Happy that you have broken your spell of bad luck. I have a friend who is fond of saying "if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all."
As for the bank, I had the same experience a few months back, and was pleasantly surprised that the bank refunded my fees. I gave them a sad story also, but did not ask directly for my money back. So they gave me their spiel about how much more it would have cost me if the checks had bounced. At that point, I did say that this had never happened to me before, and blamed it on Ike costs ( which happened to be true ), and told them that I felt I should get my money refunded. Then they said I should just have told them that I wanted my money back. Duh! Why did they think I was calling? Anyway they gave me my money back and told me that they did have special provisions for Ike victims.
One thing I learned, was what you already knew, the direct approach works best, ask for your money back.
I work customer service in a bank. We are not to offer a waive on fees. The customer has to ask. Sometimes, when I really want to give them a waive, I'll try to get them to ask. I'm always happy to waive fees as long as they haven't had previous waives. We do keep track.