I just had over a thousand Euros stolen and Revolut is siding with the thief - <AUTHOR> https://www.stavros.io/posts/revolut-doesnt-care-about-you/ <comment><USER3> Revolut's CFO recently 'resigned' from the company in light of claims that Revolut switched off an anti-money laundering system that flags suspect transactions.

Revolut cited 'personal and health reasons' for the CFO's resignation. Whatever those personal and health reasons really were, they clearly passed quite quickly as within the space of a few weeks, said CFO has joined another FinTech company as their new CFO.

The company quite literally has the words "get sh*t done" in giant neon letters on their office wall. They live by the mantra of move fast and break things. That mantra is inevitably going to cause problems when your entire business is dealing with real money owned by real people in one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world.

<comment><USER4> > The company quite literally has the words "get sh*t done" in giant neon > letters on their office wall.

That has become one of my red flag. I want to deal with people and companies focused on the quality of their products and businesses, not on doing "shit" (taking their motto literally).

<comment><USER5> Absolutely. "Move fast and break things" is barely acceptable for services where failure is mostly just annoying, like social media. If your product is banking, medicine, transport, or anything else that can seriously harm people, "move fast and break things" amounts to criminal negligence.

<comment><USER6> Amen.

Another example of a field that I'm personally aware of and in which this kind of attitude should not be acceptable is cybersecurity. If your job is to protect people, then EVERYTHING you release has to be bulletproof.

<comment><USER7> As someone in cybersecurity, I would offer an alternate perspective: That sometimes you have to lock things down despite not being absolutely certain of side effects, being willing to take some outages, if you ever expect to get something done.

Analysis Paralysis is a real thing. Sometimes you just have to do it.

<comment><USER8> Choosing to lock things down when you're not certain of the side effects... that's the sort of thing that will, at worst, cause outages due to protocol access or authentication (which are both easily fixable). It's a smart move... and helps initiate the "Canary in the coalmine" built-in feature.

The "move fast and break things" crowd are generally the same people that will choose to open things up in the name of "getting shit done". They'll drop firewalls, expose services publicly, and generally go out of their way to avoid security because they see it as a hurdle to achieving their primary goal. In my experience, this lack of foresight almost always causes cascading problems in the future that grow exponentially worse the longer they're left unchecked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It feels like the "unique" part that makes this something novel about this is that they claim you authorized fraud when you raised your limit, accidentally letting a transaction you couldn't see through.

So the scenario is roughly (numbers made up):

1\. You set a £500 monthly card limit

2\. Your card is stolen and somebody charges £1000

3\. You get a notification saying you have hit your limit

4\. The failed, fraudulent, transaction is not listed

5\. You increase your monthly limit to £1500

6\. The fraudulent transaction goes through

7\. You can now see the transaction

8\. You cancel your card and report the fraud

9\. _You 're told by raising the limit you authorized the fraudulent transaction that you couldn't see before you raised the limit_

That's insane...

<comment><USER10> It's even more insane because I set the limit to 200ish, so bill payments routinely give me that error message, so I didn't really think anything of it.

Also, apparently the declined transaction shows up, but it takes a while. It didn't show up on my list even though I got the notification, so I thought it just doesn't show and I went to the limits to raise them.

<comment><USER11> _It didn't even mention which card this transaction was on, just no trace. Thinking it was a recurring bill payment that's getting declined, I started looking into my cards, disabling and re-enabling limits._

I am guessing that you are the author of this blog post. For a long term user, you seem to have made a lot of assumptions and mistakes. You also seem to have a few cards on your account. I can't tell if you froze ALL of your cards, either immediately upon discovering the fraudulent event or before raising/disabling limits and then 'deal' with the rogue virtual card afterwards.

Revolut is a pre-paid card. You can't expect expect the same level of protection or consumer rights, which are provided by a Credit Card or a bank registered in your jurisdiction.

Regardless, you should post this in the Revolut community for more visibility and probably get an actual resolution, before jumping on the GDPR angle ─ which will fail to provide with you enough details, as most financial institutions will redact any information on fraudulent transactions ─ stating in some vague language that it is an on-going fraud/crime investigation, hence they are not allowed to discuss it etc.

Good luck.

[https://community.revolut.com/](https://community.revolut.com/)

<comment><USER9> >Revolut is a pre-paid card. You can't expect expect the same level of protection or consumer rights, which are provided by a Credit Card or a bank registered in your jurisdiction.

Er, are you sure?

In the UK marketing: [https://www.revolut.com/a-radically-better- account](https://www.revolut.com/a-radically-better-account)

it is described as "Free UK current account". That's the name of a full, normal, bank account. I would expect it to have the full consumer protection, FSCS, etc.

If it doesn't, they're committing some pretty massive advertising fraud...

<comment><USER11> >I would expect it to have the full consumer protection, FSCS, etc. If it doesn't, they're committing some pretty massive advertising fraud...

You can expect all you like, but there is no UK FSCS protection. They have frequently ran into trouble with their advertising campaigns!

[https://www.pymnts.com/news/payment-methods/2019/revolut- ad-...](https://www.pymnts.com/news/payment-methods/2019/revolut-ad- transactions/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> UPDATE: Revolut have emailed me in response to my official complaint (possibly after seeing my post gain attention, I can't say for sure). They admitted it was a mistake to decline my chargeback and have refunded me the purchase.

They also said they would take measures to avoid this from happening again, hopefully they make good on that promise.

Thank you all very much for your help and support, I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else.

<comment><USER12> It's disgusting that you had to raise a shitstorm on their internal support, then on twitter and then hacker news to get your chargeback.

Will others be savvy enough to raise this attention? I would rather that a regulator went to bat for you and slapped them with a large fine. Because as it stands they can do the same thing to everyone else, only give refunds when someone raises attention and perhaps this only accounts for 1% of the cases.

They are going to take measures to swat stories down quicker before they create bad press, but there is likely a good reason for their behavior so expect no uniform change.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, that's completely inexcusable. Maybe I should have given them time to respond to the official complaint, and maybe they would have fixed it, but I don't want to tell a company "someone just stole 1k euros from me, please stop them!" and hear back "it's your fault".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to like them but then this happened:

\- they froze my account.

\- they required documentation.

\- the chat was broken. There was no way to contact them and send the documentation.

\- I found them in Twitter, someone from Revolut passed my issue along. No one called me.

\- They kept messaging me in the chat. I could see the numbers piling up but the chat was "opps something went wrong" and a blank page.

\- I tried all: cache, restart etc...I didn't want to uninstall.

\- after two weeks I took the big risk and uninstalled the app. It was very tense...I installed it again (it worked luckily) and I could finally chat again. Problem solved.

They never called me, I could not call them, the problem was on their end but I had to find a way and take the risks.

Never again.

Fintech is just banks with a sleek interface and no experience after all.

[EDIT: formatting]

<comment><USER14> Fintech has good products and bad products, just like every other sector.

Monzo, for instance, is excellent.

<comment><USER13> I suppose so. I guess we are coming out of the phase when a nice app was enough to convince that "this is so much better than a bank". We're maturing as customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They also don't care about their employees [1][2] and I believe are now under investigation for money laundry.[3]

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18248826/revolut- workplace...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18248826/revolut-workplace- culture-burnout-finance-app-reports)

[2] [https://twitter.com/phillipcaudell/status/110108122935141580...](https://twitter.com/phillipcaudell/status/1101081229351415808)

[3] [https://cryptonomist.ch/en/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-money- laun...](https://cryptonomist.ch/en/2019/03/01/revolut-cfo-money-laundering/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Under PSD2 this is illegal - sadly the implementation date is in Sep 2019. Appalling treatment and Revoult has been getting some bad press recently - <USER2> should complain to Financial Ombudsman - [https://financial- ombudsman.org.uk](https://financial-ombudsman.org.uk) (assuming you are dealing with Revolut UK, and they have not switched to Revolut Payments UAB for EU customers)

<comment><USER10> I already filed a complaint with them, but apparently Revolut can just refuse to reply and that's that. They also told me as much, they said I have to file a formal complaint with them first. They said something like "we will refuse to process any other complaint until the formal complaint process is complete", but since they're judge, jury and executioner on this, I don't have much faith.

