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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

Revolut is predatory and walking on the line of legality. I would stay as far away as I can from them.

  - Unfair/illegal employment practices. [1]
  - Dubios crypto service (you can buy and sell but there is no way to transfer in or out) [2]
  - Keeping a firewall between customers and company by only allowing communication via app chatbot [3]
  - Accusations of money laundry. [4]
  - Many people have had their accounts frozen or even money stolen. [5]

[1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...

[2] First hand experience

[3] First hand experience trying to deal with customer support

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47751945

[5] https://old.reddit.com/r/Revolut/, https://www.20min.ch/finance/news/story/Betrueger-stehlen-Re...

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>> Revolut is predatory and walking on the line of legality.

Like most of the banks, right? [0]

I find their chat communication quite great. After all you can't send documents over a phone call.

>> Many people have had their accounts frozen or even money stolen.

Is there a bank that doesn't do that? If you want to own your money use cash or digital/crypto

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-usa/hsbc-draws-line-...

>>Like most of the banks, right?

Yes and no. "Predatory" can mean different things.

Most banks are super-cautious, day-to-day. They can be predatory in certain way, taking advantage of customers with things like outrageous overdraft fees, exchange rates and such. They can be feckless, accumulating long-tail, systemic risk with Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose games.^

The old banks are bad in lots of ways, but actually very safe in terms of big individual risk.

Revolut is feckless and/or predatory in a more startup-ey way. They'll "bet the house" on growth. They're also prone to the start-upy customer service "minimalism" math. Customer service is hard, expensive, and generally follows the pareto principle (80/20). IE, most customers don't need much support. Say 8% do. Those 8% are not profitable, and Revolut is willing to (even prefers to) lose them as customers. So, if something goes wrong... you could be in shit.

They also just plain takes risks, like. Last years, their CFO walked out suddenly in response to risk.

All this is not unlike Google and many other companies. I have had downright awful experiences with paypal. For a bank though, this is scary.

I use Revolut. The service is convenient for me, but I won't keep much money in it or be dependant on them for anything critical.

^ HIWTYL - Pronounced Hightail

>> They're also prone to the start-upy customer service "minimalism" math.

I have found their customer service to be very good. They respond within 2-3 minutes so I don't know what you could ask more. It's nothing like Paypal.

When you have a real problem with some aspect of Revolut their chat agents are not empowered to actually fix anything, they just follow a script. If the UI won't allow it, they can't help, and they won't escalate. The only path is to get your solicitor to send them a letter.

With a real bank, you can walk into a branch and speak with the person at the counter. The IRL dynamics alone make it much more likely that your issue will be addressed. That said, I use "traditional" banks and fortunately have not had issues that couldn't be resolved on the phone.

Personally, I haven't had trouble, but I also haven't had problems to fix.

But, I know a lot of people that use Revolut. They're big here (ireland), because we often use multiple currencies.

Anyway, I've heard several first hand accounts of very bad C's on bigger issues, account lock-outs and such. It seems there is not an effective escalation.

There have also been media reports.

This is fine for a 2nd debit card account. I wouldn't use them for my current account.

My experience is that if you need to get past the chatbot to talk to a real person, it takes an undisclosed amount of time (minutes, but could be easily towards 30minutes), and then if you're not immediately attentive when chat representative responds, you go back as being "out of contact", and need to restart. And it's not like the app gives you a notification or anything if the chat representative comes online.

I've never had to do something tricky like e.g. challenge a transaction with them, and I dread that perspective. What I read from people who had that problem is not encouraging.

No? There's a legal definition of predatory for most regulators that is a pretty clear line. The fact that they are regulated means that you have some ability to pursue your case / complaint outside of arbitration with the company.

Part of me wonders if part of this cash stash is for them to create a regulated institution of their own to start doing some more things in regulated markets - $850M is a lot of money!

They are very convenient though. And they have the best FX rates for those who care.

I only keep a minimum amount on Revolut (<$200), and only top up as needed. This way I don't particularly care if my money gets lost.

Monzo/Starling/TransferWise all have as good an FX rate last time I checked.

It's worth pointing out that Monzo and Starling are bona fide banks with UK banking licenses, with the legal protections and deposit guarantees which that entails.

