Fraud complaints about Revolut increase by 146% in just two years

Fraud reports mentioning online financial company Revolut increased to almost 10,000 in 2023.

The number of fraud reports mentioning Revolut as scam reporting body Action Fraud increased by 36 per cent to 9,793 in 2023, a Freedom of Information request revealed.

A Money Mail and This is Money investigation last year revealed Revolut was being inundated with scams.

The number of fraud reports made to Action Fraud soared to 7,198 in 2022, up 81 per cent from 3,975 in 2021, data provided to us by Action Fraud showed.

At the time, that was the fourth-highest figure for any company offering current account services, behind only Barclays, Lloyds and Santander, in 2022.

New data shows that in 2023, with 9,793 fraud reports, Revolut received almost 2,000 more reports than Barclays, one of the UK’s largest banks, and twice as many as digital bank Monzo.

High street giants such as Barclays received 7,874 fraud reports, while Lloyds Bank received 7,395 and HSBC received 5,467 reports, according to the BBC’s FOI request.

Digital banks Monzo and Starling received 4,803 and 1,029 fraud reports respectively.

Data from the Financial Ombudsman Services shows that Revolut received 2,446 complaints out of 95,349 submitted to the FOS between July and December 2023.

Revolut received a provisional banking license from the Prudential Regulation Authority in July this year after a three-year wait.

It first applied for a license from the Bank of England in 2021, to allow it to expand in the UK.

Revolut had issues throughout the app, including failing to publish its accounts on time for two years in a row.

When Revolut’s 2021 accounts were finally published last March, they attracted intense scrutiny after auditor BDO said it could not independently verify three quarters of its £636m revenue.

With a banking license under its belt, Revolut could offer its customers new products, including mortgages, as it is set to do in Ireland, although there is no indication this is currently in play in the UK.

A Revolut spokesperson said: “We regret to learn of any cases where our customers have been targeted by ruthless and sophisticated criminals.”

“Revolut takes fraud and the industry-wide risk of customers being coerced by organized criminals incredibly seriously.”

Tonight, Revolut will be the subject of a BBC Panorama program titled: Britain’s newest bank: How safe is your money? which airs on BBC One at 8pm