An Irish woman who was scammed out of a whopping €10,000 has warned people to stay vigilant.
Alice Coyle spoke of a "clever" Revolut scam where fraudsters stole a huge sum of money within minutes through the Revolut app. It all started when Alice received a text purporting to be from Electric Ireland saying her last payment hadn't gone through.
She told Galway Beo: "At 14:26 on Tuesday 25th May 2023 I got a text (SMS) from +353892159661 Electric Ireland: Your last payment didn't go through. To avoid disconnection visit https://electricireland-payonline(dot)com to update your account. I knew I needed to do it at some stage as I'd just received the Electric Ireland bill the day before, it was literally sitting there on my desk open.
"I'd a vague memory of having received a new Revolut card which I hadn’t yet activated, plus Revolut had changed their IBAN’s recently and had told customers to check that their payees and any direct debits were up to date. The bill is for an apartment I manage which has guests in it and I didn’t want the electricity to be disconnected. So I clicked the link. (I know.)”
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On clicking the link, the Galway woman was brought to an "Electric Ireland" website which asked her for a number of her personal details including address and debit/credit card details. Alice being on "autopilot" filled the form and was then transferred to a Revolut page.
She said: "So I was nearly all done when I was transferred to the Revolut page to authorise the details, 'Please Enter your passcode', I wonder briefly why I am being asked by Electric Ireland, outside of the Revolut app, on a separate web page, to fill in my Revolut passcode...
"I check the web address, it’s partially obscured but I can see ‘Revolut.com’ in the URL box, so I think 'Oh it must be fine' and I enter my 4 digit passcode.
"I don't remember what happened next, it must have just said it's completed and I went back to work.” However, Alice received a call from a private number a few minutes later.
On answering the call, the person on the other end introduces himself as "Andrew from Revolut". Andrew told her someone had attempted to withdraw €5000 from her account and warned her that she had been scammed.
He said he could get her money back and all she needed to do was to approve three payments of €5,000. Alice said: “It starts to dawn on me I'd been scammed. I'd done the most stupid thing and clicked on the bloody link. I slowly started to panic. NEVER CLICK THE LINK. I felt so stupid.
“Andrew re-assures me that they can get the money back. I was now in a total panic, but also so relieved Revolut were on the ball enough to catch it so quick. He says if we act fast we can reverse the payments. He says that I should receive an in-app message any minute now asking to approve the payment. I do. It says 'Binance' are looking to withdraw €5000. He says I need to authorise it in order to reverse it. I click the big blue Authorise button. He says 'great'.
Alice is then asked to authorise a second payment, but she starts to doubt what “is real” and what is not. She said: “I did start to wonder though, how do I even know he is real?! It's a private number... but that makes sense, they're a bank. Andrew has a very normal Irish accent. That shouldn’t matter, but honestly it reassured me.
So when it is time to approve the third withdrawal, she asks Andrew for proof.
She explained: “I click 'Authorise' and the Balance goes down another 5000 euros before my eyes and I say to myself, what the fxck is going on...who is real...who is fake... and how do I tell the difference? How do I know this guy is real?? I feel bad asking him because he is Revolut and he is here to save the day. I say "Andrew I'm really sorry but I’m afraid I’m not happy to authorise the next one until I can confirm that this call is authentic.”
Andrew seemed genuinely understanding as he gave her an email to contact and ended the call. There, Alice realised she has lost €10,000. She said: “I had just lost €10,000. It's not even my money to lose. Either way, it's gone.
The Galway woman was then extremely upset when Revolut told her that as she approved the payments there was nothing they could do.
She concluded: “Of course, I take responsibility for my distracted mistake, but if they want us to bank remotely, while telling us not to trust calls, emails, links and now even human beings, then this is their problem too.”
A Revolut spokesperson told Galway Beo: "We are very sorry to hear about any instance where our customers are targeted by ruthless and highly sophisticated criminals who persuade them to authorise payments. We take our responsibility to protect and support our customers extremely seriously and we are fully aware of the industry-wide risk of customers being coerced by organised criminals.
"Revolut is deeply concerned that large numbers of frauds are being enabled by criminals using fake social media adverts, fake texts and, fake and spoofed phone calls. It is vital that criminals are stopped at the source, from using convincing-looking phone calls, texts and social media advertisements, otherwise they will only step up their efforts to trick people into handing over their money.
They continued: "Revolut has been engaging extensively with the government and industry over recent months in an effort to ensure that telecoms and tech firms take responsibility for these fake calls, texts and websites which enable frauds like this one.
"We make clear to Revolut customers that they should always engage with us in the Revolut app - not by phone - precisely so that they can be certain they are dealing with a Revolut staff member, and not a criminal claiming to be from Revolut, as happened here. Revolut will never call you about your personal account without first initiating the contact via the in-app chat.
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