Revolut and TransferWise, like PayPal, are not.

Yes, but Revolut edges them out (2 pip vs 20+ pip spread). When you convert $30k like I did, I got an extra $100 or so, which payed for one year of Revolut Premium - so I basically got Premium for free.

What’s dubious about their crypto service? They’re offering a way to give yourself simple exposure to crypto without a wallet. As the primary use of crypto right now is speculation, seems ideal.

That you're not actually buying cryptocurrencies with it. It's just an IOU from Revolut, with very dubious protection. With the unregulated part of crypto I would bet you'd have absolutely zero protection if Revolut went out of business or just closed your account for some unknown reason.

That’s true of any deposit with Revolut as they’re not a bank — as I understand it anyway. It’s as true of Euros or USD as it is for Bitcoin. They’re done as a business the first time they lose customer money though, and that feels like a reasonable hedge.

> They’re done as a business the first time they lose customer money though, and that feels like a reasonable hedge.

I don't know if they're required to undergo any financial audits, but I hope they don't grow "too big to fail" when they inevitably get compromised in some way.

Can you provide links or any other kind of source for these statements?

Customers would be mostly concerned about the fifth one, probably: Many people have had their accounts frozen or even money stolen.

Revolut started blocking accounts with transactions going over some limit, demanding proof for the source of that money, to prevent money laundering. Happened to me, their response was slow, had my account unfrozen in a week or two.

I've never heard claims of money being stolen though, might be hyperbole.

While those things could be true, as a N26 and Revolut free customer, I have to say that yes, they use customer service chat bots, but when you ask for humans, their assistance to me was always good, quick, and solved my issues.

I was on Premium when my account was frozen ;-)

And I did ask for humans, on 3 separate days, as I said, took about 10 days to get a reply.

You're not talking to support when your account gets locked, you're talking to compliance. And it takes time due to same reason Monzo has talked about:

https://monzo.com/blog/2019/10/18/watchdog-response

Did they give any explanation as to why they think that's legal, freezing accounts and blocking payments on a whim, without some court's decision?

AML/KYC laws require you to freeze accounts if you suspect anything.

Traditional banks blocked my transfers a few times and required proof of source.

Did you do anything "weird" or was it just during your average months that they suddenly went ballistic?

I know they're supposed to alert the authorities on suspicious activity, but I believe(d) freezing an account unilaterally is the ultima ratio for extreme cases and wouldn't be done easily, as it will leave the bank open for damages claims, and really makes banks somewhat useless if it happens frequently.

When Revolut first launched in Singapore, it was almost common knowledge that depositing more than $5,000 SGD (approximately $3,500 USD) would more or less cause one's account to be limited for weeks (until one tweets at them to hurry up), because they've triggered the Source of Funds check.

I had the "please tell us where your money comes from" message and my app continued working just fine (I use Revolut for all my personal transactions). Once I sent them a copy of my bank statement and some invoices between my company and me, they restored full access to my account super quickly.

r/revolut is full of experience.

Wow! There are some crazy stories there.

Revolut also block the accounts of members of a certain political party ("PSD") in Romania, "blocking" (stealing) their money, but only if customers admit to being a socialist party member. Here's a screenshot with the questions https://universul.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/revolut-psd...

Transcripted from the Revolut app:

Have you ever held any of the following positions? Select all that apply

- Member - Specialized Commission for Local Government, Legal, Defence, Public Order, Rights and Freedoms of Citizens

- Councilor - Teleorman County Council (as of July 2012)

- Member - Partidului Social Democrat (PSD)

- None of these apply

PSD is a populist party of crooks, mobsters and money launderers. With knowledge of what goes on with PSD in Romania, I would probably deny doing business with them too.

Lol that's not a socialist party, it's a criminal organization. The specific reference to Teleorman is probably because of the ongoing EU investigation concerning fraud with european funds.

Considering they're extremely overzealous with money laundering related freezes, it makes sense for them to avoid doing bussiness with the mob in the first place.

For context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(Roman...

That's due to PEP regulations.

So members of the other 20-30 parties are not PEP? What about councillors of other counties, would they not be PEP?

Specific organisations were targeted.

Maybe data of this guy was matched with data provided by some external screening provider with the data of a politician? What's the point of asking them if they were a member of some other party if they only expect him to be a member of that specific one.

It's these kind of companies that get investor money these days. See Uber, see WeWork etc.

Sadly.

Sources?

The lack of in-person or even phone support is practiced by quite a few banking start ups. This also means that if they block your account for any reason (e.g. suspected fraud), it can be very hard to get hold of them. N26 has had similar issues with people not being able to access their money for weeks after their account got blocked.

Not sure where the rest of the accusations comes from.

Yep, N26 has utterly crappy user service that don't even know how to browse a governmental webpage when you send them the link. I was able to withdraw my money before they lock my account, be now I stay far from them.

Anyway, this is bad because the service provided by these two banks (mainly low international or inter-device fees) are really a must for anyone living in a foreign country, or moving frequently internationally.

Revolut has quite a big customer base in Lithuania and recently many articles have been published about people having their accounts frozen without notice.

Article in Lithuanian: https://www.delfi.lt/verslas/mano-eurai/revolut-klientai-pra...

Freezing without notice is exactly the point of money laundering laws.

https://monzo.com/blog/2019/10/18/watchdog-response

- there is no way to transfer in or out

Why you say so? I had some eth and converted it back to eur to take it out. If you are referring to having an eth/btc wallet, yeah, it is not that.

So far my experience with the Metal Plan is really pleasant and I recommend it to anyone.

Parent comment meant transfer crypto in or out.

I am not an employment law expert, but there is nothing remotely illegal about those other things.

In fact, the way they do crypto is very clever - it reduces money laundering risk massively.

> In fact, the way they do crypto is very clever

I don't know if it makes a difference practically, but it's probably different if they actually held the crypto balance in a cold wallet, versus the balance just being a number on a ledger that's pegged to an exchange rate.

Please don't list things like this without making at least a 10-second effort to provide sources, it makes it very difficult to engage.

> Unfair/illegal employment practices.

Source? Elaboration? Best I could find is [0] which certainly looks bad but I can't find any references to court cases or employment authorities cracking down (and the UK has pretty decent worker protection).

> Dubios crypto service (you can buy and sell but there is no way to transfer in or out)

What you call "Dubios", I call an easy way for people to play around with crypto without figuring out all the wallets and whatnot. It also avoids a lot of the AML issues around crypto.

> Keeping a firewall between customers and company by only allowing communication via app chatbot

You write the word "human" in the chat and you pretty much instantly get put through to a human. There's no firewall here.

> Accusations of money laundry.

I think you're referring to the events leading up to [1]. Revolut wasn't accused of money laundering, it was reported that one of its systems had been disabled and this may have led to some activity going unnoticed. The CEO later claimed that the system was disabled but an older system was put in its place [2]. The newer system wasn't performing as expected so they reverted it.

This is very different to say HSBC, which was found to be actively participating in money laundering.

Also, "accusations" are just that, accusations. Most societies operate under a presumption of innocence rather than presumption of guilt.

[0]: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-peter-ohiggins...

[2]: https://blog.revolut.com/let-me-sec-the-record-straight/

> Unfair/illegal employment practices.

Requiring people to bring you new clients before you get employed and not compensating them is illegal in many places. Maybe not the UK.

> Dubios crypto service

They don't disclose that you can not transfer in or out.

> Keeping a firewall between customers and company by only allowing communication via app chatbot

I had to deal with this. If your app doesn't work you are screwed. There is no email, no phone.

> Accusations of money laundry.

Fair enough.

> They don't disclose that you can not transfer in or out.

What does this even mean in the real world though? You can instantly transfer your crypto back to fiat and have it in your bank account virtually instantly, which is better than any crypto exchange I’ve ever heard of. I’ll take this over Last Days of Mtgox any day...

> and the UK has pretty decent worker protection

Really? What about zero-hour contracts? I don't know of any other rich country, which allows such scam contracts. I wouldn't call that decent worker protection.

Isn’t a zero hour contract just casual work where you’re Not guaranteed hours? Sounds like every bar job I’ve ever had.

I think a comparison with hustling for Fiverr -, or Task Rabbit "jobs" is more apt.

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