Consumer complaint received 2023-10-31
Company: Block, Inc.
State: AZ
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Deposits and withdrawals

Complaint:
I want to be clear. This issue is a violation of my consumer rights under the FCRA. It affects millions of people and is done intentionally to restrict certain demographics access to financial services that would otherwise be available to them if it wasnt for this intentional restriction of their information by CASHAPP and its partners. 

Under the FCRA its is clear that American consumers have the right have their information reported fairly and accurately and and at their request. What if consumers were not able to share their financial information with other financial institutions and consumer financing companies or other resources that are in place to help people acquire loans, jobs, renting a place to live, or other similar products and services that that should otherwise be available to them simply because they are not able to share their accurate income or prove they have direct deposit or show they have consistent cash flow going in and going out of their checking accounts? What if they were unable to adequately prove they paid certain bills on time and as a result were unable to raise their credit score like millions of other Americans do by proving they pay bills on time by linking their checking accounts to major credit bureaus or other consumer centric companies that are their to help boost peoples abilities to access credit and financing so they can be more productive and live happier more financially stable lives? 

Well this restriction of information is EXACTLY what CASHAPP and its partner banks are doing. They are 100 % doing it intentionally for what I could only make out to be a form of financial oppression and control over certain demographics of Americans which include people with low incomes, credit problems, banking issues, immigrants, people that collect government benefits or other societal negatives that would put them in a lower class and higher risk category than people who do not have these issues. These demographics are extremely vulnerable to financial oppression by big financial companies and they are the targets of malicious and life changing actions that are felt throughout the economy and the world in ways that arent seen in a snap shot but drawn out over time and they keep people down. 

CashApp refuses to allow its customers and account holders share their financial information such as direct deposits, account balances, average daily balances, monthly income, bill pay consistency, other income that may not be directly deposited like side job income, tips, cash payments for other goods or services. They do this by not allowing access to their API keys with companies like XXXX which surely has to be aware of this. Consumers are asked to link their personal checking and savings accounts to many many different companies to verify their livelihood and show they are responsible and they do this to show they are not high risk for lending or other services. There are a million reasons why we link our checking accounts and bank accounts to other companies and most all of those reason will provide the person linking them with some sort of benefit from doing so. Usually a monetary benefit or credit benefit. When consumers cant link their accounts, just like every single account holder with cash app, they are not allowed to participate in these benefits. 

Most of cashapps customers have their pay directly deposited. They have savings accounts, debit cards, monthly statements, cash app is linked to everything for their own benefit. But when it comes to allowing their customers to benefit they wont allow it. Since most of cashapps customers have no other viable options for banking, they are in a way forced to be stuck to cash apps restrictions. CashApp makes things simple for its users, why? Because CashApp knows that when people that arent tech savvy to begin with get used to something simple, even if their customers had another option it would be difficult to use another similar product or service do to the higher technical abilities it would require. 

CashApp is robbing people including myself, of their lives, its robbing them of their ability to flourish or be included in things that are required in our society to strive. 

I deposit thousands into my cash app account every month and I cant prove it to anyone. I have a business account with CashApp also and I cant prove that I have business income to any other financial institution for business financing. Which if anyone knows about business, proving your revenue is the most important thing required for growth. Cash app charges for every transaction coming in on business accounts and and it charges for every transaction going out of consumer accounts. They have no problem benefiting for the cash flow of American consumers, so why are the American consumers not able to benefit from their own cash flows due to cash apps unwillingness to share their customers personal information which is being always requested and approved by their customers solely? Financial Oppression and its going stop.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation