Consumer complaint received 2024-01-20
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Domestic (US) money transfer
Issue: Other transaction problem — 
Company: Early Warning Services, LLC (FL)

On XXXX XXXX a friend of mine from XXXX XXXX XXXX, sent me XXXX by Zelle that he owed me for some avocados. On XXXX XXXX I received the email below. -  Hello XXXX, We've deactivated XXXX for use with Zelle because it can't be used to send or receive money. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We appreciate your business. Sincerely, XXXX XXXX  So that same day I called XXXX XXXX Customer support. The person who took my call said that all she could tell me is that, I made a transaction which broke the terms of my agreement with Zelle, and it was for a XXXX. I asked for more details to identify the transaction, I specifically asked for the date, and if I was the sender or receiver (so I could narrow it down). She said she could not give me any further details. I also asked her which specific Zelle policy I had broken. She said she did not know and couldnt tell me. She said the only thing I could do was call Zelle directly because it was a Zelle decision and they are a Third Party service provider to XXXX XXXX AND, I could go to the XXXX branch and talk to a banker who could review my account and submit a request for the restriction to be removed. Ok, I called Zelle. They have an option to speak to someone regarding ONLY the Zelle App, and when you go through the phone voice menu for problems with restrictions, they sent me back to my bank. So, I go to the XXXX XXXX branch on the same day, located at XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I sit down with XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Branch Banker). He reviews my account, and sees that my Zelle is restricted with no explanation. He says, (from his experience) this happens when there is a fraudulent transaction on Zelle. After reviewing my account and seeing no evidence of fraud, he submits a request to have the Zelle restriction removed. That same day he send me an email that my Zelle service has been restored. (below) ______________________ Good afternoon XXXX  This is XXXX from XXXX XXXX to let you know that your Zelle is back to normal. XXXX  Regards, XXXX XXXX  | Banking Associate | XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail ____________________ Great right! I actually didn't even check right away to see. Why would I? I did nothing wrong. But that night I tried to access Zelle to see, and it wasnt working. So I sent XXXX  and email and followed up the next day. XXXX XXXX. A couple back and forth emails, him saying hes looking into it, then try again. XXXX XXXX email. (below) - Good morning XXXX Unfortunately you won't be able to use Zelle anymore. The bank reserves the information for which they do not allow you to use the application anymore. So you will need to choose an alternative payment method. XXXX Regards, XXXX XXXX | Banking Associate | XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX FXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail  OK, now Im frustrated. I responded to him saying how can this happen without explanation? Never heard from him again. XXXX XXXX. I call Zelle again, This time I started with Zelle App support just to get a live person. They again told me that it was my banks decision and they couldnt give me any details, but they transferred me directly to XXXX XXXX  Digital Detection Dept. The first person I got on the phone says there is nothing I can do and I just cant use Zelle anymore using my personal email XXXX or my cell phone number, or with any XXXX XXXX account. And he suggested I use another service provider like XXXX  or XXXX. I send, and receive a lot of money from my personal account using Zelle, and for my bank to arbitrarily cut me off from use without explanation and without any due process or process of investigation, I find ridiculous. So I told him that I wanted to speak to his supervisor. He put me on the phone with a polite lady, who tried to help me out. I pressed her on more details of the transaction in question because I still had no idea ( I have many XXXX  transactions, sent and received). She told me it was the transaction I 1st referenced above, the receipt of XXXX from my XXXX friend. She told me that the account holder had disputed the Zelle transaction with his bank, which was XXXX XXXX. I immediately told her that this is a person that is a friend of mine and Ive played XXXX  with him for over XXXX XXXX and its clearly a mistake because he would never dispute that transaction knowingly. So then I asked her what evidence she would need to get the restriction removed, her response was two part. First, she didnt know what documentation or evidence would be sufficient to prove that the dispute was erroneous. Secondly, she told me that since XXXX had already requested that the restriction be lifted, and that request had already been denied, that was my only chance to overturn the decision, and so she did not believe that the decision would ever be overturned. I was starting to get very upset. First, I explained to her that that cant be my only chance to overturn this ridiculous decision, because I was never given the information about the transaction in question to be able to understand, and provide any evidence to the contrary. Second, I asked her How can that be a fraudulent transaction when I didnt initiate a request through XXXX Zelle platform for the money to be sent to me? Rather, my friend found me on Zelle knowing my cell phone, and sent the funds to me. I further explained that, without any system of due process, anyone