Card issuer rejected my chargeback on the wrong grounds — then defaulted me for gambling
Looking for advice from anyone who’s been through this with a UK card issuer.
I deposited at an online casino with no UK Gambling Commission licence (the Commission confirmed this to me in writing). I’m on GamStop, and I’d already asked the operator in writing to close my account before most of the transactions happened. The deposits went through under disguised merchant names under non-gambling MCCs, which is how they got past the UK credit card gambling ban and my card’s gambling block.
I disputed 56 transactions, around £4,000. The issuer replied to only 29 of them and rejected on the basis that I authorised them. I never said I didn’t — my claim is misrepresentation and false coding.
Then, at the same time, they issued a default notice terminating the account for breaching the clause banning gambling on the card. So it wasn’t gambling for chargeback purposes, but was gambling for termination purposes.
They now want the full balance inside a few weeks and I simply can’t pay it in that timeframe. A different issuer refunded me in full on some of the exact same merchant names.
Two questions:
1. Has anyone argued MCC miscoding successfully as a chargeback ground on Visa?
2. Has anyone had a default of this type removed by the Ombudsman?
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