Revolut chat

A combination of lack of FSCS protection combined with the larger than usual number of stories of people getting their accounts locked or Frozen. I keep no more than £100 my revolut account at any one time, just in case that happens to me too.

It’s something you’ll probably need to ask Marcus though. I’ve been meaning to, but haven’t gotten round to it, as I’ve no plans to expand my use of Revolut just yet. For me, they function the same way Monzo did before Monzo became a bank, in that they supplemented my traditional bank account, so my bills and fixed costs are segregated from my spending.

Isn’t that the case with Monzo too?

I do know Revolut had a compliance nightmare at some point so I could also see them becoming too harsh

Perhaps, I’m not too familiar with cases related to Monzo. But those issues with Revolut are happening to respected members of fintech communities. When I see instances of similar issues with Monzo, they tend to come from newly created accounts with no posting history.

The Revolut phishing text message is a curious one as I had one but I’ve only just recently setup an account with them. However I do know people who don’t have a Revolut account get them too.

It could be coincidence but I’m fairly careful with my mobile no, so it would have to be a random mass text event or somewhere the number has been leaked.

On a separate note, I really like the interface but as they have no apparent savings protection, I’m nervous about using them with anything more than £50 to £100

1 Like

Direct debits, no, standing orders/scheduled payments, yes, BACS should work (you get a personal UK account)

Revolut uses open banking APIs only. Marcus doesn’t provide one, I believe (Yolt and Emma have stopped supporting Marcus as well)

No, thrice no. Revolut customer service is the bad lands. They’ll lock your account in a second and leave you without info for months. They don’t do what most people expect a bank to do as a minimum either - direct debits, overdraft, loans, etc.

I wonder how it compares with the Monzo approach, which has probably changed since this:

I think both parties have to have each other or at least be enabled for it to work with Monzo.

1 Like

Thank you for that, I’ve turned that setting off. It’s not great that they allow that to happen.

I believe they are referring to linking their revolut account to Marcus so that they can make withdrawals and deposits to their Marcus account from the revolut account, rather than viewing their Marcus account inside Revolut (though that would be nice).

If we’re comparing to Monzo, I completely disagree. Customer service is an aspect that matters a lot, so I test it a lot. I will avoid a company, or cease my relationship with one on the basis of bad customer service. Revolut are very responsive, and the front line agents seem to know enough to handle most queries satisfactorily. Monzo is simply incapable of that. Front line support act more like a concierge whereby everything needs escalating and can take a very long time to get an answer. Monzo’s approach to customer service was the deciding factor in my decision to going back to Barclays. I could have forgiven their other quirks if customer service was stellar.

This act alone does not constitute bad customer service. It’s how they deal with it after the fact that determines the quality of it. That can vary depending on the reason why, as in some situations they are simply not allowed to say or do anything to help you. That will be the same with Monzo.

They offer direct debits. Loans and overdrafts are not features that should be considered the minimum. Basic accounts from all banks that offer them offer no overdraft or credit facilities.

1 Like

You have to consent to using this feature before you can use it. If you don’t give Revolut permission it won’t affect you, so there is no privacy violation here in my opinion.

I don’t like the practice, and I hope they can fix it, but I suspect this is working as intended. It’s very similar to Twitter. You can look users up by email, if the user allows you to, then you can target those people with phishing emails. This can also be just as easily automated with simple scripts. Obviously your finances aren’t at risk if your twitter account gets phished though (unless you’re refusing passwords!).

I don’t recall turning the feature on as I don’t use it on Monzo or any other bank that has such a feature. I don’t normally like any apps having access to my contacts unless there is a very specific need.

You might not see it as a concern but the very fact that Revolut shows which numbers have accounts not just a picture or name means it’s easier to determine who has an account and harvest the details for an attack. It’s not random, it’s targeted.

Yes, but this has always been an issue for any service that allows you to find your contacts. It’s not a privacy issue per se, since you have to consent and the other person needs to know your number to see (just like look up by email with Twitter). iMessage rats you out in the same way, and attackers can use that method to target phishing scams towards Apple customers, it’s been known to happen. The same technique has also been used to target phishing texts and emails towards PayPal customers. It’s a standard industry-wide implementation.

