What Is Early Warning Services?
Early Warning Services (EWS) is a specialty nationwide consumer reporting agency that focuses on deposit accounts, if you’re familiar with ChexSystems then Early Warning Services provides a similar service to ChexSystems. EWS was created by a number of large financial institutions (e.g Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Capital One & Wells Fargo) more than 25 years ago. There are now over 2,300 financial institutions that use EWS.
These financial institutions primarily use EWS to help them determine if they should approve or deny somebody for a new deposit account (similar to how credit card issuers use consumer reporting agencies Equifax, Experian & TransUnion). EWS reports are useful for this as they will contain negative information regarding an individual, such as instances of:
- Fraud
- Forgery
- Check Kiting
- And more
Another one of the uses of EWS is to authenticate you are who you say you are, this is usually done by asking a series of financial/general questions that only you’d know the answer to (e.g previous address, specific loan amounts etc).
Request Your Report
To request your free report from EWS, you need to call them on (800) 325-7775 Monday – Friday 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time. Can also be requested online now.
Final Thoughts
We’ve also started compiling a list of financial institutions that do and don’t use EWS, you can view that list here. We have similar information already on the site for ChexSystems:
The FAQ says, “The identification form is not required to provide your identification information”, and the form says, “Please note that this form is not required as long as the necessary information is provided.” Has anyone just typed out their info in message body in the secure transfer portal? And/or only typed info that wasn’t in the uploaded copy of your ID?
I submitted a request in the Secure Transfer Portal. I viewed the package history and noticed it sent a new package notification to 12 other recipients in addition to Consumer Services. Is this normal? I guess this is normal, but it concerned me, so I recalled the package.
I never noticed what you are mentioning, but it’s their secure portal. If they have it configured that way, then I’d assume they must want it that way.
If you are paranoid about it, call them and submit the request that way, or ask questions.
An
You need to go to “View Package History” at the bottom of the sent package page to see it.
Hi, I just started churning in the middle of last year with my P2. I was denied my first account last week due to an EWS score. Is there a way to get around this (we don’t have a local branch for the bank) or any advice on how long should I wait to apply again?
Was very disappointed to find that Alliant is also sharing every ACH transaction with EWS.
Ally is reporting all ACHes as others have reported. They also spammed about 9 pages of stop payments on my report. Have never stopped an Ally payment.
BofA reported account balances (most, but not every, business day). They didn’t report transactions for me.
You are the only other person that I’ve seen mention being annoyed by some EWS banks doing that.
For EWS, is there a way to create portal login (similar to Chex) so that we can look at the report online without having the report emailed or sent to us?
No, there is no such thing as an EWS portal.
Some of the ID theft prevention services sometimes work to alert for EWS inquiries. In my experience, they’re not all that reliable. (OPM MYIDCARE)
May be I am confused. Some comments here mentioned
go to https://consumerservices.earlywarning.com and click on the Register and Send Files button.
I thought that was for the EWS portal to get report?
Yeah there’s a login area to submit files. It’s not like you can review your report from there. You have to wait until they send it to you.
Unlike the chex portal… Where you can have your report in minutes, and if you don’t get your report almost instantly, you can still go to the dispute tab and view all the information in your report.
Does Fidelity Investments do EWS inquiry again for existing brokerage customer when you open another brokerage account?
Also, when you link external account using Fidelity portal, does that also cause another inquiry? Does Fidelity report my financial transactions and account balances to EWS?
I am using Fidelity as my hub, so I would like to know if I should consider another bank as a hub.
That is a complicated question. EWS used to have a separate section for soft pulls and hard pulls.
I think it’s safe to say, based on my opinion, linking an account via EWS it’s going to be a soft pull. Opening a new account is a hard pull. However I can’t prove that.
I do believe Fidelity does an EWS inquiry when you add an account even as an existing customer. However I can’t confirm that it is soft or hard.
Is there a way to get alerts for EWS hits similar to OnAlert for Chex?
My OPM data breach MyIDCare gives Financial Account Alerts for EWS, but not Chex.
However, I find it very spotty and only seems to work when opening at a bank where I have never had an account. For example, I know Chase and BofA pull EWS and I did not get alerts. I maintain CC’s with them. Even when it works, takes a few days to get the alert too.
I think there was one other service like this that someone had from a breach, but I don’t recall the name of the service. It was
ieatdogfood DP, IIRC.
Thanks for the info!
I have so many redundant monitoring services, I don’t recall either unless you can give me a specific bank to look up and I can search my email alert archive.
