Stock trading app Robinhood has been around for quite a while now, although the app recently rose to prominence after a bunch of Redditors decided to invest heavily into GameStop’s stocks, causing the value of the stocks to rise, which in turn caused a lot of other investors to incur huge losses as they had taken a short position on the stock.The app has faced a ton of backlash since, and now it looks like they’re in a bit of a legal spot as the family of 20-year old Alex Kearns is suing the company, claiming that they were responsible for the death of the 20-year old who took his own life after he believed he had racked up $730,000 in trading losses through the app.
According to the lawsuit, “This case centers on Robinhood’s aggressive tactics and strategy to lure inexperienced and unsophisticated investors, including Alex, to take big risks with the lure of tantalizing profits. Robinhood built out its trading platform to look much like a videogame to attract young users and minimize the appearance of real-world risk.”
Kearns had initially purchased multiple stock options through the app which later he discovered resulted in him having a negative balance of $730,000. Kearns tried contacting the company but was only met with automated responses. The company contacted him via email a day after his suicide claiming that his trades had been resolved and that he didn’t owe any money.