Not upheld: irresponsible lending - failure to prevent compulsive gambling complaint against National Westminster Bank Public Limited Company (NatWest)

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs D complained that NatWest acted irresponsibly by allowing her to use her credit card for compulsive and problematic gambling from 2022 onwards, and was also unhappy about loan repayments made via the card and NatWest's handling of her complaints. Although Mrs D had applied a gambling block and NatWest provided gambling support information, she continued to gamble using transactions coded in ways that circumvented the block. The ombudsman found that while NatWest could have done more in 2022, it was not the cause of Mrs D's losses, as even with additional intervention she would likely have gambled anyway, and the transactions were not fraudulent. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while NatWest could have done more in 2022 to help protect Mrs D from compulsive gambling, it was not reasonable to expect NatWest to do more than block gambling transactions and refer her for support, which it had essentially done. The gambling transactions Mrs D persisted with were coded in ways that circumvented standard protections, and even if NatWest had intervened, Mrs D would likely have made the payments anyway. The ombudsman balanced the need to identify potentially fraudulent transactions against minimizing disruption to legitimate payments, and found the transactions were not fraudulent.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website