20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
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Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#2“In fact, a screenshot from Kearns’ mobile phone reveals that while his account had a negative $730,165 cash balance displayed in red, it may not have represented uncollateralized indebtedness at all, but rather his temporary balance until the stocks underlying his assigned options actually settled into his account.”
How the hell is this a thing? Who approved this UI?
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#3Here in Norway, had the loss actually been real, he could have declared personal bankruptcy and moved on with his life. From what I can see the US has something similar, though I'm not sure how effective it is?
Tragic event regardless, and a stark reminder to us programmers that we should always keep in mind what exactly we're doing, what are we telling the users, what are we letting the users do.
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#4Here in Norway, had the loss actually been real, he could have declared personal bankruptcy and moved on with his life. From what I can see the US has something similar, though I'm not sure how effective it is? Tragic event regardless, and a stark reminder to us programmers that we should always keep in mind what exactly we're doing, what are we telling the users, what are we letting the users do.
Excuse my ignorance but how does personal bankruptcy work? Does this allow you to accumulate debt and move along?
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#5Here in Norway, had the loss actually been real, he could have declared personal bankruptcy and moved on with his life. From what I can see the US has something similar, though I'm not sure how effective it is? Tragic event regardless, and a stark reminder to us programmers that we should always keep in mind what exactly we're doing, what are we telling the users, what are we letting the users do.
Excuse my ignorance but how does personal bankruptcy work? Does this allow you to accumulate debt and move along?
Wikipedia has a page about it[0], but it doesn't explain in detail how it works in the U.S., it does say that it involves a process similar to corporate bankruptcy.
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#6This seems to clearly be a case of a person who succumbed to pre-existing mental health troubles, not someone driven to desperation by (the appearance of) financial troubles.
That said, Robinhood is evil.
> shower of colorful confetti Robinhood routinely deploys after customers make trades.
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#7Here in Norway, had the loss actually been real, he could have declared personal bankruptcy and moved on with his life. From what I can see the US has something similar, though I'm not sure how effective it is? Tragic event regardless, and a stark reminder to us programmers that we should always keep in mind what exactly we're doing, what are we telling the users, what are we letting the users do.
Excuse my ignorance but how does personal bankruptcy work? Does this allow you to accumulate debt and move along?
An overview of the process here in Norway can be found here[1]. Basically the rights to all your possessions go to the trustee or court in charge of the case, which will then try to liquidate assets and pay back the creditors.
However a big difference to a corporate bankruptcy is that if you're unable to provide for yourself, you can apply to the trustee/court to get some money for essentials from your previous assets. You can also claim that certain assets are "essential", so you can keep them. This could be clothes, furniture etc. You also get to keep tools, means of transportation etc that you require for your work or similar. Your home is also protected to some degree.
Once the case is settled you pretty much continue your life. You can't start a company for some time, but AFAIK nothing huge hanging over you.
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#8Here in Norway, had the loss actually been real, he could have declared personal bankruptcy and moved on with his life. From what I can see the US has something similar, though I'm not sure how effective it is? Tragic event regardless, and a stark reminder to us programmers that we should always keep in mind what exactly we're doing, what are we telling the users, what are we letting the users do.
Excuse my ignorance but how does personal bankruptcy work? Does this allow you to accumulate debt and move along?
Yes. Slavery is illegal. The reason interest rates are sometimes so high is that lending money is a risk for the lender, not a life sentence for the borrower.
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#9Except for possibly commodities what is the purpose of these options. So far as I can tell it’s just gambling. Guessing whether a stock price will be slightly higher in a few weeks isn’t investing. These people aren’t doing due diligence and reading through prospectuses and understanding the proper value of the companies. They are just reading r/wallstreetbets and literally gambling on popular stocks. How does this do anybody any good? It just produces a few people who get massively lucky and a lot of people who lose everything. Neither one deserves their outcome and we are all worse off for it.
Re: 20-Year-Old Robinhood Customer Dies by Suicide After a $730k Negative Balance
#10Except for possibly commodities what is the purpose of these options. So far as I can tell it’s just gambling. Guessing whether a stock price will be slightly higher in a few weeks isn’t investing. These people aren’t doing due diligence and reading through prospectuses and understanding the proper value of the companies. They are just reading r/wallstreetbets and literally gambling on popular stocks. How does this d…
Options can probably first be seen as a form of insurance - you pay a small price to protect yourself against upward/downward movements. It's of course taken to the next level by r/WSB as a tool for leveraged gambling.