Consumer complaint received 2025-01-27 00:00:00
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam — 
Company: Block, Inc.
State: OH

Complaint narrative:
I experienced serious fraud using the app " Cash App ''. They masquerade as a banking app but refuse to take responsibility for fraudulent activities. They have been deceptive when contacted. They say the call is monitored but they have no history when connected again for the same complaint. They say they are sending the transactions to their fraud team but the result is always that the actions were not fraudulent on their end and will not share the results of why they made the decision. They say they will send an email with the process to challenge decisions, but the email never arrives. 

In order to have fraudulent complaints investigated they require the account to be reopened. Doing so opened me to receiving more fraudulent activities. I have been accused of using my device to make the transactions. I own an XXXX, XXXX  and XXXX XXXX XXXX that are all passworded and were never out of my possession. 

The process to try to appeal requires me to open an account with Square Central and I must file a claim towards Cash App in small claims court in 30 days of opening a dispute with Square Central. If I lose the appeal I will be charged court fees. I am in Ohio and this process is impossible. Currently since my bank has closed the investigation and Cash App has denied the claim and closed their investigation, no one is investigating.

Through the process to stop the transactions and deductions from my bank account, I changed all my passwords, emptied caches on browsers, cancelled my credit card and debit card to my bank. My bank, XXXX  XXXX XXXX, told me that apparently the Cash App, even though they are not a bank, is able to access the new numbers on my debit card even though I activated it by phone and locked it in my safe and never used it at an ATM. This access is something that a bank has access to and not a merchant. Normally if a credit card is cancelled a recurring payment can not be connected to the new card. Cash App was able to connect my new debit card to their system. 

My bank views Cash App as a third party company and will not cover the missing funds and can not investigate the transactions since they happened in the Cash App system. 

What complicates the transactions was that the transactions showed me sending money to my son. He denied doing it. He has XXXX XXXX XXXX and I was convinced he could be responsible. He was locked out of Cash App and when he contacted Cash App, he was told someone had cloned his account and that account was deleted and that they banned the indiviidual from the platform. They would not provide him with any of the documentation that this really happened and did not recover any of the money. He was finally able to open Cash App and showed me that there were never any activities of him requesting or receiving money from me. Somehow the Cash App also had me send money to his girlfriend. When she opened the app there was no activity of her ever requesting or receiving any money from me either. Most of the money sent from me never showed up on my Cash App account. When they did I contested them immediately and they were stopped. Because the process to be denied by my bank took up to 70 days, I lost a lot of money before I realized I needed to change account numbers. 

Towards the end there were transactions where I was sending money to myself. I don't know how this could happen since it was not when I had an active account with Cash App. 

Somehow someone was able to set up recurring payments. My bank was able to finally stop the recurring payments. The activity has stopped since my final phone call and I refused to open my account and told them that I was exploring how to file a police report. It was on this call that I was told that if they received any of the money, that I would need an open account to receive the funds. I told the individual he was lying that my bank told me that any funds could be sent to me through an electronic check. 

I lost a lot of money. at a minimum of XXXX XXXX XXXX dollars. It strained my relationship with my son and his girlfriend with my accusations. I bought a safe to keep my cards in and had a security system put on my house because I was led to believe that they were responsible. 

I can produce all the transactions from my bank account and I have the emails from my bank and from Cash App. Unfortunately, I do not have the translations of my phone calls because Cash App will not provide them. To access any of the activity on the app I would have to ask them to reopen my account which I will not.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation