I’m a massive fan of Revolut and I regularly recommend their services as a great way to get more from your banking versus traditional banks. The ability to get purchase protection, rewards, unique discounts and flexible payment options sounds like a pure win win for everyone. However, deep in the Revolut’s terms and conditions is one extremely disappointing pitfall that many are not aware of.
If you opt for Revolut’s Pay Later option when buying something, you are waiving your right to purchase protection.
The purchase protection terms and conditions exclusions includes “any items not paid outright and in full on the account, such as items purchased on payment plans, even if the payment plan is paid on the account”.
Unfortunately, while not a personal experience, I have seen this play out with Revolut’s customer care. Customers have made substantial purchases using Revolut’s Pay Later function, only to later learn they were not covered by purchase protection when something was stolen.
What is Revolut Pay Later?
Revolut Pay Later is a payment option that allows you to split purchases into three equal monthly installments. Technically, it’sinterest-free, but a small fee of 1.65% of the purchase price applies in Ireland. To use it, activate Pay Later on your Revolut app and then pay for anything within 30 minutes using a Revolut card. The purchase amount is then divided into three payments, with no interest charged.
What is Revolut Purchase Protection?
Revolut’s Purchase Protection comes with all Revolut Plus, Premium, Metal, or Ultra accounts. Revolut offers this to encourage you to shop with them more often. This protection protects your eligible new purchases against theft, accidental damage, or loss for up to a year.
For example, if something happens to your item the bank will cover the cost of repairs or even replace it. The maximum coverage varies depending on your Revolut plan, reaching up to €10,000 for Metal and Ultra users.
The Revolut Pay Later Trap
What sits particularly poorly with me is that Pay Later is a function you activate when you need or want something, but can’t afford the single bulk payment. Generally speaking, flexible payment options are used by those who can’t generally afford more expensive purchases.
So now put yourself in that individual’s shoes. They’ve made a massive purchase and paid it off over three months. A few months later, that camera or laptop was stolen. They can’t afford to replace it and find out they because they’ve used one element of Revolut’s functionality, namely Pay Later – and paid a fee to do so, they can no longer claim for the loss using their Revolut’s purchase protection.
A particularly annoying part here is that the terms outline “payment plans” and does not use Revolut’s own language of Pay Later. So even if you had suspicions and CTRL+F searched the terms for Pay Later as an exclusion, you wouldn’t find it.
It makes absolutely no sense to me as to why a purchase, completed in full, would not be covered by Revolut’s terms. Sure, let the buyer beware and you should always read the terms, but in this case it’s shockingly illogical to think that you wouldn’t be covered.
I’ve reached out to Revolut and the CCPC for comment and will update once I hear back.
Update from Revolut: Unfortunately, we are unable to offer protection for purchases made via Pay Later at present owing to the terms of our insurance provider. That said, we are always looking for ways to iterate on our product for the benefit of customers.