who has someone elses first name and cell phone number could intentionally Zelle them money, and then call their bank and claim fraud just to block that persons access to Zelle. Thirdly, I explained that XXXX XXXX needs to fight for me because I am XXXX XXXX  customer, and if I can provide indisputable evidence that the transaction was not fraudulent, then XXXX XXXX  must restore my access to Zelle service. Without her able to make any suggestions or recommendations as to what evidence I could provide to overturn this decision, I asked her if I could obtain a notarized letter from my friend stating that he had not disputed the transaction or that, if he had, that it was an error, then would that be enough? She said she didnt know, but I could try it, and if it was a notarized letter is better than a letter that wasnt notarized. She said you can try. Get the letter and bring it to the branch and have them upload it into our system, I cant guarantee that anything will work. OK, well at least now Im sure about the transaction in question and Im feeling slightly relieved that I know the person who sent me the money intended to send me the money and Im feeling confident that once I have this explanation letter in my hand that I will have my service with Zelle renewed, and I will eventually be a happy camper so I push forward and I call my friend and explain to him what was happening. His first reaction was that he had no idea because he never dispute the transaction. So I asked him for a notarized letter stating the same and fortunately the next day we play soccer together so he could bring it with him. Agreed. Two minutes later he calls me back and he apologizes profusely because when he logged into the account, he could see that the transaction was disputed and he remembered that it was a joint account that opened with his son when his son was a minor. He called his son and found out that his son disputed the transaction because he didnt recognize my name and thought that it might have been one of his friends who is also named XXXX and so his son called up XXXX and dispute the transaction. He immediately called his son and had his son called XXXX  and removed the dispute. Then, he wrote a letter thoroughly explaining the nature of the error, with all the details, and clearly stating the dispute was an error and NOT fraudulent, had it notarized. At this point, Im thinking checkmate. Not only is it clear that the initial dispute claim by XXXX was made in error, but I have a notarized letter from the account holder stating that the transaction was legitimate and intentional. XXXX XXXX I get the notarized letter in my hands. And emailed to me. XXXX XXXX I go back to the branch. XXXX  is not there. So I follow up with another XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX I explain absolutely everything that happened again and I forward him the letter. He reopens the case and uploads the letter. And then later that day calls me and says that my appeal has been denied again despite the letter, and that I should pursue XXXX XXXX or XXXX, or some other service. Of course, he apologizes profusely because of the ridiculousness of the situation. I quickly call XXXX XXXX  again, blow past the first representative who claims nothing can be done, and Im transferred to XXXX who is a supervisor. I again explain everything that happened since the beginning I confirm with him that XXXX Digital Detection department has received the letter, and I tell him that its unfair, unjust, and I want him to get that decision overturned, I explain to him the nature of my relationship with XXXX XXXX including oveXXXX XXXXXXXX  of deposit accounts that are not bearing interest through all of my accounts and he acknowledges all of those things and says that hes going to do whatever he can to restore my access to Zelle and he will follow up with me either with a phone call or with a secure message. Please see below the secure message that I received on XXXX XXXX. _______________________ Dear XXXX XXXX Thank you for contacting us in regard to your XXXX with Zelle profile being restricted. I further escalated your concerns to our Digital Detection Team for further review and they have advised that you will need to choose an alternative payment method by which to send people monies. This could include other third-party services such as but not limited to: XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX, etc etc. If you have any further questions, please contact us via email or call XXXX to speak with a XXXX XXXX On-Line Specialist, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Regards, XXXX XXXX XXXX On-Line Resource Officer ________________________ At this point, Im thinking to myself. Is there anything else I can do before initiating a class action lawsuit against XXXX XXXXk, Zelle and XXXX XXXX. I reached out to a personal contact who works for XXXX XXXX for a long time and explained everything to him. His email response below ______________________ XXXX, We spoke with our operations team regarding your Zelle deactivation. They explained that XXXX initiated the fraud alert for the Zelle payment and they notified XXXX  You will need to reach out to XXXX and/or XXXX. Sincerely, XXXX ____________________ I then called my friend and asked him to get a letter from XXXX stating that XXXX acknowledged that the transaction was not fraudulent. made several requests over the phone and in the branch and was promised many times that a letter would be sent to him directly as well as emails. So that we have something in writing confirming that XXXX had changed and withdrew the fraud claim. unfortunately, we never got those letters from