It is easy to get scammed even if you are reasonably alert

I think a lot of blame has to lie with revolut. Think I have around €50 in there and that’s about as much as I’m comfortable holding - so many are now using it as a bank. I can’t remember ever receiving warnings from revolut that they do not phone people and this article again highlights how impossible it is to talk to a real person in revolut

Also, this statement from the article is worrying - surely unless a instant revolut to revolut transaction that takes time can be reversed?


The statement said that once a payment is authorised, “there is nothing we are legally able to do to cancel the transaction...
 
luckystar said:
I think a lot of blame has to lie with revolut. Think I have around €50 in there and that’s about as much as I’m comfortable holding - so many are now using it as a bank. I can’t remember ever receiving warnings from revolut that they do not phone people and this article again highlights how impossible it is to talk to a real person in revolut

Also, this statement from the article is worrying - surely unless a instant revolut to revolut transaction that takes time can be reversed?


The statement said that once a payment is authorised, “there is nothing we are legally able to do to cancel the transaction...
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I completely disagree. How does any of the blame lie with Revolut?
 
It’s yet another Conor Pope article with the customer going from A to G without him telling us what happened at stops C and D.

I know he doesn’t want people to appear stupid or to give scammers ideas. But honestly I read this article and I still don’t know exactly all of what the customer did wrong.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
I completely disagree. How does any of the blame lie with Revolut?
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They’re literally impossible to get a hold of, only a chatbot as an option, of all the scamming stories I have read lately are to do with revolut. Can’t be a coincidence? Also, plenty of messages looking for me to sign people up but can’t remember any warning me that they never phone people…
 
Actually searched the plethora of revolut emails and found this from last week

How to spot an online scam ️

But again no mention that revolut will never phone a customer flagging a bogey transaction
 
Got an email from them just now

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Knowing how to spot scams, is the way to beat a scammer​

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Hi Brendan,
Nowadays it can be difficult to distinguish a sophisticated scam from a real investment opportunity.
You may have seen adverts on social media and search engines promising high returns on investments, like: "Double your money in 24 hours" and "Get rich with crypto now!”
They might encourage you to invest in gold, property, crypto, and even wine, with the promise of fast, and potentially life-changing returns. These ads are usually accompanied by reviews from other investors, with testimonials about all the money they've made.
It can be hard to spot fake websites, adverts, reviews, emails, and text messages when they look and sound like legitimate investment. So here's our guide on how to spot a scam.​

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​

Signs of a potential investment scam​


Social media adverts offering suspiciously fast and high returns on investments with little to no risk, even if they look like they’re endorsed by a well-known celebrity, influencer, or government agency
Being contacted out of the blue via phone, email, or social media about a potential investment opportunity
  You're pressured to make a decision quickly about an investment with no time to consider your options
You're told to download screen sharing or remote access tools to ‘support you’ through the investment process. A legitimate financial institution would never ask you to do this​

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​

How to avoid an investment scam​


✅ Verify the investment company exists by checking the European Central Bank’s list of financial institutions and investment funds
Search the company name online and call an independently sourced telephone number. Look for any negative reviews or comments from other consumers concerning scams
Reject cold calls. If you’re called or messaged about an investment opportunity, the safest thing to do is hang up and ignore any automated voicemail messages
Be extra cautious. It's worth talking with a trusted family member or friend and showing them the investment opportunity, to help sense-check it's legitimacy. If you're unsure if the investment is suitable for your individual circumstances, seek professional advice from an authorised independent financial adviser before investing​

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If you think you may have been a victim of a scam, you can freeze your cards immediately and contact us via our secure in-app chat.
We hope some of these tips help you spot ads and scams that really are too good to be true. Stay safe out there!  
Thanks,
Team Revolut​
 
luckystar said:
They’re literally impossible to get a hold of, only a chatbot as an option, of all the scamming stories I have read lately are to do with revolut. Can’t be a coincidence? Also, plenty of messages looking for me to sign people up but can’t remember any warning me that they never phone people…
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The plethora of scamming stories are because everyone is using Revolut. In a scenario where scammers have contacted you for a payment and have your card details, they put through a scam transaction, and then they call you up to talk you through Revolut’s online authorisation system step by step, how is that in any way Revolut’s fault? It’s your fault!

