Investor thought he lost $700,000, kills himself | Family sues Robinhood

A novice trader, Alex Keans, 20, a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, killed himself last year when he mistakenly believed that he lost more than $700,000 in a stock options trade. Now, the family of the trader is claiming that popular stock-trading platform’s business practices led to their son’s death.

The complaint was lodged on Monday in Santa Clara County, California, seeking unspecified damages on behalf of the parents and sister of Alex for wrongful practices, negligent infliction of emotional distress and death.

In the lawsuit, the family blamed Robinhood that they employed aggressive tactics and strategies to lure inexperienced and unsophisticated investors, to take big risks and gain huge profits.

According to the complaint, Robinhood was limited to automated email replies with no or little investment guidance. Alex received emails from the platform on June 11 that his account had been restricted and he was required to buy $700,000 in shares as a result of an options trade. This made his account a negative amount of $730,000 on a trade he had calculated would have a loss of less than $10,000.

He filed several emails to Robinhood but in reply got those automated email replies and in the early morning, he got a mail again saying that he needed to deposit more than $178,000 within a week to begin the address of the negative address. According to the lawsuit, Alex did not owe any money, he held options in his account that more than covered his obligation, and the negative balance would have been erased by the settlement of options. Having no option left, Alex became desperate and killed himself.