Robinhood Sued Over Suicide of 20-Year-Old Trader

The family of a 20-year-old man who committed suicide this past year have sued trading app Robinhood over his death.

The complaint states that 20-year-old Alex Kearns was made to believe he had fallen $730,000 indebted as he took his life in June. Alex's parents, Dan and Dorothy Kearns, said their son was unable to receive adequate support from customer services before his suicide.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, also alleges negligent infliction of emotional distress and unfair business practices, claiming that Alex was lured into using Robinhood with the app's strategy of “gamifying” their services to draw in inexperienced investors.

Not only was Alex put in a position to get rid of thousands and thousands of dollars without investment guidance or effective customer support, the suit claims, but he was misled into believing that he had. The app showed that he'd a $730,000 negative cash balance, which isn't just like regular debt, but caused Alex to panic and reach out to Robinhood, who did not explain the excellence and instead demanded large cash deposits to pay for the balance.

In an argument to the BBC, Robinhood said they were “devastated” by Alex's death and hade made improvements for their platform.

The Robinhood app, which describes itself as being “on a pursuit to democratise finance”, recently made headlines for limiting sales of certain shares to its users after US retailer Gamestop saw an unprecedented surge.