Robinhood notified Alex Kearns in June of what he thought was a 730,000 loss on a trade, and when he was unable to communicate with anyone at. In a note to the family before killing himself, Kearns questioned how he was able to conduct high-stake trades, saying he had “no clue what I was doing now in hindsight” and thought he was “risking the money that I actually owned,” according to CBS News. The family of a 20-year-old stock trader who committed suicide sued the broker Robinhood for his death, citing its 'misleading communications' that caused their son to panic over what he wrongly believed were huge market losses, according to a lawsuit. The complaint also alleges that Robinhood failed to inform Kearns that he may have had options he could use that would have "more than covered his obligation," the Journal reported, according to the complaint. The complaint says that Kearns emailed Robinhood’s support team three times that night and the next morning, requesting assistance and saying, “I was incorrectly assigned more money than I should have, my bought puts should have covered the puts I sold.” He allegedly received only automated replies, and Robinhood offered no customer service phone number. requesting Kearns take “immediate action” to pay about $178,000 in a few days, CBS News reported. Robinhood has announced changes to its app and the hiring of an options education specialist after a young user’s suicide. The parents of a 20-year-old man who committed suicide after mistakenly believing he owed 730,000 to Robinhood plan to file a wrongful death suit against the stock-trading app, according to a report. However, family members said he may have. Robinhood sent a late-night automated email at 3:26 a.m. Apparent suicide by 20-year-old Robinhood trader who saw a negative 730,000 balance prompts app to make changes. A suburban Naperville trader died by suicide last week after reportedly seeing he had a 730,000 negative balance on the popular trading app Robinhood.
Last June, Kearns learned his account was locked because of an apparent negative balance of $730,000.
He began an options trade through the stock-trading app, thinking his highest possible loss would be less than $10,000. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev apologized to the family of Alex Kearns, the young customer who committed suicide last year after encountering catastrophic trading issues, during a portion of his. Kearns was a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student who had started using Robinhood during high school.