<comment><USER17> > _since they 're judge, jury and executioner on this_

They're not. It sounds like Revolut is regulated in Lithuania; complain to them [1]. I'd also light up your own country's national financial regulator.

(If you can find nexus with the U.K., they're a good one to get involved [2], too.)

[1] [https://www.lb.lt/en/sfi-disputes-between-consumers-and- fina...](https://www.lb.lt/en/sfi-disputes-between-consumers-and-financial- market-participants)

[2] [http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/](http://www.financial- ombudsman.org.uk/)

<comment><USER18> I had Chase screw up a similarly obvious dispute. Long story short, Newegg send me a defective monitor, they claimed it was damaged on return, and then dithered on the refund. After I filed a dispute Newegg sent the defective and now broken monitor back to me. They then responded to the dispute saying I never returned the item and gave the tracking as proof. Chase inexplicably (how could they send back the item if I never returned it?) sided with them.

All the CFPB did for me was forward my complaint to Chase who (politely) told me to go fuck myself.

<comment><USER17> > _All the CFPB did_

CFPB is a joke. Your state financial regulator and the Fed enforce Regulation E in the United States.

<comment><USER18> Do you have a link to where I should complain?

<comment><USER17> Google <your state> financial regulator. In New York, we have the DFS [1], for example.

Note that the rules are less strict for returns than for fraud. You'll want to include proof of shipping the return, but the merchant and network have some discretion. (VISA is more consumer-friendly than MasterCard with return chargebacks; AmEx is the best.)

[1] [https://www.dfs.ny.gov/](https://www.dfs.ny.gov/)

<comment><USER18> >The Department does not regulate national banks (examples: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citibank, PNC) or federal credit unions, whether operating in Georgia or elsewhere.

[https://dbf.georgia.gov/consumer-resources](https://dbf.georgia.gov/consumer- resources)

<comment><USER17> It doesn't regulate, but depending on the state they'll often mediate. (New York has mediated disputes between national banks and me, for instance.) Otherwise, the OCC [1] is worth a try.

[1] [https://www.occ.gov/topics/consumer-protection/index- consume...](https://www.occ.gov/topics/consumer-protection/index-consumer- protection.html)

<comment><USER18> I mean, the CFPP mediated my dispute as well. Chase told me to go fuck myself and CFPP dutifully reported that to me. The question is whether these organizations can sit as an objective third party, look at my dispute, and force Chase to do the right thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm with N26 -- tried signing up with Revolut as I heard they had some cool features I didn't have with N26 e.g virtualized cards and crypto currency support.

Signed up with my Passport and transferred €50 to the newly created Revolut account. I wait a week still no money in the Revolut account -- contact support. They explain I'm not registered and that I have to register first -- I'm at a loss as they could issue me an IBAN and I'm still not "registered" \-- apprently I have to present a passport that isn't American because "they don't accept US passports" even though they did during my onboarding -- since I didn't have another passport available (my Irish one) I asked them to return the money and close the account. It took them 8 weeks to return the €50 with me chasing them everyday for the last two weeks.

I don't understand why N26 accept US passports and Revolut don't.

<comment><USER20> Because Revolut dones't want to have to manage FACTA and other US extraterritorial laws. Here is Switzerland having a US passport is a good reason to be banished from your physical bank very quickly. US passport holders are seen as a liability and not as a customer. That's also one of the reason that make renouncement of US citizenship quite popular in Switzerland if you have dual citizenship.

<comment><USER21> I've been told it's not just being US citizen but also, for example, being US tax resident for the current year

<comment><USER22> US citizens and us tax residents are essentially the same burden here. Nobody wants to deal with that unless the potential profits outway the additional costs of the admin

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "How hard must being a bank be, it's just a few numbers in a database."

After all those new-ish, app-based banks are for people with too much time on their hands. You mostly can't talk to anyone, and when they answer it's just a copy-paste from their FAQ. They also lack features, e.g. Kontist doesn't support international bank transfers. Support will tell you "well it could work, but we can't give you any assistance". I don't have six months until your development team understands and implements some protocol!

<comment><USER24> For what it's worth, Monzo seems to be the only 'challenger bank' that's getting this right. They have the 24/7 in-app chat support that's super helpful, but then also a phone number you can call if you're into that. My every interaction with them as a customer has been fantastic.

<comment><USER25> I've had negative but acceptable experiences with Monzo and Starling. Would recommend both of them, and actively use both myself.

I've had negative and intolerable experiences with Curve, TransferWise, Tide, and Revolut. I would recommend _avoiding_ all of them. Not all of them offer banking solutions (Curve being the odd one out in that list), but the three that do are all e-money, which I guess speaks for itself.

<comment><USER26> My experience with Curve has always been great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is why I will always bank with the old-school banks. Being able to reach someone on the phone -- or even turn up at a branch -- makes it a lot harder for them to ignore you when there is a major issue that needs resolving. But then, my "traditional" bank has a very good app, and treats me extremely nicely, even when I've had all of a few euros (or less than zero euros) in my account.

<comment><USER28> Even the old school banks have their issues, HSBC and money laundering for cartels comes to mind.

Money is power and power corrupts seems to apply too often with this stuff.

<comment><USER29> HSBC laundering money doesn't affect my current accounts. Not saying that issue isn't important, but that doesn't hurt my personal access to funds.

<comment><USER30> Don't kid yourself. Post cartel scandal, opening an HSBC account transcended difficult to impossible in certain jurisdictions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> don't use their insurance. Recently I was in Istanbul and the insurance didn't activate. Their app did not register me as in Turkey. All permissions were ok, Google Maps worked and I purchased a cappuccino with the Revolut physical card in Istanbul. Still, according to them I was not in Istanbul and there was some problem on my end.

So, I was uninsured. Imagine if this happens when you are in the US and you get sick. This is serious stuff, it's just too risky to let them play with it.

<comment><USER31> How do you know the insurance wasn't activated? Why does the insurance activate based on location rather than date?

<comment><USER32> I believe that the standard card has the option to purchase insurance and it will be billed only for those days that you were abroad. I don't think that you have to activate anything if you have a plan that includes insurance (premium/metal).

<comment><USER13> Exactly. You can't activate it manually. It's activated by the GPS.

<comment><USER33> If GPS can be spoofed by Pokemon Go hackers this seems like a dumb thing to base anything important on like insurance being active or not. What the fuck?

<comment><USER32> From user perspective: What are the odds that somebody is going to follow you when you leave your home country and do targeted GPS spoofing specifically for you while causing some kind of accident/harm to you?

From Revolut perspective: insurance theoretically could be abused but i doubt they haven't calculated the risks as it would mean losing money although i don't see how this is different than me getting travel insurance online and just providing some travel info that from X to Y i need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I experienced the other end of the spectrum with Revolut. My wife saw an advert on Facebook for a and indoor children slide, it looked quite nice for a 100 bucks and since I was busy with work, I didn't due any due diligence and ordered the item. Received the confirmation email, then life went on. In about 2 weeks time, I remembered this order and wanted to check the progress. I opened the order summary link from the email, but it was a 404 and oddly the site looked very different than before, this was the first time I had a feeling, I may have been scammed. I replied to the order email, and asked them for a status update. There was no reply within 2 days, so I went to the site again, and looked for the contact details. I found and email address(Gmail), but no company details whatsoever. This was the time when I realised, I got scammed. Anyways, I sent an email to that address, but of course there was no reply. A day later and decided to figure out where is the site hosted and going back to the contact form, I found a new contact email address(an Outlook one). Since then, I checked the site a few times and the contact address was a different one multiple times. Anyways, I realised it is a scam, found out the site is on Shopify, reached out to them and they directed me to my bank. I contacted Revolut, briefed them about what happened, and they started the chargeback process. Oddly a few days after they did that, I got another email from the merchant with a tracking code. In about 2 weeks I received a fidget spinner like plastic crap from China, which I never ordered. I notified Revolut about this too and they also told me, the merchant sent them proof me doing the transaction and want not to allow the chargeback, but since I said at the beginning it was me doing the transaction, just never received the items, I just need to fill out another form, stating this and they will carry on, trying to get my money back. As of today, I still didn't get my money back and I am not sure I ever will, but Revolut was really helpful during the process so far. I am more dissapointed with Shopify, I thought they vet their merchants or at least care about reports of misconducting ones, but they didn't give a crap about me telling them about a scam site running at them. I also found crazy that they don't force the merchant to disclose company details, that's required by the law in many countries.

