Consumer complaint received 2026-05-22 00:00:00
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Mobile or digital wallet
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: Early Warning Services, LLC
State: CO

Complaint narrative:
I received multiple calls from my bank 's official phone number ( XXXX ) during my work day. After several calls, I picked up and was told that it was a representative from the fraud department of XXXX XXXX XXXX calling and asking for me by my full legal name. They told me my account had been flagged for fraud and that a phone in Pennsylvania had transferred large amounts of money through Zelle, XXXX XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX from my account. They listed transactions and amounts for each app and told me that they would be escalating this to another team member. They transferred me to another person who gave me a list of " cancel codes '' for each of the transactions they were claiming had been placed, stating that those codes would then be given by me to the next person I would be transferred to in order to authenticate that the dispute was being performed by me, as they stated the scammer is more than likely rerouting my text messages and using my identity. They told me that my Case Manager was a woman named XXXX XXXX and that she was a senior manager. They said my case number was XXXX. They then transferred me again and told me to log in through my mobile banking app to see if any of the charges had settled yet. I told them they had not. They said that was because they had frozen my account, and they provided me with the correct last four digits of one of my account numbers and asked me to confirm the amount of money in the account, which I did. They then told me that I needed to go to my zelle account and report the fraud there, I told them I didn't have a zelle account. They told me that that was probably why it was so easy to sign up for an account under my name, and that I should sign up for a new account because they had sent a message to zelle to wipe the old one. They assured me that by logging into a new zelle account through my mobile banking app, I would be able to ensure that I was the only one who could process zelle payments through my account in the future, and this would secure my account. They then told me to make a " fake '' payment to my case manager, XXXX XXXX, by entering my case number as the phone number for a new contact on Zelle. I did so, and they then told me to enter one of the cancellation codes as the amount in a transaction for a zelle payment. When I pushed back on this idea, they told me that they had frozen my account and that this step was simply to confirm that no transaction would go through. The " cancel code '' was XXXX which appeared in the Zelle payment amount as {$1900.00}, they had me press send, stating that the " XXXX '' at the beginning of the code forces the payment to cancel out and instead register as a cancel code. They asked if I had received a text to confirm my identity, and I said I had not. They said we would then proceed with the next code. I added a new transaction to XXXX XXXX with the cancellation code of XXXX, which appeared as {$490.00} on Zelle. I told them those were going through as payments and they had me send a screenshot of the payments to XXXX so they could escalate it to their accounts department to see why I had been charged if my accounts were frozen. They also did this with XXXX XXXX for {$490.00} to the phone number XXXX for a woman named XXXX, their fraud specialist, as she could make sure my XXXX XXXX account was also protected. I became very upset at this point, as I could see the money coming out of my account, and I started to cry. the assured me that they know what they are doing and have been working in the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX raud department for 11 years and I just need to trust them. They said they knew this was scary, but that I had to trust them as this was their process. I told them I would rather do this a different way as these were payments and not codes like they had been saying. They tried to tell me I needed to go to my nearest XXXX to fix my XXXX account in person before I told them I was not comfortable with this and they were clearly lying and I would go to the bank in person instead. They told me this was urgent and I had to do this now and not wait to go to the bank. I hung up on them and called my bank at the same number the scammer had been calling from, as that is the number on my card, whcih is why I trusted it in the first place. My bank said they would shut down all of my accounts but I would not hear from them until next Wednesday at the earliest. At this point I have no money left in my account, as {$2900.00} had now been sent. My bank told me that they would not be able to get the funds sent via Zelle back to me as it was a direct transfer and not a debit card payment, so it can't be disputed, only reported as fraud. Even with the fraud report, they said, I would not get the money back as I am the one who sent the payments, so they are technically authorized transactions. I think this is wrong because I was called by my bank 's real phone number, by people who had all of my information and claimed to be from my bank, who spent hours on the phone with me assuring me that my financial safety was their top priority, and defrauded. My bank should be able to get my money back from people who impersonated them. My bank should be able to dispute charges from a money service like Zelle or XXXX XXXX, whether or not they are transfers or card payments. My bank then told me that I " should look on the bright side '' and that I still have a balance in my account. Yeah, a balance of {$11.00}..... When I called XXXX to dispute the XXXX XXXX charge, they told me that if I have already disputed with my bank then they can't help me and can't even mark the charge as fraudulent. Zelle doesn't even have a way to dispute payments, and can not be contacted for help in these situations.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation