Square’s Cash App vulnerable to hackers, customers claim: ‘They’re completely ghosting you’


Without warning, hackers drained every dollar of cash, stock, or bitcoin out of accounts linked to Cash App, Square’s (SQ)’s popular payments platform, six of its customers told Yahoo Finance.

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Cash App functions as a substitute bank for many of its more than 36 million monthly users.

“I had to sell my car seat that I just bought for my baby that I’m going to have in a couple of months, so that I could feed my kids, because I have no money now,” Shania Jensen, 24, a Cash App user from Utah, said about her account shortly after it was drained of nearly $3,000.

Jensen, one of six Cash App customers who recently told Yahoo Finance they were targeted by unauthorized transactions, said when she went to bed on the evening of March 5 her money was in her account, and by 7 a.m. the next day, it was gone. She said she filed a police report, a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and reported the matter to Utah’s attorney general.



graphical user interface, text, application: March 7, 2020 Tweet posted by Cash App user Shania Jensen


© Provided by Yahoo! Finance
March 7, 2020 Tweet posted by Cash App user Shania Jensen

Mobile payment platforms such as Cash App, as well as PayPal (PYPL), PayPal’s Venmo, Google Pay, and bank owned Zelle, have seen a rise in downloads during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the increase, a jump in the number of app reviews mentioning the word “scam” or “fraud” for all except Zelle, according to mobile intelligence firm Apptopia.

Cash App — which accounted for nearly half of Square’s profit in the most recent quarter — stands out for its wide range of available transactions. It accepts direct deposits for paychecks and government stimulus funds, processes peer-to-peer transfers, offers its own branded debit card, and permits users to buy and sell stock and bitcoin (BIT-USD) within the app (as of March 17, it lets users send bitcoin to other Cash App users for free).

The six Cash App customers said repeated efforts to talk directly with a human being at the company to help them get their money back were largely unsuccessful, exhausting, and stressful. Cash App acknowledges that it has no live phone support “generally available,” but says it views fighting fraud as critically important and has invested in…

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