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

https://www.techspot.com/news/114296-woman-spends-three-nights-jail-faces-six-years.html

80•oidar•45m ago

Comments

compil3d•31m ago

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?

LogicFailsMe•28m ago

Prosecutors have no interest in "justice." They are measured solely on conviction rates. If she's convicted, she will go through needless life-destroying suffering because of this. But at the end, it will be overturned after the prosecutors in question have been elected to Congress or a governorship. And then lawsuits will ensue. And that's why BS like this will never stop.

mjhay•20m ago

Even if she’s not convicted, paying lawyers, time off work, mental health, etc., can still be plenty life-destroying.

pixl97•20m ago

And with internet crimes like this the legal attack could come from anywhere. I trust that Arkansas does not have a competent digital crimes task force, as they are idiotic in almost everything else in the legal world.

wil421•18m ago

Someone opened up a PayPal account in my name a few weeks ago using an old address. I canceled my PayPal account years ago because I was afraid of it being linked to my bank.

It took an hour to get past the AI who kept hanging up on me. I’m more concerned after reading the article.

ashleyn•17m ago

I've heard someone mention using Chexsystems but I'm not sure if that's available to ordinary consumers or how you'd be able to just go and do that. Or if it would show something like Cashapp.

hoppyhoppy2•14m ago

https://www.chexsystems.com/security-freeze/place-freeze

I don't know enough about it to say if it would prevent the opening of a CashApp account.

davsti4•6m ago

It actually depends on which credit bureau CashApp is contracted to use. If they use TransUnion, then you'd need a TransUnion account and freeze your credit report there.

davsti4•7m ago

That is one defense for having an open system, but that only affects services who use these systems. The article doesn't mention if CashApp actually used her social to check credit, or just took the attackers' word by checking if the SS was valid and provided credit.

The other problem is that there isn't just one credit system, there are 3 major ones for general consumer credit, and other specialty ones (Innovis, etc; I had a list somewhere but can't seem to find it; AI might be a friend here).

jacobgorm•23m ago

Land of the free...

Roark66•17m ago

But they sure are brave to continue living there.

vincnetas•7m ago

"land of the brave home of the free"

pluc•7m ago

It's just another fallen pillar: innocent until proven guilty.

sleepyguy•22m ago

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.

bell-cot•14m ago

Ideally, her home state might have some laws (consumer protection, criminal neglect, whatever) which allowed her to sue Cash App for a very large sum.

IANAL - might any such care to comment?

A related angle is trying to get such laws passed, to discourage similar cases in the future.

el_blargos•19m ago

She should say her chatbox went rogue on her. It seems to be a efficient line of defence.

bell-cot•18m ago

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.

Roark66•18m ago

It will never stop until prosecutors/police become liable for gross negligence.

gaiagraphia•14m ago

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...

hliyan•14m ago

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.

jan_m_savage•12m ago

Wow, that's crazy.

ashleyn•12m ago

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.

Sayrus•11m ago

> According to 404 Media's review, the address on the account was one where neither Smith nor her husband had ever lived. The account had also been accessed through Verizon connections, while Smith says she uses AT&T and has never had a Verizon plan.

> There was also a discrepancy involving the phone used to create the account. Cash App's records showed an iPhone running iOS 16.1.1, an operating system dating back to 2022. Smith, however, provided evidence that her iPhone 13 mini was running the much newer iOS 26.5.2.

ashleyn•7m ago

That's even crazier. You have to question if they even understand what they're investigating. I expect this to be thrown out in court, although I also have declining faith in our court system.

SkyeCA•7m ago

Police are largely incompetent, what do you really expect?

mrits•6m ago

*People

Good4boothee•8m ago

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.

nyeah•5m ago

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