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Woman faces six years in prison over Cash App account she never opened

Woman faces six years in prison over Cash App account she never opened

oidar

Comments (342)

  • benjiro29
    * authorities have offered Smith a plea deal including a $1,000 fine, $1,000 in restitution and three years' probation.*This is the goal ... They know they are at fault but admitting they made a mistake is damaging to careers.In a lot of cases a carrot is dangled in front of people ... You can wast a lot of time (and money) fighting for your innocent, and take the risk your still going to get convicted.Or you can take the plea deal, and it absolves us from our mistakes. And you save money because its cheaper then paying all those lawyers and court costs. And your innocent anyway, so that probations has no effect on you.I forgot the source but the amount of prosecutions that are plea down is staggering. A lot of actual innocent people take plea's because its cheaper, then the alternative. And there have been plenty of people innocently convicted (even on shaky evidence), so most people take plea deals and they can move on with their lives.This results in a culture where investigations are annoying. Where pressure is ramped up again and again to break people into taking plea deals. The biggest issue is, if you actually refuse to take a plea deal, then all resources are put against you to get a actual conviction, even if they know your innocent. "Why did you not just take the plea deal". Well, time to punish you for not taking it. Because repeat after me again, careers are on the line and losing cases hurt those future (potential political) careers.Its the same why prosecutors fight tooth and nail, even if clear evidence is shows that a person was innocently convicted and spend X years in jail. It not about justice, its about protecting those careers.The proof of innocents is heavily put on the other party, and it really hits hard on people who do not have the financial means.
  • jawiggins
    I recall once reading some Patrick Mckenzie article where he discussed how administrative issues like this used to be easily fixed by journalists. They could reach out to an institution seeking comment on a story, the institution's PR department could then ask for 48 hours to comment, in which time they could run something up the flag pole and get it fix. But with the speed on online reporting, they're now incentivized to report on the scandal ASAP, leading institutions to similarly fail to fix the errors. In that case I believe it was about bank foreclosures, but in this case I suspect there might be a way to convince the DA they're prosecuting an old woman and not an e-scammer.
  • squidbeak
    > Meanwhile, authorities have offered Smith a plea deal including a $1,000 fine, $1,000 in restitution and three years' probation. She has refused, saying she is innocent.This is nuts. Is it possible US prosecutors give so few shits about justice?
  • Roark66
    It will never stop until prosecutors/police become liable for gross negligence.
  • exabrial
    If innocent, the prosecutors need to fail jail time. This is absurd.I hope she wins, sues the state, sues the individuals, sues everyone, and retires on a private island.
  • tuveson
  • doodlebugging
    Time for CashApp founders and C-levels to be held personally liable for creating a system with so few checks that it appears to be designed to facilitate fraud and theft.Then you sue all the law enforcement officers and local officials who are attempting to lay the blame for this on someone they should know is likely innocent. Make all of the financial liability for this lazy investigation come directly from the pockets of the cops and prosecutors until they have nothing left to their names and then extract every thin dime that you can from the city that hired or elected these clods so that the whole city is bankrupted.Money is obviously the only thing that talks in this society. Make all these assholes pay with everything that they have managed to accumulate in their lives and kick their asses to the curbs after pointing at a dumpster and telling them that they can likely find some cardboard suitable for beggar signage. They'll need to supply their own writing tools though.
  • justin66
    Being extradited to Arkansas for a crime one didn't commit, one which is impossible to refute because there is no evidence to begin with, seems like a weirdly American spin on Kafka.
  • ashleyn
    Police never thought to subpoena the ISP for the IP address associated with the cashapp login? This seems like an egregious omission in the investigation. Even if it were a VPN, you could subpoena her email to find payment receipts to the provider, etc. Even that may not necessarily prove guilt if there are no logs. That's all an enormous leap of evidence to assume the account is genuinely hers, especially given how endemic identity theft is.
  • rawgabbit
    Meanwhile, Cash App who facilitated the scam and actually cost the buyer actual money... walks away with no repercussions. There is something horribly broken when tech companies who are ruining people's lives have zero responsibility but are making money in the process.
  • Good4boothee
    So how exactly does Cash App verify users that signup for new accounts? If the process is so lax, shouldn't they be forced to temporary block it? To say nothing about money laundering charges, that would be raised against any bank in such situation.
  • beedeebeedee
    Cash app and all of the organizations that stored but did not secure her social security number and other information should be liable, not her
  • Buttons840
    If it does go to court, would explaining to the jury how half the nation's personal data is leaked twice a month be allowed? Or is this one of those truths that society is not allowed to acknowledge?
  • aftbit
  • ada-h00k
    I don't understand why ID cards with digital features aren't really a thing in the U.S. In many countries, such as Germany, there are ID cards that you can scan with an app to prove your identity. That makes it much harder for fraudsters to simply open bank accounts in other people's names.
  • ChrisMarshallNY
    I have a feeling that she will get a very good lawyer, willing to work on contingency, on the ensuing sueball that she'll throw at the state.As mentioned in other comments, plea deals are basically unconstitutional.
  • creativeSlumber
    Isn't it Cashapp that allowed a criminal to open an account with someone else's social security number? Does she have a case against Cashapp?
  • nyeah
    Still waiting for industry fans to comment. But let's get the ball rolling:"I would never defend <company/common practice>. But this article is such egregious ragebait that I must speak out. It's a very sad outcome. But it's also clearly <her fault/impossible to legislate a fix/evidence that the system is working>."Irony notice. This comment contains irony.
  • jl6
    Would the EFF get involved in a case like this? Feels like it could set an important principle about how weak the link can be between “PII” and the actual person, given the preponderance of data leaks.
  • moecables
    Shame on Cash App and Block for their horrible customer support.
  • giantg2
    It's good this is seen as big news, but to anyone paying attention this is an everyday occurrence.All you need to charge someone is to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the elements of the offense were committed. Account being in your name and used in the crime meets that criteria. The problem is that many times a "thorough investigation" was not performed. There's nothing in law requiring a thorough investigation, but it's usually included in department regulations. You can file a complaint, but they won't do anything about it. There is no accountability anywhere in the system. The judges who are supposed to be neutral are severely biased due to the structure of the system and lack of training.
  • Hackbraten
    Meanwhile in our inboxes: “We take the security and privacy of our users very seriously” and “We have no reason to believe that social security numbers in our user database were accessed.”
  • krunck
    Is there a GoFundMe for her?
  • Arubis
    Identify theft/identity fraud is a bullshit risk-shifting move by the banking class.The actual crime is classic fraud and it's directed at the banks and financiers. By inventing "identify theft", the financial sector shifts responsibility and financial consequences from themselves to the uninvolved, innocent, and frequently totally unaware individuals that fraudsters represent themselves to be.With this system in place, instead of then requiring that banks spend the resources to verify who they believe they're doing business with (or else risk being defrauded), we have "credit monitoring" and "identity security" services and individuals being held financially and criminally liable for crimes they're often so uninvolved in they _literally don't know they happened_.
  • hliyan
    I wonder whether this type of situation is an artifact of the US system of law being focused on codification / literalism / textualism, as opposed to the UK and similar systems where common law or judge made law has more weight, which permits the injection of some level of common sense into situations where a literal interpretation of the statutes would lead to ridiculous outcomes.
  • scotty79
    And what should be inflicted on the Cash App company for causing her this distress?Few millions should be fine so they really think through their procedures.This is equivalent of swatting her. They should pay and at least few people who did actual crime of negligence should go to jail.
  • mattw2121
    Playing devil's advocate here, how should this actually be handled? If the police show up (not saying they did all the due diligence they should have) to arrest you for a crime and the person says "Nope, wasn't me."...is that sufficient for police to drop everything and walk away?She's been accused of a crime. Yes, she was arrested and had to bail out. This is normal process. How else does anyone propose this work?
