New York Attorney General Letitia James today sued Early Warning Services, LLC (EWS), a company owned and controlled by a group of the largest banks in the United States that was tasked with developing and operating the electronic payment platform Zelle, for failing to protect its users from massive amounts of fraud. An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) revealed that EWS designed Zelle without critical safety features, allowing scammers to easily target users and steal over $1 billion between 2017 and 2023. EWS knew from the beginning that key features of the Zelle network made it uniquely susceptible to fraud, and yet it failed to adopt basic safeguards to address these glaring flaws or enforce any meaningful anti-fraud rules on its partner banks. Attorney General James filed this lawsuit after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) abandoned a similar lawsuit, filed in December 2024, following the change in the federal administration. With this lawsuit, Attorney General James is seeking restitution and damages for affected New Yorkers, as well as a court order mandating Zelle maintain anti-fraud measures necessary to protect its users.

“No one should be left to fend for themselves after falling victim to a scam,” said Attorney General James. “I look forward to getting justice for the New Yorkers who suffered because of Zelle’s security failures.”