Conor Pope just does not like Revolut

Brendan Burgess

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Scammers drain woman’s Revolut account and fintech comes looking for more

Pricewatch: A scammer claiming to be from the e-money app emptied a reader’s account, leaving it in the red, resulting in debt-collection threats from Revolut
www.irishtimes.com

“I got a phone call from someone claiming to be from Revolut asking had I bought something from Amazon for €79.99,” her mail starts.

“I said ‘no’ so they said ‘Let me refund you that money’ and asked me to log in to Revolut. I was then guided by them through different pages and they got me to delete cards and add cards to my account. I honestly thought they were from Revolut so did everything that was asked of me, including entering passwords.”

She says that “by that stage I had passed the two-factor authentication and they had access to my account. I had saved €10 each week into three vaults. It was week 40 and I had €400 in each vault. I did ask how could I be sure who they were and he gave me his employee ID number, name, and told me that he had a wife and two kids. I begged him not to rob me and right in front of my eyes I saw my vaults emptying, leaving me with a zero balance in all three.”

So that is a new way to know you are not being scammed - if the caller tells you that he has a wife and two kids.

I am sorry for this woman, but I am sorry for people who behave stupidly in general.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
“I got a phone call from someone claiming to be from Revolut asking had I bought something from Amazon for €79.99,”
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These calls have been doing the rounds. I've received 10-15 of them over the past year. It presents as an Irish mobile, and is an automated message claiming to be from Revolut, saying that there is a €79.99 debit from Amazon. Not too hard to spot as being fradulent.

Revolut isn't at fault here, although one wonders how the negative balance on the victim's Revolut account will end up getting resolved.
 
These fraudsters try these scams because they get a result regardless of the percentages.

With regret, a lot of people are either not aware or lack financial literacy. Some of you should direct your efforts at this

As regards Revolut one of the ongoing issues is lack of availability of anybody at any time to reach out to. CBI forced BoI and PTSB to staff up their helplines but of course Revolut is passported from elsewhere in the EU and ...

Some of you could write an opinion piece on this as there is a limited audience here and highlight the shortcomings in Mr Pope's reporting.

Mr Pope is doing this it is because we have a poor consumer lobby on these issues - Brendan is great on issues that he is fully briefed on but doesn't have empathy for example on mortgage arrears where he feels they should all have lost their houses and people who give away credentials by trickery - just wait till some elderly relative loses money and what it causes.
 
Hi Dr.

No need to take this thread off topic. You can see my views throughout Askaboutmoney. Askaboutmoney was one of the first forums to help people in arrears. I have written many guides on the topics. I have contributed to the writing of and reviews of the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears. I have successfully campaigned to bring down mortgage rates and to get trackers restored to many people which got them out of arrears. I have made repeated proposals to introduce a Mortgage Interest Supplement for those who are struggling with their mortgages.

But if you want to start a new thread with your hilarious take on it, go right ahead.

Brendan
 

Unlike Mr. Pope, Mr. Burgess appears to abide by the caveat emptor maxim.

My mammy taught me to to do likewise when I was a mere tiddler in short pantaloons
 
I knew before I even clicked on the article that it would be a cut and paste job. Of two emails in this case.

I know it's hard filling a page every week, but journalism really doesn't get any lazier.
 
I must be suffering from a massive misapprehension. I could have sworn that Mr Burgess thought that the place was full of strategic defaulters and wont pay people and that they should all be rounded up and their houses taken from them. and the process of repossessing was on the never never.

I apologise for this outrageous libel and will immediately self-flagellate.

I did alert Mr Pope before to the fact that many here thought that his articles were somewhat less than complete but he chose not to respond.
 
The more stories like this the better. It brings the scams to people's attention whether its revolut or another institution.

That people call into question the stupidity of the actions is also good as it will warn people that they could be ridiculed for falling for such an obvious scam.

But ideally there should be monthly texts saying that "revolut/aib/boi/bunq etc will never call you requesting access to your account in any way whatsoever - any access you provide to a caller in such circumstances is likely to be fraudulent and we will not be responsible for any loss of funds in such a case"

Identical text sent by every institution so that the message is understood.
 
Agreed, these Pricewatch features are becoming more like ‘show and tells’ for gullible fools, but I suppose they have merit in that they raise awareness.
 
peemac said:
That people call into question the stupidity of the actions is also good as it will warn people that they could be ridiculed for falling for such an obvious scam.
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It's completely unfair to simply call people who are scammed "stupid". It's aways obvious after the fact.

Blaming the victim doesn't prevent the crime.

Whilst the article isn't all that brilliant - if nothing else it at least acts as a warning in relation to this criminal activity.
 
I read the article too and while I found the lady being scammed gullible my main takeaway was the bit at the end

After she contacted AIB it put a block on those top-ups and instigated a chargeback process which saw the money taken from Clodagh’s Revolut account and returned to her AIB account. The company said it has “contacted the customer to account for the negative Revolut balance”.

AIB instigated the chargeback quickly enough but Revolut sent the money to the scammers, and now expects the victim to pay. It is the incessant emails from Revolut to pay them this €1200 that she was complaining about. All Revolut is going to do is contact her again. I think the best Conor Pope hopes is that Revolut will clear the debt as a sign of goodwill which looks great in the newspaper.

What I find about Conor Popes articles is that the final outcome is never there, just the consumer and the customer still at odds. I would have liked to see Conor talk about these pop-ups and warnings they have for the customer and why the customer choose to ignore them. I think I read some where that AIB or BOI phone the customer in these instances (Do you mean to give Victor in Belarus €30000 when this is your life savings and you have never given him a cent up to now?) so why not suggest that to Revolut.
 
The solution to scam texts probably shouldn’t involve more texts!

I get a text once a month from my credit card provider telling me about my bill that’s set up to pay by direct debit. I’m an active user of the app (get notified by default of every transaction) and I don’t know why a text message is needed when an app alert would suffice.
 
DannyBoyD said:
It's completely unfair to simply call people who are scammed "stupid". It's aways obvious after the fact.
Click to expand...
Some scams are quite clever but this one wasn't. If the article is correct that woman was patently stupid, but that doesn't mean I don't feel sorry for her. Maybe there should be a basic IQ test before people are allowed to open a Revolut account.
 

Did she also give these guys access to her AIB account. It sounds like it going from this.
 
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