My account was deactivated without warning

[pubck]

The reasoning they are giving me is that my ID documentation (passport) has expired. I had no idea that this document needs to be reuploaded every time it expires. I thought it was to verify my identity, which is obviously complete the first time. Also, my passport expired 3 months ago, and they just happened to notice now because I contacted them about ID verification in regards to Brexit. Now they claim that they will immediately deactivate any account, without warning, whenever they notice that a submitted ID document has expired.

This rule about keeping ID documents current is not stated anywhere. It’s unknown to the users as far I can see. I certainly had never heard of it, and when I ask they are unable to tell me where it’s stated. Furthermore, if you were to know about this rule, and wished to upload your new document before the last one expires, to avoid a sudden deactivation without warning, you have no way of doing so in the app. You would have to contact chat and ask them to mark your account as “verification needed” or something.

[Recchan]

Tbf you should know when your passport or drivers license expires

I definitely think they should have contacted you beforehand instead of deactivating your account outright though

[pubck]

But how should I have known that I need to upload a new passport when it expires? As I said, it was used to verify my identity, and this is normally only done once, as my identity does not expire.

[OliverCH]

True, I have an account with a highstreet bank since 40+ year and never required to do a second identity verification.

[pubck]

They are habitually lying to me in the chat. First I was told that I had several days to take care of this. (They only discovered the passport expiration because I contacted them about the Brexit email they had sent 5 days earlier.) Then I started arguing about how I was promised by an agent back in April that I wouldn’t have to do any further verification because of Brexit, since they already had my passport. They gave several contradictary statements, which I pointed out. The “manager” I talked to then obviously got annoyed and just decided to deactivate my account then and there, even though I had been told I had several days to do it. She claimed she could only reactivate it for 10 minutes for me to withdraw my money. The next agent told me he couldn’t reactivate it at all. The next agent said only 15 minutes! Obviously they can activate and reactivate for however long they please. It had been active for 3 months with an expired passport, but now they suddenly had this very strict policy. It’s very obvious that they are making things up as they go along. Pointing it out does not help at all of course, because the person you’re talking to suddenly goes off their shift, and a new liar comes along.

[pubck]

They claim that they can contact a user at any time because of an expired passport, but it can be months after the expiration, or never! An agent told me this. When they do contact you, they also immediately deactivate the account without warning. Obviously they just made this up to justify how they had treated me out of pettiness. So they are saying that users can often go on using their accounts without valid documentation for months, years or forever, but once they find out, there is no way that they will activate it for you again without new documentation (or maybe for 10 minutes, or maybe for 15 minutes).

[Recchan]

I would file an official complaint and go to the financial ombudsman

[moon]

There should be clear rules what to do, if/when documents expire. If there is nothing written on revolut site/app about this matter, how can customers know what to do?
Deactivating acc. is excessive.

[NFH]

The reasoning they are giving me is that my ID documentation (passport) has expired.

This is a totally implausible explanation for Revolut to give, because:

• A passport is a travel document. While you might not be able to travel with it after it expires (in some limited cases you still can), your identity continues after its expiry. You can even use an expired passport for many purposes, for example when applying for Irish nationality, as its authenticity is easier to prove than a birth certificate.
• Many Revolut customers will upload an EEA national identity card rather than a passport, given that they don’t need a passport unless they travel outside the EEA or Schengen area. How are customers supposed to remember many years later whether they uploaded their passport or national identity card, each of which will have a different expiry date?
• Nobody in the UK, where Revolut is based, is obliged to have a passport or even a national identity card, which the UK stupidly stopped issuing in 2010.
• You are under no obligation to renew your passport. If you are not planning to travel, it is common practice to wait before obtaining a new passport in order to maximise the validity period for which you are paying.
• It is unlikely that Revolut has an account deactivation date field linked to the expiry date of the supplied proof of identity document, otherwise we would see lots of complaint such as this.

More often than not, Revolut’s support chat is incompetent and fabricates implausible explanations so that they can move on to the next customer. @pubck, you should follow @Recchan’s excellent advice and make a formal complaint. If that fails (which is unlikely), then you can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service, for which Revolut will pay a case fee of £550 (irrespective of the outcome) and who will award you at least £50 compensation for poor service. I’ve had awards by the FOS of £150 for poor service, but that was for a financial product that I was paying a fee for.