</comment><comment><USER35> Take the bank to small claims:

[https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/consumers- di...](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/consumers-dispute- resolution/formal-legal-actions/index_en.htm)

[https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with- customers...](https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with- customers/solving-disputes/european-small-claims-procedure/index_en.htm)

<comment><USER10> This is great, thanks, I plan to. I was going to file with the UK small claims court because I didn't know which jurisdiction, but this is perfect, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Before I signed up for Revolut I did a bit of research and found some incidents that made me more cautious than usual. Unfortunately at the end of my analysis I found no better option, so I signed up. But knowing what I do, I have 2 rules:

\- don't keep a significant sum there; not more than what I can afford to loose if things go wrong

\- keep unused features disabled at all times, activate and deactivate features or card only when I want to use it. Practically my card is blocked until I want to use it and blocked again as soon as I paid.

My balance today is ~ $35. I will top up when I need to pay more, it is enough for a coffee, a snack or to fill in gas (I ride a bike, even with expensive European gas it's still ~ $25 for a full tank).

<comment><USER15> I had good luck with tranferwise.

<comment><USER37> I've been happy with TransferWise for years as well. Their support is decent, and their products/services are some of the best available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Revolut indeed does not care for you.

I was one of the early adopters and their ardent evangelist. I probably hooked more than 10 people to Revolut. Before they were giving any incentives for referrals.

But their customer support turned to shit, their exchange rates became less 'fair', and their service became much, much worse.

A few examples...

(1) I traveled to the US, had troubles activating the travel insurance, contacted customer support, got it working. All good. A few months later, I find weird charges on my account. Contact customer support, ask about the charges. Turns out they charged me insurance fee for days that I was apparently insured, a month later. Best part: I had absolutely zero proof that I was insured at the time I was supposedly insured (take a guess how that would work out for me if I had to make a claim).

(2) I was trying to use their travel insurance again (between my first trip, and their fraudulent charge). The insurance is supposed to auto-activate when you travel abroad, but it did not. Contact customer support as soon as I realised (after arriving to the US), but they refused to activate it cause I already reached my destination. Had to get a different insurance, having to drive 1.000 km in the US without health insurance, before my new travel insurance kicked in. Luckily, nothing happened.

(3) We tried to open a company account. Us three owners were registered as authorised persons in the application form. Our application got refused, no explanation. Plus they froze PERSONAL accounts of my two co-founders for around two weeks. No access to their funds, no explanation. Try contacting the customer support, only to have a bot spew boilerplate nonsense at you. After a few weeks, their accounts just started working again. Explanation? Apology? You wish.

Bottom line is, they can't be trusted, let alone relied upon for anything even remotely important.

Worst thing is their entire pitch was about how they are on a mission to improve 'bad old banks', yet they failed on very fundamentals of banking.

For me, they are a Ryanair of financial services: cheap, but will screw you if they get a chance; and good luck if _anything_ goes wrong.

A few days ago they sent an email offering their Metal cards for referrals. A few years ago I was doing that for free. Today there is no chance I would recommend Revolut to anyone.

</comment><comment><USER39> FWIW - having to wait for pending transactions to post before filing a chargeback is how traditional banks have treated me, and I'm guessing is probably just part of the Visa/Mastercard dispute resolution process (someone who knows better might correct me here). Though you'd think a next-gen mobile- only bank would be able to put some additional automation around the process so that they would contact you again on the day the transaction posts to confirm you want to go through with a chargeback, or something like that.

The rest of the story looks really, really bad for Revolut - I have never had a traditional bank speak to me like that before.

<comment><USER10> > having to wait for pending transactions to post before filing a chargeback > is how traditional banks have treated me

Yeah, I guess they have a reason for doing that, though I don't know what it is. Still, I would have thought they can cancel it in cases of fraud? Maybe it's so you can't "dine and dash" or similar.

<comment><USER40> That's why they are called _transactions_. They are an immutable journal of amounts coming in and going out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Why the hell would you even use a "virtual" card? With the rate at which personal data is being stolen day after day and companies as large as Equifax being breached, why would you trust your money with an all-virtual bank? Especially one that is so new? It's just asking for trouble. I've had the same bank since I was 17 and they have literally never let me down, and the couple of times I had a fraudulent transaction occur, they automatically flagged it and called me to ask if it was legitimate.

<comment><USER32> Virtual card is a disposable card that you can use X times (or whatever you set it up). For example, i use virtual cards for services that require CC info in order to register for trial, this way i don't have to remember about my trials expiring and getting charged (because i set the virtual card to be used only once / delete it right after i have used it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Its funny to see that "Digital" only banks are failing to solve the problems which they were created for :)

</comment><comment><USER43> Very interesting. I must say that I have always been interested in this application, but when I see that on exodus it is listed 8 trackers + 40 permissions I conclude only one thing : I am the product that must be sold.

</comment><comment><USER44> Thanks for posting this.

I haven't yet got on the 'challenger bank bandwagon' mainly due to laziness.

This has made me a lot more hesitant to do so. Certainly not with revolut, who are now notorious for a broken growth-first mindset.

<comment><USER45> I've been using Transferwise for a while now, and at least on the face of it, they seem quite boring and sensible. They're the first non-bank that's been granted direct access to the UK's faster payments network.

<comment><USER10> Do TransferWise let you keep money with them and give you a card? I thought they were just a transfers company.

<comment><USER45> That used to be the case. They've recently launched their "Borderless Account" that comes with its own debit card: [https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/](https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/)

(the card is an ugly neon green, but works fine in my experience)

<comment><USER15> The card just happens to the same color as my 3d printer wallet :) [https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3218830](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3218830)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> There is a simple yardstick that made me stay far, far away from Revolut: they deal with bitcoin. I will never trust a single cent of my money on such a company. So far the conduct of Bitcoin exchanges didn't impart the impression of responsible companies. Oftentimes you have downright conmen running them. This is not to say Revolut is cooking the books but touching bitcoin by a fiscal company carries a stench, one that I don't want close to my money.

<comment><USER10> They don't _actually_ deal with cryptocurrencies (like, you can't buy BTC with them). They just added tickers and let you gamble with the price.

<comment><USER46> Huh? [https://www.revolut.com/exchange- cryptocurrency](https://www.revolut.com/exchange-cryptocurrency) "Instantly exchange any of our 29 currencies directly into Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and XRP, and all without breaking a sweat."

<comment><USER10> Yeah, they don't let you withdraw or deposit any. You have to convert it back to fiat to withdraw.

<comment><USER46> Interesting service. [https://www.revolut.com/help/exploring- revolut/exchanging-cr...](https://www.revolut.com/help/exploring- revolut/exchanging-cryptocurrencies/what-can-t-i-do-with-revolut- cryptocurrency/can-i-transfer-my-cryptocurrency-interest-to-another-wallet/)

> You will not be able to transfer cryptocurrency interests to outside of the > Revolut platform, eg. external wallets.

And [https://www.revolut.com/en-DE/help/exploring- revolut/exchang...](https://www.revolut.com/en-DE/help/exploring- revolut/exchanging-cryptocurrencies/what-can-t-i-do-with-revolut- cryptocurrency/can-i-receive-cryptocurrencies-sent-to-my-revolut-account/)

> You can receive cryptocurrency interests sent by another Revolut user. > However, you will not be able to receive cryptocurrencies sent from outside > of the Revolut platform, eg. external wallets

Nonetheless, they must be buying and holding crypto"currency" which is enough for me to disqualify. It's better than going full exchange but still.

<comment><USER10> > Nonetheless, they must be buying and holding crypto"currency" which is > enough for me to disqualify. It's better than going full exchange but still.

They don't need to, really. They just need to pay you if the price goes up. You're selling them fiat for the promise that they'll buy it back at some point for the new price.

<comment><USER46> > They don't need to, really. They just need to pay you if the price goes up.

That'd introduce a risk to Revolut no sane company can possible take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Had a similar thing happen to me a few years back. I don't remember ecact numbers details. It was around 1am or so, I was binging some show when I got a notification.