Oh fine… I will figure it out. I only have 30K emails to search though to find it. 🙂
Only took me two hours… Experian IdentityWorks
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/laurel-road-300-checking-bonus-25-per-month-available-nationwide-must-be-a-nurse/#comment-1420125
Interestingly enough… As of Sept 2023, my P2 and I also enrolled in Experian IdentityWorks. I see nothing involving EWS accounts. Our subscriptions would have been from the MoveIt breach… Fulton Bank maybe? They Expire SEPT 2024… oh great!
So, just like MyIDCare, just depends on the package you got signed up for. (other people have MyIDCare for other than the OPM breach… and don’t get financial account monitoring, from what I am told)
Another possible conclusion… like I said about MyIDCare… the alert only gets triggered when the applicant is a truly new customer.
For example, I recently opened a Laurel Road account for a churn… reasonably certain they pulled EWS, and did not get a MyIDCare or Experian IdentityWorks notification.
Earned IdentityWorks from the Sunflower Bank MoveIT breach…
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/contact-us/#comment-1675016
I have Experian IDWorks, and I get an alert for almost everything including new accounts and contact info changes. For LR account I got below…
Reason: Pending
Secondary Matches: name, address, dob, phone
Financial Institution Name: KeyBank NA
Financial Institution Phone:800XXXXXXX
Inquiry Date: September XX, 2024
Account Opened Date: September XX, 2024
Notification ID: XXXXXX
Initially it used to give me a bit of pause every time I get the alert, because it comes with title “Financial Account Takeover”.
On a related note – I see some of the institutions pulling EWS report twice i.e. couple of days in a row. I noticed duplicate inquiries by Santander, Truist. Fidelity and Schwab seem to be inquiring monthly.
Any idea?
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/bank-america-100-checking-bonus-public-nationwide/#comment-1927232
Not sure what you are asking me.
Since you are the one that made the changes, no need for alarm.
I can tell you my “Experian IdentityWorks” is not very sensitive. My subscription just expired, but searching my inbox, it was alerting very often. Last one I had with that subject was in 2017.
As you stated over on the BofA page, some of those inquiries are likely promotional and shouldn’t “count” against your score. But, is that true? I think some of those inquiries will also be done for linking external accounts or doing transfers.
You could dispute the excess inquires. Looks like it’s one per dispute. I haven’t tried and might be a waste of time.
Instructions here:
https://www.earlywarning.com/sites/default/files/2019-04/dispute_information.pdf
Discover identity theft protection, per this DP: https://www.reddit.com/r/IdentityTheft/comments/15nkje9/comment/l7433w8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I know there is another one…
It can be very confusing as many of the services have different tiers which adds to the convolution. One person may sign up/be offered the basic/free service while another person may sign up/be offered the premium service for any particular monitoring.
Agreed. Curious… if you still have that alert from KeyBank/Laurel Road, did it say the source credit report?
I just found “Bank Account” alerts in my inbox from OnAlert and MyIDCare from my last Citi bank account opening. Source was Experian. (not EWS)
I know I had Chex frozen… so there was no Chex inquiry. Maybe the financial account monitoring I thought was EWS is just certain banks that trigger soft pulls of credit? But I am DEFINATLY not getting alerts for soft-pulls at other banks.
Anyway, I am done with this subject for now. Seems the only way to effectively monitor EWS is to pull it yourself.
Decipher what you can? I’m not sure.
“Experian IdentityWorks detected a change to a financial account.
Alert Found: Bank Account Opening
Bank: KeyBank NA”
You both are wonderful. Always enjoy seeing your thought processes. Thank you!
As we all have noticed, EWS reports account status. Secifically, accounts usually go from “new” to “present” after approximately six months. Question: Will it improve your EWS score if you wait for the new-to-present transition before closing an account? In other words, does it make sense to wait for six months before closing new accounts?
Banks don’t share the EWS score (that I recall)… Or, how they calculate it.
It’s just a guessing game. Is it a good rule of thumb? Sure.
My BoA declination notice dated 5/21/24 was based on the EWS “deposit account score” of 718. The notice also said that the range of possible scores is 495-1000 and the key factors affecting the score were [my comments in brackets]:
The number of different banks inquiring during the last year. [high]
The status of the relationship with the inquiring bank. [none]
The number of items returned in the last 60 days. [none]
The consumer’s transaction activity over the last 30 days is out of pattern when compared to the prior 180 days. [pretty much the same].
Do we know the EWS score cutoffs for varoius banks?
I don’t recall any other bank giving out an EWS score.
Anonymous
Banks don’t release their criteria. They aren’t require to do so. You can ask a banker, and sometimes they will be loose lipped, but can you trust what they tell you?
