007 Credit Agent Logo

Early Warning Services

How to Dispute an Early Warning Report 

Have you recently tried to open a new bank account but smacked with the devastating news that you can’t because of the Early Warning report? Then you got yourself wondering when did you commit banking fraud. Worry no more, our Early Warning Services help fix your bad checking account records.

An Early Warning report is usually a mystery to many account holders. Like in your case, you probably learned about it only when you thought of disputing information on an Early Warning report.

Early Warnings Report
Early Warnings Report

What’s Early Warning?

Early Warning (EW) is an entity that collects and shares banking information about bank account holders. EW processes consumer information from financial institutions, including payment processors, check acceptance firms, and banks, to protect the institutions from fraud.

EW was formed by several major banks, including Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, US Bank, PNC Bank, and Wells Fargo, to combat banking fraud.

How Does Early Warning Operate

Banks usually use the checking bank account reporting services from Early Warning, Telecheck, Certegy, or ChexSystems to scrutinize customers’ banking activities. The companies collect and compile information from the banks or credit unions then generate a report from your account activity history.

Other banks and credit-issuing entities can then use the information to determine whether your request to open a new checking account can be honored or not.

Even when you haven’t committed any banking malpractice, banks can report you to EW when they suspect something isn’t right.  Fraud notations can be extremely damaging to your image, denying you the chance to open new checking bank accounts in any other bank. And a negative Early Warning notation lasts for up to seven years.

Suppose an Early Warning report or part of it is used to deny your request to open a checking account. In that case, you’re eligible to receive a notice containing information about what caused the negative notation and the company that reported the instance.

Moreover, you’re entitled to launch a dispute on your Early Warning report and correct any misguided information on it.

Steps for launching an Early Warning report dispute

When you’re sure that a company reported false information to Early Warning, you can dispute the report resulting in the fraud notation.

The following simple steps can help you launch your dispute successfully, though it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll receive the desired results.

Find out why you were flagged

Contact the financial institution, whether a bank or credit bureau, that reported a negative notation to Early Warning. Ensure that you have information regarding why they closed your account, the closing date, and the incident report forwarded to EW.

Request your Early Warning Report

The bank may not necessarily give you accurate information on what they reported to Early Warning. By requesting your EW report, you’ll be able to find out what exactly was forwarded by the bank. Once armed with this info, you’ll be able to raise a strong case during the dispute.

Scrutinize the Early Warning Report

As mentioned before, the bank may report something to EW then feed you something else. Check the EW report keenly for errors and highlight them. It’s a requirement by law for banks to forward one hundred percent accurate information to Early Warning.

If you find any inaccurate information, you can request its deletion. Some of the common reporting errors include incorrect name, address, SSN, cash amounts, last activity date, among others.

Raise Direct Dispute With The Bank

Draft a formal dispute letter detailing all your claims regarding the bank’s false reporting to Early Warning. As per Fair Credit Reporting Act, the bank or financial institution is bound to complete its investigation and issue a report in 30 days.

They’re required by federal law to correct any false information reported. If they deny it, you can proceed to dispute with EW.

Settle your Outstanding Debts

If the bank happens to be correct, you’ll have to settle any debts you owe. If you clear any money owed, the bank can report to EW that you’ve cleared your debt, then the latter can decide to delete the negative notation from your record.

If you’re unable to make the settlement, you can wait for five years, after which EW will remove the reported information. However, Fair Credit Reporting Act regulations allow a bad record to stay for a maximum of 7 years.

Raise Dispute with Early Warnings

If you’re unsatisfied with the feedback from the bank, you can raise a dispute with EW. They’ll then investigate the claims, which can last up to 30 days to verify reported claims’ accuracy.

Early Warning may update, retain, or remove the information you have requested depending on the investigation results. You will get a notification via US mail about your dispute’s investigation outcome within five business days from the dispute completion date.

Proceed to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

After the dispute verification process and you’re still unsatisfied, you can proceed to raise a formal dispute via the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the banking commission office of your state. But you can only continue to this step only if EW rejects your request to rectify reported errors.

Request for Proof of Misconduct

Make it known to the CFPB that you’ve made no mistake and that the information reported was incorrect. If EW claims that you committed an account abuse or banking fraud, you’re allowed to request CFFP to ask them for proof.

Fraud can have varied meanings in the banking context, depending on what a bank wants it to be. As such, they must provide proof that you violated a requirement.

Raising a dispute with the CFFP or State Banking Commission Office is a lengthy process, and its success requires that you try to resolve the false reporting by yourself first.

Seek Legal Assistance

If all the above steps bear no positive results, you can proceed further to seek legal action. You can sue Early Warning for including false information in your report.

Bear in mind that litigation can be tiring and costly, though. If you aren’t prepared for this, the best strategy would be to go for a second chance bank account. These are checking accounts created for those who have banking histories or bad credit.
Through a second chance bank account, you can rewrite your banking history within one year to help you qualify for a regular checking bank account.

The entire process of disputing the Early Warning report can be daunting. The best strategy that can grant you a higher success rate with your dispute is using a professional company offering Early Warning dispute services. An EWS agent understands every minute detail about disputing false EW reports and will handle all the hassles for you so you can focus on other core issues in your life.