I check it, and it's a notification from Revolut. A cash withdrawal was just declined. Okay, interesting. I open it, turns out, someone has tried to withdraw some £600+ from account. From Las Vegas. I thought "but I'm in bed, at home, in London. And I certainly don't have an ATM in my house. I'm too poor for that shit".

I think nothing of it, since I've had cash withdrawals disabled anyway.

Few minutes later, another attempt. This time, a little less, £400 or so. I quickly deactivate the card and contact customer support.

They barely cared. They didn't care about the transaction. They didn't care about all the questions I had. I asked a bunch of questions to see where the people have received the data. Who has reported my card as stolen. Where exactly it was used in Las Vegas, etc etc. Nothing. They couldn't provide me with anything.

</comment><comment><USER45> > You can never rely on banks to give you your money back, since they want > their fraud statistics to remain low, even if that means refusing you your > money.

Isn't Revolut explicitly _not_ a bank? I thought it was some kind of non-bank pseudo-gift card FinTech thing?

I've never had any problems disputing transactions with my normal regular boring bank that doesn't have an app.

<comment><USER48> They seem to be, as per last December:

[https://blog.revolut.com/we-got-a-banking- licence/](https://blog.revolut.com/we-got-a-banking-licence/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The story is just bizarre and I do not understand how the card issuer/bank can act like that in good faith, of course we only have one side here. Still it really comes off as an organization who acting in a space they are not qualified to be in. Let me guess, they started out to disrupt this space?

anecdotal+ As for his comments about banks not wanting to act on fraud, I have had two fraudulent CC transactions in one year and both times I felt as in my bank and Visa did very well. I also had two issues with Ebay where they and PayPal reacted quickly in my favor. I think for the most part those who are experienced in this arena are quick to act to preserve their reputation because that is what people see, they don't see their "fraud" reports.

<comment><USER10> You do have one side, but I can show you the entire conversation. They don't have a phone number you can call, so that's literally the whole story.

<comment><USER50> Relevant parts of the chat may have been left out, though. Also there could be previous record.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Get an account with a reputable bank. In my bank I have a personal banker that I can contact (phone, email, message) in case I need anything (you will get this privilege after a certain amount of income per month, but it's easily reached if you work in IT). I was even able to get money back after I paid for something that I never received (simple debit card). And also many people forget that you may need a larger mortage or loan in the future and I don't think Revolut will help you with this. And in the case of my bank they have a modern mobile and web application, I am not missing anything (Face ID, Touch ID, virtual card generator, retrieve money from ATM with a generated code from the mobile app, open account from mobile app...).

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, banks in Greece aren't in good shape or very convenient. I also just didn't think this could ever happen.

<comment><USER52> Actually I had a similar issue with my Piraeus Bank credit card being stolen while I was on a trip in Italy (back in 2011). They charged my card over 3300 EUR after I returned to Greece. Went over to the nearest branch, looked at the transactions with the representative, signed a document that I never made them and that was it. No funds lost. All transactions were cancelled in a few days, new card issued.

Keep in mind that the fraudulent transactions were similar (air tickets etc.).

It's really sad that Revolut didn't even attempt to contact the ticket vendors. This must be nerve-cracking...

<comment><USER10> It is :( Piraeus is pretty cool, their apps have been convenient. The biggest issue with me is that I can't split bills with my friends because it costs 3 euros and takes a day to send money to a different account, while Revolut makes that use case easy.

Not "1057 EUR" easy, though.

<comment><USER53> Have you checked the bank's IRIS online payments?

<comment><USER10> I have not, I wasn't aware of it. I will look into it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Maybe I'm just old but I would never put my money in an institution where I can't go to their branch/office and talk to a human. Typically this is hardly needed with all the digital convenience but when things go wrong, it is truly worth it.

<comment><USER55> That's not a guarantee anymore; in some banks here, the person behind the desk is just a glorified form filler. Everything has to go to the central offices anyway.

<comment><USER54> Yes depends where you are; where I am, there are still some people in the branches who know how to do their job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'm cancelling my Revolut account.

</comment><comment><USER57> [https://www.zdnet.com/article/fintech-bankings-frozen- custom...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/fintech-bankings-frozen-customer- account-nightmares-problem/)

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/revoluts-clumsy-automated- fint...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/revoluts-clumsy-automated-fintech-bank- compliance-results-in-frozen-accounts-and-lack-of-customer-service/)

Two widely read posts I wrote on ZDNet in January

</comment><comment><USER58> So far I've had only great experiences with Revolut. Using them mostly when abroad, the currency exchange features are nifty, as is the fact that you can load up with money from credit cards with no fee (in the EU). Generally I find them pretty innovative and way superior to all traditional banks I've ever been a customer of.

But it's obvious that this doesn't translate into an equally good experience once there are problems.

So this case is a good reminder to use these neobanks mindfully and to not put too many eggs in this basket.

</comment><comment><USER59> I had a similar issue around two years ago (multiple travel transactions, some Indian), although it was one of my physical cards (which I had barely used anywhere). I didn't have enough funds at the time so nothing was charged and I immediately reported the card stolen. After this I've tried to keep my balance below €300 with the rest in vaults to minimize the risk - whenever I need to make a larger transaction I just withdraw money from the vaults before.

</comment><comment><USER60> Thank you for posting this: I had been considering using them.

</comment><comment><USER61> He's using a debit card, not a credit card.

Non refundable debit card purchases isn't a problem unique to Revolut.

If this happened with a bank of america debit card, you'd face the same problem. This is why I explicitly refuse to carry debit cards. Only ATM cards and credit cards.

If you use DEBIT cards, you don't get the same kind of protections you get with CREDIT cards.

<comment><USER62> Yes, that, and credit cards also have +30 days of float essentially built in. So when you run into billing errors or fraud you have time for it to unwind itself / you won't have actively lost money until you need to settle up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I find it weird they accused you of lying, considering every time I purchase airline tickets the bank receives the full ticket information including the PNR (name information and ticket number) for the issued ticket.

For fraudsters wouldn't that be a huge risk ordering tickets in your own name? Or is there another dimension I'm missing here?

<comment><USER10> Seriously! I have no idea, I assume they can just call the merchant up and ask whose name the tickets were purchased in. I'm pretty sure they won't be in mine, what would be the purpose of that? The scammer just wasted a bunch of tickets if so.

I don't know why they don't just call the merchant and get the details. I tried but they wouldn't give me anything or revert the transaction.

Also, I just realize there's yet another, even larger declined transaction in the GBP tab (after I canceled the card). So the fraudster actually tried to buy _even more_ travel stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Credit/debit cards are outdated and should be replaced by flexible and safer methods that allow fine-grained control over the payment (i.e one time payment, recurring, limits on recurring etc).

Everyone with your card number can take money from your account. How stupid is that? Like giving the user/pass of your online banking.

<comment><USER10> Exactly, I don't understand why we can't do "push" money transfers and we have to do "pull"... Cryptocurrencies have a much better use case when it comes to the transaction UX. I also think some countries like the Netherlands have a "push" system that seems convenient.

<comment><USER55> Many countries have that (e.g. Portugal has had it for over a decade), the problem is that they generally don't work across borders. Hopefully SEPA can help with that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Publicity driven support.

Twitter is too big to care: [https://steemit.com/twitter/@genesisre/decentralizeeverythin...](https://steemit.com/twitter/@genesisre/decentralizeeverything-9-years- on-twitter-with-no-right-to-appeal)

9 years, had to totally rethink my online identity.

Massive blow.

</comment><comment><USER66> Revolut also blatantly copied Spotify's ad campaign. [https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/turkey-week- revolut-t...](https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/turkey-week-revolut-took- inspiration-read-ripped-off-spotify/1524278)

</comment><comment><USER67> It is very dangerous to use banking apps or sites from Android phone. Please Google how many "root" exploits are around. Any application or website can attack your phone, and if it succeeds then your money are gone. You should use a phone only as a second factor for authentication.

</comment><comment><USER68> Revolut will "win" because of that.

It's well known the working conditions at Revolut are appalling and a complete meat grinder. Top execs have a gangster attitude and have no problem backstabbing their way to the top.

The financial/banking sector is a fertile ground for them, so they will not fail.

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm still baffled that "leaking card details" is enough to compromise an account. You'd think money would have better security than some random website, but instead you basically need the equivalent of just the login and no password to get access to the money.

</comment><comment><USER70> Thanks for sharing. I was considering signing up for them but definitely not going to risk it now.

</comment><comment><USER71> From the way in which the CEO of this company treats he's own employees you can imagine how he will treat he's clients. This company is just toxic, there are other better options that solves the same problem, N26, Monzo etc check them out

<comment><USER67> No sources, no links, nice comment. Aren't you working for a competitor?

<comment><USER71> I thought it was not necessary since this story gets HN homepage not so long ago.

The initial tweet: [https://twitter.com/phillipcaudell/status/110108122935141580...](https://twitter.com/phillipcaudell/status/1101081229351415808?lang=en)

The HN discussione about it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19280131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19280131)

Note: I don't work for a competitors, but i hate this kind of toxic company cultures since i've been working in similar environments in the past, and this for me is already a strong "ethical" motivator to not use such product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I notice a couple of the transactions there are in Greece. I am a Brit living in Greece, and I am SURE some very reputable Greek websites are compromised. My card details get leaked when I buy on Greek sites, I am sure it's them.

</comment><comment><USER73> Always had a feeling about this company. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'll be closing my account after this summer.

I only signed up because no other service offers virtual credit cards that you can only use 1 time. :/

</comment><comment><USER74> News flash: No corporation cares about you.

Some might look good, but that is not because they _care_ about _you_. It's because doing good things make their customers and employees happy, and thus keeps the money flowing.

<comment><USER75> Look, if your response to encountering terrible customer service is to declare that everyone has terrible customer service then you were likely to continue to receive terrible customer service.

If, instead, your response to receiving terrible customer service where to say "this company is awful!", and take your business to someone else with better customer service then perhaps the companies with better service will thrive.

<comment><USER74> I'm just addressing the headline. Saying "BigCorp doesn't care about you" is tautological.

That aside, pointing out evil deeds of corporations and punishing them by taking our business elsewhere is __exactly __the solution I 'm recommending.

<comment><USER10> Replace "doesn't care about you" with "doesn't think that keeping you happy is in their financial interest" and there is no loss of clarity. The former rolls off the tongue much more easily, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> As a user of both Revolut and Monzo, thumbs up for Monzo, I've had minor issues dealt with very quickly and successfully.

Revoult has a slightly broader feature set, leading to these issues, whereas Monzo does core banking really well.

</comment><comment><USER77> > "I'm extremely careful about my financial security ... Revolut is one of a > new generation of banks that are app-only"

I wouldn't open an account with this bank if I were careful about my financial security.

</comment><comment><USER78> I'm moving to the UK soon and was looking at Monzo for my bank. Looking at Monzo, not Revolut, and others, which ones would everyone here recommend for bank accounts, debit cards, and credit cards?

</comment><comment><USER79> Btw, there is a procedure in all banks called dispute request (chargeback request). None of the banks will give you the money back to your debit card without the knowledge of the seller. Imagine how many free items or service you can get if that's possible. So it's not about Revolut.

To open a dispute the transaction needs to be settled. After that Revolut or any other bank can give you the option to fill the form and start the dispute procedure where the seller can place their arguments against it.

After you submit a dispute the card issuer will review both arguments and make a decision (it depends on the bank). Most of the times when the seller doesn't submit evidence against the dispute you'll receive your money back.

<comment><USER80> > Btw, there is a procedure in all banks called dispute request (chargeback > request). None of the banks will give you the money back to your debit card > without the knowledge of the seller. Imagine how many free items or service > you can get if that's possible. So it's not about Revolut.

When my wallet was stolen years ago, the thieves immediately used my VISA to buy clothes worth ~700 euros. When I realized it was gone, I informed by bank who disabled my cards. I was told to just wait for the statement, mark all sales that I didn't do or authorize. I did that and faxed them a copy, the money was back in my account the next day.

You can "get" free items this way, but you'd commit fraud, and if you get caught, you're going to jail. You can also get free money by robbing a bank, but it's not recommended for similar reasons ;)

<comment><USER79> Stolen card is a different type of thing. In that case they need to prove that the card is stolen (like from where the transaction is made and so on, there are procedures). And it often takes a while and several calls from the bank during the investigation. It was like that for me also 2 years ago when I got my card stolen. They called me several times to ask me questions.

<comment><USER80> To the card company, the difference between a stolen card that was used by thieves and a seller that fraudulently charges a card is whether you still have access to the card. In both cases, the account holder hasn't authorized the payment, therefore the payment processor had no valid order to process the payment. Since the agreement you have with the card issuer generally only covers authorized payments, they have little ground to stand on unless they can prove that either you did in fact authorize those charges (fraud) or acted with gross negligence (sharing your details with a third party in ways not intended, so not in a payment process).

A payment processor isn't (at least where I am) entrusted with any special powers to make judgement calls on whether you deserve your money back based on a potentially existing contract between you and a third party - that's the court's job. Cooperating with them makes it easier, speeds up the process and ensures an ongoing relationship with them, but you don't have to prove that your card was stolen (which is hard to do anyhow) - they have to prove that it was you that authorized the charge. Getting your money back without their cooperation may involve taking them to court though.

There's a similar thing with SEPA direct debit. You can pull money from any account (it's trust-based; you're required to provide documentation showing that you were authorized to do so when asked), but the account holder can pull it back for a certain amount of time (iirc, it's six weeks, at least here). The banks do not act as a judge here, they simply put your money back into your account and inform the other bank that the charge has been reversed who then in turn takes it out of the pulling account. If the other account holder believes the charge back to be unlawful (i.e. fraud, or or a charge back because of insufficient balance), they have to bring legal action, but they can't use the bank as a tool in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> very sorry to hear that. Debit cards are convenient etc, but they don't offer much in terms of fraud protection. The general suggestion is to always use a credit card instead so that you don't expose your own money to theft, but the bank's.

This is among the most important learnings you can get from Frank Abagnale's talk at Google ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMydMDi3rI))

</comment><comment><USER82> "So I'm extremely careful about my financial security," "one of a new generation of banks that are app-only"

sounds legit... :s

</comment><comment><USER83> People are actually using revolut as a bank to store their savings on?

I always saw it more as a fancy prepaid creditcard.

</comment><comment><USER84> Another PayPal, another decade.

<comment><USER10> PayPal almost always sides with the consumer, at least. Revolut's treatment was inexcusable. I've been a customer for three years and use them every day, I did not expect to be treated like this in a million years.

This would also never have happened if the message said anything more than "you've reached the limit". Even the mention of amount would have made me immediately suspicious. As it happened, I just didn't think of fraud, or know which card hit the limit, so I just went absent-mindedly fiddling with them.

<comment><USER85> "They can't even give a list of all my data under the GDPR so I can see myself, which seems illegal."

You're in Greece? Under the GDPR they're legally required to give you all the data they have on you; this is non-negotiable. I hope you included that in your complaint.

As for the rest, I guess they're just garbage and I'm glad to know I don't ever want to be using their services. Maybe someone from Revolut will chime in here and try to explain the situation.

<comment><USER80> > Under the GDPR they're legally required to give you all the data they have > on you; this is non-negotiable.

To play devil's advocate: they might argue that the fraudulent transaction contains/might contain PII of the fraudster and they are protecting his privacy. Sounds crazy, but I wouldn't be that surprised.

<comment><USER10> They refused to give me _my_ information too, though. I wanted all the data they had on my transactions so I could analyze my card usage.

All the fraudulent transaction has is amount/merchant/date and card, it doesn't have any of the fraudster's info on it.

<comment><USER80> Would love to hear an update when/if you hear back from GDPR compliance officials.

<comment><USER10> I will update the post with any updates, if any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> And that's why you should get a credit card from a real bank, rather than a debit card. With a credit card, in case of fraud, the bank will most likely side with you.

(Talking about Europe, not sure the same applies outside Europe, for instance the American banking system is quite different...)

<comment><USER87> EU as well and anecdotal; I have 3 dutch bank accounts with CCs, Spanish one with Debitcard and Revolut debit card. Chargebacks on the Spanish are the easiest; I mail my bank and they refund whatever I ask them no questions asked. Revolut does so as well but they ask questions. The Dutch Cc ones are the worst; they require a lengthy process and sometimes they still do not side with me even though it is rather obvious. However, if they detect them themselves (the fraud transactions) then they do reverse without issues: I am talking about the ones I report (over many years; it does not happen often, and only in countries that do not use chip and pin for most transactions like US, some places in HK etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> It's a failure, but it's absolutely not unique to challenger banks. Just remember the news availability heuristic - you're seeing this because it's tech news.

If you want to read more banking horror stories there's [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jessica- investigates/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jessica-investigates/) (paywall, also most of the rest of the Telegraph is bad) or the MoneySavingExpert forums. _Business_ banking can be even worse customer service: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/rbs- investi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/rbs- investigation-grg-fca-whitewash-small-businesses-a8957391.html)

</comment><comment><USER89> Revolut already made headlines a few months ago:

[https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1101193984871870464](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1101193984871870464)

</comment><comment><USER90> This is disturbing (I also have Revolut).

</comment><comment><USER91> Can they do this without the CVC code?

</comment><comment><USER92> A partially related (Identity theft) write up for the US system.

Tl;dr send physical mail to their legal and compliance people, send copies to the regulating government institutions. Paper paper paper.

[https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft- credit-r...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit- reports/)

</comment><comment><USER93> hmmm...this company is coming to the US per it's website. Hmmm ...smh.

</comment><comment><USER94> > They can't even give a list of all my data under the GDPR

GDPR specifically states the opposite - that they have to give you all the data they have about you when you ask.

</comment><comment><USER95> I was under the impression that banks were required to know their customers, which at least until this point has basically required you to visit a physical office with a passport and answer the standard anti-laundering questionnaire. This pretty much has meant that these online-only banks have been illegal to operate. Apparently the "FinTech" boom has resulted in a new low...

<comment><USER36> They require a passport photo. The anti-laundering part is in the requirements for proof of income, but only for significant amounts in the account or transactioned. For a couple of hundred euro per month they don't ask that.</comment></comment>


Trolls should go to jail, says Arizona, and I agree - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/04/jail-the-trolls/

<comment><USER2> Smart move Venturebeat. Posting a troll commentary on a troll law. But obvious trolling is obvious. But the condescending "let me school the interwebs" tone in the footnotes somewhat gave it away.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a saying that goes "offense can only be taken." This implies both that offense can be taken as a result of _anything_ and that it's peoples' responsibility to not be offended rather than not to offend. The fact of the matter is that we are all offensive to someone just for being who we are. This approach will have too many side effects as it attempts to create a world where nobody is offended by addressing the wrong end of the issue.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Also, the entire bill being proposed in Arizona isn't even new legislation; > it's just a simple edit to law already on the books that changes the words > "a telephone" to "any electronic or digital device."

There's a discussion here about why that change is considerably more problematic than just a bureaucratic technological update (which the law's proponents really are arguing, though it's not clear if _this_ article is arguing it entirely seriously): [http://volokh.com/2012/03/31/a-crime-to-use- any-electronic-o...](http://volokh.com/2012/03/31/a-crime-to-use-any- electronic-or-digital-device-and-use-any-obscene-lewd-or-profane-language- with-intent-to-offend/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I normally like Jolie's articles, but it doesn't seem like this article was thought through very well at all. It pooh-poohs the First Amendment angle — y'know, the thing that a journalist like her depends on for their livelihood — by pointing out that owners of websites have a right to censor visitors. That's true, but it has nothing to do with the case at hand — this law applies whether or not the website is your own, as long as Arizona feels like it has jurisdiction (and in practice, what government _doesn't_ believe it has jurisdiction over the Internet?).

<comment><USER5> Weird, it looks like somebody came through and downvoted all the comments on this story but didn't leave one of their own. I guess haters are, indeed, gonna hate.</comment></comment>


The Deep Sweep - grey-area https://criticalengineering.org/projects/deep-sweep/ <comment> grey-area The Deep Sweep is an aerospace probe scanning the otherwise out-of-reach signal space between land and stratosphere, with special interest placed in UAV/drone to satellite communication.

Taking the form of a high-altitude weather balloon, tiny embedded computer and RF equipment, The Deep Sweep project is being developed to function as a low- cost, aerial signal-intelligence (SIGINT) platform. Intended for assembly and deployment by public, it enables surveying and studying the vast and often secretive world of signal in our skies.

<comment><AUTHOR> what is a signal space?

<comment> grey-area I'm not related to the project, but I think by _signal space_ they mean simply an area which signals pass through (and hence can be collected in). By getting up high they can probably get access to a lot of signals which you wouldn't see at ground level.

<comment><AUTHOR> that doesn't make much sense, you can get all frequencies anywhere... unless signals get trapped in that altitude somehow because of some magnetic field? then you would have a brand new "layer" for all the usual frequencies...?

<comment> grey-area Signals are not frequencies and have a finite power and often defined direction, so every signal is not detectable in every place, particularly at ground level. Anyway, it looked an interesting project. The text is probably not written in their first language (hence constructs like 'signal space').</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Maker Bites – an HN-like news aggregator for the maker community - <AUTHOR> https://bites.postmake.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> A little more context:

Maker Bites is an aggregator-based community site that helps surface the experiences, lessons, and thoughts of members of the maker community. Submissions generally include blog posts, interviews, stories, lessons, experiences, and tips.

Since submissions on Maker Bites are aimed at spreading knowledge and fostering discussions, most content is timeless in nature. In fact, outside of "Show MB" style posts, announcements and news submissions are discouraged.

In most contexts, a "maker" is someone who's involved in a technology-based project, generally as startup founders or bootstrapped developers building businesses.</comment>


Best Android Libraries for Developers - <AUTHOR> https://cloudrail.com/best-android-libraries-for-developers/ <comment><USER3> The most commonly used Android libraries sorted by usage:

[http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/dev](http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/dev)

<comment><USER4> Started looking into Android development a few weeks ago. This list is rather useful. Thank you!

<comment><USER5> Something small I wish I'd known when I started doing Android development - <USER2> you need to display images, use an image loading library (Picasso or Glide). It'll save you from dealing with a lot of quirks, some vendor specific.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> More like "here's a list of random libraries, and we won't tell you why they're 'best'".

I downvoted a sibling comment. Then I read the list, said "I see what you mean", went back an undowned it. Sorry, _thecupisblue_.

<comment><USER7> I was hesitant to make a comment like that at first, but well, it is the truth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Author of that blog post here: Thanks for posting it on HN and all that feedback. We wrote this post to provide a nice overview about good libraries our developers stumbled across the last years. So it is definitely not complete and I'm sure that I missed several great libraries. If you have suggestions, please comment here with the library name, quick description and link and I'll add them to the list. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, this was useless.

<comment><USER9> Could you elaborate a bit? I think curated lists like these are good resources for developers that are unfamiliar with certain aspects of Android.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

<comment><USER10> I think it was in reference to it being a highly opinionated list. Especially since I've been developing for Android since 2010, and most of the actual "best libraries" were absent from this list.

Also, I've never heard of CloudRails (though they do seem interesting for certain use cases), but I'd never put them on a par with Retrofit, and leave out some of the more established names.

<comment><USER7> Exactly this. I've never heard of CloudRails, from my own development experience, on conferences or meetups or posts. Retrofit (1&2, Volley, those are the libraries that deserve mention there. "Database" category having just two libraries is like someone didn't want to bother, since Android has a lot of ORM libraries and also databases like Realm. Date & Time doesn't even have Joda-Time for android, DI links to Dagger which is deprecated in favour of Dagger 2, Functional includes only Retrolabmda, no even mention of RxJava and all the libraries surrounding it, Camera is missing some most popular camera libraries, Logging doesn't include the most used one - Timber, Image doesn't include Picasso or UIL... I don't feel like scrolling anymore, there is a lot missing, especially since the list is called "Best Android Libraries".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> iOS - [https://cloudrail.com/best-ios-libraries- developers/](https://cloudrail.com/best-ios-libraries-developers/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This list is missing the Support, Appcompat, and Design libraries from Google, although to be fair it's practically a given these days that a project will be using them.

