First time post. During Covid when stuck at home I became inflicted with a horrible gambling addiction for sports betting and particularly online casinos, regularly losing £10-20k in a month.
This went on for years but as 2024 started my wife helped me realise that this simply had to stop and I registered with gamstop. I told Barclays to block gambling on my account. Unfortunately, they still allowed me to continue betting. I complained and they refunded me my £10k losses that were accrued from the moment I asked them to stop me.
However, Barclays closed my account just days after this and told me to use a switch service to another bank as they no longer wanted me as a customer. I had been a customer of that bank since 1997 when my mum opened it for me aged 11... the only current account I had ever had and it caused me quite the upheaval.
I used the switch service to Lloyds bank. Before too long, this nasty addiction hit me again and I was soon gambling. In September I hit the lowest point of it. I lost my job of twenty years and panicked and made 27 deposits x £3k in 3 days... most of these in 5-6 chunks within minutes. I lost £80k+.
I then put a gambling block on my Lloyds account. I have since complained that these debit card payments should have been flagged earlier given the high volume and high amount of them and the fact they were to a dodgy looking overseas vendor. Indeed, on one day Lloyds actually stopped me from depositing any more as I hit a daily card limit, only for this to then reset the next day. Nothing to do with gambling just an auto block for the high volume of payments.
I never got a phone call from Lloyds or any "are you sure" messages on my app during or after. My wife helped me put a gambling block on my mobile app... but it sadly didn't stop me from doing bank transfers to gambling sites a few weeks later and I lost another £20k in October.
Considering Lloyds never flagged these high volume of debit card payments as a problem, despite hitting their daily limit and allowing me to continue when it reset the next day
Considering Lloyds never called or asked about my wellbeing after I put the stop on my app
Considering they then never flagged 4 dodgy £5k payments, done within minutes, to an overseas gambling merchant...
do I have any grounds to complain about how I have been let down as a customer?
Furthermore, do I have any kind of case to complain against Barclays for ditching me as a customer when I was clearly vulnerable with my addiction. Should Barclays have done more to tell Lloyds I was with gamstop / I had a gambling block on my account? Would Lloyds have been granted access to that information? Or is that onus completely on me.
I've been on and off reading this thread and I'm not being naive about my gambling problem. I am seeking therapy, my wife now has control of all my finances and I'm learning to cope with the new reality that I'm never getting any of my losses back.
However, it is still gnawing away at me that perhaps both Barclays and Lloyds have let me down here?
Any advice would be much welcome.
