Last June, Alex Kearns, 20, died of suicide, blaming the stock trading app Robinhood for his death. He mistakenly believed that he had lost $ 730,000 and that the company was making more than $ 170,000 of that money in a matter of days. His family now agrees that it was Robinhood’s fault – on Monday, they sued the company for manslaughter.
According to the complaint, Kearns never owed any money, but that didn’t stop the Robinhood app from suggesting so, or from sending him an “immediate action needed” email saying he needed to deposit $ 178,612.73 by 17 of June.
Here is a screenshot one of his relatives shared on Twitter last June what the app would have shown him at the time:
Kearns reportedly tried to contact Robinhood’s support department four times, but only received an automated message. The day after his death, Robinhood sent another automatic message to inform him that he owed no money, according to a CBS News story that includes an interview with the Kearns family.
Later that month, when word of his death spread, Robinhood promised to change the way his app worked, to educate its users, and promised $ 250,000 to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
The new process is not the only reason why this story is relevant. Robinhood is also facing dozens of lawsuits for his role in the GameStop / Reddit / Wall Street Bets saga, where individual traders have teamed up to manipulate shares that had been sold, but some traders are blaming them for huge losses after Robinhood froze when they they could invest. The company’s software also automatically sold some options (although not stocks, says Robinhood) from traders.
Anyway, the huge race on GameStop now seems to be over and, unlike Kearns, many people may have lost a huge amount of real money in the game via Robinhood and other apps. If you know someone who did, they can find the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.