LeakCanary is also missing, which is a shame as it's very easy to leak memory in Android by holding onto destroyed Activities. Every project I have installed LeakCanary in for the first time has had at least one memory leak, it's such a useful tool being able to automatically detect and record leaks.

</comment><comment><USER13> Please remove [https://github.com/akexorcist/Android- BluetoothSPPLibrary](https://github.com/akexorcist/Android- BluetoothSPPLibrary) from your list. Its unmaintained and has tons of bugs.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it just me or is the scroll velocity super accelerated on that page? It's going at least twice as fast on ChromeOS

<comment><USER15> it is for me too (Windows 10 + Chrome)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does Retrofit have an almost same counterpart in Swift?

<comment><USER17> One thing that comes close is Moya: [https://github.com/Moya/Moya/blob/master/docs/Examples/Basic...](https://github.com/Moya/Moya/blob/master/docs/Examples/Basic.md)</comment></comment>


Facebook's iOS app might be opening the camera in the background - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/12/20961332/facebooks-ios-app-reportedly-camera-background-security <comment><AUTHOR> >>A hidden camera viewfinder in its app, even if it's purely accidental, might stoke fears that the company is secretly recording everything we do. Hopefully Facebook fixes the issues soon.

Selling our data is one thing, but man this is low even by Facebook standards (if its not a bug).</comment>


HP should've OpenSourced WebOS than giving it up - <AUTHOR>

Than giving it up, HP should've OpenSourced WebOS and put it up on github. What say? <comment><USER2> They didn't give up on WebOS per se, they are giving up on WebOS hardware as we know it. I believe they intend to continue using it on printers and are open to licensing deals.

<comment><AUTHOR> Building such an innovative platform focussing highly on web based developers and now switching to printers is not really good. The technology they have underneath is pretty much cutting edge and they still have a nice chance to be a leader by open sourcing (unlike Android though) and letting developers innovate right from the platform itself. My thoughts. And also, They shelled a lot of money on advertising on stupid Music Videos and Movies which they shouldn't have done and actually launch the product out as soon as the announcement.</comment></comment>


How to clone Agar.io - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/huytd/agar.io-clone/wiki/Game-Architecture <comment><USER2> That's a coincidence, yesterday I have been trying to make an Agar.io clone in Node.js. There are some problems I've stumbled upon which aren't mentioned in this article:

\- The original Agar.io server client doesn't send raw text data through the WebSocket, it sends compressed binary data. Agar.io sends packets of max 187 bytes on my computer. The Agar.io clone sends packets of a staggering 4253 bytes of raw JSON data on my computer, with only me playing! On a real-time game like this, where the user should receive immediate feedback on their actions, this is way too large. Unfortunately I wasn't able to decode the data Agar.io is sending, so I don't really know how they do it. Maybe they only send data for each player's region of interest? Or maybe they send the data for each player individually? I think that should be a decent enough solution because we can send as many small packets of data as we want over the WebSocket. We don't have to receive all player's locations at once.

I took a look at sending binary data over the WebSocket with Javascript, but it's not as easy as enabling compression, because you really have to think about the data types you're going to use, you can't just send a variable length JSON as binary data (please correct me if I'm wrong).

\- The original Agar.io game processes no game logic on the client side, which makes the game freeze completely once the server lags. Most online games solve this by letting the client run game logic, but letting the server correct the client's position when he is cheating.

This method creates a whole different problem when the client receives data from the server from a position from some time ago. The client can't just correct the player's position just like that, or on slow networks the player would constantly be sent back to an earlier position. So to solve that the client needs to go back in time and replay the data received from the server. If the player is not cheating, correction should not be necessary. If the player is cheating, the client must accept the data from the server. This is a pretty rudimentary explanation, it's explained better here: [http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game- programmers/wha...](http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game- programmers/what-every-programmer-needs-to-know-about-game-networking/)

Of course implementing something like this is pretty complicated, even the original Agar.io doesn't have a system like this.

<comment><USER3> Do you know any further reads about binary data with WebSockets or (Browser side) JavaScript in general?

<comment><USER2> You can read 'High Performance Browser Networking' for free on O'Reilly's website. It has a chapter about WebSockets which talks about sending and receiving binary data: [http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000545/ch17.htm...](http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000545/ch17.html#_receiving_text_and_binary_data)

<comment><USER4> Perfect, a spot-on share. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm already writing Agar.io clone in Meteor and was about to publish article how to implement it.

Damn it :-), you got it first.

<comment><USER6> Would still be interesting the see the implementation differences

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're into this I've been pulling apart the agar.io client in this repo: [https://github.com/ibash/agar](https://github.com/ibash/agar)

Within 'sandbox' in the repo you can start up a proxy server to the real agar.io backend. When you visit the web server it will connect to the real agar.io backend and let you play the game. The proxy also can parse some of the agar.io messages being sent to/from the backend.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would mostly like to see a mobile version of agar.io

<comment><USER9> you cant play it on mobile ?

<comment><USER10> Controls are difficult. 'W' key to eject mass and 'space' to split aren't available either.

<comment><USER11> I see a split icon when playing on a mobile device, but I agree that control is really really hard. I even have a hard time on a touch pad--just seems more natural with a mouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w41J4x2ybAA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w41J4x2ybAA)

Agar.io in Minecraft

(no mods! this was done in vanilla minecraft (command blocks))

</comment><comment><USER13> Documents like this are fantastic as a potential collaborator.</comment>


Perl.com is no longer maintained. - <AUTHOR> http://use.perl.org/~chromatic/journal/38407 <comment><USER2> On Reddit chromatic (who worked at O'Reilly) said: _I don't see the connection between O'Reilly's opinion or business strategy or whatever and the viability of a technology.

Their technology-specific sites aren't getting maintained. O'Reilly's Ruby site is long dead, its Java site is nearly defunct, and only XML.com has much in the way of new information._

<comment><USER3> It's slightly more relevant to talk about this in the context of Perl and its history with O'Reilly.

Perl and O'Reilly grew up together... _Programming Perl_ was consistently a top ten seller for O'Reilly for many years, and O'Reilly was a major sponsor of almost every big Perl event. They've never quite grabbed onto any other language so thoroughly as they did with Perl. So, I can't say I'm surprised--I think O'Reilly has changed their focus pretty dramatically in the past five years, or so, and they are a much "softer" tech publisher, responding to market demands and dealing with the fact that the most technical people more and more do not go to printed books. So, the hardcore topics are somewhat less of a focus at O'Reilly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> O'Reilly's ONLamp Python Dev Center has languished for about a year and a half now too. The last article there is from June 2007.

<http://www.onlamp.com/pub/q/all_python_articles>

</comment><comment><USER5> :(</comment>


Writing a Time Series Database from Scratch (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://fabxc.org/tsdb/ <comment><USER2> After trying InfluxDB and it not working well for my use case I've written a TSDB as well. I suspect that's the joke around these parts, everyone and their cousin has written as TSDB.

Used time based blocks just like the article says. But they also switched if they got larger than 2GB, because it allowed the index offset to be 4 bytes. That allowed pretty fast searching as well as discarding old data.

The data and index and were both written to separate files. Some of the values were not just simple integers/floats but large blobs that's why separate data files.

Decided not to go explicitly with mmap-ing on read. Started that way but abandoned it. A simple pread (read + seek in one syscall) and relying on page caching worked just as well.

Should have used an inverted index for labels, that's a good idea. Maybe just sqlite or something like that... Though my queries were not as free form and some were more common than others. So built custom indices for the common queries.

Index files were also partitioned by time but were synchronized to the same partitioning schedule as the main data file. So if main data file opened a new block file, indices did the same.

Didn't explicitly handle in memory vs not-in memory blocks when writing, but relied on periodic fsync-ing.