Just like when you get a credit card denial, the bullet points don’t always perfectly match why you were REALLY denied.
Nothing there about age of newest accounts. I did find a person on Reddit that had this comment on their denial report:
“The status of the relationship with the inquiring bank as compared to the age of the established relationship with any bank“
I am guessing you just didn’t type the 2nd part of the comment.
Just FYI, specifically at BofA, some have had success opening in branch after being denied online YMMV.
Are you required to provide the copy of ID or sort to request a report? P2 got denied for PNC based on EWS info.
Yes, it’s part of the request form to include your ID.
I don’t know if calling in to request a report emailed would change that.
when you go to https://consumerservices.earlywarning.com and click on the Register and Send Files button, you need to enter <your email> for the Your Email field and [email protected] for the Recipient Email(s) field to register an account to upload your filled request form and your ID. the request form has instruction for this
An update to this comment: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/everything-youve-wanted-know-early-warning-services-ews/#comment-1657738
I recently discovered that although you cannot reset the password to the EWS submission portal linked on the disclosure request form if you have used it to request your report before, there is a way around it. (without having to call for support to reset the login)
If you have requested your EWS report to be sent to you via email in the past (year? years?) and still have that email, you can download the “Secure html file” attached, open it again, and access your old EWS report via the portal. Once you have that “Secure portal” email on your screen, you can hit the Reply button, clear all comments in the body, change the email subject, and attach your ID & new EWS Disclosure request form.
I recently did this for P1 and P2, and P2 had her report next day, and I had my report in about a week. Not sure why the disparity, but not having to call support and recreate the wheel was a huge plus.
As
mangorunner stated too, you don’t have to print and scan the documents, and I used FoxIt Reader to do the signatures and editing of the PDF. For this recent request, I just changed the signed date on the old request form (because I had kept my last request form), changed the file name to something logical like “Disclosure-request-March-2024”, from the last time I made the EWS disclosure request.
Dang,
Gadget 🕵️, that is an awesome tip to backdoor into the portal. Love it!
Yeah, I thought so too. But to be fair, it’s not a hack and we are still authenticating with a login/password. 🙂
The first time I ordered my report back in 2019, and a week ago I ordered it again using the same email address. I didn’t try to login, I just created new account with the same email I used almost 5 years ago and it worked. But now, after a week, I tried to login and they don’t allow.
Creating an account is the same as logging in. It seems like their main login expires very quickly. The guy on the phone I spoke to said it’s a “security feature”. Pretty silly if you ask me. Gives him something to do, I guess.
You will have to call and they can reset the password/unlock it. Then you will upload the request form using their email portal.
Once they email you the report link, save that email. You can use the steps I mentioned above to request a new report potentially years down the road.
Alex
TY! This is an awesome discovery and it worked for me too.
I received two messages:
The previous disclosure I responded to was from 13 months earlier.
Still works! Just did this again this month… took just over a week to get the EWS Report file (9 calendar days).
I tried it today with an email with the subject “Early Warning File Disclosure” dated March 13, 2024. (I think those are the emails you were referencing? No other saved EWS email that I have seems to make sense in this context.)
Opened the “SecureMessageAtt.html” attachment > Click to read message > Login
Tried to login and got this error:
“Key Expired
The key for this message has expired. You may not decrypt it. For assistance, please contact Early Warning Services at 877-851-3463..”
Maybe I used the wrong type of email – or don’t have the right type of email – or goofed up somewhere else.
Yes, that’s the correct file. You save it to your computer, then open it. However, it looks like they are setting expiration dates on the new Early Warning email messages. I have older ones with no expiration date. The older EWS email says:
“To read it, open the attachment.”
The newer emails say:
“Click here by 2024-10-16 07:59 MST to read your message.
After that, open the attachment.”
So, only if you are an email hoarder like me, you can do my trick. Sorry… 🙁
I’m an email hoarder, too. And hot-diggity-dog, one from March 2022 worked! THANKS,
Gadget 🕵️!
Once logged in, if you checkmark “Send me a copy”, I think that will send a non-expiring email file… so you will have a more current one to hoard. NP,
mangorunner!
This “hack” is still working – submitted new requests tonight for P1 & P2. After double-clicking on the HTML file that Early Warning had sent me in the past, I did have to reset my password from the last time (Sept 2024). It was super simple if you can remember your security question answers that you created. Favorite food, favorite team, or whatever you chose.
SecureMessageAtt.html is the correct name of the file you are looking for in your email inbox from Early Warning.