- #ROBINHOOD SUED FAMILY WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE SERIES#
- #ROBINHOOD SUED FAMILY WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE FREE#
“The puts I bought/sold should have cancelled out, too, but I also have no clue what I was doing now in hindsight,” Alex wrote, according to the lawsuit. I was just visualizing what he was going through when he was writing the notes and seeing those emails, not being able to reach out to anybody.”īefore he died, Alex left a note indicating his confusion about the options trades and explaining that he did not want to die. “It really hurt, to be honest, because…I knew what he was going through. “I was appalled,” Dan said about learning his son tried and failed to get help from Robinhood. Robinhood did not reply to questions from CNN Business about its customer support.Īlex never heard back from Robinhood beyond auto-generated replies, according to the lawsuit. US stocks are in a bubble, and it's unclear when it will pop, hedge fund manager saysĮven though Alex thought he could lose only $10,000 maximum, after seeing the Robinhood app he believed he had somehow lost $730,000, the lawsuit said.ĭesperate for answers, Alex emailed Robinhood for help three times that night and the next morning, the family said.Īt the time, Robinhood fielded customer support requests exclusively over email, Dan said. Amateur stock traders, many using the San Francisco-based stock trading app Robinhood, have disrupted, and caused losses, for traditional Wall Street investing firms by causing unexpected and substantial fluctuations in the share value of companies like AMC Theaters and Game Stop. The New York Stock Exchange in New York, New York, USA, 28 January 2021. Minutes later, another email indicated he was required to purchase over $700,000 in shares as part of the options trade, according to the lawsuit. The nightmare for the Kearns family began on June 11, 2020, when the holder of the options Alex had sold exercised his options, obligating the 20-year-old to buy the underlying security, according to the lawsuit.Īt 11:01 pm that evening, Robinhood notified Alex Kearns by email that his account was restricted, meaning he couldn’t make new trades or withdrawals, the lawsuit said. The controversial step prompted calls for an investigation and Congress to schedule hearings. (GME) and other stocks favored by an army of traders on Reddit.
Robinhood has come under fire in recent weeks for temporarily suspending purchases of GameStop
“We remain committed to making Robinhood a place to learn and invest responsibly.” “We were devastated by Alex Kearns’ death,” Robinhood said.
#ROBINHOOD SUED FAMILY WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE SERIES#
Now his family is suing RobinhoodĪfter the Kearns lawsuit, Robinhood said it made a series of improvements to its options offering, including by providing guidance to help customers, updates on how it displays buying power and live voice support for customers with open options positions. He died by suicide thinking he owed $730,000. “It’s almost like he martyred himself just to save us from what he thought would be a huge financial burden, which of course, isn’t the case,” Dan said. The tragedy has drawn attention to the potential dangers of the free-trading boom that Robinhood and its gamified platform have helped set off.
#ROBINHOOD SUED FAMILY WHO COMMITTED SUICIDE FREE#
The Kearns family is suing Robinhood for the wrongful death of their son, who - like a growing number of novice traders - turned to the free trading app for access to sophisticated financial instruments such as options. “Anyone would be in a state of panic to see those numbers on their screen.”
“If he had been able to get a hold of somebody…he would be alive today,” Dan told CNN Business in an interview. Alex left a note that signaled confusion about his negative Robinhood balance. After their son’s death, Dan and Dorothy Kearns said they were horrified to learn that their panicked 20-year-old repeatedly tried and failed to get in touch with Robinhood about his negative account balance of $730,000.Ĭollege student Alex Kearns mistakenly believed he owed that staggering sum of money and took his own life last June after his desperate pleas to Robinhood went unanswered, according to his family.
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