Instead of a wal decided that some data that wasn't fsync-ed yet might be lost if power was cut. To deal with corruption on start, data in main file and extra indices were truncated to lasted sane fsync of the main time based index.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177411)

</comment><comment><USER4> When I read this blog post, it convinced me to use prometheus / grafana. I'm now monitoring over 1000 Pi class boxes using a small custom golang agent running on each one. Things have been rock solid. Couldn't be happier with this solution. Thanks for all the hard effort.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is awesome :) having written a database myself, I very much encourage others to try it out for fun, learning, and maybe seriously too!</comment>


PHP Wrapper for Amazon Simple Email Service - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zshannon/Amazon-Simple-Email-Service-PHP

<comment><USER2> That was quick.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you reconcile your retail investments with your morals/causes? - <AUTHOR> I'm always interested in making sure my money, charity or otherwise, is invested in organizations that don't produce something or act in a way that is contrary to my beliefs. I know this has been a thing for religious investors for a long time, but I've seen some more mainstream entrants for retail investors more generally. How do you keep track of this stuff? <comment><USER2> I'm at a workshop in sydney right now discussing blockchain, and while most of the participants in the room are fintech and its about big money, some of them are from agribusiness and charity sectors, both of whom want what we call 'paddock to plate' provenance tracking with certainty and lowish overheads. Normally, I think blockchain is a giant suckhole of hype, but this is one context where a data bus of signed state transitions as product moves down the line might be useful.

so, for some things, its blockchain. give the participants in the supply logistics a mechanism to tag and track, and everyone benefits.</comment>


CFPB Complaint Database Now Public, with API - <AUTHOR> http://www.consumerfinance.gov/blog/today-we-begin-to-share-the-story-of-your-complaints/

<comment><USER2> This is incredibly cool actually. This can really provide some insight into common shady practices.</comment>


Future as a Service: Google Vision API - <AUTHOR> http://cloudacademy.com/blog/google-vision-api-image-analysis/ <comment><USER2> wonder if you could save the hair, lips, positions data returned in a database and uses it as a basis of recognition.</comment>


Software Packaging Guidelines - <AUTHOR> https://zorbash.com/post/software-packaging-guidelines/ <comment><USER2> Good list, seems to cover many important things that are not language/OS/ecosystem-dependent.

One thing I'd like to add: in your Readme, put information how you can find further documentation (and if it is in the same repo, how it is built). A surprising number of projects have some basic instructions in the readme, and then a /documentation folder or an external website, without any clear reference to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, I think I'll update the post with your suggestions.

A common pattern out there, is projects keeping some documentation in their repo's wiki and not mentioning it in the Readme. Unfortunately GitHub does not provide a visual hint on how often a wiki is updated in the repo page.</comment></comment>


Objects Are Not Abstract Data Types - <AUTHOR> http://stuartsierra.com/2009/12/14/objects-are-not-adts?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StuartSierra+%28Digital+Digressions+by+Stuart+Sierra%29 <comment><USER2> "Object-oriented languages, Liskov said, tend to conflate the concrete representation of a type with the interface used to access it."

This is why I prefer C to C++. An opaque data type in C has a clean separation of the interface from the implementation. C++ classes tend to have both methods and implementation-dependent data specified in a single file. Granted, one can write good or bad code in any language, but I've found C encourages good behavior in this regard more than C++.

<comment><USER3> I really wish people could just abstain from using the built-in class abstractions in their C++, instead of switching wholesale to C and losing all of C++'s other niceties (templates, exceptions, less cruft on portability of primitives, etc.) C++-without-classes is a really nice medium-level language, one that's a lot better at being C than C is, and it'd be nice if more things could be written in it. It would be perfect for the Linux kernel and GNOME, for example.

However, as you've said, C++ encourages you to use its badly-thought-out class abstractions, and that's what most people who "code C++" tend to know how to do. Linus, I believe, disallowed C++ specifically because people would gradually write the kernel into a maintainability corner, by modeling things as hierarchies of classes without understanding the implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What are the similarities and differences between working with a CLU-type type/cluster separation for fields and methods, and a CLOS-style multi-method approach, which has methods and generics standing free from objects and classes? It seems like CLU follows a more traditional single-dispatch paradigm, with the fields and the methods in different layers but bundled together, while CLOS separates the methods not just from the fields but from everything. But I haven't worked with either, so I'm just guessing. Can anyone comment from experience?

<comment><USER5> I'm clueless about CLOS and just learning Clojure. Corrections solicited, grain of salt, yadda yadda:

1\. Clojure already provides multimethods, which can dispatch CLOS-style, based on number/type of their arguments, or by an arbitrary predicate.

2\. To use your wording, while CLOS separates methods from "everything", Clojure multimethods are even separated from _classes_. Other than being type- aware enough to do dispatch, multimethods are conceptually just functions with some extra testing on the front end.

3\. Implementation-wise, things seem to be different. Perusing the links below, it seems the new functionality is intended to preserve dynamism/performance when Java and Clojure objects interact.

4\. Grouping functions into logical chunks seems to be the other idea behind protocols.</comment></comment>


New Horizons Will Have Little Time to Measure Pluto's Atmosphere - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/astrophysics/after-a-9-year-voyage-new-horizons-will-have-little-time-to-measure-plutos-atmosphere

<comment><USER2> Just last night the SOFIA Observatory observed Pluto during an occultation [1], a very rare event. The main purpose is to help characterize Pluto's atmosphere and, along with New Horizons, the data will help calibrate future Earth-based observations of Pluto.

[1] [http://www.nasa.gov/feature/sofia-in-the-right-place-at- the-...](http://www.nasa.gov/feature/sofia-in-the-right-place-at-the-right- time-for-pluto-observations)

</comment><comment><USER3> Before anybody opines with "How could Pluto have an atmosphere when it's less massive than the moon (which has no atmosphere)?", it's worth noting that the moon does in fact have an atmosphere.

Interestingly, NASA speculates that Pluto's surface pressure is around 3 µbar, whereas they state that the moon's surface pressure at night is dramatically less than that, at 3.0 × 10^-9 µbar. I'm curious to see what New Horizons' measurements will reveal.

<comment><USER4> Curious, but how much of an effect would temperature have on a planet's ability to retain an atmosphere? A colder planet of equal size will presumably be capable of maintaining a thicker atmosphere, but I'm not sure if that'd be a significant factor in this case or not.

<comment><USER5> Proximity to the sun is a crucial attribute with respect to density of an atmosphere, both due to heat input (hot molecules escape easier) and solar wind density (energetic particles strip away molecules in collisions.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fun fact: the new Horizons's (redundant) processors are 12MHz MIPS R3000s.

[http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/mips-goes-to- pluto](http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/mips-goes-to-pluto)

I am really curious what it uses for storage. I am guessing something much more modern, with extensive redundancy.

<comment><USER7> It uses dual redundant 8 gigabyte flash storage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "With the available radio telescope time on Earth, he says, it will take about 1.5 years for the spacecraft to successfully transmit the 60 gigabits of unique data it collected during the encounter."

Every time I hear about quantum entanglement I so desperately want instant communication to be in our near future.

0.159 kB/s

<comment><USER9> Quantum entanglement does not permit faster-than-light communication, even in theory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No- communication_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem)

<comment><USER10> Sadly even if there is intelligent life out there around other stars we are terminally absolutely alone in the sense that we will never have anything even remotely resembling a conversation.

<comment><USER11> They're waiting for us to figure out how to warp space so that we can communicate via wormhole. They're not going to wait around for low bandwidth high latency comms. They're not scrubs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is there a reason why they didn't try to put this probe into orbit around Pluto?

<comment><USER13> It will simply be traveling too fast, and Pluto is simply too small, for the probe to get into orbit.

For them to have arranged for it to slowly catch up with Pluto and get into orbit, I imagine the path would have taken decades if not hundreds of years. (Assuming the fuel capacities we have to work with.)

<comment><USER14> Looks like they have gone into some detail on a potential mission like this[1], appears that it would take 17 years, at least with this particular launch window Jupiter alignment.

[1] [http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/PRO/ACT-RPR-PRO- ISTS2004-Plut...](http://www.esa.int/gsp/ACT/doc/PRO/ACT-RPR-PRO- ISTS2004-Pluto.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


Vim Macros - 5 Minute Screencast - <AUTHOR> http://joeybeninghove.com/2011/09/28/vim-macros-5-minute-screencast/

<comment><USER2> Basically shows how to record a macro using "q", do some stuff and then replay the macro.

Cannot see text clearly despite full-screen, and the delivery is rather poor and uninteresting. I'd rather just go over to vimcasts.org.</comment>