My Revolut card was stolen in Benidorm… and they took out £1,450 cash: CRANE ON THE CASE

In May, I was on holiday in Benidorm when my phone was stolen out of my pocket. 

It had my Revolut bank card, which I use for free spending abroad, in the case.  

Whoever took the phone then used Apple Pay to transfer money from my Santander current account to Revolut. 

In the space of less than an hour, between 10:30pm and 11:30pm, they attempted to withdraw £2,950 at three different cash machines. Of this, £1,450 went through.

I wasn’t able to get my Revolut account frozen until four days after the card was stolen, as I didn’t have my mobile phone to sign in to the app. 

I disputed the cash withdrawals and lodged a chargeback request but Revolut declined it. I wasn’t  given the chance to provide evidence or to speak to anyone.

It said I was ‘responsible for the transaction’ and it wasn’t fraudulent. B.B 

Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: Just as on busy high streets at home, thieves target bustling bars and beaches in holiday resorts in their quest to snatch phones. 

As I’ve reported before, these thieves aren’t interested in the resale value of your mobile. They want to access your money apps and transfer out cash.  

You told me you feel silly to have left your card inside your phone case, but it’s something plenty of us do. You also only had a few hundred pounds on it, as it was a secondary account used for holiday spending money. 

However, the thieves were able to use Apple Pay on your phone to transfer money from your main Santander account over to the Revolut card.

It’s unclear why some of the cash withdrawal attempts were declined. 

You reported the theft to Spanish police, but unfortunately money taken from an ATM is hard to trace. 

I’m often asked how it’s possible for thieves to get into someone’s phone, given they are normally protected by a passcode and facial recognition – as yours was. 

The answer is usually that the phone has been taken from their hand already unlocked, or that they have been ‘shoulder surfed’. 

This means the criminal will observe you from a distance, usually in  busy place like a bar, until they see you open your phone using the passcode. Once inside, they can turn off any facial or fingerprint recognition features. 

I urge anyone to look into features such as Apple’s stolen device protection, and Android’s theft detection lock, which can prevent this.

Once you realised your phone was gone, you tried cancel your Sim card and block your Santander and Revolut accounts, using friends’ phones. 

At this point you weren’t aware the cash had gone missing, as you couldn’t access your apps. It was still possible you may have simply lost the phone. 

Santander blocked your account when it received a phone call from the thief impersonating you – but Revolut was much more difficult and you didn’t manage to freeze it until you returned home. 

Revolut is an online bank, and the only way for customers to contact it is to send a message through the app. Customer service can make outbound calls, but the number where you can speak to a real person isn’t made available to users. 

It seems the attitude is, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ 

It has an automated phone line to block cards, but you couldn’t get this to work on holiday without access to the app and your phone. 

This line also can’t connect you to a human agent. When I called, it said: ‘If you are looking to speak to a human, then head over to our chat within the app.’

You’d tried messaging here, but you said you thought the responses were from AI, and they weren’t helpful. 

When you did get home, you initiated a chargeback with Revolut for the £1,450 – though this was also through an automated online process. 

After three days you received the response: ‘After careful review, we found that your account activity around the time the transaction was made suggests that you’re familiar with the charge. 

‘As a result, we can’t treat this transaction as unauthorised or proceed with this claim.’

This was on the basis that the thieves had used your Pin. 

You told me you thought they got this because they had been watching when you used the card at a bar earlier. 

You argued the transactions should have been blocked at the cashpoint, because it was a much larger amount than you had ever withdrawn on the card before. 

In the three months you’d had the account, you’d only spent £878 in total, and hardly any of this was taken out in cash. 

I contacted Revolut to see if it would be willing to reconsider, given how difficult it was for you to speak to someone and to suspend your account after the phone was stolen. 

It decided to look at your case again in June, and escalated this to the fraud team. It agreed to pay you back the £1,450 and also paid you £250 in compensation for the delay. 

However, it also emerged in my conversation with the bank that you had previously admitted to having the Pin for your Revolut card saved in the notes app in your phone. This used the same passcode as the one to get into your phone, which the thieves had. 

Storing the Pin in this way can be deemed ‘gross negligence’ by banks, and can mean that they are within their rights to decline your request for a refund, even if you have been defrauded. 

