{"id":8763,"date":"2023-12-21T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=8763"},"modified":"2023-12-21T08:46:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T15:46:58","slug":"ews-early-warning-systems-and-you-perfect-together-if-you-like-being-stalked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/21\/ews-early-warning-systems-and-you-perfect-together-if-you-like-being-stalked\/","title":{"rendered":"EWS \u2013 Early Warning Systems and You, Perfect Together (if you like being stalked)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: I\u2019m on an annual blogging vacation for the last two weeks of the year. To make sure you still have content, some of the smartest members of the community have stepped up with guest posts in my absence. Special thanks to today\u2019s author, the always helpful and funny SideShowBob233, for writing this post while I\u2019m on vacation. I\u2019ll see you on January 1!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.earlywarning.com\/\" class=\"ek-link\">EWS, or Early Warning Systems LLC<\/a>, is a credit reporting agency co-owned by some of our favorite banks: Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.&nbsp;&nbsp;I used to think of them as similar to ChexSystems (which anyone who\u2019s been denied a bank account before knows and thoroughly loves in a non-platonic way) but they\u2019re actually less similar to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chexsystems.com\/\" class=\"ek-link\">ChexSystems<\/a> and more like a colonoscopy for your bank accounts, but without anesthesia (or a lollipop at the end).&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.earlywarning.com\/sites\/default\/files\/2023-03\/FD%20FAQs.pdf\" class=\"ek-link\">You can request your consumer EWS report once a year using instructions here<\/a>.&nbsp; Once you send them the request they will email you within a few weeks, or tell you they will mail it to you.&nbsp; It\u2019s quite eye opening, I liken it to opening your trunk and finding 69,420 Airtags inside.&nbsp; And remember after you request it what the late Tom Petty said (no not Here Comes My Girl \u2013 what is wrong with you anyway \u2013 the waiting is the hardest part).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the suspense has been lifted and EWS has deigned to give you your report the real fun begins.&nbsp; You\u2019ll get a nice report (164 pages in my case) full of every single freaking thing you\u2019ve done in nearly every bank account you own (some bank accounts do not report to EWS thankfully, but most do).&nbsp; You will see:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Every check written on every account<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Every ACH transfer made (with destination shown for many of them)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Daily bank balances for a few months (and monthly for a few years) for some banks<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Accounts you closed within the last 3-4 years<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Accounts you opened in the last 3-4 years<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tears streaming down your face when you see how much info about you in tracked<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In my case a rake between the eyes<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, it\u2019s an all you can eat buffet of tracking information for a bank that wants to see if you are a churner or not.&nbsp; Or a money launderer.&nbsp; Or if you have a strange sexual fetish that involves sending ACH transfers back and forth.&nbsp;&nbsp; Regardless of the actual reason for the transfers, any bank looking at this kind of thing is not going to be happy.&nbsp; Now some may shrug, some may open four new bank accounts without telling you (Wells Fargo is a co-owner after all) but some will see the kind of transfers a heavy MSer does and will kick you to the curb.&nbsp;&nbsp; It\u2019s not a coincidence that about a week before my shutdown letters from Chase arrived, they pulled my report twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well that\u2019s great SideShowBob233 you say (with the heavy emphasis on the \u201c2\u201d in \u201c233\u201d because you\u2019re a bit psycho sometimes \u2013 don\u2019t blame the messenger) but what the hell can I do about this? It\u2019s not like you\u2019re going back to your old second job waxing those wrestler\u2019s backs \u2013 so is there any hope?&nbsp;&nbsp; Yes, yes there is.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You may note on your report that some bank accounts do not show up.&nbsp; Your first step (after cleaning up the waxed back hair from the wrestlers \u2013 I can\u2019t believe you left that on your floor since you quit 3 years ago and starting MSing) is noting all the accounts that DO NOT show on EWS.&nbsp; Some credit unions do not report to EWS, but some do.&nbsp; However zero business bank accounts showed on my report, and I\u2019m willing to bet 69% of that back hair you just cleaned up that none will show on your report either.&nbsp;&nbsp; So you want to move your transfers to business checking accounts whenever possible, as those will not be tracked.&nbsp; Business checking accounts especially have an added advantage that banks generally do not care how you use them or how much money you run through them (not counting money orders \u2013 sooner or later those get noticed and you get shutdown).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t take my word for it \u2013 try it.&nbsp; I\u2019ve had several banks tell me that my transactions look like business activity and that I needed to stop it.&nbsp; I\u2019ve yet to have a bank tell me that for a business checking for example, although I like to imagine it going something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bank: SSB233, is that business activity we\u2019re seeing in your business checking account?<br \/>SSB233: Why yes it is business activity<br \/><br \/>Bank: We\u2019d like you to stop the business activity and move it to a business account<br \/>SSB233:&nbsp;But it is a business account<br \/><br \/>Bank:&nbsp;OK our bad, we\u2019ll just charge you this $50 fee, make you come in branch for no reason, &nbsp;and you\u2019ll be good to go<br \/>SSB233:&nbsp;[steps on a rake]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there you have it, EWS (which also owns Zelle \u2013 because who doesn\u2019t want the people who managed to screw up money transfers so badly also holding all their bank data).&nbsp; Thanks for listening to my rant, and if it doesn\u2019t make sense to you I say go step on a rake.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"258\" height=\"196\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/image-8.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8764\" style=\"object-fit:cover\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Pictured: SideShowBob233&#8217;s EWS report smacks him in the face.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: I\u2019m on an annual blogging vacation for the last two weeks of the year. To make sure you still have content, some of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[178,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8763"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8804,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763\/revisions\/8804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}