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Comment by sunir | Hacker News Reader

The dispute as I understand it was he did not “actually” (literally speaking) have a profit because the clearing and settlement hadn’t finished.

A lot of the anger with Robinhood comes down to the mistaken belief by many people that money moves instantly, trades happen instantly.

Robinhood UI is struggling to convey actual current value vs accrued unsettled value vs unrealized value.

These are non-trivial concepts. The time component of money confuses a lot of situations. Eg Most people treat retainers as revenue before it is earned; even SaaS companies treat MRR as earned before the time period elapsed and service is rendered. However this isn’t strictly correct or legal.

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I thought the issue was he thought he had a $700K loss, tried to contact Robinhood customer service for clarification because he didn't think he should have a loss, Rh gave him a boilerplate automated message, and he killed himself before getting a clarification from Rh.

With a lot of these new Web services like Rh, GoPuff, Yelp, etc. it can be hard to get a hold of a real person in a timely manner.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alex-kearns-robinhood-trader-su...

The article in the top post is missing details. Robinhood actually demanded $170k from him to settle his account. It wasn't a UI issue.

From that article, "the company sent an automated email demanding Alex take "immediate action," requesting a payment of more than $170,000 in just a few days..."

It definitely was a UI issue.

Email is part of UI / UX. Either they were programmed loosely or the email was poorly worded.

Email is indeed UI. Whether or not to send that email is business logic, and therefore not UI. Something on the backend though that this guy owed that much money, and thus the email was sent out. UI doesn't happen in a vacuum.

I hate to sound calloused here, but maybe if you don't understand transaction settlement time, don't trade that volume of options?

Robinhood has similar moral liability of a payday lender: it's not wholly their fault if people choose to make bad choices for themselves, but they are partially responsible for enabling them and/or obsfuscating terms.

But in this instance, we're talking about pretty standard industry processes and practices.

If you hand someone a gun with the expectation they know how to use it, and the first thing they do is blow their brains out... not sure how that's on you?

Robinhood is specifically targeting young, inexperienced investors as their market. Not having enough information as to how options work, not having an actual line to get support, sending out a flaming email demanding $170,000 erroneously... So many places where this could have been avoided, and should be expected considering the targeted clientele. They had this coming

It's not standard for a broker to not have live customer service. When/after I make a trade I can call Fidelity and talk to somebody. This kid tried to contact customer support and got an automated message. Try calling Uber or GoPuff customer support when your delivery doesn't come.

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