I understand it can be hard to keep on top of multitudinous Pins and passcodes, but this is truly an awful idea. 

There are various apps and tools that claim they can store such information securely, but in my opinion it’s still not a good idea. 

If you really can’t memorise the Pin, keep it at home, for example in a locked drawer, and definitely not anywhere near your phone or wallet. 

A Revolut spokeswoman said: ‘We are very sorry to hear about B.B’s case, or any instance where our customers are targeted by ruthless and highly sophisticated criminals.

‘On further investigation of his case we have issued a full reimbursement for the stolen funds, in addition to a goodwill payment in recognition of the distress experienced in this case.

‘Revolut works hard and invests heavily to protect and support customers. We have observed an increase in networks of criminals attempting to steal devices from unsuspecting individuals and we continue to take action to identify and prevent unauthorised access. 

‘As with all emerging threats, we urge our customers to take care, remain vigilant to “shoulder surfers” and encourage users to regularly update their passcodes, not to use the same passcode across multiple applications and not store passcodes in unsecured places, for example their notes app.

I’m glad you’ve got your money back, and hope this serves as a warning to you and others to keep your details under lock and key. 

Movers stored my stuff in Bedfordshire, not London

I put some things in storage from March 2023 until March 2025 after moving house. 

I used the company Jamvans because its website suggested my things would be kept in its London storage depot in Acton, near where I now lived. 

But in January 2024, I needed to get a coat out of storage to attend a funeral and was told my things were 40 miles away in Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire. 

In the end, I didn’t get a call back to confirm I could get access, even though I gave the required 48 hours, so I never got the coat. 

I also selected a 35sq ft storage unit when I booked, but when I collected my things the unit was split into two and the other half was locked, presumably containing someone else’s things. 

A 20ft crate was a cheaper option, but I was told I should take the 35ft and JamVans would downgrade it if needed. 

I asked to be reimbursed for the difference in cost but Jamvans declined. 

After I threatened to go to the Furniture Ombudsman, Jamvans offered me £180 compensation and to move my things to Acton. I didn’t accept as I think the real difference was more than £400. E.C, London 

Helen Crane replies: On its website Jamvans describes itself as a ‘London moving and storage company’ and has a list of nine areas it serves, all of which are in the capital. 

Its selling point is that it collects your belongings from your home, and takes them to the storage unit – ideal for people like you who don’t have a car. 

It mentions the Houghton Regis location on its website, but this is described as the head office whereas Acton is the ‘London storage depot’. 

I agree this strongly suggests your things will be stored within the M25. 

The Houghton Regis location was extremely inconvenient for you as you don’t have a car, and it doesn’t have a train station. 

While an hour drive from Acton, taking public transport would be a 2.5-hour mission requiring multiple tubes, trains and irregular buses. 

One route I checked on Google Maps required a 17-minute walk passing through some areas ‘not suitable for walking’. 

Then there is the issue with the size of the unit you were given. At the time you booked, you told me Jamvans’ website claimed that it would bring one of its storage ‘pods’ – essentially a large wooden box – to your home, so you could check the size you’d chosen was suitable. 

You opted for a larger size than you thought you needed, and say you were told that if it was too big, your unit could be downgraded and the bill adjusted accordingly. 

But you said there was no pod brought to your home, and your things went directly in the van. You therefore ended up paying for a 35ft unit which you only used half of.  

In the first year, you paid £949 and in the second this went up to £1,113. Based on your research a 20ft unit would have cost £770 and then £897, a difference of £395.

However, you say you were also charged an extra £8.75 per week in January and February 2025 which you don’t think was correct, meaning you could be owed more than £450. 

Sadly, I wasn’t able to raise any of this with Jamvans because the company has completely ignored my attempts to get in touch. I contacted it via email and on the phone over a period of several months. 

I was able to speak to one person who said management would call me back, but they never did. 

While companies aren’t always pleased to hear from me, this level of stonewalling is rare. When it does happen, I feel it raises concerns about how well the firm responds to its own customers. 

You are now planning to take the case to the Furniture Ombudsman, as well as exploring a dispute resolution service. 

Do let me know how it goes.  

CRANE ON THE CASE