[Daidai]

It’s very obvious that they are making things up as they go along.

Yes, the reasoning is complete bullshit.

The links @NFH included might be hard to spot: https://www.revolut.com/legal/complaints-policy/ also the FOS link: https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/how-to-complain

Email us at formalcomplaints@revolut.com

Do use the email provided - the surveymonkey link is a joke. Furthermore, you will have proof of the complaint in your “sent emails” folder.

[krisknez]

Well, this is an interesting scenario.
I believe they should contact you some time before your document is expiring to re-upload a new one.
Normal banks don’t close your account but require you to give them your new ID when you come in the branch or at least that’s how it is in my country.

[Windowbox]

Such a simple and achievable solution, for a problem which really shouldn’t exist.

If I was to have my account deactivated in such a manner, I would probably move to another company.

I wonder how many people Revolut lose as a result of this behaviour?

[krisknez]

Well… considering that Revolut is still new I would assume that not many people have experienced this but this is something Revolut should think about because they will get a lot of angry customers.
I would definitely be mad if this happened to me.

[Daidai]

considering Revolut is still new I would assume that not many people have experienced this

I wouldn’t consider Revolut “new” with over 7 million customers.
Have you looked at their twitter account? A lot of replies they receive on their posts are about locked accounts. Mostly due to the usual source of fund stuff and their unresponsive customer service.

[krisknez]

When I say new I am talking regarding how long they have been on the market. I joined a little bit over year ago and a ton of people joined just this year.
I have heard about the accounts being closed for source of found problems but this is out of the topic.

[a.r.s]

Oh, it make sense. But deactivations because of this isn’t ok. For me this isn’t new. Every time my national ID expires I need to give new one to bank clerk on next visit to the bank so that they have up to date information like new issuing number from ID and expiration date. Maybe Revolut need to put this somewhere under account info.

[OliverCH]

on next visit to the bank so that they have up to date information like new issuing number from ID and expiration date

Sorry but I don’t get that. Why should a bank require that? These numbers and dates have no meaning whatsoever except while proving the validity of my current ID card or passport.

My identity does neither change nor cease to exist at the time my ID card or passport expires. I don’t even need to have any of those to exist, although it makes live much easier if you have.

None of the banks I have accounts with ever saw my most current set of identity documents. As said above, for one of my customer to bank relations, it was probably 40 years back at a time I still was under age when they last required my ID card and put down any information of them.

It would only make sense if the government does not trust the banks to get the identity check right the first time they do it and ask them to redo it every few years. But that’s not a distrust level I’m used to in Switzerland.

[a.r.s]

Because nobody will ask you to give them proof of address, tax id or anything else. Your address is embedded on ID or is in chip. Bank and all other institutions, firms etc. will use only address and other informations that you have in/on your ID. Police office that is issuing ID cards are responsible that information on ID cards are 100% correct like you address, tax id and others stuff. You are obligated by the low to have up to date informations on your ID. Issuing ID number can be used to track who issued your ID (city, which person, where is your file) and other stuff.
So if you are from UK or Switzerland etc. maybe this is strange for you. But for me when somebody ask proof of my address I am like wtf you have my ID everything is there.

[OliverCH]

like you address, tax id and others stuff.

Proofing the residency is in Switzerland not connected in any way to any form of identity document. Passports, IDs, Driver licences, none of these documents contain any reference to your place of your registered residency. It’s full name, date of birth and some biometric stuff for passports plus a picture of course. And of course, nationality is on it quite implicitly, because you only get a Swiss ID card/passport if your Swiss.
It’s intentional to not have any reference to the place of residency and such stuff as nobody wants to replace an identity proofing document only because you move.
A bank does not even require the proof of residency. As we need to register with the Government where we live. So no need for a bank to do this check again, they can always investigate this through a government request if they fail to reach out to you.

[a.r.s]

Oh thats totally different here. You have your address in passport on third page with tax id. Your current address is on ID and passport. Everytime you change it, you need to go to police station to update your chip and to print new address in passport. But this process is done in under 5 min.