“How was a 20-year old with no income able to get assigned almost a million dollars worth of leverage?” the note reads. “There was no intention to be assigned this much and take this much risk, and I only thought that I was risking the money that I actually owed.”
Kearns’ parents accused Robinhood in their lawsuit of targeting young inexperienced customers.
“Robinhood built out its trading platform to look much like a videogame to attract young users and minimize the appearance of real-world risk. Though Alex was merely a senior in high school when he opened an account with Robinhood and had little or no income, Robinhood determined he was qualified enough to enter into the world of trading sophisticated financial options.” The lawsuit stated.
Robinhood’s customer support caused Alex’ death, says parents
Furthermore, the Kearns family said that Robinhood has “virtually non-existent” customer support. The family said that their son tried to contact customer service multiple times but only received an auto-generated response in return. However, after Alex passed away, he received an email from Robinhood. The company told him that the negative balance was a bug.
