I have to tell you is, we are actively working on your account to complete the review for you.
Me
Okay, I know your job is simply to follow the instructions provided to you on your computer screen. But try looking at this from my point of view, your customer. The money in my account was transferred out and I have no money. You haven't told me anything about getting my money back or when that will happen. So could you please provide me with some useful information beyond copying and pasting text into this chat.
Again we go back and forth for a while until 7:04 pm when I ask, "When will I hear back from someone? Will I get my money back and when?" I also try to get transferred to someone from their fraud department, assuming they have one, which at this point I don't think they do.
Alex 7:17
After the review is completed you will be informed by us. after that we will be informing you about the current status of your account.
Day 2
I messaged them through the app “is there an update on when my account will be unlocked, when I will get my money back, and how your company let this happen in the first place?
Deo, responded with the same cut-and-paste generic text as Alex, except for now it is down to 11 days for them to review.
I also try reaching out to Revolut on Twitter and Facebook.
My account was hacked today and someone managed to transfer all the money out of my account. I contacted Revolut support and they are useless. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to speak with someone helpful? Will they do anything to get my money back? I’ve been on a chat with them for over an hour now and all I get is a “we are sorry” and “it will take 12 days to review your account”
In my attempt to get access to my account, my money back, and an answer to the question of how someone could access my account and transfer all the money out. #RevolutCustomerServiceUseless
I received a response from both which unsurprisingly is simply that I need to contact their customer service through the app.
Day 3
Nothing
Day 4
Having still heard nothing from Revolut as it seems to take them forever to figure out something that took me less than a minute, I decided to blog about this little adventure with their pointless customer service. And post a link to this blog on Twitter and tag Revolut.
I also messaged them through the app.
Me
It is now day 4 and your bank has yet to figure out how someone accessed my account and responded with when my account will be unlocked and my money returned. This should not take so long and should have been resolved within minutes of me notifying you, as you could have contacted the other bank and stopped the transaction.
Deo
Thank you very much for coming back to us in chat. please allow me some time to check for updates and I'll be back with a reply.
I like how he thanks me for coming back in the chat as if I have another method of contacting them.
Deo
I truly understand that the process might seem tiring...Blah, blah, blah... As per our information it might take 09 business days for an update on the review of your account. I will keep this chat open if you have any additional questions.
Me
It will always be the same question for the next 9 days or until you guys resolve this issue. After that I start reaching out to whatever consumer rights organizations are available for complaints and unresolved issues.
Day 5 & 6
Saturday and Sunday, I have no expectation of hearing anything. This is a placed that claims to be a bank.
Day 7
Me
Day 7 and your active reviewing of my account has yet to identify how your bank let my account get hacked or when I will have access to my money.
Deo
Hi, this is Deo with you again. Sorry for the late reply.
Me
Any updates?
Deo
I'm sorry but this issue will take some time. Your account does not seem to have been hacked as you mentioned, but there are restrictions on your account as it is being reviewed.
I interpret this to mean they are in the process of reviewing my account and coming up with a plan as to how they are going to blame this on me. “After 12 days, we decided you did make the transfer. Thanks for using Revolt!”
Me
If it wasn't hacked, how did all the money get transferred out of it?
Deo
I'm sorry but we cannot provide any information regarding that transaction at the moment.
So more of the same, a whole lot of nothing.
I Also posted the same thing to twitter tagging the bank.
Day 8 & 9
Nothing.
Day 10
Me
Not that I'm expecting you guys to have done anything since Monday, but any updates on this?
Jem
Hi, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for waiting, I really appreciate your patience. Please allow me to familiarize myself with your concern by reading your previous conversation with my colleague.
I like how she implies that I am being patient and waiting because I have any other choice. I've already setup a bank account with another bank at this point and really just looking to get access to my money from Revolut so that I can transfer the money to that bank and close my Revolut account. And, I of course added a comment to Twitter while tagging them.
Jem
After
reviewing your account, we’re sorry to say that due to exceptional
circumstances we’re no longer able to offer you our services and we’ve made the
decision to permanently close your account.
After doing some research it turns out this happens a lot to Revolut customers. They close the account with no explanation. Next up, to find out what legal recourse I have.
Comments