Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agreement, Congress

Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by kleton on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:21PM (#25971458)

Each FINRA arbitration case would be expected to cost the company up to 10,000 in fees. If anywhere near the 100,000 users who left negative reviews on the Google Play store for the app file an arbitration and pay the filing fee, Robinhood will absolutely go bankrupt.

If you are/were a Robinhood user: https://www.finra.org/arbitration-mediation/initiate-arbitra...

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by adolph on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:30PM (#25971536)

Some previous (flagged) discussion about the Patreon mass arbitration story.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24016732

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by notyourwork on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:28PM (#25971512)

Submitting a negative review is a lot less effort than dealing with a court case. I think it’s unlikely a small percentage of 100,000 will pursue.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by User23 on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:29PM (#25971520)

You’re talking about people who banded together to drive up share prices. They’ve already demonstrated an ability and willingness to coordinate.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by hutzlibu on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:33PM (#25971577)

But they are probably still not the majority of its users. Anyway, Robinhood is likely dead in the long run.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by m463 on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:00PM (#25971858)

But remember the arbitration problem that doordash faced when a law firm created an easy-to-arbitrate system for workers?

just do a web search for "arbitration backfired"

you'll find this and other interesting cases :)

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by o-__-o on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:51PM (#25972335)

>court case

I thought it is arbitration (which is less effort than a court case)

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by katbyte on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:20PM (#25972054)

If 1% do that’s 1,000,000...

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by TylerE on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:36PM (#25972185)

That’s a whole 6 hours of profit. They’re at almost $1 bill in annual revenue for 2020.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by User23 on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:28PM (#25971513)

And under California law consumers cannot be forced to bear those costs.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by Mountain_Skies on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:03PM (#25971890)

IIRC, customers still have to pay the filing fee, but beyond that, the costs are on the company.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by btown on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:44PM (#25972274)

For what it's worth, arbitration filing fees can be calculated at https://tools.finra.org/arbitration_calculator/ - they seem to start at $50 for specified damages, and $1575 for unspecified damages. (Obligatory: not a lawyer, not at all recommending that anyone do this without consulting one.)

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by malwarebytess on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:41PM (#25971641)

I think there's a very good chance the reviews were not organic, but instead automated.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by midasz on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:44PM (#25971689)

Highly doubt that, and wonder why you'd even think that - it's a pretty big movement with vocal users, submitting a review because you got scammed (which is what happened) is a very low threshold.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by toomuchtodo on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:42PM (#25971663)

You can automate arbitration filings for users just as easily. Can’t wipe away 100k arbitration requests as easily as the same amount of negative reviews.

I’d even contribute financially to have such an app built, because if FINRA and the SEC won't act (no surprise!), citizens can and should.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by mrep on Saturday January 30, 2021 @02:05PM (#25971907)

I highly doubt that. I filed a 1 star review and it literally only took like 30 seconds as you don't have to write anything to rate it.

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by mdoms on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:42PM (#25971664)

Got any evidence for that?

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Re:Analysis: Robinhood protected from lawsuits by user agree... by alasdair_ on Saturday January 30, 2021 @01:47PM (#25971727)

Some circumstantial evidence would be the apple app scores not having the same magnitude of response.

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