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Business|Cash App Ordered to Pay $255 Million in Penalties Over Fraud
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/business/cash-app-fraud-settlement.html
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The transfer-money app, owned by Jack Dorsey’s Block, racked up a hefty bill of fines and restitution for what federal regulators called “woefully incomplete” customer protections.
By Rob Copeland
Rob Copeland, a finance reporter, has covered the Biden administration’s last-minute flurry of fines and lawsuits against financial services companies.
Jan. 16, 2025Updated 2:23 p.m. ET
Cash App, the smartphone payments tool that allows instant money transfers and is popular with young people, has made billions in profits for Block, the technology conglomerate run by the billionaire Jack Dorsey.
One way it was able to do that, according to settlements the company reached with federal and state regulators this week, was by making it virtually impossible for users to reclaim money lost in fraudulent transactions.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the company delayed refunds and misled its 50 million users about whose responsibility it was to pay back their claims. When users reported fraud transactions to Cash App, instead of investigating the matter, the company pointed them to their banks.
The federal regulator also said the company made it cumbersome for fraud victims to report claims, shuffling them between its website and a phone number with a recorded message instructing them to visit the website. The purpose, regulators said, was to exhaust customers so much that they eventually gave up.
The company encouraged its customer service workers to avoid resolving users’ fraud-related claims, and used two internal metrics — “win rate” and “stick rate” — to measure the proportion of charge-back requests it was able to avoid, according to a settlement it reached with the consumer bureau on Thursday.
Cash App, along with Venmo and Zelle, is part of the growing collection of peer-to-peer payments applications that allow individuals and businesses to transfer money. Cash App is particularly popular with Black and Hispanic users, as well as those younger than 50. Along with similar payment tools, it has long been subject to complaints about fraud and scams.