“Let’s just authorise this payment here on the call. See you have to authorise it first so I can reverse it.”

€5,000 disappears.

“Yeah, we just need to do that again. One more time, just authorise another payment there. That’s what’s needed to get this all resolved.”

I mean, honestly, seriously…
 
Gordon Gekko said:
The plethora of scamming stories are because everyone is using Revolut. In a scenario where scammers have contacted you for a payment and have your card details, they put through a scam transaction, and then they call you up to talk you through Revolut’s online authorisation system step by step, how is that in any way Revolut’s fault? It’s your fault!

“Let’s just authorise this payment here on the call. See you have to authorise it first so I can reverse it.”

€5,000 disappears.

“Yeah, we just need to do that again. One more time, just authorise another payment there. That’s what’s needed to get this all resolved.”

I mean, honestly, seriously…
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Ok, I’m in total agreement about the multiple transfers. As the old saying goes - fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!

But I still think if you were to get a phone call from a Irish fella purporting to be from revolut then you’d probably consider this person legit.
But as another poster pointed out - we’re missing C & D. There must have been a iban or phone number given to actually transfer the €5k in the first place…

I do wonder though how many people are using revolut day to day… I see a lot of in person card transactions but I reckon only 5-10% if that are revolut
 
luckystar said:
Ok, I’m in total agreement about the multiple transfers. As the old saying goes - fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me!

But I still think if you were to get a phone call from a Irish fella purporting to be from revolut then you’d probably consider this person legit.
But as another poster pointed out - we’re missing C & D. There must have been a iban or phone number given to actually transfer the €5k in the first place…

I do wonder though how many people are using revolut day to day… I see a lot of in person card transactions but I reckon only 5-10% if that are revolut
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They get the card details from the person themselves for the fake eFlow or Electric Ireland payment.
 
Fraud prevention by Revolut or any other provider is extremely hard. Too loose and people get scammed, too tight and you block people from making legitimate transactions. I used Uber Eats recently when on holiday using Revolut via Apple Pay and Revolut instantly blocked the payment as this is obviously a common fraud technique. With Revolut you can authorise pretty much instantly and move on at least.

I think these kinds of scams are more likely with Revolut as every second adult in Ireland has a Revolut account and people are just more likely to be younger and vulnerable to this type of scam. My grandmother isn't going to fall prey as she doesn't have a mobile phone and for payments she has no more than an ATM card and cheque book.

I digress a little but EU legislation called PSD2 came into force a few years ago which put obligations on industry called "strong customer authentication" that makes it very hard to do an old-fashioned hack using someone's online banking details. Fraudsters have adapted and scams are now much more sophisticated and basically trick people into providing all their details and then actually willingly sending the fraudster the money. It's called authorised push payment fraud because it's authorised by the consumer. They are not waking up in the morning to find their account drained of funds, they are actively doing it themselves. It's impossible to design a system that can be safely used by everyone, no matter how naive and gullible.

And I've gone on a bit too long but this part of Conor Pope's article really took the biscuit:

Last week The Irish Times contacted the Central Bank, the Department of Finance, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI) and the banks to find out what they were doing about the curse of fraud and whether or not they might embrace – or enforce – a mandatory reimbursement scheme.
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Suppose there was a spate of burglaries in Conor's neighbourhood and he writes an article on it. Imagine he looked for comment from lockmakers, window-fitters, and alarm manufacturers but didn't look for comment from the police force: An Garda Siochána.

