Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

hindenburgresearch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 324 posts

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#291

Post by paxys »

user3939382 wrote: post #79

FYI if anyone is interested I can prove it -- Cash App is engaged in a massive stock trading fraud. I noticed one day that my books were off (down) by 1 penny. When I dug into it, I figured out that Cash App is providing their customers with conflicting reports for their stock sales. In the app, the sales report rounds pennies up, in the actual sale, whose records are only available through more complex data export p…

The fact that this is upvoted to the top of the page goes to show how little techies know about banks and trading and the financial system in general. No Block isn't running some elaborate Office Space style scam. If you open Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever else you will have the same experience. Trades are executed and settled by clearing houses and in-house accounting and audit departments, not iOS engineers. There is a lot of complexity behind the scenes that the app is hiding from you. Getting the estimate off by a few cents (say because the front end used the wrong floating point standard and/or only considered 5 decimal points instead of 6 in their calculations) is perfectly normal.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#292

Post by dougSF70 »

ElfinTrousers wrote: post #289
astura wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which explicitly references Superman III as the source.

Which is one reason I suspect it might not be true: not because Block is necessarily honest, but because everyone and their dog has heard of this scam and it's the first thing people would think of.

The twitter thread they published appears to contain supporting evidence. Or perhaps there was enough smoke to justify the short position which they covered at market open for a nice return.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#293

Post by sizzle »

user3939382 wrote: post #79

FYI if anyone is interested I can prove it -- Cash App is engaged in a massive stock trading fraud. I noticed one day that my books were off (down) by 1 penny. When I dug into it, I figured out that Cash App is providing their customers with conflicting reports for their stock sales. In the app, the sales report rounds pennies up, in the actual sale, whose records are only available through more complex data export p…

They copied a page out of Office Space with the penny trick?

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#294

Post by user3939382 »

paxys wrote: post #291
user3939382 wrote: post #79

FYI if anyone is interested I can prove it -- Cash App is engaged in a massive stock trading fraud. I noticed one day that my books were off (down) by 1 penny. When I dug into it, I figured out that Cash App is providing their customers with conflicting reports for their stock sales. In the app, the sales report rounds pennies up, in the actual sale, whose records are only available through more complex data export p…

The fact that this is upvoted to the top of the page goes to show how little techies know about banks and trading and the financial system in general. No Block isn't running some elaborate Office Space style scam. If you open Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever else you will have the same experience. Trades are executed and settled by clearing houses and in-house accounting and audit departments, not iOS engineers. Ther…

As I stated elsewhere:

> There is no legitimate scenario where they would be reporting the Net Amount for the same sale in two places with different numbers.

The net amount reported in the app isn't an estimate, nor is it ever updated.

If you do the math, the amount listed in the app, according to their own report, is the correct amount. The final asset price X the final asset amount, as frozen in their long-term reports, is the amount listed in the app.

There is no hand-waving financial explanation for this discrepancy.

> Block isn't running some elaborate Office Space style scam

I have black and white evidence that they are. Stealing isn't necessarily elaborate. I'm surprised you find this hard to believe when TFA is a report about other types of fraud by the same company.

> how little techies know about banks and trading and the financial system ... There is a lot of complexity behind the scenes

Your comment is a little condescending, I don't think it's a big secret that trades get settled.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#295

Post by Sandworm5639 »

hoofhearted wrote: post #50
numlocked wrote: post #23

"CEO Jack Dorsey has publicly touted how Cash App is mentioned in hundreds of hip hop songs as evidence of its mainstream appeal. A review of those songs show that the artists are not generally rapping about Cash App’s smooth user interface—many describe using it to scam, traffic drugs or even pay for murder." Hindenburg made a music video compiling the references that is...uh...worth watching: https://www.youtube.co…

Correct. A scam here in Baltimore that keeps occurring is that the squeege kids will run up on someone unsuspecting and start cleaning their windshield. They will pressure the driver for a tip, and the driver will say they don’t have cash of course. They will say that’s cool, you can send me a tip. They ask the driver for their phone so they can look up their cashapp for them, and bam the driver got scammed. What’s h…

How does this end if you don't have CashApp installed?

