Consumer Financial Protection Bureau<\/a> dropped a similar case in March, as the Trump Administration gutted the agency. In a statement, James, a Democrat and longtime critic of President Donald Trump, noted the original suit was abandoned following a \u201cchange in the federal administration.\u201d <\/p>\n“No one should be left to fend for themselves after falling victim to a scam,” James said. “I look forward to getting justice for the New Yorkers who suffered because of Zelle’s security failures.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/New_York_Zelle_Lawsuit_68618.jpg\")
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing the parent company of Zelle, claiming the platform\u2019s lack of safeguards allowed scammers to steal $1 billion from users. (Patrick Sison)<\/p>\n
James\u2019 case also argues that Zelle, which allows users to send and receive near-instant money transfers, failed to include adequate verification processes in its platform.<\/p>\n
Her office said fraudsters were able to gain access to people\u2019s accounts or trick people into sending money to phony accounts posing as businesses. <\/p>\n
In one instance, a Zelle user got a call from someone posing as an employee of the utility company Con Edison, who told him his electricity would be turned off if he didn\u2019t send money through Zelle. The victim transferred about $1,500 to a Zelle account named \u201cConed Billing\u201d before realizing it was likely a scam. He was then told by his bank that he could not get his money back, James\u2019 office said.<\/p>\n
James\u2019 also claimed that Zelle\u2019s advertisements misleadingly promised safe and secure money transfers when the banks backing the platform rejected basic, anti-fraud safeguards. Early Warning Services is owned and controlled by several of the country\u2019s largest banks, including, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Capital One, and Wells Fargo. <\/p>\n
In a statement, Zelle called James’ lawsuit “a political stunt to generate press, not progress.”<\/p>\n
“The Attorney General should focus on the hard facts, stopping criminal activity and adherence to the law, not overreach and meritless claims,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
With reporting by the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-68309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}