Reclaim bank charges

JayE_84

Noticed this on MSE today.
I suffered for several years pretty much every month in my overdraft and credit card interest as a result of problem gambling, which is self inflicted hardship. 
I'm wondering if I would even qualify here?

Fact is, I earned good money, but was burning it all, and the banks would have been aware of these high volume transactions and often cash withdrawals on credit card.
I scraped by every month, but the charges were a continued source of worry. 

This was already nearly years ago and I'm doing well now, but had gone on for almost 10 years.

Credit card interest charges and current account overdraft interest would be in the thousands.

dunstonh

Its difficult to answer, which is why responses haven't been coming.

Each case is looked at on its own merit and banks are not easy to predict.

Fact is, I earned good money, but was burning it all, and the banks would have been aware of these high volume transactions and often cash withdrawals on credit card.

The bank would not be aware of high volume transactions unless there is something that causes the bank to look at your account.     

I scraped by every month, but the charges were a continued source of worry. 

This is the first of your negatives.  You scraped by.    You didn't suffer any priority debts, late payments etc?  You were not having to skip meals etc
Scraping by is not hardship.

This was already nearly years ago and I'm doing well now, but had gone on for almost 10 years.

This is your second negative.      Banks look at current financial hardship cases.    Refunding charges is only one of the solutions open to them.   Others include suspending charges for the next X months.  Or putting you on a debt management plan.    When it comes to looking at refunds, they often only look at the last 12 months worth of charges.       Only extreme cases tend to go back further. 

Credit card interest charges and current account overdraft interest would be in the thousands.

Over a decade, that is not a lot.  And interest is rarely refunded.  Only charges like unauthorised borrowing fees.

ManyWays

There was an article in the Guardian about overdraft refunds 2 weeks ago: ago https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/may/13/uk-bank-overdrafts-i-received-8000-after-i-complained

middlingditch

Put in a complaint to your bank. Write calmly and lay out the facts of what has happened. Tell them you have a gambling problem, just be factual about it. If they have consistently raised your credit limits and there were lots of gambling transactions on your card/statements then there may be a case that they shouldn't have lent to you (i.e. let you have a high credit limit or consistently high overdraft).

They will probably reject the complaint, but then you take the next step which is to go to the FOS (ombudsman). I know someone  who gambled on a credit card for years and years, a credit card that was issued by the same bank that ran their current account, with thousands of obvious gambling transactions on both accounts - plus lots of Direct Debits to other credit cards i.e. showing obvious debt elsewhere. The bank raised the credit limit several times during that period. Even though that person never missed a credit card payment and rarely went overdrawn, the FOS judged that the bank had acted unfairly by raising the credit limit and that person got back several thousand pounds in cash fees and interest accrued over about 6 years. 

It may be slightly more difficult to prove if your transactions were all cash (ie taking out money from a cash machine and going to a betting shop, rather than gambling online where it leaves a clear marker) but apparently lots of cash withdrawals on a credit card *should* raise a red flag at the bank and if they raised your credit limit when you were consistently taking out lots of cash then you may well have a case. 

Good luck both with this and with your gambling addiction recovery. (You have stopped gambling, right? If not, there's not much point getting money in from a refund as you will just gamble it away again. No judgement, just knowledge. Wait until you are blocked from gambling and stable, then you can think about redress.)