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#296

Post by paxys »

user3939382 wrote: post #294
paxys wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this is upvoted to the top of the page goes to show how little techies know about banks and trading and the financial system in general. No Block isn't running some elaborate Office Space style scam. If you open Vanguard or Fidelity or whatever else you will have the same experience. Trades are executed and settled by clearing houses and in-house accounting and audit departments, not iOS engineers. Ther…

As I stated elsewhere: > There is no legitimate scenario where they would be reporting the Net Amount for the same sale in two places with different numbers. The net amount reported in the app isn't an estimate, nor is it ever updated. If you do the math, the amount listed in the app, according to their own report, is the correct amount. The final asset price X the final asset amount, as frozen in their long-term rep…

Your allegation is that Block is showing you two different numbers, and pocketing the difference. Can you prove that? Does it show up on their financial statements? Or are their auditors involved in the grift as well?

Or could it be that the number in your bank account is consistent with what the buyer/seller on the other end of the trade is getting?

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#297

Post by kspacewalk2 »

anovikov wrote: post #229
HarryHirsch wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Brazilianization" is a real phenomenon, isn't it? One wishes we weren't going that way in the West, but we are.

Maybe it is a bit too much, but in general, Western societies should work on educating people to greatly reduce their amount of trust in other people. Current Western trust levels are simply not reflective of reality: they were meant for a white society with a single, enforced religion, where everyone was shaking in fear of divine punishment. We live in a global world now and vast majority of it never had or expected…

I am not at all surprised that your name seems to be Russian. Before anyone accuses me of racism, I too am from the same region, and my mother is ethnically Russian.

Your mentality is typical of people from low-trust societies - "lol those naive Westerners" (lokhi[0] in Russian). But while individuals in high-trust societies can indeed be lokhi, everyone in a low-trust society is, collectively. They are giving up on the social development and institutions that only work well when trust in people you don't know is a societal value. They are defective at best, and nonexistent at worst, in a society where everyone treats each other with scepticism, disdain and distrust by default, until proven otherwise.

[0] https://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/lokh/index.html (sorry for RT)

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#298

Post by user3939382 »

paxys wrote: post #296
user3939382 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I stated elsewhere: > There is no legitimate scenario where they would be reporting the Net Amount for the same sale in two places with different numbers. The net amount reported in the app isn't an estimate, nor is it ever updated. If you do the math, the amount listed in the app, according to their own report, is the correct amount. The final asset price X the final asset amount, as frozen in their long-term rep…

Your allegation is that Block is showing you two different numbers, and pocketing the difference . Can you prove that? Does it show up on their financial statements? Or are their auditors involved in the grift as well? Or could it be that the number in your bank account is consistent with what the buyer/seller on the other end of the trade is getting?

Can I prove that: yes. That was my opening statement. I have their statements, and I have my account transactions.

There are three key numbers here: the net amount reported in the app, the net amount listed on their buried report, and the amount paid. The net amount in the app is correctly calculated according to their own report of settled asset value and amount. The net amount in this buried report and amount paid do not match that.

Since these numbers again, are not estimates and never change, including after any settlement period, there is no legitimate explanation for the discrepancy.

You mention audits as if audited companies never commit financial crime.

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#299

Post by _blz2 »

overthrow wrote: post #24

I didn't know Square had changed their name to Block. Looks like it happened in December 2021: https://investors.block.xyz/news/news-details/2021/Square-In... That said this really seems overblown. The report seems to mostly just talk about Cash App. Square Payments, Weebly and TIDAL are not even mentioned. Afterpay is mentioned but that was a 2022 acquisition so the problems likely predate Block's involvement. It fe…

How are you confident in your opinion without even knowing the name had changed a couple of years ago?

Re: Block: Inflated user metrics and “frictionless” fraud facilitation

#300

Post by DiggyJohnson »

paganel wrote: post #178
automatic6131 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What racial aspect? Please explain

I've explicitly mentioned that these analysts used only black people as the "criminals" in their example video. Interesting that it flew right past them.

Are there any white rappers name-dropping Cashapp in a similar context? That seems like the obvious case you would need to address before making this point.
Post reply on HN