XXXX. since late XXXX I have not pushed very hard on this topic because I had more important things to do and I was waiting for these XXXX letters that never arrived for my friend. However, I started following up again early XXXX  and on Thursday, XXXX XXXX XXXX, I initiated a three-way call with XXXX claims department, and my friend whos account is at XXXX that we could verify the status of these letters that were supposedly coming to my friend and see if XXXX was able to resolve the problem for us based on the feedback I received from XXXX XXXX (that only XXXX was able to undo the dispute and report to XXXX so that XXXX could restore my access to Zelle service. after another grueling hour and a half on this three-way call in which the XXXX representative promised a resolution, we were disappointed that the representative said that he cannot change the case, or the claim of fraud, because the case had already been closed, and the only ones that can restore my access to Zelle is XXXX XXXX. Although this representative did not know, or could not verify that XXXX was in control of this process, and he could not edit the closed case, he said that he put notes on the XXXX  claim number stating that the XXXX  Client had verified that the transaction was not fraudulent. I asked him how XXXX would ever be able to retrieve that information if it was not transmitted by XXXX to XXXX because all these claim numbers that he was giving us were internal XXXX claim numbers? he said that he could not transmit any data to XXXX about this case or any other claim regarding this transaction and that I needed to go back to XXXX XXXX again so that XXXX XXXX could resolve the issue with XXXX. For the record, please find below the XXXX internal claim numbers. XXXX Original claim number, Closed, cannot be re-opened or edited XXXX Rep XXXX (refused to give an employee ID number, but said hes the only XXXX  in the claims department, which should be good enough for me) Short inquiry claim number XXXX, a new claim number which documented our phone call. He also promised, yet another letter would go out in the US mail to his client, as well as an email to confirm acknowledgment that there was no fraud, but that XXXX  refused to update XXXX records, or withdraw the original claim despite its erroneous nature. XXXX a fraud claim against me to Zelle and XXXX. At this point, XXXX is presently aware that the claim was factually incorrect and that I committed NO fraud, yet they refuse to update Zelle and XXXX to correct the record, and they refuse to make any effort to restore my access to Zelle due to the incorrect fraud claim. Summary Zelle has become an integral part of banking and a service offered to almost every banking customer across the majority of XXXX XXXX as a benefit of the banking relationship. I have people who depend on me to send them payments by Zelle for monthly services. I have people who want to pay me by Zelle. It is part of my business and my personal life, Ive done enough research to know that a lot of banks are taking heat right now due to Zelle related transactions that are fraudulent where the banks are not able to undo transactions for their customers when the customers believe there is fraud, and I understand that banks must err on the side of caution. However, to deny banking customers access to Zelle service with no evidence, and only an accusation of fraud, and to accuse that customer (me) of breaking the terms of my service agreement, with Zelle, is 100% wrong. Furthermore, with no transparency or clear process to undo simple errors is unfair to consumers like me who have done nothing wrong. To continue the farce in light of indisputable evidence that the transaction was not fraudulent, and a retraction of the dispute by the person who made the dispute in the first place, is completely absurd. Not only has my Zelle service been denied with XXXX XXXX, but now across all banks. I cannot use Zelle with my name, cell phone, and personal email with ANY bank, which is why I believe that it is not only a XXXX XXXX or XXXX XXXX issue, but a more centralized issue with Zelle and XXXX which we all know are owned by the big banks. As I said, before, if this is the XXXX XXXX, it means that anyone with your cell phone number and or email address associated with your account, and your name could send you XXXX XXXX by Zelle, dispute the transaction, and thereby, either fraudulently and tortuously, or erroneously, have your Zelle service removed, and not only with your bank, but with all banks who know your email address and cell phone number, forever! And worst of all, with no due process or resolution process whatsoever. I have proven that there is no fraud, I have proven that there was no intent of fraud, I have proven that I have not violated any of the Zelle policy or terms of service, and yet I am being denied service that millions of Americans have access to because my bank will not fight for me. now when people ask to Zelle me money, or if I can sell them money I have to say no I cant because I am denied access from Zelle due to fraud, and the XXXX XXXX is assumed to be on me. It is unfair to deny consumer services offered to millions with no due process. the banks point the finger at each other and Zelle however, they are the owners of Zelle and XXXX  This is clearly intentional so they can deny any direct wrongdoing and pass the buck and avoid direct liability, which is why I think the CFPB should hold the banks accountable for the actions of Zelle and XXXX  And force banks to have a transparent dispute resolution process that protects consumers against denial of service based only on accusations. Thank you, XXXX XXXX