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I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

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Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't the entire system. It was some of the rules. They were rules which weren't very accurate, were leading to lots of unhappy real customers, and not catching many fraudsters. For example, the rules stopped large numbers of women who had bank accounts or their passports in maiden names from transferring money to themselves. Revolut would see an incoming payment from supposedly the same person, but with a differ…

> Smart money launderers know to use business accounts where the name of the account holder isn't checked by any bank. I don't quite follow - can you elaborate and explain the scenario?

In Germany at least, when you order a transaction you have to specify recipient account holder name and IBAN. Recipient bank checks if the name on the IBAN matches with the one in their records (after normalization to reduce error rates e.g. from umlauts) and if there's an obvious mismatch reject the transaction.

Business accounts however are not checked as tightly as people often enough either outright mis-spell the company name, use outdated company names, specify departments in the name and not the comment field, ...

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't the entire system. It was some of the rules. They were rules which weren't very accurate, were leading to lots of unhappy real customers, and not catching many fraudsters. For example, the rules stopped large numbers of women who had bank accounts or their passports in maiden names from transferring money to themselves. Revolut would see an incoming payment from supposedly the same person, but with a differ…

> Smart money launderers know to use business accounts where the name of the account holder isn't checked by any bank. I don't quite follow - can you elaborate and explain the scenario?

If a human moves money from "Bob smith" at bank1 to "bob smith" at bank2, they can avoid many of the money laundering checks, because money laundering laws only apply when money is changing ownership.

If a business does the same, and claims they're moving their own money about, the name checks aren't applied, so they can work around many of the checks.

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#314

"How hard must being a bank be, it's just a few numbers in a database." After all those new-ish, app-based banks are for people with too much time on their hands. You mostly can't talk to anyone, and when they answer it's just a copy-paste from their FAQ. They also lack features, e.g. Kontist doesn't support international bank transfers. Support will tell you "well it could work, but we can't give you any assistance"…

For what it's worth, Monzo seems to be the only 'challenger bank' that's getting this right. They have the 24/7 in-app chat support that's super helpful, but then also a phone number you can call if you're into that. My every interaction with them as a customer has been fantastic.

I was impressed at first with the chat support but each time they've been unable to solve my problem and promised to get back to me, but never did. So, while you don't have to hold for 20 mins on the phone and get passed around like a normal bank, it takes literally days to sort something out. But they're great otherwise!

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#315

From the way in which the CEO of this company treats he's own employees you can imagine how he will treat he's clients. This company is just toxic, there are other better options that solves the same problem, N26, Monzo etc check them out

No sources, no links, nice comment. Aren't you working for a competitor?

I thought it was not necessary since this story gets HN homepage not so long ago.

The initial tweet: https://twitter.com/phillipcaudell/status/110108122935141580...

The HN discussione about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19280131

Note: I don't work for a competitors, but i hate this kind of toxic company cultures since i've been working in similar environments in the past, and this for me is already a strong "ethical" motivator to not use such product.

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? "Amateur F1 driver" didn't? I'll have to add "Mars coloniser" then.

That could be true. You could probably pay to drive an older F1 car around a track.

That actually sounds like a lot of fun.

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#317
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a lot more secure. Magstripe fraud is rampant, an accepted fact of life. Breaches of chip cards are extremely rare and not a fact of life. Or can you back up this insinuation that smartcard chips that digitally sign transactions are no more secure than magstripes anyone can duplicate?

You can duplicate chip & pin EMV cards too. They are prone to fraud just like mag stripe cards. https://www.consumerismcommentary.com/chip-credit-cards-frau...

I wonder if full "phone only" cards (like the Apple Card but no physical card at all) will become available as an opt-in service at banks at one point, it seems plausible in maybe 10-20 years as Apple/Google pay become more widespread.

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France any transaction involving you PIN code is really hard to contest (so if you get your card copied by a skimmer it's tough). Same with online transactions using 3-D secure (2-factor, usually involving a confirmation code sent by SMS). For other online transactions however, you just have to ask your bank and they're chargeback the merchant.

This sounds like the same fallacy the UK had with chip transactions. The magical fallacy that they're infallible and totally secure, thus all fraudulent transactions are automatically your fault.

In the UK, the law is 100% on your side for credit cards. Just raise a consumer credit act claim, and unless the bank can show serious failings on your part, you'll have the money back.

"proving" that there hasn't been a security breach somewhere in their infrastructure is impossible, so you'll pretty much always win.

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would like to hear more on the reasoning behind how all that is negative? There is outsized demand for money laundering from Russia, in large part owing to its endemic and unchecked corruption. This is why most recent European money laundering scandals have involved Russian money [1][2][3]. So when you see an AML deficient operation with multiple Russian ties based out of Lithuania, it raises legitimate questions…

We have unchecked corruption from the 2nd most powerful politician in the country, no one cares https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/politics/elaine-chao-c...

> We have unchecked corruption from the 2nd most powerful politician in the country

Chao is being investigated by the House [1]. Worst case, we’re talking single-digit millions of suspected malfeasance versus billions in Russia of cut-and-dry graft.

And most importantly, a wrong here doesn’t excuse a wrong there.

[1] https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/24/house-chao-rules-t...

Re: I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief

#320
post #68
post #7

Revolut's CFO recently 'resigned' from the company in light of claims that Revolut switched off an anti-money laundering system that flags suspect transactions. Revolut cited 'personal and health reasons' for the CFO's resignation. Whatever those personal and health reasons really were, they clearly passed quite quickly as within the space of a few weeks, said CFO has joined another FinTech company as their new CFO.…

> The company quite literally has the words "get sh*t done" in giant neon letters on their office wall. That has become one of my red flag. I want to deal with people and companies focused on the quality of their products and businesses, not on doing "shit" (taking their motto literally).

"Move fast and break things" is my red flag. I kind of get it for early start-ups in, say, the social media space where the phrase was coined. But when I hear it remotely connected to health care, or critical data, I cringe. I even cringe when I hear it applied to Facebook now, now that it's de-facto a communications platform and whether we like it or not it is depended on by people for important communications and things they are led to believe are private.

Don't move fast and break things. Move productively and build things.

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