Seriously folks, financial crime is, well, crime, and it has to be tackled in many ways but chief among them should be law enforcement! I have some professional familiarity with this stuff and from what I can tell AGS and indeed other agencies (Europol, Interpol) are light years behind industry and supervisors on this stuff. All financial crime leaves digital traces which can be tracked and used for prosecution. It's very labour-intensive, needs a lot of IT skills and co-ordination with abroad due to the transnational nature of fraud these days. But from what I can tell this is just not a priority in Phoenix Park HQ.
 
It's a very difficult problem to solve, but two things stand out to me -

1. It's crazy that somebody can phone you up or text you and commit a crime from an Irish/EU phone number and be effectively untraceable by law enforcement in this day and age. Some EU legislation to give at least the EU-based telephony carriers a kick to solve this would go a long way to stopping these scams from happening. At least this way ""Bank of Ireland"" calling you from a Hong Kong number would have you immediately on guard, or if a scammer used a Dutch number you could report it to AGS and they could have the caller traced in Netherlands and arrested there. If somebody in Netherlands was allowing international calls to be routed through one of their numbers they should be on the hook for the loss and a fine. There is no technical limitation here that cannot be easily solved.

2. The banks should agree on a protocol for how they will all interact with customers. KBC used to call me to discuss mortgage applications, fraudulent transactions etc but would not talk to me until I had verified my identity by giving them sensitive information and there was no system in-place so I could verify their identity. When I asked if I could call their main number, so I knew I was talking to KBC, I could but they couldn't tell me what they were calling about or give a reference number so I'd struggle to get back through to somebody. They were training people to hand over sensitive information to anybody with an Irish accent claiming to be from a bank.
 
Both of these people received a text message and they clicked a malicious link. The first thing you are supposed to do is NOT follow the link. Second thing they are supposed to do is delete the text message.

Login to eFlow or Electric Ireland at their website, not some malicious website you got in a text message.
 
Páid said:
Both of these people received a text message and they clicked a malicious link. The first thing you are supposed to do is NOT follow the link. Second thing they are supposed to do is delete the text message.

Login to eFlow or Electric Ireland at their website, not some malicious website you got in a text message.
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I think if you polled people on the street you would hear those phishing-defence strategies less than 10% of the time and I don't see a way to get that number up in a meaningful way, other than maybe an RSA-style TV blitz, which is not practical for something relatively trivial in day-to-day life.

Looking back through my recent text messages, I have some from Windsor Motors, DPD, SpecSavers, Airbnb, ScrewFix, AnPost and SSE that all include links I'm supposed to click. I don't think it's a surprise that people click links in text messages from banks when in some cases you absolutely should not click the link and in some cases you need to to login etc.
 
Zenith63 said:
1. It's crazy that somebody can phone you up or text you and commit a crime from an Irish/EU phone number and be effectively untraceable by law enforcement in this day and age.
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They are completely traceable by law enforcement. All of the fraudulent transactions end up somewhere too.

There is simply a lack of capacity and/or willingness to track this down.
 
NoRegretsCoyote said:
They are completely traceable by law enforcement. All of the fraudulent transactions end up somewhere too.

There is simply a lack of capacity and/or willingness to track this down.
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I'm not in that industry so correct me if I'm wrong, but surely this is not correct. We're saying that the Irish police know or could easily know the address of the scam caller in Brendan's article but simply choose not to bother going after it?
 
Zenith63 said:
We're saying that the Irish police know or could easily know the address of the scam caller in Brendan's article but simply choose not to bother going after it?
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Very little is beyond the capacity of law enforcement once the resources and willingness are there. To learn more of this please watch all five series of the greatest TV show ever made.

I think online scammers know the odds of prosecution are extremely low and play the percentages.
 
I have heard that often it's a 'mule' getting the money who then changes it into cash. The digital trail only goes as far as the mule. And I can imagine that the mule is often a victim of some type as opposed to the mastermind.
 
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