  • gaiagraphia
    Sad that Block Inc get to profit from frictionless signups, and outsource any costs of failings to innocent people in the form of jailtime.Computer fraud, unlawful use of a communication device, and (identity) theft describe what Cash App helped facilitate rather than anything she did.I wonder what happens if I start allowing people to send me personal information, auto-accept everything as the truth, and start sending their money around the world...
  • hmokiguess
    This is so backwards that it doesn't even compute in my brain.This basically says I can act in bad faith to incriminate anyone if I have access to a somewhat "reputable" SaaS.I hope some black hat group targets these prosecutors identities and create accounts for them so they experience that firsthand to understand how ridiculous this is.
  • jacobgorm
    Land of the free...
  • ChrisArchitect
  • trashface
    Cash App sounds pretty scummy TBH
  • el_blargos
    She should say her chatbox went rogue on her. It seems to be a efficient line of defence.
  • compil3d
    I'm disgusted. How would one go about ensuring that their social couldn't be used to create an account with this much liability? Would freezing a credit line be enough?
  • fjni
    This is absurd. Would she be able to sue Block/CashApp? She should. For millions and millions of dollars.
  • direwolf20
    I saw this advertised on the dark web somewhere as a way to make money, along with a list of other services that support easy identity theft.
  • jan_m_savage
    Wow, that's crazy.
  • bluefirebrand
    Stuff like this feels like some kind of society-wide humiliation ritualOccasionally the system just ruins someone's life even though they're innocent, and the rest of us have to watch it so we learn just how thin ice we're all on. This woman didn't do anything and she's still getting wrung through the system, the rest of you better watch outGotta feed a sheep to the wolves every now and then so the other sheep learn to behave :/
  • LightBug1
    Let me guess. USA?For the land of the free and home of the brave ... it's incredible what you let happen.
  • sleepyguy
    How I would like this to go so wrong for Cash App and the Prosecution. 10's of millions in fines but we all know the system protects these Corporations and shitty prosecutors. In the end she will have lost years of her life, her savings, etc with no restitution.
  • FLeXMurphy
    If you don't know who Aaron Swartz is, you may want to read up on how he was bullied by very much the same justice system.
  • bell-cot
    Consider the story a PSA, for folks who still believe that Trust and Justice are somehow part of the American Way. Maybe use it as a teaching tool with your kids, too.
  • Zestymarble45
    [flagged]
  • linuxftw
    These are felony charges, are there no grand juries in AZ. The defense needs to absolutely unseal the grand jury testimony, there could have been nothing but lies told in that room. Not a single shred of evidence the defendant was ever in Arizona.Fortunately, this stuff will never change because we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves how much foreign labor we should import to keep people too poor to fight these cases in the first place.
  • coldtea
    >Smith later discovered why she had been arrested: a scammer had tricked someone into sending $1,000 to a Cash App account, one that was in her name but controlled by a criminal.And that brings $50,000 bail and days spend in jail before trial? Should just be a civic matter at worst.>It turned out that the account had been created using Smith's Social Security number and date of birth. But Smith, who describes herself as not tech-savvy, said she had never used Cash App. The situation sounds like one that should have been resolved quickly. But Smith says she is still being asked to prove her innocence in an ongoing criminal case. One stumbling block was that Cash App refused to hand over details of the account to Smith because she couldn't prove she was the owner. She eventually received the data through discovery in her case.Surely some details about her are the same as in the account profile, and not just the name, else they wouldn't prosecute her for an app account that bears no relation to her. Do they prosecute people just for something happening on the same name and surname as them?If the account had others details about here to fool people, like her photo or SSN or address, she should have got access to the account, without having to demand it via discovery.
  • ion_trapper
    Before you form a strong opinion on the matter, I recommend you take the time to investigate who the source of the claims is in this article and whether the counterparty has had sufficient opportunity to state their case.