20yo Robinhood Customer Commits Suicide After Seeing $730K Negative Balance
Kearns may not have realized that his negative cash balance displaying on his Robinhood homescreen was only temporary and would be corrected once the underlying stock was credited to his account. Indeed it’s not uncommon for cash and buying power to display negative after the first half of options are processed but before the second options are exercised—even if the portfolio remains positive.“Tragically, I don’t even think he made that big of a mistake. This is an interface issue, they have slick interfaces. Confetti popping everywhere,” says Brewster referring to the shower of colorful confetti Robinhood routinely deploys after customers make trades. “They try to gamify trading and couch it as investment.”Am I reading this correctly and he really wasn't in the hole badly, but a crappy presentation of information broke him?Firstly, if someone reading this is in the same situation, take a breath and know this is not Student Loans, you are young and bankruptcy is about as bad as its going to get.If you are the interface designer, well, I don't know what to say to you other that sort your damn self out.  Its your job not only to convey the truth, but show what the final result is approximately going to be.  Conveying just the current facts is as misleading as outright lying.