Monzo does the same thing, although they don’t show the contacts mobile number in app, so it’s harder to know which user belongs to which mobile number using that script method. They are the only financial app I’m aware of it that obscures it in that way though.

There are methods Revolut can use, such as not showing the phone number in app, or using usernames instead for the services that require you to be identified by mobile number.

But this utility has always existed with service providers, and in turn this exploit has always existed with them. The usability trade off to prevent a rate case of targeted phishing isn’t usually worth it, and the method is actually more privacy friendly than alternatives. Revolut probably can and should do more to obscure the identifiable info so it’s harder for the bad guys identity which contacts are Revolut users, but that’s not going to put an end to phishing.

If it concerns you with Revolut, it should concern you with others who have an identical feature, and in some instances, you don’t even have a choice of opt in or opt out. It’s not a feature I’ve ever needed to use with any service, so I’ve never turned it on. The only exception is with iMessage, as that’s not a possibility.

To avoid any confusion, this is the setting you need to turn off (disallowing contacts access won’t turn it off):

I had already turned it off but it wasn’t something that I opted in to or not something I’m aware I opted into, as I explained previously.

I’m not saying others don’t do this but there must be something particular about the way that Revolut do this that’s easier to exploit.

Honestly, not really. Revolut’s implementation is pretty standard. But there are things some services do to make it harder to exploit, like in Monzo’s approach, as the Monzo app doesn’t show you which phone numbers link to which Monzo user.

Revolut have updated some T&Cs

The key changes are:

  • To give you more peace of mind, we’re adding more detail in our terms about how we “safeguard” your money.

  • You know that sinking feeling you get when you pay someone and moments later realise you put the wrong account details in? We’re addressing this by introducing an ability for our support teams to reverse some mistaken payments made into Revolut accounts.

  • As you probably know, if you exchange more than our free exchange limit in a month, you pay a fee. This limit is decreasing to £1,000 each month (which, our research shows, most of you won’t hit anyway). Above that limit, our fee will stay the same at just 0.5%, and we’ll let you know if an exchange will be subject to a fee. Our Premium and Metal plans still have unlimited exchange, as they always have.

  • You will continue to enjoy the same interbank exchange rates on weekdays. For exchanges at the weekend, we’re slightly increasing our mark-up for major currencies from 0.5% to 1%, to cover our risks when the market moves (as it has a bit recently). The mark-up for other currencies is staying the same – see the full list here. (Remember, you can avoid this fee completely by making an exchange on weekdays.)

  • Our most popular payment types, such as payments to Revolut users, domestic transfers and Euro transfers within the Single Euro Payments Area are remaining free. If you make any other transfer to an account outside of your country, your first payment each month is also remaining free , but after that there will be a fee of 50p per payment.

  • If you make a transfer to a country that is not in its national currency, there will be a fee of £3 for USD transfers (like US Dollars to Brazil) or £5 for non-USD transfers (like GB Pounds to Brazil.) We’ll always let you know beforehand if a transfer you are about to make will incur a fee.

These changes will take effect from August 12 2020

1 Like

Thanks for posting.

Ignoring Brexit - can anyone say if paying Euros from my (UK) Euro accounts to non-UK Euro account (non-revolut) will still be free or not?

Also introducing monthly limits in the middle of the month is begging for confusion… ‘each’ month implies per calendar month to me, rather than rolling-30 day windows?

A post was merged into an existing topic: Huel / Saturo / Soylent / etc

Did you mean to post this to the Huel thread :rofl:

4 Likes

It could be a seriously profound, but slightly obscure, metaphor for the experience of using Revolut.

2 Likes

Haha yes, my bad! :man_facepalming:

Anyway to get this moved?

Edit: thank you @AlanDoe! Not sure how I managed to post that in the wrong thread! :sweat_smile:

1 Like