Unfortunately, as excited as I am to see Revolut succeed and grow to become something amazing, there are still big enough issues that stop me from using it too much. Yes, I utilize the free exchange system and make the odd online order with it, but I am yet to be comfortable sending more than a couple of hundred £ to it at a time. Lately, I’ve experienced why this was a good decision. Be warned, they are wordy and story-like but I want to capture the experience.
My main recent issues:
During the summer heat, I purchased a new fan. Nothing special, I decided to use Revolut as I had the funds in there. Revolut notified me as soon as the order was placed that I had spent money, great!
It wasn’t until the day the item was due for delivery, that Revolut then notified me that the money had been refunded back into my account. I contacted Revolut to check and was told that “yes, the store returned the money” Which made no sense to me as the item had already been shipped! Needless to say, the item arrived and as I was drafting up an email to the store to double check everything was ok, I got another notification from Revolut saying I’d spent the money again. So, in purchasing an item, apparently I spent the money (plus the added vault amount), got refunded the money and then spent the money again (with the vault amount again).
Now I know for a fact on the vendor’s side, this did not take place. They did not see the money arrive in their account, then return it to me and then take it again. But in Revolut’s side it did and that caused a couple of issues; Concern that I had somehow scammed the store by not paying for the item due for delivery. Double vault savings taken, but also the amount taken from my available transactions! As the refund counts as a “top up”.
The next recent experience is the same as the above one but with Revolut’s own premium service. I very recently decided to upgrade from the free tier to the premium one (Metal is nowhere near worth the price for me, it adds 0 value to my experience). I got notified by Revolut that I had purchased the premium service, money taken from account, cool! Card on it’s way. 3 days later, in my Revolut app it now shows “Refund for premium” and has returned the 76.99kr to me. But, I have the card and my account is flagged as premium… There are no “pending charges” to show it’s going to be taken again. I could take this as Revolut being kind and generous and waiving my Premium payment, but I’m not that naive. So what’s going on here? Are Revolut unable to process their own fees and charges? I expect I’ll randomly see another Premium charge out the blue sometime in the future.
My final recent experience is the most worrying so far as I only found out about it this morning.
When opening my Revolut app, there is a little notice under the balance where some of the “New features” appear. It states “Use card PIN first” then tapping on it, it reads “To help prevent fraud, you’ll need to enter your PIN for your first card payment to activate contactless”. I’m assuming this is referring to my newly acquired Premium card. Apart from the fact I used this card yesterday to pay for lunch and I used it contactless. The payment device accepted the card and said the transaction was good, but I can’t help but notice that yesterday’s lunch has yet to appear on my Revolut statement. Will it ever appear? Did that transaction ever go through? Have I unwillingly and unknowingly just scammed a restaurant I frequent for lunch? If so, and Revolut’s current system has made that possible, there is no way I will be swapping my salary bank details with theirs right now.
While this is a bit ranty and wordy, I prefer explaining my experiences fully. I do love Revolut and I hope they succeed in their mission. I do use the service and will continue. But I also have very strong reasons why it will not be anything other than a place to put “throw away” money for now.
TL;D 
Multiple payments refunded then recharged for no reason; Allowed contactless payments before first time PIN usage left unsure if vendor ever received their money.
